Ehhh… I thought they were supposed to be emotional geniuses as well. Never mind, the idea of pussy in Darius's head must be clogging everything up.
The jab-push cracks against Caelum's nose, before one fast lead hook to the jaw that sends him spinning into a nearby table. Plates fall, utensils clatter, and a half-eaten loaf of bread rolls onto the floor. The entire dining hall erupts in a deafening "Oooohhh!" as a wave of shock and delight crashes through the gathered students.
As expected… Everyone is more realistic than they were in the original story. From the emotional reactions of young adults at brawls to Darius using proper technique to jab and hook instead of the bullshit I always see on screen in stories like this.
Contrary to the original story, the royal, ever so elegant, glanced and began cheering for this interaction. Caelum attempted to retaliate with his own 'skills', be it as nonexistent as they were, only to be met with Darius' flying knee as he stepped in.
Holy shit, that was a clean flying knee. What is his combat sport base?
Isaac's eyes glimmered as he absorbed the sight of Darius' techniques.
For a heartbeat, Caelum hung bent over the table, likely dazed as his jaw would be fractured. Then, slowly, he pushed himself upright. A thick, continuous line of blood trickled from his split lip and, what seemed to be, a broken nose as well, but his grin remained all teeth.
My turn.
Under his breath. "Temporal Anchor V2: Activate." And he makes his move.
"Is that all that you've got?! Caelum?! You were so much harsher to me back then!"
"i've had worse from the caretakers; they fight better than you do, fatass." Spitting red onto the tiles.
Darius snarls, feints, and shoots for a double leg takedown again. This time, Caelum vaults over while pressing his head down, causing Darius to crash headfirst into a salad bowl instead, sending lettuce and dressing spraying across the onlookers.
Isaac sneaked a quick lettuce into his mouth.
Mmm… Delicious~
"you should eat some of that, yk, darius."
"Yeesh… Shut up."
As Darius recovers, Caelum reaches close and pivots, driving his elbow into Darius' spleen. All of a sudden, 'existent' skills flare up in full display. Darius stumbles, leaving his hand open, in which Caelum slithers around him and locks an armbar, dropping the victim to the ground.
He grunts, stumbles, and the tables turn.
Literally.
With a shout, Darius heaves an entire bench off the floor and swings it like a club at his Caelum, who fails to finish the submission, even by tucking the barred arm under his armpit. Deciding enough is enough, Caelum barely avoids the bench. Wood splinters against the stone pillar behind him, and suddenly.
It is no longer a fistfight.
Darius fixes his arm just right.
And Noësis ignites.
Darius's next cross hits a multicolored triangular barrier. Selective Out-Threaded Thaumitons in his Thaumitonic Zone instead of using 'Dome'. Caelum Veldt had defended using his arms in an X-Block to his side, overlaying it with Noësis. The barrier quickly turned red as Darius' skin scraped and ripped against it.
Okay… Finished…
Oh wow, that was fast. Is it already at this point? What bullshit… Even in this version of EAA, he's still flexing. This event was the game's way of showing how much of a Genius Caelum is by showing him using a technique that none of the First Years have learned.
Also, it was the game's way of teaching players how to use Selective Shielding.
I'm jealous… I want it… Poor Darius, realistically, any full-force impact against something composed of literally force particles should not just rip his skin off, but should make his bones pop out of his palm.
He's a brute.
He pushed past his own skin and sent spiderwebs across the barrier.
Caelum recovers and bounces backwards.
"Tsk… Look what you did to your best friend… How you have fallen in morals, Caelum. Now you're playing like a dirty cheater, huh?" Darius growls, shaking off the skin on his hand. "Fine."
His own Thaumitons flare, the two Zones clash, the rainbow vs the red.
A potent red.
Darius had an amateur ferocity, but the skills of a journeyman.
Both Noësically and technically.
A now noticeable detail picked up by Isaac was the condensation of a specific region in Darius' Zone and a plasma-like pyrolysis of the air. In that view, a fireball blooms in Darius' palm. Once he had considered the thermodynamics, it cast a hellish light across the watching faces.
The crowd scrambles backward.
Bare min like 650 degrees Celsius…How is his hand not burning?
I'm missing something…
He grins anyway.
"We gotta pay for that carpet, y'know?" he mutters, fingers twitching toward his own Clause Construct to compress it even more.
