School was dismissed for the rest of the week, so Brennan decided to look around campus. He had his gauntlet and gauntlet materials in his backpack, which he was going to continue to work on today.
For now he wanted to check out the school trade area, or bazaar. It was an open area in the corner of the school, with clothes suspended on tall pillars covering the marketplace. There were stands all around the field with various items like armor, weapons, books, food, and other goods.
Brennan had brought a thousand coins just in case there was something he really needed that he could only buy for a limited time. Since this area was unofficially run by students, there was a lack of a peacekeeping group unless the student council was present. Of course, as students the council could not monitor the area at all times and fights often broke out.
Brennan had to be especially careful because he could be easily targeted for his lack of affinity. Being affinity-less in a magic school was practically a joke, and some might not even believe him if he told them. Never-the-less Brennan was excited to see what was in store for him, quite literally.
He passed by a barbeque shop and decided to buy something now that it was noon. He then went around looking at different shops. A lot of the items being sold were failed products by beginners, who were practicing with cheaper materials before creating something expensive for themselves.
"Hey, did you hear the Gordoner's bank got hacked?"
"Really? Isn't that the bank that most lower middle class citizens use? Too bad for the rich commoners I guess"
"What's with your sudden liking for commoners. Did you find yourself a pretty commoner lady?"
"No! Of course not! It's just, you know, it would affect the economy since that's a big majority of most store customers."
After looking at some different types of armor, nothing really caught Brennan's attention. Everything was made with cheap materials, and there was nothing with particularly good craftsmanship. But being a craftsman himself, Brennan understood that items with good results were usually kept for the owner's own use, as they were magicians that will need to fight.
Suddenly, Brennan felt a blazing, excruciating pain from his left hand, starting from his middle finger. He dropped to his knees, holding his left hand with his right. He looked down at his hand, slowly trying to open it to see what happened. Starting from the ring, there were bulging red lines, slowly shriveling his entire left hand. The lines on his middle finger were already turning purple, as if poison was slowly invading his entire body.
Seeing that the darkest parts of the lines were next to the ring, Brennan desperately tried to pull the ring off his finger to no avail. Unsure of what to do, he pulled himself to a corner and sat with his back against a wall. He continued to take deep breaths, but the pain was only getting worse. He started yelling out in pain, turning and punching the wall behind him with his right hand until it started to bleed. Just when he started to think nothing could possibly get worse, he felt the pulsing red lines surging up his left arm and to the rest of his body. Soon, the uncontrollable pain was all over his body, and the lines that were now all over him turned purple, and eventually black. He squeezed his eyes shut as the black lines started to pop out of his skin more and more.
Finally, the pain stopped. Looking at his left arm, all signs of anything happening disappeared, except the sweat soaking his entire body. After sitting there for a while to calm down, he got up, still breathing heavily, and started to walk back. Without looking up, he continued to walk forward.
Thump!
Brennan felt his body bump into something, and looked up to see the face of someone clearly not happy. He stepped back a bit to look at the person in front of him. Standing at over 6 feet tall, with muscles rippling through his body, he was an intimidating figure.
"Hey, you. What do you think you're doing." He said loudly but just quiet enough for others to hear. Not wanting to deal with anything at the moment, Brennan said sorry and continued walking past with his head down. But before he could walk further than 5 steps, he felt a large hand grabbing his shoulders. Taking a deep breath, he walked back and looked at the person who grabbed him.
"Show some respect to your elders, first year. I am Horone Sandson, second best magician among the third years. You bumped into me, so don't get all attitude when I ask you to apologize." Unsure of what to say, Brennan said sorry again, this time more sincere, and walked past.
After about 5 or so steps, he felt water splash against his back. He turned around to see a fist looming over a big figure that went straight towards Brennan's face. He was sent flying all the way to the wall opposite of where he just was, leaving a small crater in the ground as dust flew. Other students, unwilling to get involved, backed away slowly.
Standing in front of him, through the dust, Horone cracked his knuckles and advanced. Brennan struggled to stand up, trying to act tall before his opponent. Clearly he wasn't going to take words, so Brennan's only choice was to act through actions. He charged Horone, who dodged the punch and pushed him to the ground.
Unwilling to give in, Brennan stood up once again and charged. This time, it was a feint, and he kicked with his opposite foot. But this combination was also blocked. He continued his barrage of attacks using what little hand-to-hand combat knowledge he had. But his attacks were futile and easily blocked using minimal movement.
Brennan was suddenly lifted off the ground, and thrown violently. Unsure of how, he looked down to see his clothes soaked in water. Horone also had a ball of swirling blue mana in his hands, making it clear that he was fighting a water magician. If Horone was going to use magic, Brennan could only counter with magic. He would have to take advantage of the few spells he could use in order to defeat someone with an affinity good against fire.
Brennan charged, this time throwing a barrage of fireballs at his opponent as a distraction. They were quickly washed away by a small stream of water, which also pushed Brennan back and onto the ground once more. He brought himself to his knees once again, but found that he could not stand up.
Horone walked up to him and started to punch him repeatedly in the face, not showing any mercy. Fortunately for Brennan, water had one of the weakest attack stats out of any affinity, so there would not be any lasting damage. Unfortunately for Brennan, Horone was a trained fighter that had practiced to make up for his shortcomings. His punches still hurt very, very much.
At this point there was no hope to be found. Brennan stood in an empty marketplace with nobody in sight, and no sign of help. Without clear evidence, there was nothing he could prove to others, though he would have to make it through this first.
Long after he had given in to the massacre happening to his face, Brennan felt an energy coursing throughout his entire body. His veins glowed a sharp, pearly black, then snow white, and then a blazing red. The blazing red blood shot through his body and to his left hand, where, starting from the snow white ring, a ball of shiny red mana started to form. But unlike other magic spells, before the ball fully formed and released a spell, it covered Brennan's entire hand and turned into a burning, almost black, flame. The heat from the flame made Horone step back. But for some reason, Brennan didn't feel a thing.
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