Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 1120: A Different Kind of Practice

By the time Lucavion finally leaned away from the desk, the sunlight had shifted almost entirely off the floor.

He blinked at the change.

For several seconds, he remained exactly where he was, quill still resting between his fingers while his eyes moved from the window to the scattered sheets covering the desk.

There were considerably more of them now.

The fifteen copies Elara had demanded occupied one pile. Beside them sat another collection containing smaller exercises Lucavion had started on his own after deciding that reading without testing anything felt irritatingly passive. Several pages carried terminology copied from the textbook, short explanations written in his own words, and a few rough diagrams where he had tried to reconstruct the logic before checking whether the book agreed.

Some attempts had gone better than others.

Lucavion flexed his fingers.

A faint stiffness had settled into them.

”How long...?”

He glanced toward the clock.

Then stared.

”Huh.”

That had been quite a while.

Vitaliara had changed positions twice during his study session. She now occupied the opposite end of the couch, curled into a compact ball with her tail tucked around herself. At some point, the sunlight had abandoned her first location and apparently forced a migration.

Lucavion looked back toward the desk.

’I really sat here that long?’

Apparently so.

His gaze wandered across the pages again.

He could remember the last time he had studied like this.

That was the stranger part.

More than six years had passed since he regularly sat behind a desk with books spread around him, although calling Bruce’s old habits regular studying felt somewhat generous.

Lucavion leaned back and rested his head against the chair.

Back on Earth, Bruce had been capable of focusing when necessary. His grades had hardly been disastrous, and he possessed enough intelligence to avoid struggling with ordinary academics.

His enthusiasm had simply belonged elsewhere.

Put a textbook in front of him and an hour could stretch surprisingly far.

Put a sword in his hand, and an afternoon disappeared.

Put a novel in front of him...

Well.

That had been different.

Bruce could read until sunrise if the story caught him properly, discover that five hours had passed, promise himself one final Chapter, and somehow greet the morning several dozen Chapters later with the vague realization that tomorrow had become today.

Academic material had never inspired quite the same devotion.

Lucavion smiled faintly.

’I suppose some things survive reincarnation.’

He still could not claim that studying was enjoyable.

Calling it enjoyable would insult several activities he actually liked.

Yet...

Lucavion picked up one of the later practice sheets.

It was not that bad either.

The realization surprised him slightly.

Perhaps his standards had changed.

The past several years had trained patience into him through methods far more unpleasant than textbooks ever could.

Cultivation alone consumed an absurd amount of time.

For most cultivators, accumulating mana required consistency. They absorbed ambient mana, circulated it through their pathways, refined it, and gradually strengthened the structure of their core. Progress came through repetition measured across days, months, and years.

Lucavion had somehow managed to make even that more complicated.

Two cores.

Naturally.

His [Devourer of Stars] demanded attention to Starlight, reverse circulation, and a structure that refused to behave like any conventional cultivation system he had encountered.

Then came [Flame of Equinox].

That core possessed its own peculiar appetite.

Death mana gathered from slain monsters could hardly be thrown inside and forgotten. Lucavion needed to refine what he absorbed, remove what remained unsuitable, temper the residue, and bring it into equilibrium with Life mana before the energy became properly useful.

The process required concentration.

Sometimes for hours.

Especially after a hunt yielded a large amount of fresh Death mana.

A careless refinement could disturb the balance between Life and Death, which meant Lucavion had learned rather quickly that impatience and [Flame of Equinox] made poor companions.

Then he still had Starlight cultivation waiting afterward.

Lucavion rubbed his chin.

When he considered it that way, he spent a rather embarrassing amount of his supposed free time sitting still and concentrating already.

The scenery simply tended to involve mana rather than books.

His eyes dropped toward the pages.

’My focus really can’t be compared anymore.’

That much felt obvious.

He had possessed talent with a sword.

More than talent, really.

A fencing world championship did not happen by accident, and Lucavion had little reason to pretend otherwise. His body on Earth had understood distance, timing, rhythm, and point control with an ease that other people spent years trying to manufacture.

