It had been about a week since Logan had promised to help Orion.
"Hey, why didn't you have your battle class last week?" Orion nudged Logan.
"I don't know. Our teacher, whoever they are decided not to show." Logan whispered back to Orion.
At the bottom of the amphitheater-like class they were in was Miss Beth.
"Last week, we were discussing the mana core." She reached for the crystal on the table and tapped it.
"Today, we will be talking specifically about the ranks the mana core has." She spoke as a hologram of an ethereal golden sphere appeared.
"As most of you know, there are 9 ranks that a mana core can have." The hologram changed and split into nine.
As they moved from left to right, they became more ethereal and blurry, almost vanishing entirely.
"The one on the farthest left is F-rank and the one on the opposite extremity is SSS-rank." She gestured at the nine cores.
A girl from the front stood up, it was the same girl who had argued last week.
Miss Beth ceased her explanation expecting a form of argument from the young woman but the girl did no such thing.
She walked out of the class with no prior notice or permission.
Miss Beth rather than yell, complain, or question the event went back to teaching.
Logan looked at the door that closed behind the girl in curiosity.
He had barely seen her face but he could recognize the pensive expression she had.
"The ranks are, going from weakest to strongest, F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, and SSS." She tapped on the crystal to take the images away.
"As you go up the ranks, your mana core loses its clear and definite form." She paced as she explained.
"As you already know, you use a mana cultivation technique to increase the rank of your core but how does it work?" A slight smile tugged on her lips.
"Although it isn't my field, I'll do my best to explain this part." She sighed before tapping on the crystal again.
The same golden sphere appeared before it turned into a sphere comprised of cyan and multicolored energy.
"This is what your mana core is, a compressed combination of world energy and life force." She waved her hand at the images.
"The mana cultivation technique works on absorbing world energy from the environment to fuse it with your life force." She revealed as her smile brightened.
Something about her smile sent shivers down Logan's spine, he didn't like the feeling one bit and as if feeling his discomfort, she turned to look at him dead in the eye.
She peeled her eyes away from him and turned back to the rest of the class.
"The breathing and absorption techniques used serve to somewhat blur the clear and definite borders between the world energy and your life force causing them to fuse." She paused to let those who were jotting down do so.
Not once since Logan joined the school had he ever picked up a pen and notebook to write down his lessons.
"Each step further taken in this direction is what the breakthrough is. The reason why the process hurts is because it's forced and unnatural." She continued her class.
"In the past, before the cultivation techniques, mages would have to wait years on end for their life force to adapt accordingly to the world energy." She spoke as the door opened and the girl who had left earlier entered.
"Naturally the process was very slow and straining. Today's method is far faster but it's also far from perfect." Miss Beth ignored the girl, not bothering to ever question her whereabouts.
"At a certain rank, the B-rank, cultivation no longer works. It requires something far more for you to see the rank above you." Her smile faded as her voice turned serious.
"Now I don't know what that is because I am a C-rank mage." She chuckled as she lifted her hand and sparks danced in between her fingers.
"The S-rank to the SSS-rank remains a mystery but perhaps this clip will give you an idea of what they hold." She tapped the crystal and the image changed to a man with a katana on his back as well as an eyepatch and black windbreaker.
It was the Death Magus Aaron.
The image moved revealing its status as a video.
Aaron was on the highest peak in a mountain range, and snow nearly obscured his figure.
"I'm not sure who this video is for but…" He spoke in a somewhat calm tone before pointing in a random direction.
"Setting Sun." His calm voice resounded in the class as a mass of fire appeared above him.
He looked at the giant flaming sphere with his eyebrows furrowed, he stretched out his right hand before clicking it.
The mini sun that had appeared turned into a massive sphere of black flames.
Aaron threw the spell at a mountain in the distance and it disappeared from the view of the students.
At least until a monumental explosion reverberated in the mountain range.
Countless mountains dissolved into magma due to the sheer heat produced.
The mountain he had thrown it at simply vanished as though it had never existed.
"That's an S-rank spell. Setting Sun." Aaron spoke as his figure was glitching, whatever recording device he had been using had been badly damaged.
"Now, time for the SS- rank one." Aaron sighed as he started performing a short dance leaving the students confused.
At least until one person there recognized what he was doing," He- the Death Magus, he is body casting." The young man screamed in shock.
The other students hesitated for a moment before someone gasped in concurrence.
"Casting was meant to be addressed later but yes, he is body casting." Miss Beth agreed with the students.
"Body casting, in a nutshell, involved using your entire body to cast. It'll be explained properly when the time is due." Miss Beth explained to those who didn't understand.
'I've seen him cast spells without uttering a word. Was it body casting he used or something else?' Logan squinted his eyes as he watched the video.
Aaron had finished his 'dancing' and he pointed his finger at the sky.
"Big bang." He spoke with an almost indifferent tone and the video went dark.