– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 209, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 27 –

Brynn and Samuel walked out of Arcana Academy’s gate.

“If you are going to clench your teeth any harder, we may need to rethink our lunch options,” remarked Samuel. “Who or what has soured your mood since this morning?”

“Pelliana.”

Samuel continued to walk and waited for her to elaborate. No sense in trying to rush a soured temper.

Eventually, Brynn took a deep breath. “After all this time of calling herself Terry’s mentor, Pelliana has simply given up on the kid. I cannot believe that woman!”

“…”

“Every cycle, Pelliana snatches up the most promising student as her protégé. Every cycle, she runs her mouth and goes on and on about being their mentor and how she sees them as her own children and now what? For the first time ever, one of her protégés is really struggling. What does Pelliana do? She simply casts him away!”

Samuel paused so that Brynn could continue in case there was more. Once he was sure that Brynn was done, he asked, “What do you want to do?”

“Drown her in mud.” Brynn looked as if she was seriously considering the idea.

“…”

Brynn took another deep breath. “I intend to take over and provide Terry with supplementary lessons.”

“Whaka Brynn, my life.” Samuel addressed her in the traditional dwarven affection language for accepted family.

Finally managing to smile a bit, Brynn slowed down and took Samuel’s hand. “Whaka, I was wondering if you could help.”

“What do you need?”

“Not me. The kid.”

Samuel was reluctant. “As I see it, the kid is doing better than ever before.”

“What?!”

“In the past week alone, Terry has improved more than during the whole Rising Sun.”

“Terry has not managed to cast a single spell and is absolutely miserable because of it!”

This time it was Samuel’s turn to take a deep breath.

***

A knock on the door.

“Come in please,” answered Instructor Brynn.

“Greetings, Instructor. You sent for me?” came Terry’s dispirited voice.

The boy had changed in the last thirty days. Where once he was the easy-going envy of his whole class, he had now become the object of pity, and yes, sometimes derision.

“Please sit down, Terry.” Brynn motioned towards the seat opposite her. “Instructor Pelliana has asked me to take over your supplementary classes.”

No surprise there, thought Terry.

The attitude of his mentor had changed considerably, too.

By now, the whole class had covered four basic spells: Magelight, Flickering Candle, Chilling Hands, and Gust. While some students had not completely mastered the mana priming stage for the Gust spell, all of them had mastered the first three spells.

Terry had not.

At first, instructor Pelliana seemed very understanding. When the whole class had moved beyond the Magelight spell, she even offered to provide her protégé with personal guidance. This filled Terry with immense gratitude. He vowed to himself that he would work hard and that he would not disappoint her.

For the first time in his life, Terry tried his best…

He failed anyway.

Terry paid careful attention and filled every spare minute of the day with spellwork practice…

He failed anyway.

Terry researched the spells in the library, desperately hoping for some insight into what he was doing wrong. Terry even asked Instructor Samuel for additional exercises in order to improve his mana control and mana sense – anything that might allow him to move past this…

He failed anyway.

Nothing helped and Instructor Pelliana was growing increasingly frustrated. In their last supplementary lesson, she finally lost her patience.

“How do you not get this? Even an imbecile with a hundredth of your foundational talent can do this. How are you still not able to cast any of the most basic spells? Are you doing this on purpose? Are you trying to turn me into a laughing stock? GET OUT!”

There went his mentor. First, he wanted to cry. Eventually, he only felt numb.

At some point, Terry realized that the classes on mana foundation had become his only respite throughout the day. Those were the only times when Terry did not feel like a complete failure. If anyone had told him that a season ago, Terry would have laughed in their faces. To think that back then, he had wished for nothing more than to skip foundation classes and progress towards spellwork…

Careful what you wish for. Terry had to laugh bitterly in self-derision.

“Are you alright?” asked instructor Brynn with concern in her voice.

“Yes. Sorry, Instructor. Thank you for your time, Instructor.”

