Targets

“May the great blessing of fire descend upon this place,”

Erich stood in a small training room in the West Wing Trial Courtyard, holding the cheapest staff available. His expression was extremely solemn as mana slowly gathered along the shaft of the staff. An orange-red light lit up at the tip, eventually condensing into a fist-sized fireball.

“【Fireball】!”

The fireball shot out from the staff and slammed into the opposite wall, which was covered in scorch marks, exploding into a burst of sparks.

【Skill Gained: Fireball Lv1】

“Niceeeeeeeee!”

Erich raised his staff and let out a long howl toward the ceiling. Ragg, standing nearby, was startled by the sudden shout, but he quickly wore a relieved smile.

“Congratulations.”

Erich lowered his staff, still completely immersed in a massive sense of achievement.

Magic. This was actual magic. Although he had witnessed much more extravagant things in the Abyss, those had all been other people's abilities. This fireball was cast by his own hands, using the mana inside his own body. The feeling was completely different.

“Even though I really like magic,” Ragg said, looking at Erich's excited face with a hint of emotion in his voice, “beastkin talent is truly mediocre. No matter how much I practice, my total mana pool grows painfully slowly, and my casting level remains stuck at barely being able to cast tier-one spells.”

Erich patted Ragg on the waist to comfort him.

Since no clubs had invited them to join, Erich had simply dragged Ragg along to learn magic. Now that he was a proper academy freshman with a legitimate way to access magic, how could he possibly hold back? Thus, he had borrowed a copy of 《An Introduction to the Basics of Magic》 from the library, grabbed Ragg—the reliable-looking beastkin—and headed straight for the training grounds.

Ragg's theoretical knowledge was exceptionally solid, and he gave Erich plenty of guidance. Finally, just before the sun dipped below the horizon, Erich cast the first fireball of his life, carving the skill onto his status panel.

The door to the training room was pushed open, and Balin swaggered in, carrying a lunch box in each hand.

“How's it going, skinny monkey? Have you given up yet?” Balin tossed the lunch boxes onto a nearby low table and looked up at Erich.

“You need to understand one thing, flatty,” Erich said, adjusting his collar with an extremely obnoxious tone. “You are currently speaking to an esteemed mage. It is your honor.”

“Call me flatty again, and your dinner is going to get flattened.”

“I'm sorry.”

Balin snorted and handed the lunch boxes to the two of them.

After dinner, the sky grew dark. The group tidied up the training room and prepared to head back to the dormitory to rest.

As they passed by the base of Sparkfire Hall, Erich caught the scent of grilled meat. Yser poked half his head over the edge of the roof, waving a skewer of grilled meat at them.

“Coming up?”

A few minutes later, the four of them stood on the roof of Sparkfire Hall. Yser distributed several skewers of grilled meat to everyone. They weren't sure if it counted as dinner or a late-night snack, but grilled meat was always good, no matter the hour.

The breeze on the roof was comfortable. A human, an elf, and a beastkin stood shoulder to shoulder, with a dwarf perched on the beastkin's shoulder.

The sunset had almost completely faded, the last sliver of orange-red light vanishing below the horizon. Stars began to light up one by one in the night sky. Looking out from the rooftop, they had a panoramic view of Morningstar Academy's night scenery. The towering Morningstar Tower in the center emitted a faint blue glow in the darkness. In the outermost Starlight Garden, unique fluorescent plants emitted soft, colorful lights in the dark, making the entire garden look as if it had been transplanted into the starry sky.

The four of them stood quietly for a while, none of them feeling any awkwardness. Then, Erich suddenly felt that something was off. At this hour, why was there absolutely no one below the dormitory?

“Don't you guys think there are awfully few people around?” Erich spoke up.

Balin nodded his large dwarven head, and Ragg hummed in agreement. Yser spoke up in surprise:

“You don't know? Tonight is the Hunting Festival. Everyone is probably grouping up and hiding right now.”

“What Hunting Festival?” Balin asked.

Before Yser could answer, four lights lit up simultaneously.

It was the school badges pinned to their uniforms. At this moment, they seemed to be set ablaze, bursting with a dazzling white light from their centers. The light grew stronger and brighter, and then four pillars of light soared into the sky from the rooftop, piercing straight into the night.

Standing on the rooftop with absolutely no cover, the pillars of light were exceptionally prominent in the darkness. Probably the entire academy could see four sky-reaching pillars of light poking up from the roof of Sparkfire Hall.

“Yser,” Erich asked, “so what exactly is the Hunting Festival?”

“It's...” He pointed at the four pillars of light still piercing the sky from their chests. “This.”