With the unexpected weight and sudden loss of power, mana, Magnus fell over. His mana, which he actively used to stop himself in case of an emergency, was gone.
'Few seconds.' He thought as he counted the time he could last in this position before he embarrassed himself.
First, he wanted her to move aside, but when he saw her expression. He knew it was his own wishful thinking.
Plan B it was. Magnus, like an expert acrobat, opened his legs wide where she was sitting before he used his feet to jump above her in one smooth motion.
"Are you okay?" He said as he extended his hand whilst looking around. Everything but her was okay, and he'd be damned if he failed the test of willpower.
Amused, she took up his offer. Not long after, the goblin teacher appeared through a similar portal.
The changing surroundings stabilised as they landed in a comfortable wooden cottage. Table and three chairs showed the lack of decoration, but no one seemed to care.
"Well, this is the first time I have received two students at once since I started teaching." The goblin said as he introduced himself further.
"I am Gobo, your instructor, and what you are standing in is my proud creation." He said, as he explained the inner workings of his masterpiece.
Unlike other races who had their specialities, even humans who had the gift of adaptation. Goblins had a gift of procreation, something which was unsuited for teaching at the Academy.
As such, the few goblins out of trillions of dimensions who managed to get into the Academy had no footing. With the first goblin gaining a great idea, other generations expanded upon before one of them managed to reach the level of a teacher.
It was the room they were in. If everyone thought of them as stealers with a little better brains, then why not steal?
And thus they stole. The main reason it took thousands of generations was because goblins had a grand plan in mind.
They would take apprenticeship under other races and learn their craft. Then they would use it in the construction of the room.
It was a simple game of luck. Once goblins did get apprenticed under every race and saw at least their surface level teachings, it was easy to go from there.
A system very compatible with goblins and races who did not have obvious racial speciality was created.
Be it luck or fate, the very first version of this was now open to Magnus and Monique. Under his permission, they were given the taste of what it could do.
Their vision blurred as they found themselves in the middle of a vast space. There stood a single star with its remnants of light fighting against the darkness.
Everywhere else was nothing more than pure pitch black. The star never gave up as time chipped away at it, even when it was the last one to be there.
One day someone visited. At first the star believed that it could let others remember the glory of the Universe that was about to end.
Alas, reality proved to be different, and the individual attacked without holding back.
"Give me your star core. At least you'll be of some use." The person said as his energy spread further than light could travel in a year.
As much as the star lacked mobility, it was not defenceless. On the contrary, it sent out waves of its light as it challenged the energy.
Both of them could feel it. Maybe Monique could even more. A single wisp, even the tiniest dust of that power, could turn them into dust.
Other than these two moves, no other flashy attacks were exchanged. Maybe it was because it would be a waste or they lacked other means of offence, it didn't matter.
Who were they to criticize the powerful? Especially Magnus found his level of desired strength. Had the star been at its peak, there would no doubt be a clear winner.
Now, however, the opposite was true. The individual tried to grab a part of the star before he began panicking.
"You are crazy!" He shouted as the light intensified. It engulfed everything and hurt Magnus' eyes, helplessly he had to close them.
Few moments after he opened his eyes, when the light was gone. There was some kind of translucent drop emitting the last pieces of light before space engulfed it.
In the next second, the darkness began to converge. It was unexplainable as the very fabric of reality seemed to contract.
Then, once it converged into a single grain, a massive hand scooped it out and everything around them turned back into the cottage.
"Cool, right?" He said with a grin as he explained that this was one of the functions. To see and witness various battles of higher beings.
An invaluable experience that could be gained with little to no danger. To offset this, the machine would send students on a mission that it deemed to be a challenge.
Unknown to the two, even the goblin before them had to lose a few fingers once he threw himself into one of the simulations.
"Now I'll tell you a very important piece of information. We have half a semester to bring you two up to par or beyond with other students. Then you will be thrown into a bunch of fights that will determine if you will be a student or not!" He said and changed the space.
An arena appeared and before they knew what was going on, they were thrown in. The goblin sat down in an audience seat and started clapping.
"Come on, come on! Show me what you can do." He said and began to taunt both of them.
His access to mana returned, and he unwillingly looked at Monique. She stood there grinning, and a huge mallet in her hands made her look like a child next to a house.
"Don't worry, it's made out of rubber." She said and dashed at him.
Before he could even think how she knew about rubber, he was blasted into the arena wall. Bunch of broken ribs and vaporized hand made him think that the fight would be called off.
To his utter despair, his body began to repair and in a second, he was back to the peak. Few painful smacks later, his struggles proved their worth.
No longer was he blasted into arena walls in one swing. It took two consecutive swings as the first one he managed to redirect.
Attacks against the mind and soul proved to be as useless as the physical ones. Each time she swung the mallet, the air would break.
Barriers held for a few seconds before they broke and worst of all. Curses and debuffs were his true undoing.
When he used them, she looked at him in amusement before nausea hit him like a truck. Almost as if he was sick with thousands of illnesses at once, he almost threw up were it not for the constant heals.
To fuel his helplessness even more, the AOE physical debuffs like poison were ignored by her as she paid them no heed.
This went on for an hour as they exchanged attacks after attacks. He began to combine his attacks and, much to his surprise, it proved to be effective for the first few times.
Another feature of the arena was the constant recovery of mana. With an almost infinite pool, he used one of the most draining spells.
Forceful enlightenment is what he dubbed it.
A simple function to bring one close to real enlightenment cultivators he read about got. Albeit an imitation. While in this state, the difficulty of combining spells became much simpler.
Spells that had low or bad synergies were eliminated as he gradually began to chain his combo attacks.
The one sided slaughter fest began to tilt in his favour even for just a little. At one point, he applied some support spells to boost the combos further.
With some luck and surprise element, he knocked Monique out of her balance. Her expression changed that very instant.
His hand he channeled the spells through just vanished, just to regrow the next moment.
"Alright, that's enough." The goblin said and looked at Monique with a judging gaze.
She lowered her head. "Sorry, that was a bit too much..." she said in a mosquito like voice.
The goblin teacher was flabbergasted at her apology. Magnus found nothing wrong with it, though, and just shrugged it off.
As long as he was not dead, it was fine. His confidence was not impacted in the slightest.
"Oh, teacher, do we get access to the planets we had the exams on?" Magnus asked, ridding the place of the awkwardness.
"Yes, and no. It's pretty simple. You just have to get into the inner academy." He said.
Magnus noted it down as he found his second goal, with the first being top 10 on the leaderboard.
The goblin teacher let them do their own things as he left. Before that, he gave them access to the portal, which would lead them to this place at any time.
Exhaustion hit him like a truck, and he wished to sleep. Alas, he still had to deal with the anomaly before him.
Much to his relief, though, he didn't have to suppress himself as much. Who knew if it was because she was too embarrassed or if he gained tolerance...