“From what I know, you have not been able to master any of the introductory spells. For all of them, you have quickly reached the priming stage, but never managed to progress in it, correct?”

“Yes.” Terry kept his gaze downwards as if he was carefully analyzing the markings on the table.

“Well, I have been given free reign for your lessons. I have talked it over with Instructor Samuel and we agreed that it would be better to move beyond the spells you have already encountered in class and try some new ones instead.”

That does not sound like the Instructor Samuel, I know.

“Really?” The thought of finally experiencing something new instead of the same failures over and over again made Terry perk up. He finally met Brynn’s gaze.

“Really.” The instructor placed a clump of clay on the table. “Today, we will try Minor Earth Shaping. The goal is to have the clay take the form of a cube. Please focus your mana sense on my right hand.”

***

Instead of hearing the usual “Come in”, Terry was greeted by Instructor Brynn at the door.

“No need to sit down. Today will be slightly different.”

Is she fed up with me as well?

“Different?” asked Terry anxiously.

“Yup. We have gone over our initial selection of spells. You may not be too happy with the results, but at the very least we have learned something.”

Yes, we have thoroughly established that I am a failure.

Brynn noticed the sceptical look on Terry’s face and added, “Instructor Samuel and I are trying to gather information in order to identify the source of your troubles.”

“The ‘source’?”

“Most people that struggle with spellwork encounter problems due to an insufficient mana foundation or a failure to properly grasp the spell. In contrast to them, we are working under the assumption that neither applies to you.”

“But…”

“We should postpone the discussion until we are with Instructor Samuel.”

***

“Good afternoon, Terry,” said Instructor Samuel. Then, he nodded to Brynn, who stood at the boy’s side.

“Greetings, Instructor.”

“Please take a seat.” Samuel motioned towards two chairs in front of his desk. “Instructor Brynn and I have a hypothesis as to your situation. We need your collaboration in order to verify or falsify it.”

Terry glanced at Instructor Brynn and then nodded. “Okay.”

“Please start to cast the Magelight spell as slowly as you can manage. Do it stage by stage and only progress to the next stage when I tell you to.”

“Understood, Instructor.”

“Start whenever you are ready.”

Mana harvesting. Terry could sense the blue haze accumulating on his right hand.

Slowly. He had to restrain himself in order to follow Samuel’s request.

“Continue.”

Mana shaping. By now, Terry was so familiar with the Magelight spell that he could probably shape it with eyes closed, half-asleep, and while singing the Arcana anthem. Besides general mana control, there was another effect in play with spellwork. This effect captured a sense of familiarity with a spell – a bit like muscle memory for your mana control.

A high aptitude in general mana control allowed mages like Terry to quickly familiarize themselves with a new spell. It took a lot less time in order to get the shaping right. The same applied to successfully priming the shaped mana structure – normally anyway.

Every mage dreamed of learning a wide variety of spells and usually the efforts until the first successful casting were the most frustrating. That is why general mana control was so enticing. However, after acquiring a basic understanding of a spell, the related spell control became much more important.

The benefits of higher spell control went beyond accelerated casting. With higher levels, a mage was able to consciously decide on a trade-off between power and casting speed. The mage could choose to empower or quicken the spell. However, in order to reach those higher levels, you needed to finish all four stages and train with full spellwork cycles.

Even though the higher levels of spell control were out of reach for Terry, his intense familiarity with the shaping stage of the Magelight spell still allowed him a reduced shaping time. Terry had to concentrate in order to slow down as much as possible.

A bit more than one minute later, the structure was finalized.

The seconds ticked by and Terry wondered what the instructors were looking for with their mana sense. After all, this was not the first time that his mana shape was inspected for flaws. True, Instructor Samuel was supposed to be the instructor with the highest skill in mana sense and mana control, but any flaw big enough to cause problems like Terry’s surely was big enough to be detected by the other instructors.

“Now create the primer, but do not move it yet. Keep it in place at the starting position.”