Studying had never received the same blessing.

He could work.

He could understand.

He could force himself through something when necessary.

But his concentration eventually wandered unless the subject genuinely interested him.

Lucavion looked around the desk once more.

Several hours had passed today before he even noticed.

’Well...’

Perhaps cultivation had simply beaten distraction out of him.

That sounded plausible.

His lips curved.

Gerald would probably take credit if given the opportunity.

Lucavion gathered the finished sheets into a cleaner pile and flipped through them one at a time.

The improvement was easy to see.

His first diagrams looked hesitant. The lines varied in thickness, labels crowded awkwardly against the formation, and his handwriting became particularly ugly whenever he had stopped to search for a term.

The later sheets were cleaner.

More importantly, the words had begun attaching themselves to functions.

Auxiliary Sequence.

Spell Anchor.

Structural Pressure.

Circulation Route.

He still needed time to retrieve several of them, but they were settling.

Lucavion tapped the final page against the desk to straighten the stack.

A few more evenings like this should be enough.

Maybe nights too.

He had never possessed a particularly respectful relationship with sleep.

By the time Elara dragged him into their next lesson, he should at least be capable of recognizing the terminology without forcing her to stare at him as though she were evaluating whether repeated blows to the skull explained his education.

That alone made the effort worthwhile.

Lucavion closed the textbook halfway.

Then he stopped.

His thumb remained beneath the cover.

Magic.

His eyes returned to one of the diagrams.

He had always treated mana directly.

Move it.

Compress it.

Circulate it.

Feed it through a weapon.

Change its density.

Control the amount.

His relationship with mana had been physical for most of his life, closer to moving a limb than solving a formula.

Formation magic approached the same substance from somewhere else entirely.

A line meant something.

Its position meant something else.

Move an anchor slightly and pressure changed elsewhere. Alter the route and mana reached the same destination under different conditions. Several simple components, arranged correctly, could produce an effect greater than any individual line suggested.

Lucavion traced one diagram with his fingertip.

’Magic isn’t bad.’

He could understand the appeal now.

Only a little.

He was still standing at the entrance while people like Elara had spent years wandering through the building.

Even so, Lucavion could see why mages became obsessed with it.

The structure invited questions.

What happened if this moved?

What failed first if that disappeared?

Could the same result be achieved through a shorter sequence?

How much of a formation was tradition, and how much was necessity?

Those questions suited him considerably better than memorizing terminology.

Unfortunately, proper magic demanded both.

Calculations.

Theory.

Precision.

A ridiculous amount of accumulated knowledge.

Lucavion looked toward his estoc resting nearby.

His expression softened.

That comparison required very little consideration.

’My talent for magic can’t compare to my sword.’

He knew what natural talent felt like.

A blade rarely required him to translate thought into movement. He saw distance and his body understood it. He felt rhythm and knew where to interrupt it. Give him an unfamiliar weapon, and after enough exchanges his hands would begin discovering what it wanted.

Magic resisted him differently.

He needed explanations.

Repetition.

Terminology.

Sometimes Elara.

That was fine.

Lucavion set the practice sheet down.

His sword had never demanded that every other skill in his life bow before it.

He had room to be a beginner at something.

Perhaps even a mediocre beginner.

The idea made him grin.

’Doesn’t need to compare.’

He considered reopening the book, but for now, he felt satisfied with his work.

It was time to go out and touch some grass.

*****

Lucavion stacked the remaining sheets, left the textbook open where he could find his place later, and stood.

The moment his shoulders straightened, something inside them seemed to loosen with the movement.

Enough magic for one afternoon.

He stepped into the corridor.

The residential block had changed while he had been studying.

Doors that had remained shut that morning now stood open. Voices travelled between floors, accompanied by footsteps, exhausted complaints, and the occasional discussion conducted with far too much intensity for people who had supposedly finished their examinations. Students were returning steadily from the last evaluations of the day.

And, naturally, several noticed him.

One conversation softened as Lucavion passed.

Another did not.

