Kicking off his bed sheets, Raymond checked the time.
[1:15 p.m]
'Late for class again, oh well.'
He grabbed his phone nearby and got into a comfy position. Watching the latest season of a show he had recently been interested in.
On his latest wall mounted screen. A screen longer then Raymond lying down.
By the time he started to feel hungry, the sun had nearly set already.
Ordering fast food from a delivery app, he yawned.
Was today Wednesday or Thursday? He had already lost track of time after falling asleep.
Hearing someone ring the doorbell, Raymond scrambled slightly to make himself look at least kind of presentable.
Opening the door, he found himself immediately face to face with...Ellen.
"I thought my delivery was too fast.", he remarked.
She pressed her lips together, "You can't even be bothered to go outside to eat now?"
Pushing through Raymond, she navigated through the hallway until she reached his living room. Grabbing a random cushion from his couch and plopping herself down on one of his beanbags, sinking into it until she was practically lying down.
"I get that you make 7500 points a month, but spending it on furniture? Seriously?"
"It didn't even cost that much, and how do you know how much points I make?"
Barging into his apartment uninvited and telling him how to spend his points?
Raymond unfortunately still hadn't received permission to use any magic yet. Mainly because he had just forgotten and was too lazy to go ask the principal.
If he could use magic however, just imagining her face as he dangled her upside down...
But then again, she would probably just use her authority over Raymond. Which brought an impossible question to Raymond, how was he supposed to get back at her without her punishing him back for it?
'How am i supposed to not reap what I sow?'
So far his only solution had been to just not let her find out. But it was pretty easy to know it was him when he was the only one who currently had any malice towards her.
Her muffled voice came out from somewhere under the pillow. "As your master, I naturally have the right to know everything my shadow is up to and that also includes the amount of points my shadow earns in a month."
Was there any privacy in this academy?
He asked, "Okay then what are you doing here then, is it because I keep skipping class?"
She sat up, throwing his cushion into a random corner. "I'm planning on forming a core, I've already got my first place reward plus some other academy resources and some help from my instructor. I just need your magic now."
Raymond groaned out loud, he really regretted telling her about his magic. After finding out he was a dimension and time attuned mage, she had bombarded him with questions on what he could and could not do.
"Borrow Future Strength is a 6th circle spell minimum! I haven't even regained my mana cores yet, how the hell am I supposed to cast that!"
She blinked her eyes innocently, casting a pleading look at Raymond. "B-but y-you said t-that-
"Are you seriously trying to guilt trip me right now?"
She grabbed another cushion from his couch, sinking back into her beanbag. "It was worth a try at least."
Borrow Future Strength was a spell he created in order to temporarily have the strength of an individual in the future. Ellen wanted to use the spell in order to borrow the strength of her future self in order to use her future self mana to form her core.
Forming a good mana core was extremely important—Raymond understood that very well and he also understood why she wanted to her her future self mana since the mana core could only be formed using ones own mana.
Awakened who didn't have a core would just absorb the ambient mana and use that mana for their techniques. But once mana reached a certain level, it would develop its own unique signature, a flavour if you will.
A mana core would absorb that ambient mana and essentially turn it into the unique flavour of the individual. It was how most would discover their own talents and special affinities—and how Raymond himself managed to pioneer both dimension and time magic back in his home dimension.
Which is why many students before forming a core would learn more broad techniques. Unless they were sure they truly possessed a talent in something, they would never choose to throw away years of progress!
To form a mana core, it required an individual to fully saturate their entire bodies with the ambient mana before undergoing a process in which they would try to condense and purify that mana in their bodies until it managed to reach the level where it developed its own signature.
Ellen wanted to use Borrow Future Strength in order to use her own future self mana to form her core. Since she was using her own mana, she could skip the process of trying to condense it and just use it straight away to form her core. The mana coming from her future self would also be way purer then anything she could muster up currently.
This would massively reduce the waste and Ellen would be able to form a stronger, purer core.
He sighed, "Ellen, setting aside the fact you want me to cast a 6th circle spell. There's a reason they're called that you know? But setting that aside, even if I did cast it. I doubt the you currently could even withstand the mana of your future self."
She sat up, throwing his cushion into an even further corner—what the hell was that for?
"Didn't you say you're an Archmage? Can't you modify the spell so that you can cast it?"
She just straight up ignored his last sentence. Raymond sighed even harder this time.
Modifying a 6th circle spell into a basic spell that a mage without a core could cast? If anyone said they were possible of such a thing, Raymond would have slapped them across the face for lying so brazenly.
Modifying the 4th circle spell Surrounding Ice Control into the Arena of Frost he casted during the battle royale was already his limit. Even then, the spell was heavily modified.
The original spell was supposed to grant the user better control over any ice signatured mana in the surroundings. Raymond had modified the spell so that it would increase the efficiency and strength of any ice related spell he cast by letting them absorb slightly more ice signatured mana.
Luckily the inventor of the spell was already dead. If he saw the patchwork modifications that Raymond had made to his spell, he might have suffered a stroke.
His Arena of Frost spell wasn't even one singular spell! It was literally just the modified Surrounding Ice Control spell and an ice wall spell cast at the same time.
"Even the best mages couldn't do something like that. If you want me to even stand a chance of trying to do it. Wait for my cores to reactivate."
She grabbed another cushion, pausing for a moment before grabbing the last one on the couch as well.
"Didn't you say it was easy work for an Archmage like yourself? What happened to that?"
"I can maybe do something similar at my current level. Whether it will actually work is unknown, but I'm going to need a lot of stuff. But about the whole, actually being able to withstand your future self mana?"
She pondered for a moment, twirling her hair around her fingers. "I've got a pretty good idea of my future strength so I should be able to. But the question is, which future version of me is your spell using?"
That was a good question actually, Raymond hadn't thought about that.
If it was just her future self from before Raymond reversed time, then she might actually be able to withstand it.
But what if it was based on a new Ellen? An Ellen who would undoubtably be much stronger due to all her prior knowledge.
Such an interesting question, it made Raymond's heart beat faster just thinking about it. His old mage habits from his time in his tower quietly reawakening. He could hear the blood rushing through his body, his pupils dilating as he mentally processed the question.
He had never even been in such a situation, every time he used Borrow Future Strength it was always the same Raymond he borrowed from. He could tell because the system would show just how much he 'borrowed'.
None of his time shenanigans had ever caused such an issue where there were two potential Raymond's. In fact, such a thing could probably only occur for others and never Raymond himself. Since Raymond's future was always 'fixed' by virtue of the fact that he only ever had one singular future.
For example, if Raymond reversed time for himself. Then he would simply be brought into the past. He was still the same Raymond. But other individuals would be affected by the butterfly effect of his time reversal. Doing something different then what they should have. Creating multiple possible outcomes for them.
As far as he was aware when creating it, the spell would borrow strength from the highest possible peak of the individual. But with two different timelines? That changed everything.
Seeing him quiet down, Ellen sat up from the beanbag. This time, she didn't toss the couch cushions away.
Putting his hands together, he took a deep breath. "I'll do it."
"I need to do a lot of testing and I'll also need to reactivate my cores. But I'll try to do it."
Raymond felt his own heart beating fast, he started breathing harder. When was the last time he had felt so excited for magic?
At some point of his life in his tower, he had gradually begun to lose the passion for magic he once had.
Eventually, he had stopped pursuing it at all. Choosing instead to start travelling the world and sightsee other dimensions—causing his own skills to decline and his level to stop growing.
For the first time in a long time, he had begun to feel the same passion he once had. The passion for magic.