He supported the burning layer of skin on the knuckles with the other.
And he squeezed the Clause Construct—
"ENOUGH!"
A voice and the stomp of a cane booms.
Within a scale of time on the order of one millionth of a second, a Thaumitonic Zone spanned the entire dining hall's 35-meter width and 50-meter length. In that Zone, multiple Concordees of diverse Resonance Archetypes and Classifications latched and surrounded the two students, dire wolves at Darius' ankles, with a fish-entity swallowing the ball of plasma being prepared. The sound of sizzling in its belly was evident. For Caelum, a silicon ecst creature materializes and grabs him into its maw, targeting the hands.
The Thaumitonic QCD Charge Doublet of his Zone was a perfect version of Caelum's in every aspect. Crimson red, cerulean blue, emerald green, molten bronze.
With the addition of two.
Through the rainbow, streaks of arc-white and silver embed themselves into the quadrant. In that now translucent Zone, the floor of the dining hall begins forming blunt stakes around the students to fully lock them in place.
Interesting…
Even a Professor can't create 'Earth' out of thin air using Noësis; instead, he must use the elements in the ground or floor to produce 'Earth magic' per se… Like transmutation… No wonder the most common bases for Alchemy are either Water magic or Earth magic…
Every head whips toward the doorway.
Where a tall figure stands at the source of the Zone.
Professor Aldrick St. Clair walks closer, flexing his bicep and forearms while tightening his grip around an imaginary ball by his side. The veins pop in control of every single macroscopic manipulation of the 3+1D world within his Zone.
Behind him, two more faculty members and an assistant stand all stern.
Silence.
"If you two children are so determined to tear each other apart, you'll do it properly, you hear me!" He jerks his chin toward the courtyard. "You do it in a dueling ring! Noësis, Concordance, Catalysis, and/or Kyneticism only! After you clean up this mess you've created! My goodness… Give me your parents' numbers. I'll send you the bill of damages later!"
A beat.
Then he sighs.
Everything ceases.
The blunt stakes reform back into the materials of the floor as Professor Aldrick's Thaumitonic Zone dissipates. Every concordee Professor Aldrick called upon retracts back into the atmosphere.
"Hah…. If I hear one complaint about fire hazards…" he adds. "You two will be replacing the cleaners in scrubbing the bathrooms until your third year."
Caelum and Darius immediately backed away once there was sufficient room.
"If you are still so keen, Tomorrow, in my Noësis Practical class, you two can serve as the first duel amongst First-Years. I grant you the right to use that lecture time as your arena. This is your final warning. Never again. Back off!"
The dining hall emptied in a clamor of excitement, every last student buzzing about the sure duel to come. Caelum looked at Darius one more time, who gave a 'fuck off' like stare back.
Cool… Super cool… Keep hyping it up.
The more publicity, the more Caelum the Clanker's reputation grows.
Isaac whistles a certain tune as he flexes his fingers, as Professor Aldrick did.
Just, instead of air.
Around 2 cold vials filled with red liquid. Crucial for his strategy in tackling Xuě Xīlián's addition to the plot.
Got you on my radar; soon you're gonna be with me~
So the Clanker does bleed after all!
How pleasant~ My preparations went successfully.
35 minutes before the brawl, the staff of the dining hall was in shock when the First Anomaly of Food Safety Laws had a simple request to place a box in the 'refrigerator' if Isaac could call it that.
Again… Improving everything with nanomaterials and science…
All the better for me~
The box Isaac requested to place was the one he stole from the infirmary all the way back when his eyes ruptured, only modified. Over the course of the previous day, Isaac went on a looting spree, per se.
The staff, seeing their most devout pig pleading with puppy-doll eyes, had no way to refuse the boy. The Devourer of Meals was permitted to place his box on the excuse that it contained rare chocolates. Of course, that was further from the truth, for the box contained 3 'test tubes' and 2 'pipettes', again, if Isaac could call them that.
The test tubes Isaac stole in the 30 minutes between History Lectures and the conversation with Xuě Xīlián were more akin to modular vacutainers that could switch between being a test tube or a vacutainer, whilst the pipette's plastic tip was replaced with a carbon-diamond nanochannel sheath.
