Augmented Aspects: Chapter 264 The Price of Dignity (Patreon)

Chapter 264

The Price of Dignity

I was teaching my class, when I realized something was off about my uniform.

There were the obvious stares given by Mallory and Gwen both during my fitting for my new Deolarian Court Magician Doctor Uniform, but seeing my students staring at me was something else entirely.

“Okay, so it is clearly the uniform?” I ask, while noting my new threads which are really the only thing that have changed about me recently. At least, I hope these are the only things that have changed about me to cause such an apparent shock. Though, I have done a few things that might cause people to stare, but most were if I did them while others were watching.

At my question the other students all look concerned for a second, as I see a few look towards Penelope for help.

Seeing their look and Penelope’s drastic cut away gesture, it is clear that this new uniform is definitely different from what I have been wearing to this point.

“Okay, so what about this is causing you all to stare?” I ask.

I could see a few of the students look confused for a second, but then they all pause as they once again look towards Penelope who is here with me.

“Come on, just tell me what it is? Do I look evil or something?” I ask, wondering if there were other crazy clown color combinations that I forgot to ask about.

“It’s just so pink,” Polinya, one of my more out spoken female students states.

“Pink?” I ask, realizing that puke green might not have been the worst of colors to expect when I was laying down guidelines with Penelope earlier. At that, I stare at Penelope.

For her part Penelope starts taking a step back at my glare.

“Hot,” a guy Rithchard states his voice deep and sort of creepy given the context.

Hearing him, I am not the only one that suddenly stares at him. Seeing our reaction Rithchard suddenly shrugs defensively and clarifies.

“Hot pink, it’s hot pink with black accents that looks kinda cool.” Rithchard clarifies.

At that I stare at Rithchard to see if he is going to give off the creepy vibes, or just the clueless vibes. After a second of staring, it is clear that he just has the clueless vibe of how his words sound.

Turning from Rithchard to Polinya, I spread my arms out wide and ask, “it looks nice?”

“YEAH!” Polinya says emphatically.

“It matches your wings,” Abrigil, a second female states.

“My wings?” I ask, completely forgetting that my wings might appear as an odd color to others. To me they are in the dark purple to pink color that I’ve come to associate with ephemeral energy, but I didn’t know how that looked to normal sight, especially as I constantly flap the wings about.

“Yeah, you look good.” Kariya adds.

At that, I calm down slightly, which is apparent as this time when I look at Penelope she no longer feels the need to back away from me.

Then taking a breath, I realize I still need to get through this exam, but with Penelope here, my maintaining the test I had in mind would be even easier.

“All right, well thank you all for your comments. I assume that we have gotten our gawking out of the way so we can begin our mid-term?” I ask.

“Wait, can we continue to stare at you in an attempt to stall for time?” Rithchard asks.

I am about to say the first thing that came to mind, but I just hold up one finger telling myself to pause. Then after taking a breath, I state the second thought that came to mind.

“I want you to think about what you just said, and how it might sound to others. In fact, have that be your goal for the rest of the day.”

New Quest Assigned: Think Before You Speak: Dr. Cassiopeia Spiritlight has assigned you the task of pausing to think about what you say, before spewing forth random words. Duration: Until Midnight. Rewards: Experience, variable.

That is a quest that I quickly approved.

Rithchard looks like he wants to say something, but then stops completely, lowering his head as if understanding the reason why the quest was given. Seeing his clear contrition, I nod encouragingly towards the boy.

Now with all distractions dealt with, and no one actively staring at me, well more than they normally do, I begin my final objective.

“Okay, so today we are going to take our mid-term exam for Magical Resonance. Up until this point we have been focusing on what the rules of magic are.” I state, pausing to let that idea sink in.

“From here on out, we will be ramping up our understanding of magic. This mid-term exam is designed to show you the next step of magic. For with this, we will take the rules, and then learn to slightly bend the rules to get our desired effect. This will be practice so that when you all graduate you will learn to truly bend, or even break the rules of magic.”

Silence.

I almost want to ask if my microphone is on, but there are no microphones here, and everyone’s attention is glued to me.

Seeing that this is what everyone who took Magical Resonance truly wants to know, I smile, realizing this might be the perfect mid-term exam.

“This is going to be your first true crucible, to see if you are in fact meant for Magical Resonance, or if you should think about a different major.” I state, as I point to a box that is set up at the front of the first row of students.

Penelope looks at me with a confused look for a moment, that’s when I state.

“Come on, we’ve got a test to administer.” I state.

Penelope for her part goes over to the box of items and tries to analyze them. This is good, as those items are the part that Penelope can directly help maintain in this exam.

“What are these?” Penelope asks, seeing the device inside.