He caught his name once beneath someone’s breath, followed by something about the Crown Prince that disappeared when he turned his head.

The speaker immediately became fascinated by the wall.

Lucavion smiled.

’Still popular.’

The attention had stopped being particularly interesting days ago. Most of Block 7-A came from noble families, and Lucavion had spent his first weeks at the Academy accumulating exactly the sort of reputation sensible noble children were taught to avoid.

Commoner.

Troublemaker.

First-ranked entrant.

The idiot who had publicly antagonized people considerably more important than himself and continued walking around afterward as though this represented a scheduling inconvenience.

There were worse reputations.

Lucavion descended the stairs and pushed through the outer doors.

Fresh air met him immediately.

He breathed deeply.

Cool wind. Late-afternoon sun. Grass somewhere beyond the stone paths.

Much better.

After several hours of ink, paper, and foundational magical theory, even standing outside felt suspiciously luxurious.

Lucavion rolled one shoulder and started toward the courtyard.

Then he spotted Toven coming the other way.

The young man’s face brightened the instant he saw him.

Far too brightly.

Lucavion slowed.

’Oh, no.’

Toven was happy about something.

That was rarely safe.

Toven was already raising one hand before Lucavion reached him.

That made the situation worse.

”Lucavion.”

”Toven.”

”I figured something out.”

Of course he had.

Lucavion looked at the young man more carefully.

There were several recognizable varieties of Toven.

Hungry Toven.

Offended Toven.

Toven who had decided an examination question was wrong and therefore deserved to be defeated philosophically.

This one was different.

His eyes were bright. His steps had quickened without him noticing, and one hand kept moving as though whatever idea occupied his head had already begun demanding diagrams from the surrounding air.

Discovery Toven.

Dangerous.

Lucavion nevertheless allowed him the opportunity.

”What did you figure out?”

Toven immediately stepped closer.

”The transition problem from Mana Control.”

Lucavion’s confidence weakened.

”Ah.”

”You know the one where they make you maintain the first structure while shifting output into the second?”

Lucavion knew several words in that sentence.

Individually.

”No.”

Toven did not seem to care about the answer at all.

”I kept thinking about why the examiner insisted the auxiliary route had to collapse before the second sequence stabilized. Because that works if you’re treating the two formations as separate structures, right?”

Lucavion’s smile remained.

His mind became very quiet.

Toven continued.

”But if they’re not separate?”

The expression of a man who had opened a door and discovered an entirely new room behind it.

Lucavion respected that expression.

He genuinely did.

Unfortunately, he had only learned what an auxiliary sequence was yesterday.

Toven lifted both hands now.

”What if you preserve part of the first route and use the pressure loss itself to feed the second anchor? Not enough to sustain the original spell. Just enough that the collapse becomes directional instead of wasted.”

Lucavion stared.

Toven stared back expectantly.

A faint breeze passed between them.

’I am sorry, man.’

This was probably interesting.

Possibly very interesting.

Under different circumstances, Lucavion might even have enjoyed dismantling the idea with him until one of them found out whether it worked.

There was only one minor obstacle.

Lucavion currently possessed approximately enough formal magical education to understand that Toven had used several real terms in a confident order.

Anything beyond that would require a book.

Perhaps Elara.

Preferably both.

Toven mistook his silence for contemplation.

Naturally.

His enthusiasm increased.

”And if the pressure differential is stable enough, then theoretically you could—”

Lucavion raised one hand.

Toven stopped.

Not because he wanted to.

Lucavion could see the rest of the explanation physically waiting behind his teeth.

He considered several possible responses.

Admitting that most of the idea had sailed comfortably over his head remained available.

So did pretending to understand and asking a vague question.

Neither seemed particularly dignified.

Fortunately, Lucavion possessed another option.

A better one.

The most rational method available when confronted by an excited magician whose enthusiasm threatened to become educational.

Lucavion smiled gently.

”Before you get too excited...”

Toven’s brows rose.

Lucavion pointed toward him.

”Did you forget the last exam?”

Silence.

The light disappeared from Toven’s face.

”You really are a cruel man.”