At the moment, Caelum was hooked in the face and dazed against a fallen table. Isaac sprang into action and retrieved the box from the refrigerator before quickly hiding behind that same table.
It was a blind spot all the more covered by it.
He began piping in and piping out the protagonist's spilled blood over and over into 'vacutube'#1, as he calls them. Once he had gained a satisfactory amount, Isaac escaped back into the kitchen, placing the box back into the refrigerator after randomizing the digits of the lock.
Isaac, in the present, whistles a later part of the tune as he runs the possibilities in his head.
Who's gonna suspect a fatass saying that he wants to keep chocolate unmelted?
Ah… In a way, ruining my reputation by seeming like a glutton was a good move after all.
To hide a bigger secret, why not play a fool?
It seems to be what this Clanker is fucking doing.
So why shouldn't I?
Even if they do try, the staff leaves the kitchen at 7:30; I just need to come back every day and 'seem' like I'm taking chocolate out from the box instead of my pocket to make my lie true.
On top of that… Who's deadass gonna try 59,049 combinations of 5 digits just to open and check on my chocolate?
In his head, an image of Xuě Xīlián appeared.
See?
Look how much I care for you, Xue'er. You have two great purposes, and I'll make sure you perform them beautifully. First, as Caelum's dutiful Cultivation guide, molding him into an abomination, a perfect Thaumi-Monadic Wave Binder. You are the first step in my plan of assimilating all 4 Sources of Science into that Clanker.
But more personal, though.
My personal, living weapon. The counterforce. The… Earthly and past version of me.
If Caelum was perfect due to his Phylogenetic Root attribute. I'll turn this girl-abomination of bosonic fury and fermionic spite into my secondary leverage.
I'll make you perfect… I will show you the heights of narcissistic power.
Caelum's Blood in vacutube #1… every last chromosome, hell, atom… I'll study it and break down it's biological or binomial code. I'll synthesize the truth and form the apex of this false humanity.
My sole aspiration for the two of you is to then modify and perfect what has already been 'perfected'. To revert everyone in this world back to a more primitive, and yet, perfect state.
This humanity to Humanity.
My dear Xue'er~ You don't realize it yet, but you're bout to receive the greatest upscale OAT.
Even I'm jealous…
Should I turn myself into a Thaumi-Monadic Wave Binder?
…
Tsk… What a disgrace it would be… I don't need 'it' to survive…
I will survive on what I've built up alone.
The calling anew that I have designated for myself in this world.
Is to screw YOU!
YOU!
In a fatuous twist of Isaac's intellect, after all he had been through. Through pain more than he had experienced on Earth. He had placed all the blame on two entities, one he could openly admit, one he couldn't.
That final fucking b̵͎͈̝͓̒̈́̊͐̌͆̾͋͛̂͘͝ǫ̴̛̳̩̰͙̟̺̼̓̏͊͆̾̐̾̀͋̌̆̚͠s̴̫̲̝͎̦̗͑́̓̅̄̀̀̏͘̚s̵̨̞͙͖̮̻̓͛̑̈͆͗̔̓̋́͋́͒̈͘̕͠.
Heheheha… Hoh… Goodluck… Goodluck… You won't just face me.
So what if you know of higher realities and worlds infinitely above yours?
I will FUCK you with two engineered Gods of my own. Everything I studied, read, learned, and practised on Earth will be all to screw that dude over. If he wants to be so meta-narrative, I'll use all the tropes that make someone OP to screw him over.
I'll regress Xue'er if I need to. Hell, I'll delegate my system to Caelum.
Old EAA as a shitty power fantasy? Fine, fuck it! New EAA will be too.
I'll make it the most definitive shitty power fantasy of its time.
Good luck, damn shit head.
You'll need a BLOODY miracle just to die in one piece.
Isaac stormed back to his dorm, the blueprint of his hatred already unfolding in his mind. All that remained was the execution of his plans, the careful corruption of the narrative's DNA until it mutated into something far more entertaining as he would love.
Tomorrow's lectures are Noësical Theory and Practical.
It is the class where I will fully understand the scope of Mana and HOPEFULLY increase my Mana Capacity. Knowing my luck and that something is out to screw me too, I'm not getting SHIT out of the two.
Unless, of course, the math pointed somewhere inconvenient. If so, he would nevertheless pursue.
For he had hatred in his heart.
A hatred that burns the manifold.