In contrast to the rest of the relatively open area, the registration room was built according to the standard architectonical thought. Pretty similar to the buildings outside of the academy grounds, it consisted of a huge entry room, with roughly a third of the building hidden behind it.
"Come closer." As soon as Layn made his way inside, he was met with a row of five people. Sitting across a long table on the other end of the room, they all glued their eyes to the archmage.
Moving forward, Layn observed the group in return to the curious stares they were throwing at him. Suddenly recognising one of the faces, Layn froze in his steeps, about halfway from the group of elders.
"Introduce yourself." Sitting in the middle, an old lady waved her hand without a care, as if she was swatting a fly. But it was Sitra's encouraging smile to her side that helped Layn regain his senses.
"I'm Layn. I am a disciple of the desert scholar. I came here to learn about the foundations and details that my master omitted while teaching me." Gently bowing his head, Layn recited the story he created.
"It's just another stray dog. Don't you guys know how soft this guy is?" A voice of dissatisfaction came from the utter left of the table. Sitting there, an old witch stared daggers at the archmage. "Can we just get it over with? I refuse to accept him. Move on."
Shooting the words out of her mouth without even a moment of thought, the lady looked at Sitra with a triumphant smile.
"Since Lady Serene disapproves…" As soon as the man sitting beside the old witch started speaking, something snapped in Layn's memories. It was as if the memory of Irea asking him not to cause any trouble, suddenly disappeared.
"Okay, since you don't want to play nice, let me be straightforward." Speaking up before the man to his left could finish his words, Layn smiled viciously at the group. "I can take all of you one on one, or all of you at once. Let's speed things up as I cannot be bothered to play around with lowlifes like you."
Stepping forward, Layn forcefully stopped himself from smiling when he saw the elders rising up from their seats.
"How dare you!" Instantly riled by the unexpected bout, the witch-looking lady drove her energy, stepping at the table and kicking it back to move even faster.
Unfortunately for her, Layn didn't hold back at all. And dropping a pebble on the floor was quite a lot faster than jumping over the distance that separated them.
WHAM!
Exploding outwards, the formation inscribed into the stone forcefully repelled the reality, using the sheer force of aligning the natural currents of energy to bend the rules of the world around them.
"Now that we have settled it, let's speak about the matter at hand." After his encounter with Kerren, Layn could no longer be bothered to act amiably towards arrogance. Using most of his spare time on the journey to craft more formations for his own safety, the archmage managed to settle the fight before it began with the help of one of those formations.
"What the hell is going on?!" Still raging, Lady Serene attempted to punch the curiosity away, only to be smacked right back by the equal force. But it wasn't all.
When compared to this one vicious woman, the other elders didn't fare any better. While lack of attacks saved them from hitting themselves, in this confusing space even moving around was extremely counterintuitive.
"First off, there was a question. How dare I." After getting accustomed to the new physics of the world around him, Layn slowly trodded forward. Even knowing the rules of the formation didn't make it any easier to move around in it.
The trick was pretty simple and was based on the difference between slow and fast deploying formations. The slow deployment allowed the new rules to slowly align with the world, often permanently changing the reality in their core. With slow formations, once it would be deployed, it would last until someone would break it.
The fast formations worked quite differently though. Compared to the slow ones, they didn't require a long accumulation period where the new flow of energy would slowly mould the local area into its own rules.
Rather than leaving the job of amassing energy to the natural forces, one could supply the formation core with the energy necessary to snap the reality around into the one of formation itself.
While there were several benefits to using quick formation, in Layn's original timeline, people learned how to defend themselves against those. In such a setting, only the durable, long-lasting formation had any real military use.
On the other hand, in this world, people didn't appear to know a thing about formations, making the fast deploying ones a formidable weapon. A weapon that Layn had no intentions of ignoring.
"I came here as a potential talented student. I came here because I believed I could learn some things that I lack. But when met with the opportunity to jab at someone you don't like, you decided to ignore my potential value and vote against me." Slowly moving forward, Layn made sure to put a huge emphasis on each word he said.
"In other words, despite being tasked with screening the people joining the academy, you sought your own merits, ignoring the potential loss of the academy at large." Putting both of his hands behind his head, Layn looked down at the crawling witch with disappointed eyes.
Taking a few moments to reorganise his thoughts, Layn then raised his eyes on the elder who was the only one to remain motionless.
"Elder, I hope I managed to convey my message." Clasping his hands and bowing down, Layn acted respectfully for once. "I will take down the formation right away." Met with no response, Layn picked up the pebble from where he threw it at, before placing his finger over the life line of the formation, the one link that decided whether the formation was active or not.
This was the gamble Layn was willing to take. From how this one elder managed to remain motionless within the formation, something that even Sitra failed to accomplish, it was clear that although he knew not of the formation, he could feel how it changed the reality around him.
And in such a situation, it would be too dangerous to let the man get accustomed to the feeling, making Layn opt for the safer path of humility instead.
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