Noah had no idea how much time had passed. All he knew was that after what seemed like an eternity of trying and failing, the spell formation hovered before him.
He stared at it, a grin on his face. The spell formation glowed a bright purple, tiny waves of dark purple energy wafting off it like flames.
Leaving the spell parchment on the floor, he rose to his feet. The moment he cast the spell, it would mean no one could hold him anymore.
No one would be able to force him to stay where he didn’t want to stay.
And with a deep breath, he cast the spell.
In a single instant, Noah felt multiple things at once.
The first was his body collapsing into dust. It wasn’t exactly dust, as he was still standing, and all his body was intact.
It simply felt like dust, because his body had been divided into every atom, and those atoms had been shifted out of visibility, into another dimension that existed atop the real world.
The second thing was the rift blooming to life where his heart had been, the tiny ball of darkness tearing into being.
The gravitational pull was just beginning to spread, taking hold of the sand that had been beneath its feet, intent on dragging it into nothingness.
If he wanted to, he could simply collapse the rift and stop it from forming.
The final thing he felt was the spell knocking lightly on his mind, asking for a destination. The interesting thing was that the location had to be a place he had been before.
And more interesting was the sense he was getting that he should have chosen a location before casting the spell. That was how the spell worked. Location first, then spell.
The moment his millisecond in which his mind processed these three things, something clicked into place, and he popped back into reality.
He blinked, staring at the middle of the hall, where the sand in a radius had been sucked instantly into the rift, leaving behind the original stone floor.
In that millisecond, his mind had subconsciously settled on a location before he could even choose one. Just a few feet away. To test the spell.
A laugh bubbled its way out of his throat. He didn’t try to stop it.
He laughed out loudly, enjoying the feeling. He placed a hand on his chest, feeling his racing heart.
His heart hammered in his chest in excitement, as if it too wanted to teleport out of its place.
Noah felt his mana capacity, realizing there were two parts to the cost of the spell.
The first part was the flat cost required to disintegrate his body and move it, while the second part was based on the distance travelled.
This meant that the farther he teleported, the more mana the spell would cost.
The jump he’d just achieved was of a negligible distance, so he hadn’t had to lose any extra mana, but from what he could tell, the mana cost based on distance traveled wouldn’t be too steep.
A grin appeared on his face as he realized what this meant. As long as he’d been there before, and had enough mana to cover the distance, he could go anywhere he wanted.
This was the power of an A-rank spell.
He grinned as he tried to think of what an S-rank Null Stride would be able to do. He’d probably be able to go places he hadn’t even been to before.
He walked down to the part of the sandy ground that had been exposed by Null Stride, wondering if someone could use this to extrapolate the power and rank of the spell he used.
Deciding not to take the chance, he got to work kicking sand from the rest of the ground to cover the open spot.
It took longer than he’d thought, but by the time he was done, the stone floor beneath it couldn’t be seen.
As he was admiring his handiwork, his stomach growled. He looked down at it, realizing he was hungry. He simply hadn’t noticed as his focus had been on mastering the spell.
With a nod, he turned to leave the training hall. All he had left was the A-rank Aegis of Hades, and the S-rank Pocket Cube. He’ll have to learn that later.
Exiting the building a minute later, he looked up at the sky. Night had fallen, and the full moon shone down, illuminating the school.
His stomach growled once again as he headed to the cafeteria. A few minutes later, he groaned as he stood before the closed building.
He sighed, regretting not grabbing a few snacks and putting it into his spatial ring. Tomorrow morning, that was exactly what he would do.
He stood there for a minute, wondering where he was going to get his dinner. Or would it be called supper if he was eating it this late?
He turned away from the cafeteria, heading back to his dorm room. He’d be sleeping on an empty stomach.
"Noah!"
He looked up at the sound of his name to see Professor Cecilia walking towards him.
"Professor." He walked to meet her. "Is everything alright?"
"Where have you been? I’ve had a few students searching for you, but you were nowhere to be found." She said as they met, her eyes roving over him, confirming he was okay.
He frowned, wondering what was going on. "I was in the training hall. Practicing." He said. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened." Cecilia finally said. "I was just a bit worried when you couldn’t be found for over an hour."
"Oh."
"Come with me." She said, turning away. "We can’t put it off any longer. It’s time for you to ascend to FF-rank."
Noah blinked, before he processed her words. A grin appeared on his face as he began following her. "Yeah, it’s about time."
"But before that...," he hesitated, "can I have a plate of food?"