“Great question, those are warding stones.” I state, as I take the box from the third row of students and begin placing the warding stones on each student's desk. “Just take the stone, charge it with a bit of your mana, and watch the ward come to life.”

Then I demonstrate just that, as the ward in my hand glows brightly, showing that it is alive and functioning. Once the stone is fully alight with energy, I place it on the center of the desk before the students, and continue placing more and more activated warding stones before going onto the next row of students.

Penelope looks a bit less cautious than me, but she does apply the warding stones roughly where they are needed.

“Now with the warding stones in place, I will place your testing device.” With that, I pull out an individualized, testing pad. Well roughly individualized, these were nothing compared to the Enchanter + mid-term exam, but close.

“These are magic stones that will go off when you hit them with a form of magic.” I state, “while I’m placing them down, I am going to mark them so they only respond to a typical magical spell that you have practiced casting in here hundreds of times so far.”

As I state this, I begin laying out the stones on the other side of the desk from the student, so that they have a magical warding stone interfering with the direct path of the spell.

“The terms of this exam are simple. Cast your spell through the magical ward, in a straight line. No arcs, no circumventing the ward, no channeling over, around, or under the ward. Your only direction is through. Take your attack spell and cast it through the ward, each strike counts as ten percent of your grade. Once you get ten full strikes on the stone, you are done and may leave.” I state.

Gah!

As expected, a lot of the students are already hissing out their displeasure at the assignment, but perk up, when I see the quest prompt for this mid-term exam come to mind.

SVC Magic Resonance Mid-Term Exam: Ward Bypassing: Dr. Cassiopeia Spiritlight has given you the assignment to cast a basic attack spell through the warded field before you, where you then strike the intended target five feet away. Requirements: spells must be cast through the warded area, no credit for spells that don’t traverse the warded area, object must be struck a total of ten times. Current progress (0 / 10). Rewards: Experience, Variable.

Seeing the quest prompt, I read it for a moment, before sending it out to my students.

Splash, sizzle, thrum.

As soon as the quest was given, one student tried to force a spell right through the ward, only to have it get dispersed. Where the residual energy that was left behind was then absorbed by the ward to strengthen it against the next attack.

“Oh, I forgot to mention, these are the annoying wards that grow more powerful, the more times you fail. Know that you can fail enough times to destroy my ward, but doing so will be an automatic failing of my exam.” I state.

SVC Magic Resonance Mid-Term Exam: Ward Bypassing: Dr. Cassiopeia Spiritlight has given you the assignment to cast a basic attack spell through the warded field before you, where you then strike the intended target five feet away. Requirements: spells must be cast through the warded area, no credit for spells that don’t traverse the warded area, object must be struck a total of ten times. Current progress (0 / 10). Rewards: Experience, Variable.

Update: Destroying the warding stone is an automatic failure of the mid-term.

“Groans.” Hearing the new stipulation and seeing that failures will just make the exam more challenging, many of my students let out frustrated moans.

“Your moans are just music to my ears. Because I know this just means you all are finally going to try to think about the answer, versus brute forcing your way through this exam.” I state, giving what I hope will be enough of a hint to get many of these students to pass, eventually.

With the quest handed out, I wait for a moment. Then once I see that everyone is focused on the warding fiend before them, I make my way back to Penelope who now looks visibly annoyed.

“What’s up?” I ask quietly.

“You gave them a quest, but not the Enchanters?” Penelope asked.

“This one requires problem solving and solutions, the Enchanter test by comparison was taking apart something and then replacing batteries in a certain order. They are hardly comparable.” I state.

Penelope looks at me like she wants to argue, but then looks at one of the extra warding stones that I created, just for demonstration purposes, figuring that I might need to prove that the warding stones can be bypassed.

Rolling the warding stone between her hands, Penelope looks curious at the object.

“What exactly do you want the students here to do?” Penelope asks.

Hiss, hiss, fizzle.

As we speak more and more spells are cast into the warded areas, only to be disrupted and release warning sounds of failure for all to hear.

“I want them to think. They have a spell that they have cast thousands of times in different variations in this classroom to this point. Now they need to figure out how to cast that spell through a minor distortion field and have their spell hit an intended target.” I reply.

“That, that’s impossible…” Penelope states.

Ding.

Then just as she stated that, the target at the far end of Kariya table rang out with a confident dinging sound.

Hearing the sound, I point a finger over my shoulder towards the girl who is clearly celebrating the early success.

“Nothing is impossible, at least not where magic is involved. Then it is only unimaginable, until you can finally imagine what it is you truly wish to do with magic.” I state.

At that Penelope just stared at me.

Ding, ding, ding.

