Chapter 9: Historia

[A lifetime of advantages, and they only exempt you from a few beginner classes. How far the God of Magic has fallen.]

Sen rolled his eyes at Tutor. They’d allowed Sen and Mori to skip the introductory classes and move right into more interesting ones. But he’d made sure to get into this one. History class. After skipping the last thousand years, a history class was exactly what he needed. The room was fairly standard as far as classrooms went. Rows of desks filled with students all watching on as their professor lectured them from the front. He worked in front of a chalkboard, a floating piece of chalk drawing illustrations when necessary or highlighting keywords and phrases.

So far he’d spent the time going over the syllabus in excruciating detail, and for a moment Sen considered warping back to bed and getting the notes from Mori later.

But he decided he could hang on a little longer. It was the first day after all.

To his right, Mori sat with the straightest posture imaginable. Ilm was still in their room sleeping. Mori had wanted to wake her, but Sen stopped him. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t be able to transfer a memory of the entire class to her afterwards. At that, Mori had determined to soak up every bit of information possible so he could pass it all along.

“Alright, enough about that,” Professor Crosp said. The chalkboard erased the highlights of the syllabus and began anew. “Let’s start with something I’m sure will pique everyone’s interest. An examination of two of the most powerful figures to have ever lived. The Dreadgiant King Garlon, and the man who defeated him to save the world, the God of Magic.”

Mori’s eyes shot open, and he turned to look at Sen. Sen groaned as quietly as he could.

Great, I come to learn stuff I don’t know and end up getting a history lesson about myself. Fantastic.

[You signed up for this class on purpose, didn’t you? I knew you were narcissistic, but this is a bit much even for you, Master.]

“Great, a lecture, can’t wait!” someone said sarcastically from the back of the classroom.

Professor Crosp adjusted his glasses. There was a gleam in his eye. “Historia Remnant Academia,” he said.

Sen perked up. That was a spell. The professor was using a spell.

Before he had time to wonder about its purpose, reality shifted around them.

One moment Sen had been sitting at his desk. The next he jumped up at the sound of magical explosions whizzing through the air and the clanging of metal on metal. The class of twenty students was suddenly in the midst of a battlefield. They were in a deep valley surrounded by massive mountains. The landscape was gray and gloomy, and a gentle fog obscured portions of the fighting.

The professor smirked at their reactions. “This class is the most important one you will ever take, though I admit my bias.” He spoke as knights and dreadbeasts exchanged vicious blows in the background. Dreadbeasts were a massive humanoid species with thick gray skin and horns. A small one was often around seven feet. Their bodies were like those of muscular humans, but their faces were those of animals. It wasn’t uncommon to see them with the head of a boar, horse, or even an ox. But the number of variations was nearly endless. They were powerful, and they warred with humans frequently during Sen’s time.

“Everyone, direct your attention this way. It’s about to start,” Professor Crosp said. He turned and faced away from them, towards the tallest of the mountains. Sen felt a complicated mix of emotions. He hadn’t expected to relive this.

The mountain crumbled. Rocks exploded in every direction as a hand swept through the largest mountain on the continent as if it were made of sand. A massive dreadbeast, stood in the wake of that fallen mountain. When its head rose, it blotted out the sun. Around them, the fighting stopped. Human knights turned to look in horror at the aptly named Dreadgiant King Garlon. The dreadbeasts turned in awe. Garlon had the nose of a boar and massive horns on either side of his head. A powerful magic armor made of void-black metal covered his entire body, and it was clear the wealth required to build it could bankrupt nations.

The dread of the humans fighting that day was palpable. You could feel it in the air, that sense of despair. That their lives were about to end and all hope was lost.

Mori’s breath caught beside him. “This was when…”

And then someone shouted, and Sen closed his eyes at the memory of a friend.

“Fight!” Ragmár screamed at the top of his lungs.

“It’s him!”

“King Ragmár!”

“He wasn’t the king yet, idiot,” someone corrected. “That wasn’t until after he killed the God of Shadows.”

Sen ignored the chatter of his classmates and made himself look. This was when he and his companions had arrived. This was when the real fight began. Though Ragmár was often reluctant to draw his blade, when he did, death followed. As he unsheathed it, he used the skill and maximizer he’d always favored. “Unsheathe death itself Heroic.” He pulled his blade from its sheath, and it was covered in an aura of death. He moved, striking hundreds of times at foes all around him and even some that appeared well out of his reach. The heads and limbs of dreadbeasts fell away.

Garlon was so massive that when he turned to look at Ragmár, his eyes created a powerful gust of wind. It rocketed across the battlefield. Ragmár stared up defiantly. “I’m not the one you should be worried about!” he taunted.

Garlon’s gaze looked up into the sky, moments before a blindingly white column of annihilation came down on him like divine punishment. That opening attack was one of Sen’s strongest techniques, and he’d used it just to say hello. That was when the fight really began.

It was odd watching himself from a thousand years ago as he descended from the sky. This depiction of him had his face covered. His clothes flowed in the air, rippling with mana. A white cloak with golden trim that amplified his power. A hood covered his face, only a hint of his white hair poking out. The people of this time didn’t even know his name, let alone what he looked like. So the historia spell wasn’t perfectly accurate then, that was good to know.

