The city outside the Academy's walls was a different register from the city Isaac had moved through as a student, not because it had changed, but because his position within it had.
Rank 2 with F-rank: [Condensation]. The name that had been on the broadcast projection the day the colosseum went white. The face that the kingdom's public squares had seen standing over dust where the glass heart of Silas Fulgur had been.
Isaac moved through the market district with the unhurried quality he brought to every corridor, and the market district moved around him with the specific behavior of a crowd that was processing if he truly was the one whom they witnessed on-screen.
He assumed that there were some who immediately got themselves to a motion like him. There probably were those who would take a day to brainstorm and strategize as well.
In normal circumstance, Isaac would've done the same as them. A thorough planning, regardless of whether it works out or not, is ideal when it comes to "making money."
Issue is that they were only given the week of time. Truth to be told, it was barely any time to set anything in motion. A day difference in execution will turn out to be huge.
This is why Isaac was out here right away, thinking as he walked. Then, he paused.
That's the point.
In the battlefield, there won't be the time to sit down and think thorough. One needed to think and act at the same time, just for the sake of survival. This was exactly the quality that Maren Solke was trying to train and assess them on.
What then?
Isaac watched the crowd forming around him, murmuring among themselves in interest, about all sorts of rumors that circled him.
In normal cases, he would've ignored them. After years, he learned to become numb to attention—be it positive or negative.
Right now, however, they appeared as potential customers in his eyes.
My name is well-known. The duel that occurred two weeks ago, the fact that it was broadcasted, and the uproar of a F-rank skill overcoming S-rank skill…
There was no need to advertise. Isaac already had the crowd. All that he needed to do was to exploit this.
A street performance.
Isaac quickly thought about the layouts of the Kingdom.
The Aetherion Kingdom's capital, Aeos. There are three primary sectors: Royal Castle, National Academy, and Free Ground.
It was a compact ground, the location far more dense than any other region of the Kingdom.
Central area. Benches. Fountain.
Isaac drew the suitable location. The quality of his aimless walk changed. His pace picked up. He walked, and the crowd's eyes followed.
Walking past the street, he finally arrived at the area in his mind: the open, central area that stands right in the middle of the Free Ground, the place where the citizens and nobles without lands dwell.
There were benches, some occupied. The garden surrounded the zone, giving it a fresh air. Most importantly, there was a functional fountain in the middle of the space, giving a peaceful atmosphere that didn't match a warring nation.
What Isaac was seeking for were two qualities: space and humidity. There was space. Garden's vegetation plus the fountain provided him the humidity.
Isaac walked up before the fountain. Reached into his uniform and took out a handkerchief. He set it on the ground, in a way similar to the street performers who had a basket meant for donation.
What now?
There already was the crowd gathering around him, not for the sake of his performance, but to simply take a look at his face.
He formed a conventional droplet under his finger. [Condensation]. Some let out a noise of awe, even though it wasn't something noteworthy.
Isaac looked up at the sky. The sun was bright, bright enough to make him squint his eyes.
Light. Water.
In his mind, the memory of how he countered [Mana Blast] resurfaced.
Refraction.
Mirage.
Isaac quickly expanded the schematic to make it work.
The greater the density, the greater the angle of refraction. Droplet? Not enough size. A veil—that's what he needs. Not a supercritical veil though; a dense water veil will do.
It would have many practical uses. It would, also, serve as an entertainment.
Isaac decided to test out this theory, before the crowd that wondered why he was standing still with nothing but a droplet under his finger. The mana-bird was still on his shoulder.
Even more humidity is needed.
Evaporation.
The droplet under his finger disappeared. Unlike the last time he performed this application in the Mechanism Room, he wasn't driven by time limit.
Evaporation.
He performed the reverse-engineered technique of [Condensation] at a leisurely pace. Gradually, the surrounding started to get… rather misty.
The first passerby stopped.
"Why is it so… wet here? It's a sunny day today."
The water vapor in the air was thickening, enough to an extent that a rainbow appeared.
Three more stopped by, awed by the rainbow just up front.
Now.
Within this humid environment, Isaac used [Condensation] to condense a substantial volume of moisture into a water veil.
The mana thread accelerated in his Manafold Circuitry. The monstrous output it generated was more than enough to fuel the repeated operation of [Condensation].
People watched as the water veil surrounding Isaac attained the density as he intended.
He disappeared from their view.
"Huh?!" One among the crowd cried, "D-rank: [Camouflage]?!"