This, too, was familiar. Terry created the primer and waited. Several minutes passed before Samuel came forth with the next instruction. “Begin the priming.”

The primer moved about two inches and… dissipated as it always did.

Not sure what they were hoping for here.

The two instructors nodded at each other and Samuel continued. “Thank you, Terry. This time, you can wrap up the first three stages as quickly as you wish. Pause after you have created the primer.”

Terry did as instructed. A few seconds later, the spell structure was ready and the primer locked in the starting position.

“Now, shut off your mana sense.”

“What?”

“Shut off your mana sense.”

Okay? Terry had no idea why he was supposed to do that, but regardless he did as instructed. Again, the seconds ticked by until finally, Terry felt a slight pang in his casting hand – an indicator for spell failure.

“That was quick,” exclaimed Brynn before turning to Samuel with a quizzical look on her face.

“Yes, but not too far out of the ordinary.”

“What was quick?” inquired Terry.

“The collapse of your spell structure,” replied Brynn. “Properly shaped mana does not require much balancing for upkeep, which makes the time difference a bit stark. Last time, your spell structure was stable for minutes.”

“What does this mean?”

“Nothing definite yet,” answered Samuel. “It indicates that your problem may not actually lie with the priming. Instead, it may have its roots in the shaping stage.”

“But… My Magelight structure has been scrutinized about a thousand times already. What is wrong with it?”

“The structure looks perfect.” Brynn sighed.

“Then…?” Terry was becoming frantic. His breathing turned erratic and his downward gaze shifted from side to side. Terry looked as if he wanted to burst out of his skin.

“The problem with mana sense is that we can only sense the result instead of the process,” said Samuel a bit louder than his usual voice. He waited for the boy to meet his gaze before he continued.

“Imagine a ball on a string. You move around the ball by pulling on the string. You move around your mana by applying your mana control. For measuring your mana control we look at how deftly you are able to move the ball around. Unfortunately, that is not quite the real thing. We do not get to examine the string.”

Terry silently furrowed his brows. The boy’s confusion was written plainly on his face.

“Mana control itself can be separated into distinct components as well. The two major components are mana naturalization and movement. Naturalization is the process of making mana your own and is the equivalent of attaching the string. In some cases, the attachment or the string itself comes with its own properties.”

Something about that rang familiar to Terry.

Wait, aspects—?

Before Terry could get hung up on his own thoughts, Samuel continued. “One more exercise. Please try to shape mana in a straight line.”

Terry did as instructed.

“Now, shut off your mana sense.”

Again, Terry waited.

“This time, please shape a cube, then pause.”

When Terry had created a perfect cube, the instructors nodded at each other before Samuel explained.

“I want you to flatten the cube, but without observing the shape through your mana sense. For the first round, let us try squeezing the top and bottom. Please close your eyes as well.”

“Imagine you were working with clay. Instead of picturing the end result, try and focus on applying a uniform force,” added Instructor Brynn.

Terry had to shake off the question if Brynn had noticed him playing with the clay during their first supplementary lesson or if it was simply a habit of hers to relate everything to earth magic.

“Alright. Now, hold it in place for a bit,” ordered Samuel. He and Brynn shared a meaningful glance.

They repeated the exercise several times and then switched to squeezing first left and right, then front and back.

“Thank you, Terry.” Samuel was tapping his finger on the desk. “I believe we should stop here for now. Let us meet again tomorrow.”

“Huh? O-okay. Thank you for your time, Instructors.”

Both adults were smiling gently at the departing boy. After the door had closed behind Terry, they looked at each other and sighs escaped from their mouths.

“Poor kid,” exclaimed Brynn. “I really hoped that we were mistaken.”

When Brynn remembered the shapes produced by Terry’s last exercises, she could not help but sigh again – all of them were completely bent and dented…

Samuel stood up and opened the window.

