John kicked open the door of classroom 21-Q and held out his hands in front of him. Streams of oily darkness erupted from his outstretched palms, curving around the room until darkness utterly engulfed all four walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Only once he was confident that the class was cut off from outside senses did he activate Aurora Blade and step further instead.

From there, clearing out the class was a simple matter. The monsters only fought back when directly engaged, and by then it was always too late for them. He walked along the three columns of desks, slashing left and right to separate insect heads from insect shoulders.

Each kill awarded him only 50 Aura, which was, to put it mildly, not great. He hadn't even known he could gain Aura in such a small amount. But it was the best solution he'd come up with. He didn't want the headmaster to come after him again, but he also didn't want to completely waste the opportunity for Aura gains in this place. His solution to the former problem was to ensure he was under the cover of his shadows as much as possible—because when he wasn't, the headmaster immediately rushed towards him no matter how far away he was, crossing through Mana Sense's range terrifyingly fast. Even now, he could hear the headmaster's voice in the distance, booming out threats about how John couldn't hide forever.

"NO DELINQUENT MAY ESCAPE THIS HEADMASTER'S WRATH!"

The problem with that solution was simple: hiding himself from the headmaster also meant hiding himself from the Aura system. Cloaking himself in darkness and then slashing with Aurora Blade or firing Ultimate Shot at a monster outside his darkness gained more Aura, but also caused the headmaster to come rushing to his location again, forcing him to run away. The monster wasn't stupid; it knew he was in the darkness somewhere, though it couldn't sense him directly, and was more than capable of dispersing the effect by the sheer force of its movement, barrelling through the smoke. Escaping those situations was up there among the most stressful things he'd ever done, relying on Accelerate and Flash Step and frantic use of Shadow Stream.

The method he was currently using was the best of both worlds. Or, at least, the best he could personally come up with. Covering the outer edges of a room with his darkness by carefully curling Shadow Stream up the walls, over the ceiling, and across the floors cut off the headmaster's ability to sense his actions, though only with Aurora Blade. Ultimate Shot still alerted the bastard through sheer noise.

Unfortunately, the Aura gains were not ideal. The system awarded him no more than 50 points per kill regardless of what he did. No amount of flashy moves or witty quips would budge its assessment of his coolness. Presumably, this was the system expressing its disapproval for hiding his actions from the headmaster, while grudgingly admitting the technique he was deploying to hide said actions was quite cool in its own right.

Thus, John had traded out flashiness for efficiency. If he wasn't going to be rewarded for making the kills impressive, then it was better to just get them over with as quickly as possible.

He had to admit it was kind of eerie watching the monsters sit there with no reaction as he jogged up and down the rows, slashing left and right. Was this an oversight in the portal world's design, or was it intentional?

John put the question out of his mind for now. He'd gotten pretty good at clearing out the classrooms at this point, having found this technique quite a while ago, and it took less than thirty seconds before he was moving back towards the door with 1500 more Aura in his bank, lifting both arms to surround himself with darkness once more. He crossed the corridor straight over to class 21-R, where he'd repeat the process, just as he'd been doing for the entirety of this block so far.

Needless to say, John was still gaining a lot of Aura. There was something to be said for quantity over quality, in this situation. The school was turning out to be impossibly, ridiculously enormous, boasting what had to be dozens of 'blocks' spread across buildings with corridors lined with identical classrooms configured in square formations, giant courtyards sitting between them.

Fleeing from the headmaster had pushed him across several blocks, until eventually he'd bought himself enough time to come up with his current solution, whereupon he immediately decided to set about seeing if he could clear out an entire block. While it wasn't the fastest farming method, the fact remained that it was a simple and safe way to gain a lot of Aura, and he was going to take advantage of it while he could.

From what he was gathering in his travels through the school, Mana Sense pumping out whenever he had the chance, he reckoned all these giant blocks surrounded a central hall. If he were a betting man, he'd put money on it resembling the modern 'Arena' section that dominated the real school.

Whatever it turned out to be, he was confident the way to destroy this place would be found there, and the headmaster wouldn't let him destroy school property without a fight.

Thus, John needed to grind.

He went from classroom to classroom, methodically slaughtering the bug students without remorse. Somewhere along the way, he found himself barely paying attention to the monsters, leaving his body on autopilot as more and more of his focus sunk into his menus.

By the time he'd reached 21-R, he'd gained more than 60,000 Aura with this method, but he hadn't been saving it up. He'd been spending it.

Already, he'd added Pyroclastic Lance and Plasma Beam to Adamant Defence, bringing the Spell up to Level 7 for a cool 22,000 Aura—his thinking there was he wanted to create a Spell that automatically retaliated against an enemy attack with as much variety as possible, covering all bases similarly to Ultimate Shot. It had utterly annihilated the blue-souled spider monster he'd tested it on, and he had hopes it would be more effective against the headmaster's stabs, now that it was Level 7. He had no interest in experiencing that pain again, however, so hadn't risked it when the headmaster had caught up to him.

