Sylvester and his merry gang of friends spent the rest of the afternoon struggling and mostly failing during their practice session. Sylvester and Artian’s problems continued to persist, and Estelle spent her time trying shouting at Artian but alas, her efforts were in vain.

In the end, the trio ended up accomplishing absolutely nothing and went back to their respective dorms feeling quite dejected and defeated.

Despite the feelings of frustration Sylvester managed to get a good night’s sleep, free from any sort of dreams. To him it felt like closing his eyes for one second and then waking up with the sun shining through the windows.

As usual he woke up with Artian already gone from the sleeping quarters, something that has been a sort of constant in his day to day life in Inanis Orbis.

After doing his daily morning routines, he went ahead and left for his morning lecture.

As usual, Rossa was there first and he was the second to arrive, another familiar scene in Sylvester’s daily life. Sharing a short greeting the two then sat relatively close to each other and yet there seemed to be an insurmountable distance between them.

The only thing they shared was this brief moment of serene silence.

Soon the students started trickling in and slowly filled the once silent room with indistinct idle chatter, white noise that gave the drab room life.

Then, the Professor arrived late as usual and with that, Sylvester’s daily morning events were complete. But the Bridget Bishop’s next few words will shake up Sylvester’s rather monotonous morning.

“Alright class!” Bridget suddenly exclaimed at the start of the lecture.

“Now that we’ve been through a week or so of lessons I think it is almost time for a practical test.” Bridget's sudden reveal shook something within Sylvester’s head.

“Oh fu-!” He cursed and cursed inside his head.

“OF COURSE THERE WOULD BE TESTS. GODDAMIT!” His train of thought continued, along with a few bits of profanity mixed here and there.

His mind was now racing, his once calm spirit stirred into panic as more pressure started mounting on his shoulders.

“What will the test be like?” A student from the opposite side of the room asked.

“Well, for starters it is simply presenting or rather demonstrating what you have learned so far.” Bridget explained.

“But there is one teensy twist to spice things up a bit since, after all, it is a practical test.” Her voice continued.

“Wait there’s more? Oh no.” Sylvester who usually relishes the challenge started getting a little melodramatic over his ever worsening predicament.

Bridget then brought out the rubix cube-like object that she uses to control the room’s space. She then split it into smaller squares that replicated and regained their former size. Once there were enough copies for each student in the room, Bridget started distributing through the class.

Sylvester has always been curious about this particular item, in his mind space manipulation of this level would require tremendous amounts of mana and an absurdly advanced spell. He feels that the cube is wasted being relegated to what is basically a classroom prop.

“This my students is what we call a control cube.” Bridget once again started to explain.

“I won’t get into the specifics of how exactly this thing works because quite frankly, I do not fully understand it myself, but I do remember the headmaster saying this thing only works in specific places in Inanis Orbis.” she continued.

“That small cube will allow you to morph the space around, stretching or shrinking it as you please.” She then demonstrated, once again extending the distance between the students.

“Now class, the ones I distributed to you are smaller, less powerful versions of the cube for you to familiarize yourselves with.” She said with a smile.

“Familiarize? I guess I know where this is headed.” Sylvester slumped on his seat as he braced himself for the words he already knew.

“You will need to use this cube in conjunction with chain casting to provide a beautiful symphony of spells!” She revealed.

“Oh boy, at least there’s a little bit of showmanship in all of this.” Sylvester thought as he eyes the cube now floating in front of him.

“Now, using the cube is quite simple really. First activate it with mana to establish a connection and then use your thoughts to bend the room to your will. Your presentation must utilize clever manipulation of the surroundings while also showing off an impressive sequence of spells.” Smiling as another student from the front asked another question.

“Oh and it doesn’t matter if you use three line spells or simple one line spells, what we will be grading is the use of these spells in conjunction with manipulating the room.”

“What happens if one fails the test?” The student finally asked the real question Sylvester wanted answered.

“Hmm of course you guys would ask that. Well to put it bluntly, you get kicked out of this class. While there’s no such thing as getting booted from Inanis Orbis, you would have to wait for next semester in order to try and take this course once again.” She stopped and smiled.

The room was suddenly filled with a silent dread as Sylvester felt a cold sweat drip down from his back as he silently gleaned over the next few days.