Almost as if realizing that what I was demanding wasn’t truly impossible, more and more students cast their spells through the wards. Kariya even managed a second strike, but rather than getting drunk on her success, she carefully paused after each iteration and reset herself to make sure she could cast through the field freely.

Looking around, Penelope looks from the class, then back to her warding stone that is now unnecessary given the initial success of others. Then finally, she looks back at me.

“You know what this means?” Penelope asks.

“I do, it means that my mages will be able to break through any Legrand wards, knowing that if they can bypass my wards, they can break Legrand’s generic wards.” I state, with a bit of pride in my students showing through.

“What is this anyways? I’ve never heard of a ward that grew stronger by dissipating blocked spells.” Penelope states, while looking at the ward in her hands.

“You really want to know?” I ask.

“YEAH,” Penelope all but shouts before realizing where she is, particularly after a few of the students give her a glare after her outburst.

“I mean, yeah,” Penelope whispers.

For a moment, I think about telling her. But then I remembered what she said about feeling left out by not getting a mid-term quest for her Enchanting + class. Honestly, that was me not even thinking about the quests.

To be fair, I wouldn’t have thought about it here, had I not given Rithchard a quest to be quiet moments ago. That was much better than the corrective surgery quest that was almost given to Mallory.

Do you wish to assign the Personal Corrective Cosmetic Surgery quest?

“No,” I hiss, and then relax slightly as the quest prompt goes away.

That said, the system seems sort of adamant about creating quests from my thoughts right now. I don’t know if it is something that happened since I left the Void Realm, or not, but it’s almost like I have somehow become more of a quest giver since that event.

SVC Enchanter + Mid-Term Supplemental Quest: Defining An Enchantment: Dr. Cassiopeia Spiritlight has provided you with a proprietary enchanted ward, dissect the ward, evaluate its components and be able to describe what the components do and how they all work together. Bonus if you can get the device to work once you’ve taken it apart. Rewards: Experience, variable.

The moment I think of the quest and accept it, I see a flash in Penelope. This is the sudden tick of someone seeing a new quest prompt come to them, when they are not aware.

I see the moment that Penelope accepts the quest, then just stares at me for a second.

“You didn’t have to do this,” she begins.

At that I just raise an eyebrow at her.

“Okay, fine. Maybe you did.” Penelope states, before taking up the stone and saying “thanks.”

After that, Penelope is in problem solver heaven, as her fingers begin to gently glide over the joining slots.

“Careful,” I state.

Hearing my warning, Penelope pauses and stares up at me. “You didn’t booby trap it did you?”

“Nope,” I answer truthfully.

Penelope stares at me for a moment not quite trusting me. Though despite not trusting me, she still peels into the joints of the ward, but perhaps not as forcefully as she would have before the warning.

ZZ-ziz-ap.

This was why Penelope was only met with a minor muscle stunning pain, that caused her body to convulse and tighten as she entered the sphere.

The moment she is done, and the charge has drained, I quickly Heal her up to full health. Though most of the damage was just stun effects of being hit with a highly concentrated jolt of electricity.

After she has a moment to breathe and collect herself, she takes in a deep breath and then exhales.

“I thought you said it wasn’t booby trapped?” She asked.

“No, you asked if I had booby trapped it, which I hadn’t. The design was such that, if you didn’t know the inner workings, you would have gotten zapped regardless of a trap sequence or not.” I reply.

Penelope just bites her bottom lip, as she nods her head up and down at the answer.

“Right, I should have remembered the new emphasis on word play.” Penelope states, a bit of anger still in her voice.

“Oh, come on, I was right here the entire time.” I protest.

“Hmph.” Penelope states while looking away from me and back towards the device that she suddenly seems a bit more precautious about investigating.

“If it makes you feel any better that was the worst part.” I state.

“The worst part, implying that there might be others that are bad, but not as bad.” Penelope states, in a slightly haughty tone.

“See, I knew you would get it,” I reply instantly excited and obviously ignoring the blatant sarcasm in her tone.

“Hmph,” Penelope continues looking at the stone, but is less reluctant to go charging head first into the ward. Which is a good thing as I am pretty sure this hesitation might save her life in the future.

“Oh come on, it’s not like I would let you die.” I reply.

At that, Penelope just turns away in a huff of defiance.

Seeing that she is still sore about being zapped by her own actions, I try to placate her a bit more.

“Besides you know if it got too bad, I’d just give you mouth to mouth and revive you on the spot.” I state jokingly.

“Mouth to…” Penelope begins while staring at me, before shaking her head and going full steam ahead into her dissection of the ward.

Seeing her tempting fate once again, I just shake my head realizing some people will never learn, apparently.