Once Lucian had figured out how the Magic Circle worked, he sat down on the spot and began to Meditate.
When he had money someday, he could set one up at home himself; a lot of the materials could be bought on the open market.
The priciest of them was the magic stone; its price had always stayed high, and it could even be used as currency.
Down the road, Lucian could set up a small one at home, and paired with the Meditation-instead-of-sleep the teacher had taught…
Just thinking about it felt great, so building a Magic Circle at home went onto the agenda too.
Making money was just as urgent; after all, without it he couldn’t do anything.
If things went south and he couldn’t even afford a meal, that would be truly embarrassing!
Today’s first magic class mainly covered knowledge related to Meditation; the teacher didn’t get into anything else.
The rest of the time was spent Meditating.
After the morning Meditation class, the whole room was full of energy, not the least bit tired.
Lucian vaguely understood now why the magic class was scheduled in the morning.
Barring surprises, he and the others would use Meditation time to restore their energy, only to have it squeezed back out of them in the afternoon martial arts class.
The lunch bell rang.
Once class let out, Lucian and the others headed for the cafeteria.
On the way, Lucian saw the students who’d been sorted into the regular classes.
The magic department students were brimming with energy, but the martial arts department students were miserable.
Every one of them looked hollowed out; clearly they’d just been through high-intensity training.
People’s joys and sorrows really do differ.
The martial arts students would probably suffer a while longer; maybe they’d be fine once they got used to it.
Lucian reached the cafeteria and, as usual, got his food and went to swipe his card.
But the moment he set it down, it showed the payment went through, yet the balance hadn’t changed.
Confused, Lucian asked the cafeteria lady, “Auntie, is this broken?
The payment went through, but the balance didn’t change.”
At his question, she took a look, then smiled.
“You’re a student from the special class, right?
As of today, special class students don’t pay for meals.”
She explained the reason: the machine wasn’t broken; the school had waived meal costs for Lucian and his classmates.
The news surprised him a little, but after a moment’s thought he let it go.
It was a good thing; he could save quite a bit of money.
At that, Lucian thanked her and carried his food off to find a seat.
The students still in line overheard the exchange, and many of those behind Lucian felt intensely envious.
It seemed the school really did value this class; maybe more resources would be funneled their way in the future.
Lucian didn’t care about the envious looks; he quickly finished his meal and returned to the classroom to browse his phone.
When afternoon came, martial arts class began.
Hiratsuka first checked everyone’s homework and reviewed what she’d taught yesterday.
Only then did she move on to new material, and there was no combat class this afternoon; it was all instruction.
When school let out, Lucian sighed.
“What a shame…
no combat today; otherwise I’d have liked to test my swordsmanship.”
It really was a pity; he’d brought his weapon for nothing.
If there’d been a combat class today, he’d have shown his opponent what the “Extreme Ghost Sword Technique” was.
Yukinoshita was near Lucian and caught his words, which made her roll her eyes.
At the same time, she made up her mind: she would absolutely never spar with this guy.
Especially since he used a weapon now; heaven knew what he’d mastered or how strong he’d gotten.
Everyone in the class was getting stronger step by step, but this guy Lucian?
He wasn’t even pretending; his strength was climbing like a rocket.
Hiratsuka had said that afternoon that if Lucian kept this up, he’d graduate in no time and she’d have nothing left to teach him.
Lucian barely needed to learn anything more in terms of technique now; the only thing he lacked was in the area of aura.
And even there, he was well ahead of everyone else.
It probably wouldn’t be long before he left his classmates completely in the dust.
Comparing yourself to others really is infuriating, so Yukinoshita decided she’d never fight Lucian again.
She couldn’t keep up with his progress at all, and fighting him was pure self-torture.
On top of that, the guy showed no mercy in a fight; she was afraid that if she took him on, she might get beaten half to death!
After school, Lucian slipped off at once, but many of his classmates stayed behind.
They all meant to use the school’s facilities to train; everyone had consciously thrown themselves into fierce competition.
In the special class, there were quite a few students just one step from breaking through to the third stage; what were they waiting for, if not to seize the moment?
So compete.
Everyone competed like mad.
They didn’t have Lucian’s monster of a Talent, so all they could do was grind themselves stronger through this internal rivalry.
Lucian, having walked out the school gate, didn’t know what was happening back in his class.
He didn’t head home right away; instead, he started wandering around.
Patrols were everywhere in the city just then.
Barely out of school, Lucian ran into at least three separate groups patrolling.
The city’s people knew there might be danger out there now, so everyone came and went in a hurry, afraid of running into something.
Feeling the wary atmosphere, Lucian frowned; the situation was more serious than he’d imagined.
Otherwise there wouldn’t be this kind of lockdown, with patrols passing every so often; it was unprecedented.
At least in Lucian’s memory, nothing like this had ever happened in the city.
Lucian started strolling the city with his weapon.
To wander today, he’d left everything else at school and brought back only the one blade.
Having transmigrated here two days ago, he hadn’t gotten to know this city properly, so he could use the chance to learn more about it.
After all, in his two days in this world, Lucian had been in his rented apartment and then at school; he’d had no chance to go out and explore.
He wandered the city alone.
Even though the lockdown had begun, it didn’t much affect the residents.
There were just fewer people out strolling and more out patrolling.
Walking the streets and seeing how heavy the patrols were, Lucian roughly understood that his idea of finding some monsters to fight probably wasn’t going to pan out.
With this level of patrolling, monsters?
They’d be killed the instant they poked their heads out, killed even if they didn’t; it wouldn’t be Lucian’s turn to do a thing.
His plan to find monsters to fight had fallen through, because there was simply no opening for him.
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