NOVEL NEXT Chapter 149 – Failure
"What?" Damion said aloud as he was shocked to hear the battle simulator tell him he failed. "How could I have failed when I killed all the targets? Was there a time limit?"
Instead of the battle simulator answering Damion heard Mage Teft's voice.
"You did indeed fail. Why don't you come out and we can talk about it."
The battle simulator's lights dimmed, and Damion turned towards the exit, still confused on how he could have failed when he clearly killed all the Ferocious Beasts in each round.
Outside the battle simulator stood Elicia. Damion looked around, but did not see his teacher anywhere. "Where is Mage Teft?"
"She asked we go to her office," Elicia answered.
"Do you know why I failed?" Damion asked Elicia as they walked to Mage Teft's office.
"Yes."
"Why did I fail? Was there a time limit?"
"No. There was no time limit. You should have… I will let Dean Teft explain," Elicia stopped herself and continued walking in silence.
After a short walk to another floor of the spire, Damion and Elicia entered Mage Teft's office. He took a seat, while Elicia stood behind him silently, both silently waiting for Mage Teft to explain Damion's defeat.
"Have you figured out why you failed yet?" Mage Teft asked.
"Since Elicia said there was no time limit to the simulation, I can only guess then that there was something wrong with the method I used to kill the Ferocious Beasts."
"Try again."
When Damion heard his best guess was a failure as well he scrunched his brow and thought about everything he knew about Ferocious Beasts. One particular Ferocious Beast came to mind, Phil, the Snow Hawk. The first time Damion had encountered the beast Ethan had told him there was no need to kill it, since it did not bother humans.
"I should not have killed the Ferocious Beasts," Damion said when he came to the realization.
The turtle Ferocious Beasts were not aggressive and even after he attacked them, they had not retaliated. What confused Damion now was, why did a battle simulator give him a scenario where he was not supposed to fight.
"Correct. Not only is the Mirror Plains Tortoise a passive Ferocious Beast that has never been recorded as having injured a person, but they are also a protected species of Ferocious Beast. I am quite surprised you have not covered that in your Beastology class yet."
When Damion heard the name of the Ferocious Beasts he began to understand how he screwed up. One of the first assignments from Professor Martin had been to read about the various protected forms of Ferocious Beasts, but Damion still did not understand why he encountered one in the battle simulator.
"I get that in the real world I should let a Mirror Plains Tortoise go about its business," Damion began. "But why put them in the battle simulator. I thought the purpose of the simulators was to hone my fighting ability."
"You are correct in their purpose, but you are forgetting that you do not always have to fight something to resolve a conflict. The Mirror Plains Tortoise and many other Ferocious Beasts that should not be fought can be generated by the battle simulator. Sometimes it is not about fighting. And sometimes it is about how you fight something."
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"You mean the battle simulator could have made a Ferocious Beast that releases poison gas when it comes into contact with magic or something like that?" Damion probed as he remembered different types of hazardous Ferocious Beasts in his reading assignments.
"Precisely. It is important to recognize what you are fighting, not just jump in and kill it. If you fight the wrong type of Ferocious Beast recklessly, or fight a Ferocious Beast with the wrong methods, you could easily put yourself or your team in grave danger."
"So, I should have just let the Mirror Plains Tortoise just walk across the room? Wouldn't that eat into my simulator time, waiting for each wave to cross the simulator grounds?"
"That is a method to pass. The best method is to help the Ferocious Beast move more quickly to its destination. Rounds in the simulator that have special victory conditions don't go on for four rounds. If you had not killed the first Mirror Plains Tortoise, that would have been the end of the round, and a different C Rank Ferocious Beast would have been selected as your opponent next. But since you killed it, you were given another chance to figure out the puzzle."
"And when I killed them all in each round I lost."
"Indeed," Mage Teft said, glad Damion was beginning to see what he was supposed to have done in the simulator.
"May I go back to the battle simulator now? I would like to get some more magic practice in."
"You may, but you will have to pay points to enter."
"What do you mean? I didn't even use half an hour. I should have plenty of time still."
"When you fail a challenge round, you lose the rest of your allotted time."
"What! That is ridiculous!"
"It is to make sure you learn your lesson. I recommend heading back to your dormitory and studying up on Ferocious Beasts."
Damion let out a sigh as he knew Mage Teft was not going to budge on the issue. Even if she had recommended he go back to the battle simulator, he would still have to pay to go back in and Damion wanted to save up his school points to get admission into the library so he could find a tier 2 or higher magic spell to learn.
Since he had nothing else to do, Damion headed back to his dormitory as Mage Teft suggested to study Ferocious Beasts more. As soon as he got back to his dorm and laid down on his bed the Magic System sent him a notification.
was looking at the notifications from the Magic System.
*Ding*
[Spell Icy Grasp mastery increased to E Rank]
*Ding*
{Quest Completed}
[Quest: Increase a Magic Spell in Rank – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 500 Store Credit]
The quest notification reminded Damion of his recent windfall of credits for the Magic System store. With this quest completed he now had over 2,700 credits. He could upgrade his Magic Power or Mana Capacity quite a bit now if he wanted to. Or he could buy quite a few spells.
Both ideas gave Damion pause though. He was being closely observed by the Headmaster and his other professors. Even Elicia was closely watching him. He had already shown how outstanding his mana capacity and mana regeneration was. If he started leaping forward in power or started showing off spells that he should not know it would likely raise questions.
He could buy attribute potions, increase his strength or vitality, but Damion felt those upgrade options were rather lackluster. Better saved for when it was too hard to naturally raise his attributes to receive a boost.
This left Damion with the option of stocking up on Health Potions, which was a sound plan, he believed he should at least buy a few, and buying artifacts. He had been curious for a while about how the Magic System Equipment menu worked. It had slots to equip artifacts, but Damion had been hesitant to use it since he did not want to risk not being able to undo equipping something.
Opening the Item store menu, Damion navigated down to the Purchase Accessory Artifact option. Damion was not sure if the Magic System Artifacts would be visible or not and he did not want to end up with something he had to hide in his Magic System Inventory, after all, he had limited inventory slots, though now that he thought of it, that would be an upgrade he could purchase, 10 more inventory slots would go a long way.
Looking at the prices, a C Rank accessory artifact would cost him 50 credits, but Damion was eyeing the B Rank option that would set him back 500 credits. Damion had no idea what kind of artifact he would get, but anything at B Rank should be worthwhile so he decided to buy the B Rank.
'System, purchase B Rank Accessory Artifact.'
{Error. Unable to purchase artifacts above your Rank.}
Damion let out a frustrated sigh. Since he was C Rank all he could get would be a C Rank artifact. Still, C Rank artifacts were not anything to look down on, plenty of adventurers out there did not have anything at C Rank.
'System, purchase C Rank Accessory Artifact.'
{Affirmative.}
{C Rank Accessory Artifact purchased for 50 Credits.}
Just like the Health Potions Damion had purchased before his new artifact appeared in the Magic System Inventory. Damion looked to the artifact in his inventory, which was a simple looking gold ring, and to his surprise the Magic System gave him a summary of the item.
[Ring of Magic Power (C Rank)]
[Increase Magic Power by 5%]