With similar thinking, he'd upgraded Aurora Blade, adding effects that built on the stunning effects granted by Dominate and Ice Grasp. To that end, he'd Combined it with Gravity Snare and Phantom Hand, setting him back a further 15,000 Aura, and it hadn't worked exactly as he hoped. The Spell was still called Aurora Blade, which he was happy with because that was a pretty badass name, and the Gravity Snare seemed to temporarily lock enemies in place as expected, creating a dome of great pressure that pulled them down.

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But Phantom Hand activated a strange sensation in the same hand wielding the Aurora Blade, like he was holding something he couldn't see. When he'd looked at the bug he'd first tested the new Combined Spell on, it looked like giant, invisible fingers were squeezing it, matching the pressure with which he clenched his own fist. It took no genius to figure out what was happening there. He would have much preferred if it were an automatic thing requiring no input. Mildly distracting as it was, though, it ultimately did what he wanted.

Next, he'd debated whether to add more functions to Sanguine Clone or Ultimate Shot, and had settled on the neither. The headmaster must have destroyed the second clone he created in their first 'fight', as the red bar in the corner of his vision was sitting about a quarter full, and his perspective was noticeably limited to his own body—one day, he'd get the chance to test whether he could reabsorb the clone and refill the red bar. Regardless, there was no point upgrading it when he wouldn't be able to use it for a while.

Ultimate Shot, on the other hand, was, quite frankly, already doing too much. It was absurdly versatile, boasting aspects of Aqua Shot, Flash Freeze, Electric Shock, Light Burst, Burning Gale, Verdant Hell, Necrotise/Soul Arrow (Death Arrow), Tempest Sphere, Vector Lash, Scouring Steam, and Soul Drain. He'd forgotten some of those aspects were even there until he inspected the Spell on a deeper level. He hadn't even been using the Vector Lash part at all…

But he had another ranged Spell that had been rather neglected in recent times, even though it had once been the most used ability in his repertoire: Fireball. Even now, he was fairly sure it boasted the highest kill count out of all his powers. After all it had done for him, it deserved better than redundancy. He really wanted to make something out of it.

Unfortunately, it didn't have a lot to work with, in terms of combinations.

Upgrade Sparks Level 0 -> Level 1: 500 Aura

Upgrade Purify Water Level 0 -> Level 1: 500 Aura

Upgrade Rest Level 2 -> Level 3: 2000 Aura

Upgrade Fireball Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Mana Sense Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Soul Vision Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Shadow Stream Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Summon Undead Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Those were the only Spells he'd already unlocked, and none of them seemed likely to yield anything useful when merged with Fireball. Of the other Spells available for purchase,…

Level 3 Spells:

Air Bubble: 2000 Aura

Level 4 Spells:

Earth Wave: 4000 Aura

Levitate Object: 4000 Aura

Orbital Well: 4000 Aura

Mass Manipulation: 4000 Aura

Level 5 Spells:

Tornado: 8000 Aura

Meteor Strike: 8000 Aura

Dragon Breath: 8000 Aura

Winter Wolf: 8000 Aura

Flame Falcon: 8000 Aura

Grove Guardian: 8000 Aura

Iron Lion: 8000 Aura

Ghost Spider: 8000 Aura

Level 6 Spells:

Pyromancy: 16000 Aura

Hydromancy: 16000 Aura

Geomancy: 16000 Aura

Aeromancy: 16000 Aura

Biomancy: 16000 Aura

Dragon Wings: 16000 Aura

Demon Claws: 16000 Aura

Shinigami Eyes: 16000 Aura

Basilisk Scales: 16000 Aura

Phantom Form: 16000 Aura

Kind of the same story. Quite apart from the fact they'd all likely subsume Fireball and make it a mere subordinated aspect, he wasn't seeing any combinations that wouldn't feel redundant. He'd been kind of stuck on that point for a while, but eventually had been forced to get over himself and make some decisions. Getting sentimentally attached to a Spell was silly.

In the end, he'd made the executive decision to use it as the base to build a second projectile ability that wasn't so conspicuous as Ultimate Shot, Combining it with Earth Wave for a cool 9k in total, creating Lava Sphere, Level 5. It functioned in basically the same way as Fireball had, except instead of exploding with flames on impact, the ball created a wave of lava that cascaded out from the impact. It wasn't much in comparison to the absurd variety he'd packed into Ultimate Shot, but it was the start of something, and he was going to be more discerning about how he upgraded it.

That had left him with about 20,000 Aura and a lot of thinking to do. He found himself deep in deliberation as he kept slaughtering his way through the classrooms, butchering bugs by the dozen and watching his points tick slowly up.

It wasn't just the potential Combinations that had his brain working overtime. Upgrading his Arcane to Level 7 to fight off the damage done by the headmaster's poisoned sword arms had, of course, unlocked a new set of Spells for his consideration. And consider them he had. Over and over. Endlessly. It kind of thought like his mind was trapped in that menu, unable to look away. Each Spell cost 32,000, but… damn. If they did what he thought their names implied, John was sure that would seem like a bargain.

As he slaughtered his way through yet another classroom, John pulled up the Level 7 Spells menu for what felt like the thousandth time since he'd unlocked it, staring at the options arrayed there.

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