CHAPTER 850: A FOUNDATION OF STARS

Among the wide-eyed crowd of students, Elliot raised his clenched fist toward the constellations mapping the ceiling. "Adam’s really doing it!"

His hopeful cry shattered the disbelieving silence, yet no words left the spectators’ dropped jaws.

Dorian spoke for them all, the shared mockeries fading into stuttered questions. The same that filled everyone’s minds. "W-without medium? W-with that insult of a chant?"

Then, his bloodshot eyes narrowed into slits. No matter what Adam summoned, and though he didn’t believe he’d lose, a moment of distraction wouldn’t compromise victory.

"We end him, Abyrath! Now!" he barked at the titanic amphibian, waving his wand in a brutal arc.

A water blade shot in a horizontal crescent aimed at Adam’s legs. Behind him, the titan’s blue veins ignited a blazing orange. The water saws in its hands turned into magma descending to vaporise Adam’s left shoulder. Simultaneously, its mouth snapped open. A fiery glow illuminated its dark depths, visible through the gaps in the coral and volcanic rocks covering its swelling neck.

Adam snickered at the crippling strikes and simply raised his palm toward the constellation that shone the brightest, the second biggest of them all.

"Thank you for answering," he smirked, the whistles of the water crescent, the molten punch, and the magma vomited by Abyrath unable to muffle his call. "Virgo!"

From Spica, the brightest star of the constellation, a pillar of light fell upon Adam’s fist. Blinding, beautiful, it spread across the venue in golden waves that carried the scent of ears of wheat bathed by the summer sun.

Dorian’s water crescent faded into steam upon contact. The magma pouring from Abyrath’s mouth streamed around Adam, deflected by a golden barrier. Astrological symbols and mathematical formulas danced on its immaculate surface. Adam found it plain, but his eyes narrowed. It was much sturdier than his own barriers, not because superior mana formed it, but because of the spell’s very structure.

He could study this barrier for hours, but something else stole his attention. The golden waves condensed beside him. A palm shot upward, catching Abyrath’s molten fist.

The giant tried to push down, its face wrinkling with the vain effort. The slender hand, so tiny in its eyes, felt like the abyssal seabed that endured its steps without flinching—unmovable.

As its eyes widened in horror, frilled sleeves fluttered from the light. They stretched in blue linen fabric, outlined with golden edges, broadening around the shoulders. Adam recognised Virgo’s unmistakable ♍︎ on her silver pauldrons. It was really her!

He watched her blue and gold ribbon form around her neck over a white shirt tucked into a blue skirt cut with golden lines and frilled white fabric at the middle. Shoulder-length hair like silky starlight framed aquamarine eyes that locked onto him. She wasn’t tall like Abyrath, or threatening like the lesser incarnation of Virgo he had summoned during the battle monster tournament.

Instead, she was a head shorter than him, and even though a benevolent smile curved her lips, her power sent shivers down his spine. The absolute peak of the magus rank. No, her spells used pure starlight instead of mana. She was a force of nature framed in a beautiful human-sized body.

"Always say please and thank you." She tilted her head, her soft voice reverberating like crystal bells across the venue. "Did you call me for..." She paused, her lips twisting into a slight pout, as if she were searching for the right word. Eventually, she pointed at Abyrath with her free hand. "That?"

Adam coughed into his fist, steadying his voice. "I was only half sure someone would answer without a medium. I hoped it would be you, but even a small star beast would have been enough."

"Why me?" She arched her brow.

He stretched his palm, offering her his warmest smile. "Someone gifted me a card of your lesser incarnation years ago. I’m not sure if you controlled or even felt it, but it doesn’t matter. You’re someone I’m grateful to, as irrational as it might sound."

"Mhh." She shook her head. "I don’t know you, and you owe me nothing. Lesser incarnations were things of past wars, scattered, forgotten, their strengths inherited by some, or sealed by others. But I must correct you about something. You have mediums to summon most of us."

She touched his abdomen with a nod. "Mine is spread across the azure dragon of the east you’ve diligently built."

Adam’s eyes widened, but she continued before he could interrupt her. "They can’t hear us inside my barrier, so let me give you some advice. You’re unworthy to call us, but your foundation gives you fantastic potential for star magic. Study, improve, and most of us will gladly answer a sensible boy who summoned me to help a troubled friend. That’s why I’m here. To greet and advise you. But let’s cut to the chase, should we? What do you want me to do?"

Adam remained silent for a heartbeat, the warmth from succeeding turning cold in his stomach. Unworthy. That was not something he liked to hear. But he acknowledged the truth. He was weak compared to her, compared to any of his teachers. Just the replica of Cordelia, a mere golem that couldn’t wield magic, had almost killed him several times.

So what?

He had built the foundation that Virgo had recognised in patience, not by burning his potential for flawed gains that would hinder his future development. It was by choice that he was weak, and by choice that he aimed to develop his ultimate mana gathering technique before progressing. And with Leoric’s mysterious room, he would soon resume cultivating toward the Void Refinement Realm. He was unworthy right now, but in a few years? He doubted he’d need to summon any of them. Even now, he didn’t really need to.

Still... He had to admit Virgo was damned stylish. Perhaps she answered his call because of the line about style in his chant. Somehow, he also felt like summoning the others just to see them at least once since he could through his cultivation technique.

With a deep breath, he nodded at Virgo. "You don’t have to do much. Remove the barrier and follow my script."

She didn’t answer; her eyes locked onto him, asking for something.

He rolled his eyes. "Please?"

"Sure. I’ll go along with your little act." Chuckling, she dispelled her golden barrier with a wave of her hand.

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AN: IDK. Sometimes, writing Chapters is hard for no logical reason... I’ll put an image of Virgo on Discord.