Chapter 267: Barely Decent

"Is that space magic?!" Diya asked, her eyes wide with shock as the door banged shut behind her.

Right in the center of the arena, Uhtred was standing with his arms slightly raised. Opposite him stood Zara, watching his every move with an intensely critical eye. Suspended just above Uhtred’s palm was a dark, roughly formed orb about the size of a basketball. It thrummed with a heavy, unstable pull, drawing the surrounding air and ambient light into its center in a strange, distorted motion.

Without needing anyone to explain it to her, Diya could tell instantly that it was space magic.

Uhtred’s version looked far more crude and raw compared to the smooth, seamless control Zara usually displayed. The edges of the orb vibrated wildly, and the spatial tension was clearly slipping out of his control by the second. Still, there was no mistaking what was floating right above his hand — it was a condensed sphere of compressed space.

Diya barely had a few seconds to process the sight before Uhtred’s concentration broke.

The dark sphere violently shuddered, its unstable structure unraveling in a sudden, sharp shockwave of compressed space.

Despite how basic Uhtred’s attempt had been, the sudden collapse of compressed space packed enough force to make Diya — who was standing completely safe outside the arena’s barrier — raise her arms instinctively to shield her face.

But as it turned out, the precaution wasn’t even necessary... not even for Uhtred and Zara, who were standing right in the blast zone.

The moment the technique began to collapse, Zara casually raised a hand. With a fluid flick of her wrist, she caught the wild spatial energy, dispersing the tension evenly into the surroundings before the shockwave could even travel.

The force dissipated into nothing more than a harmless gust of wind that kicked up a thin dust cloud across the arena floor.

"Somehow, I feel very relieved seeing you fail," Zara said, lowering her hand. "I was actually starting to worry you’d master space magic in a single afternoon."

Uhtred chuckled softly, waving away the light cloud of dust in his face. He stretched his sore fingers, feeling the residual prickle of spatial essence lingering in his palm.

"And what level of proficiency would you say I’m at right now?" he asked, looking over at her with a smirk.

"Barely decent," Zara deadpanned without missing a beat. "In fact, I’ll go as far as to call it absolute shit."

"That’s harsh," Uhtred placed a hand over his chest, feigning a look of deep, wounded pain. "After fourteen hours of hard work?"

"It’s just the truth," Zara snorted, turning her back on him and walking toward the edge of the arena where Diya was standing by the barrier controls.

Diya pressed the release function, stepping through the opening as the barrier dissolved. She looked back and forth between Uhtred and Zara, her eyes demanding an immediate explanation.

"Did I really just see Uhtred use space magic? Or am I hallucinating from lack of sleep?"

"Ahh... Yeah, about that," Uhtred rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly as he walked up behind Zara, exiting the arena floor. "The thing is... I’ve actually always had a slight affinity for space magic, y’know..."

A loud, sharp snort came from Zara.

Uhtred opened his mouth to call her out on it, but before he could even get a word in, Zara beat him to the punch, turning to Diya with a completely straight face.

"Yeah, he actually ’always had an affinity for space magic.’ Did you know he also has an affinity for healing magic too?"

Her tone sounded remarkably impressed on the surface, but a layer of heavy, dry sarcasm was practically dripping off every word.

"What?" Diya blinked, her head snapping toward Uhtred in an instant.

Her gaze locked onto him, her mind visibly struggling to figure out whether Zara was just messing with her or if there was actually a bizarre grain of truth to what she was saying.

"U—Uh..." Uhtred stammered.

From the very beginning, it had been obvious that Zara hadn’t bought his excuse for a second. The story he had come up with was admittedly lazy and paper-thin. On top of that, during the entire fourteen-hour lesson, he had acted like a complete beginner who had never touched anything about space in his entire life.

It had long been established by Dennis and various other scholars that a person’s life experiences and knowledge played a major role in determining their class attunement and magic affinities. T

There was simply no way Uhtred could naturally possess a spatial affinity without having the slightest clue how to manipulate space beforehand. His basic instinct and understanding of the concept would have been the exact reason the affinity manifested in the first place.

Thinking about it now, Uhtred realized he could have easily come up with a far better lie if he had taken a minute to plan it out. But he hadn’t bothered to prepare one, mostly because after his meeting with the Towermaster, Lorien, he couldn’t bring himself to care too much about hiding every tiny detail behind elaborate cover stories anymore.

Still, that didn’t stop the brief wave of awkwardness from hitting him now that he was put on the spot in front of two people he worked with daily.

Zara had completely called his bluff before he could even set it up. She was essentially telling him to his face that she didn’t believe his excuse for a second, and that she already knew his next move was going to be claiming he could use healing magic too.

Which, ironically, had been his exact plan. That was the whole reason he had invited both Diya and Zara to the facility together earlier before Diya had to step out.

Uhtred cleared his throat lightly, shooting a sharp, pointed glare at Zara before turning back to Diya with a firm nod.

A bright, incredibly earnest smile broke across his face. He spread both arms wide, adopting the most saintly, innocent expression he could muster:

"Zara is completely right, Diya. Who would have thought that I also happen to possess a deep affinity for healing magic?"