It was weird being here, standing in front of people with the intention of giving a demonstration of what his magic was capable of. After the royal knight exams, he imagined people would have been in the know by now, so he figured it might very well have been a ceremonial thing. That, and he imagined various captains had not been in attendance, so they wouldn’t know what to expect aside from the things they might have heard about him from others. Really not being the kind of guy that could really display himself like some kind of carnival attraction or showman, he had still tried to do a somewhat good job. Since it was his magic that was going to be on display and not much else, he had made use of what was offered to any who participated, which was a number of mages he could call upon for help in better demonstrating his stuff.

So as he stood at the ready, he had called in someone who could create some rather potent golems as he needed targets that were capable of moving around as well as targets that could take a hit, as just shooting something at a stationary target seemed incredibly dull. Besides, anyone could do that, so there was really no point in showing it. In spite of not liking it when he was the center of attention, he still figured that now that he was here, he should do his best to make it into a lightshow people would not soon forget. Because if they did, that meant that he too was someone people would forget about, which was not exactly what he considered beneficial towards increasing his chances at being picked by one of the squads he really wanted to be on. Once his turn had come, Griswold stepped onto the stage with the golemancer standing behind him.

Once he was ready to begin, he signaled the golemancer with a simple thumbs up, causing him to create a rock-based golem out of the ground in front of Griswold. Reaching over his shoulder and gripping the hilt of his sword, he pulled the large crystalline blade out and held it in front of him. As soon as the golem raised its arm to attack, Griswold bolted towards it as fast as his legs could take him, slamming his sword against the incoming fist. Finding the two strikes were equally matched, not a whole lot happened outside of the golem being deflected, though it instantly came in with another attack. Instead of actually moving aside, Griswold chose to tank the hit, showing that he was quite durable and could take a few punches before going out due to the density of his mana skin. When the golem was busy trying to come up with another attack, Griswold used this moment to strike at it, causing immense structural damage to it due to the sheer size and weight of the sword.

Had this blow landed on an actual person, chances were that he would have cut them straight in half. But this was no person, this was a rock-hard golem that could take way more of a beating than just this. So as Griswold prepared to take another hit, it seemed that the golem was ready for it. This time, it did not just punch him, it left small and sharp rock fragments in the wound that cut roughly three centimeters into his arm, causing quite a bit of bleeding. While this was an unexpected addition to the fight, it would end up working out rather well as this would let him show more of what he was capable of. Pretending to go at the golem with his sword again, his body began glowing, giving away the fact that something else was coming. And come it did, bursting forth in the shape of a powerful ray of solar mana that collided with the golem and broke it into a million pieces, thus ending the first demonstration.

Sticking the emerald blade upright into the ground, he nodded at the golemancer to begin the second stage, which had him make various golems instead of just the one. Hovering above the ground, these winged gargoyles were dashing all over the place, making it hard for any simple spells to hit them. Demonstrating this fact by aiming a rather simple spell at one of them, he fully intended to hit it, only for the gargoyles to evade it entirely. Looking at the people that were supposed to be grading his actions here and weighing it in with their options for a moment, he nodded at them before returning to the gargoyles. Making his hands into fists, he began charging his solar mana, causing his body to glow before making various “stars” burst forth from his glowing aura. Unlike the spell he had used to just shoot one of them out of the air, this spell was more elaborate in the sense that it would chase the gargoyles down.

Following the individual golems by matching their speeds and taking the shortest possible route to intercept them, what followed was a symphony of eruptions looking like small suns before dissipating, sending small shards of the gargoyle golems across the floor. Although new, this spell which he had come to call “Variable Star” turned out rather well after some much needed practice with the idea of chasing down his enemies through the use of sensory means. In time, he wanted to do a lot more with his homing capabilities, though as of yet, this was the pinnacle of what he was capable of in that field right now. That however did not mean that he was done, as there was still something that he wished to show as he was more than just firepower. That said though, firepower was more or less the thing he had worked on the hardest, having only recently begun to fully control the more elaborate aspects that came with it.

By now, the people who were spectating would have seen that Griswold had allowed himself to be injured for a bit, so they most likely expected him to pull some stunt that would heal him. However, instead of going for a healing spell, Griswold had the golemancer call upon all of the golems he had used up until this point so he could perform one final demonstration that would hopefully catch some eyes in the process. With the large golem being the same one that he had fought before and the gargoyles being the quick ones from earlier, Griswold dug his fingers into his arm to pull out the edged rock shards that had been knocked into him. For the sake of the demonstration, he had decided to leave them in up until the moment he could handle it, figuring it would just start bleeding more profusely once he tugged them out. Once he did though, what he imagined would happen, happened as blood started running down his arm.

Signaling the golemancer one last time that he was ready, all of the golems came at him at once, closing in from all directions like an armada of stone. An armada Griswold was more than prepared for as he began to glow one more time, this time releasing a burst that moved into all directions and would seemingly destroy all of his enemies indiscriminately. But that was only a half truth, for the golemancer who was standing but a short distance from him would be entirely safe from the attack. It only attacked those he considered to be his foes after all. So as the burst of light broke forth, the large golem and his gargoyle allies all broke apart upon contact as the resulting lightshow illuminated the surrounding area. Once it died down, it would be shown that not only was the golemancer completely unscathed, but so did Griswold’s wounds stop bleeding as it gradually closed. And when he said gradually, he meant a lot faster than normal as it was visible to the naked eye.

Picking his sword back up, he raised it to the sky for a moment as a means of saying that he was done, after which he would toss it over his shoulder and click it into place. It wouldn’t be much longer before his wounds would be completely gone, so there was no need for anyone to come up and help him, meaning he could just walk away and let the “judges” judge his performance. Feeling like he had shown off most of the aspects about himself, at least they would all get to base their decisions on his current potential.

1450

[End of Demonstration]