The light which was reflected off Isaac was refracted by the water veil, such that it didn't enter the eyes of the audience, making him appear invisible to them.
The crowd—which quickly gathered in curiosity of the cause that kept a couple others on the site—spectated in delight.
With [Condensation] still operating, Isaac shifted the position of the water veil. Instantly, he appeared in the sight of the audience, making them gasp.
Playfully, he approached a young boy who was watching the performance from the closest. He draped the water veil the boy, and this time around, it was the boy who was gone from the others' view.
Curious, the young boy pushed his arm through the water veil, causing it to lose integrity and splash on the ground. The boy yelped in surprise, before laughing in delight.
Isaac smiled before returning to his original spot.
The bird on his shoulder watched with the patient attention of its function.
The coins began to accumulate.
___
"What is he doing?"
From some distance away, Magnus mumbled, watching as Isaac stood in the middle of the huge crowd.
"I can't see a thing. There are too many people there."
"It looks like he found a way." Vesper shook his head, amazed by Isaac's quick way of thinking. "What you are seeing right now, is the combination of his already existing fame and a unique application of [Condensation] that no one has seen before."
Vesper then turned around, looking at Vane who seemed to be chatting with a store owner. Nearby, Cassiopeia was seen paying a flat fee to set up a temporary vendor on the street.
"Generic, but viable." Vesper remarked.
"Well, nothing more for us to do today. We have to wait." Magnus stretched as he sat on a nearby bench. "Bureaucracy, I swear. Why must it be so confusing?"
"Some, if not most, take longer than a week to process applications."
"Still! It's the B-rank skill of mine and A-rank skill of yours that we're talking about here! They are given a chance to hire high-skill personnel like us!"
"And that's why doing this is possible."
___
Isaac, as he continued to play around with water veils and mirages, began to notice something beyond just the moisture, beyond the "water" part of the atmosphere that he has been working with.
This "notice" was subtle at the beginning, but the prolonged exposure enabled its capture by [The Prism].
Oil residues. Carbon dioxide. The air was far more complex than what a normal person would've anticipated.
Once exposed to repeated stimuli, people's interest gradually diminish.
He knew that returning tomorrow and repeating the same task will, because of how populated the capital was, recruit new audience and therefore enable him to use the same trick to keep them interested. The point was to keep them staying long enough, and that wasn't enough with the mirages alone.
Oil. Low surface tension. Viscous.
Bubbles.
Isaac reached his hand out, dropping the water veil in his control. The crowd, now trained by his creativity, held their breath as if trying to watch what he was about to do now.
He focused on the elementary sensation of when he gathered the moisture from the air to perform the standard [Condensation], except this time around, he was gathering the oil residues instead.
[Condensation].
His mana flared. A droplet appeared beneath his finger. Without the adhesive property, the droplet would soon fall.
He applied a gentle pressure to the oil droplet. Where water resisted compression by wanting to maintain its volume, oil resisted separation by wanting to maintain its surface. He worked with that resistance rather than against it.
The droplet flattened.
Not into a puddle—into a film. Thin, iridescent, the specific geometry of a surface that had been stretched rather than compressed. He fed more oil residue into the film's edges, maintaining the tension at the boundary while the center held.
Then, gently, he introduced a breath of air into the film's interior. By swiping the droplet across the air.
The film expanded.
Outward. Uniformly. The pressure differential between the air inside and the oil film's surface tension found its equilibrium at a size it could maintain without rupture.
The iridescent surface caught the market square's light and scattered it like a prism would do to white light. It glowed in rainbow against the bask of the sun, and the crowd produced the sound that crowds produced.
It was a bubble. Roughly the size of his fist.
He released it.
It drifted upward. The crowd tracked it with the collective attention of people who had been given something they had no category for and were deciding whether to trust it.
He formed another. Smaller. Then a third, larger than the first.
He released all three simultaneously.
The crowd produced the sound it produced when the thing it was watching exceeded the framework it had arrived with. It wasn't an applause exactly, but the specific involuntary noise of people whose breath had been held and was now released all at once.
—F-rank: [Bubble Formation]. I thought his skill was supposed to be F-rank: [Condensation]—
—D-rank: [Camouflage] too, he performed. Could it be that he has been hiding his skills—
—That shouldn't be possible. Students are monitored thoroughly during their Rite—
Isaac held his hand still. Watched the three bubbles drift at different heights above the market square, catching different angles of light, throwing different colors across the stalls and the faces below.
The coins accumulated faster than just the mirages had managed.