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「 Construction successful. Mana backflow obtained. 」
"That's the last one. Three cards straight through, and not so much as a single grade to show for it. That's absurd." Luke blew out a breath and drew the final card out of the Card Editor, turning it over once in his fingers before he read it.
「 Metalized Magic Reflection Armor 」 Type: Equipment Card / Counter Card Effect: Upon activation, the equipper's level rises by one. A rare-metal armor forms over their body, raising attack and defense by 30% each, with an added spell-reflection effect. When attacking, attack power rises by the total damage they have taken, to a maximum of 50%.
"That's more effects than I bargained for. Because it counts as both an Equipment Card and a Counter Card at once?" One brow climbed as he went down the list, and by the bottom of it he was grinning.
Attack and defense both up, and spell reflection thrown in on top. It couldn't match the Magic Cylinder, which swallowed and reflected physical and magical attacks alike, but it was more than strong enough.
He stowed the card and opened his eyes for the first time in hours, and they landed straight on his senior sister, squatting on the floor across the room and tracing slow circles on the boards with one finger.
"Teacher, what's the matter with senior sister?"
"Nothing. Once or twice a month she gets like this. You get used to it." Lilith's explanation was as blunt as a thrown brick, and she didn't so much as glance over. "All three succeeded?"
"Er. Yes." Luke's eyelid twitched, and kept twitching. Plainly this teacher of his couldn't be read by any ordinary rules, and he'd have bet money Selene had been needled like this more times than she could count.
Then again, he liked this way of getting along better than the stiff master-and-disciple kind. It was warmer.
...
"Good thing this batch was only three special cards. If it had been three regular spirit cards, I'd have run clean out of time." Luke came down off Celestial's back mountain with the moon already high, and shook his head as he walked. "Even so, that was a whole day gone. The moment cards are involved, time just slides away."
His stomach put in a loud protest of its own. He took the turn toward the dining hall.
It wasn't late enough for the hall to have emptied, and a fair scatter of mentors and students were still eating. Most of them looked up when he came in, took a few seconds' measure of him, and went back to their food. A few kept looking, and a few of those pointed.
He let them. What was he supposed to do, go down the tables and fight each one? He didn't have that kind of idle time.
The one thing he hadn't expected at this hour was to run into Iris.
"You're eating this late too?" She'd seen him at the same moment, and after a beat of surprise she tipped her head at the empty chair across from her. "Want to sit together?"
"Sure." Luke nodded and followed her to a table tucked into a corner.
"The monthly hunt's tomorrow. A few of us are planning to go in as a team. Do you want in?" Iris ate the way she did everything, neatly and without hurry, and asked it between bites. By "a few of us" she meant Elise, Lily, and Serena.
The girls had found their feet at Celestial over these past weeks, and every one of them had felt herself singled out here and there, sometimes by accident and sometimes not, which was exactly why they'd decided to enter the hunt together.
Nothing about that was special to them. Nearly every freshman went through something like it.
"That's a good idea. You'll be able to watch each other's backs." Luke nodded. "Don't worry about me, though. I've got other plans."
He'd just made three new cards, and new cards needed testing. He meant to head for the Sanctum Plane's core, the city they called Cloud City, and see what was there.
"Is that right? Well, we'd more or less guessed you wouldn't be going in with us." The refusal didn't surprise Iris, but the ease went out of her face. "Be careful during the hunt. I've heard a whisper that the Magus Society means to move on you while it's on."
"If they dare, I'll teach them there are some people they can't afford to touch." Luke gave a shrug, and there was nothing in it that suggested he'd lost a minute's sleep over the Magus Society.
Iris stared at him a moment with her fork stopped in midair. Did this man honestly not worry about anything at all?
"You know, when you said that just now, you looked pretty cool." She let it go with a light laugh. If the man himself wasn't worried, there was no call for her to worry on his behalf.
"I think I've always been pretty cool." Luke shrugged again and tossed it off without thinking, and earned himself a full, slow roll of Iris's eyes for it.
"I thought that line was pretty cool too." A voice like a struck bell rang out across the hall, and a young man with a slouch and a lazy grin ambled up to their table, hands in his pockets. "Yo. Brother. Got a minute to talk?"
"Is that Kellan Frost?"
"Sss. The Magus Society a while back, and now the Discipline Committee? Luke's popularity is getting out of hand."
"I'd call it normal, honestly. He put Wesley Brandt down that easily, so the potential and the strength are both a given. If I were on the Council or the Committee, I'd have ideas about him too."
"Sure, but you all remember. When Wesley tried to pull him into the Society, he said he wouldn't join even if the Committee or the Council came calling."
"And now the Committee's shown up in person, and it's Kellan Frost, of all the awkward people to get rid of. I wonder if Luke's spine holds like it did against Wesley. Kellan's a genuine top-ten inside Celestial. That's a long way above where Wesley ranks."
Half the hall had turned in its seats to watch.
"Something you need?" Luke looked the man over. They'd never met, but the chatter around the room had told him who this was inside a few seconds.
Beside him, Iris put her playfulness away and watched Kellan in silence.
"Not much. Just here to invite you into the Discipline Committee." Kellan didn't waste time either, it seemed.
Called it!
Every rubbernecker in the hall had the same look, and every one of them leaned in to hear what Luke would say. Was he really that wild, or had he just been talking big?
"Sorry. Not interested." Luke shook his head, and the answer was the same one he'd given before, word for word. Kellan's easy manner sat far better with him than Wesley's had, and he didn't mind trading a few words with the man. It wasn't going to change his mind.
"Sss. Luke actually meant it back then."
"Good grief. He turned down the Magus Society, and now the Committee too. That leaves the Student Council. Is he trying to fight heaven itself?"
"Give it a minute and there'll be a show. If I were Kellan Frost, refused in front of this many people, I'd have to win that face back."
"Hmph. He really thinks taking exam first makes him untouchable? Sooner or later this Luke runs into a wall." There were Magus Society members scattered through the hall, and every one of them was sitting a little straighter now, quietly savoring it.
Knowing Kellan Frost as they did, Luke was not walking away from this one clean.
EXTRA CHAPTER FOR EVERY 500 POWERSTONES.