“Oh and the test itself, don’t worry! It’s still for next week so, better try your best!” She cheerfully declared.

Sylvester made a deep breath and smiled confidently, despite the troublesome situation he found himself in.

“Ah, I guess this is college for you.” he shrugged as he slowly regained his calm and began formulating a plan in his mind.

---

Once afternoon came, the trio can be seen going back to the field near the library in order to continue their group “Study” sessions. There Sylvester shared his current predicament with Artian and Estelle.

“Damn man, you too?” Artian replied in a rather distressed voice.

“Eyuuup.” Sylvester confirmed, as he let out a deep sigh.

“At the very least, our test doesn’t have that weird cube thing as a mechanic.” Estelle, joining in on the conversation as the three of them laid down on the field in a circular formation, staring up at the sky.

“Welp, there’s no use in moping. I need to work hard and then I’ll figure this out eventually.” Sylvester said as he picked himself up from the ground and prepared for another round of practice.

“Yup I get what you mean. While there really isn’t any down side to failing aside from time wasted, I still want to finish this first try. My pride is on the line dammit!” Artian declared.

“Pride huh?” Sylvester thought to himself as he thought about his parents. “Alright gotta try twice as hard this time.” He continued.

Sylvester then proceeded to go through a vicious cycle of trial and failure as all his attempts never really got far. While some of them showed promise as the trap door materialized, he always seemed to just cut it short at the most crucial moment.

Feeling a little defeated he once again lay down on the ground and stared at the sky.

“At this point I feel like a madman repeating the same cycle over and over again as if hoping something, anything, will change.” He lamented as he heard Estelle’s screams echoing in his ear.

“Artian NOOOOO! That’s even worse than before!” Estelle continued to scold Artian as the sphere of unstable elemental magic came into Sylvester’s view once more.

“No! I can feel it. I can definitely get it right this time. I just need to keep adding more and more mana!” Artian stubbornly ignored Estelle’s warnings.

“That’s not how it goes. You need to balance it from the start!” Estelle was now whining, when suddenly Sylvester felt a stroke of brilliance.

“AHA THAT’S IT! I GOT IT!” His sudden shout caught the pair off guard and their magic fizzled out and destabilized.

“What? What do you mean you got it?” Artian asked as he scratched his head.

“Balance from the start?” Estelle asked, thinking it was her words that spurred this moment of inspiration for Sylvester.

“No not balance, I simply just need to add more juice!” Sylvester proudly declared.

“Nooooo, not you too! Artian, stop infecting everyone with your recklessness!” Estelle continued her whining.

“Thank you Artian now, I finally think I know what I need to do to crack this puzzle!” Sylvester thought as he once again gathered mana.

“The answer was in front of me all along. I’m using capacity refresh, so I should just focus on taking more mana from the surroundings to fuel my spells!” Sylvester explained.

“Invisible platform!” Sylvester exclaimed as the spell easily manifested.

Fully visualizing the next spell, Sylvester then casted Trap door immediately after. Soon the familiar feeling of his mana getting drained dawned on him, but this time he was prepared.

Instead of trying to visualize the control of mana, he opted to simply overwhelm it with sheer quantity and absorbed mana from the surroundings at an even greater rate. He intended to make himself into a vacuum of mana to drown his spells in surplus.

This caused the spell trap door to use up even more mana than it usually does, but for Sylvester this isn’t a problem, he can just take in more after all.

But there was a downside to this. Using this method is incredibly taxing to one’s body, making the user physically tired and drained.

With this new discovery, the trapdoor finally manifested! Sylvester’s first successful attempt after a week of nothing but botched up attempts.

“Finally! I made progress!” He said huffing and puffing loudly for he was out of breath.

He felt like he was running a lap on full cylinders while pulling a 100 kilogram weight behind him. But to Sylvester this was no big deal, he simply thought that he only needed to get used to it.

Upon seeing his success, Artian and Estelle all jumped for glee! Celebrating with their friend, until a familiar voice suddenly rang from across the field and cut their jubilations short.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” A female voice screamed in anger and caught the attention of the trio.

As they turned around they saw the figure of Rossa, slowly making her approach. Her brows furrowed and eyes completely set on Sylvester.

“Okay, what did I do now?” Sylvester asked himself as their eyes met again.