“These two figures reached the peak of strength, and it was during this very battle that Gom achieved the heights that he did. Historical experts say that this battle is what took him from the peak of the King level to the early stages of the God level,” Professor Crosp said while the fight played out.

That wasn’t entirely accurate, but it made for a good story. Garlon and Sen had both reached the level of god shortly before this fight. But Garlon was considered a general terror upon the world, and acknowledging him as a god would’ve only caused more despair among the people. That knowledge was suppressed instead.

Mori raised a hand. “Excuse me, Gom?” he asked while the battle raged on in the distance. Garlon swung at Sen, sending a powerful blast of air to strike. He narrowly missed, but each one was closer than the last. The God of Magic flew around him, chaining spells as fast as he could, striking the dreadgiant from every direction with a number of elements and afflictions.

A few people snickered at Mori’s question.

Professor Crosp raised a brow. “The God of Magic. He’s often referred to as Gom. Though he accomplished tremendous things, as you can see, there are some who hesitate to say someone reached the pinnacle of all magic a thousand years ago. Especially when we make new breakthroughs every day. Additionally, his name was lost to time, so scholars often refer to him by an acronym, Gom.”

“Thank you.” Mori nodded. “For your information, his real name was—”

“Totally up in the air,” Sen finished for him.

Mori took the hint and lowered his head in shame.

More classmates snickered at that. Others fixed their attention on the fighting above. Mori looked older than most of the other students at Brightsail; it was no wonder he’d become a target for bullying. Sen would deal with it if it became an issue, but Mori didn’t seem to even notice.

“Some speculated that Gom favored the magic stat, only putting points into other stats when necessary. There are many recorded feats of his strength, speed, and resilience. So we know he didn’t neglect his other stats completely. In the same vein, Garlon favored strength above all. But he could cast magic as well, and his tough frame proved difficult even for Gom to pierce with the fiercest of spells.”

Crosp was timing the information carefully at key moments in the battle. He’d likely watched these scenes play out hundreds of times already. As he spoke, Garlon punched out and caught Sen’s clone with the blast of air. There hadn’t been time to dodge. He’d crossed his arms and relied on his wards and Mana Protection. Both were strained to their limits in an instant. But it wasn’t obvious to those watching.

One guy pumped a fist. “He tanked that! That’s so cool.”

“Ugh, if he were still alive, I’d marry him,” a girl said somewhere behind him.

Sen rolled his eyes.

A girl with shoulder-length pink hair raised her hand towards the front of the gathered students. “Actually, there are some theories that say the God of Magic and Garlon each only used a single stat. The God of Magic put points solely into Magic, and Garlon into strength. But they could create phenomena that resembled the other stats when put into action. The God of Magic used magic to create effects that replicated the other stats. Garlon’s strength was so high that he could punch air and destroy towns in the distance.”

The author’s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Sen and Mori exchanged a wide-eyed look. She was right. How did she know that? He’d kept his hybrid stat technique from everyone except Mori and Ragmár. He’d taken on students for brief periods of time, but never shared the secret of his hybrid stats. Only one copy of his theories on manipulating magic into other stats had ever existed, and it had been destroyed when he was young. So how did she know?

Professor Crosp paused at her words. “Well, that’s certainly an interesting theory. Where did you hear that, Milim?”

She perked up, not taking her eyes off the fight. Gom and Garlon stared each other down now, each readying new techniques while they caught their breaths. “I’ve always enjoyed learning about the God of Magic. There was a writer who—”

“Someone’s a cultist,” a boy in the back of the class said. At that, most of the class laughed.

Milim turned to look over her shoulder. She frowned.

Professor Crosp glared. “See that you don’t interrupt my class again,” he said. As if to emphasize his anger, both Gom and Garlon turned, pausing their fight to stare at the student who’d insulted Milim. The threat was doubly powerful with the two figures backing the professor up.

The brown-haired boy fell backward onto the ground. “Why are they looking at me?” he asked.

With the entire classroom’s attention on the boy, Sen decided to add additional punishment for good measure. He recognized the boy as one of the students who’d laughed at Mori earlier. “Frog breath.” He cast the spell in his mind. It wasn’t as much fun as saying it out loud, and it wouldn’t carry as much power, but it would do.

With all eyes already on him, his humiliation was doubled when a frog suddenly crawled out of his mouth and hopped onto his chest.

Professor Crosp’s eyes opened, and he looked around the classroom for an explanation. “What…”

Sen noticed Gom move in the background, and to his absolute surprise, the God of Magic depicted in this history spell turned to look at him and nodded his approval.

His eyes widened. That…wasn’t Crosp. The professor was focused on the brown-haired boy. At the front of the classroom, the only other person not watching the boy spitting up frogs noticed Gom’s gaze turn as well. Milim, the pink-haired girl, turned and glanced at Sen. He quickly looked away.

“Enough! Out of my classroom,” Crosp finally said. He waved a hand, and the frog-spitting boy disappeared. The frogs he left behind faded into a green mist. They were nothing more than physical illusions. Sen wouldn’t put poor frogs through the trauma of crawling around an unbrushed mouth.

Crosp sighed. “Let’s move along.”

The professor continued with the lesson, and Sen learned interesting facts about himself. A fair amount of it blown out of proportion or somewhat misunderstood. Except for his devilishly good looks. The teacher didn’t mention it, but if you knew how to read between the lines, it was obvious. He was sure it would even be on a test somewhere.