For some time, they simply stood there and looked outside. The view of the Academy grounds, the city in the distance, and the barrier surrounding them normally helped to put things in perspective. Brynn let her head fall on Samuel’s shoulder.

“Poor kid.”

“We have ruled out nearly all the basic aspects in the core system. None of our spot checks for the upper or outer system were any different. It was all but certain that the kid had a major aspect impairment.”

“Still…”

“It could be an irregular impairment. In any case, we should get Pelliana.”

Brynn frowned.

“Technically, she is still his mentor. Maybe Pelliana can give some input on how best to break the news to the boy.”

Brynn’s frown was still locked in place. Now, she added a derisive snort.

“Whaka Brynn, Terry is from the Greenhouse. I really do not know how to best handle this. I am out of my depth here.”

“…”

For some minutes, they just stood there in silence and leaned on the window sill. Brynn’s head continued to rest next to Samuel’s.

“Fine. But if she acts all Pelliana again, I reserve the right to turn her into a statue.”

***

“Terry has what?!” demanded Pelliana.

“A major aspect impairment,” answered Samuel calmly.

Off to the side, stood Brynn. She was already clenching her teeth and noticeably blinking less frequently than usual.

“How could that be? His mana is unaspected. We have tested him just like we have tested every other student!”

“Yes, but not all forms of aspect impairment are due to aspected mana. There is even the theory that most mages have some form of aspect impairment – only that the impairment is in the higher level spells and so nobody really notices.”

“A rubbish theory for half-mages and imbeciles to feel better about themselves,” scoffed Pelliana.

This outburst caught Brynn’s attention. She looked with sympathy to Samuel and tried to catch his gaze. Samuel had very few sore spots, but Whaka Olgorn was definitely the most sensitive among them.

Olgorn was a dwarven mage and always dreamed of being a healer. Unfortunately, his mana was aspected towards fire. Olgorn and Samuel had met when they were still kids and continued to be friends into their days at the Guild. Olgorn had even invited Samuel into his whanau – the traditionalist dwarven concept of an accepted family.

The practice originated when the dwarves were still fighting for survival in the Deep. At the time every dwarf was a soldier and inevitably every child was expected to join the frontlines. It was always better to have another trusted person to watch your child’s back and it was always good to know that there would be someone looking after your family in case you were unable to return yourselves.

Most introductions into a whanau were with children – adoptions, basically. Accepting an adult was one of the highest honors a person can offer you – as rare as a marriage commitment, but independent of any romantic feelings.

Sadly, Brynn never had the chance to meet Olgorn, because he had died before she met Samuel. Insulting any whaka was already bad enough, but Samuel was still feeling guilty for Olgorn’s death.

Samuel’s jaw grew tense. He started to breathe slower and more consciously. His eyes narrowed before he noticed Brynn’s gaze on him. Samuel blinked a few times and then relaxed with a deep breath.

“Anyway, forget the theory then,” started Samuel. “This is about Terry. Yes, his mana seems unaspected. However, his mana is definitely oscillating.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oscillating mana is a condition in which the naturalized mana is showing movement on its own. Where normal mages only have to consciously move their naturalized mana in order to change its shape, a mage with oscillating mana would have to constantly readjust and balance the shape in order to keep it. That is what makes the shape too unstable for the priming.”

“I have never heard of that. Besides, I have looked at Terry’s spell structures. They seemed fine to me. Terry fails at the priming.”

“Terry fails at the priming, because his spell structure is unstable. There is no chance for him to succeed in the priming. We instructors have failed to notice the problem during the shaping because Terry’s exquisite mana control allows him to mend the flaws as quickly as they appear. He seems to rebalance subconsciously, but he is indeed rebalancing even into the priming stage.”

Pelliana snarled. “Then why are we not testing the students for this oscillating mana thing? To think I have wasted more than a season on a lost cause…”

Brynn’s gaze was increasingly growing colder. “A child is not a lost cause.” Brynn spat the words out through gritted teeth.

“Oh? Can it be cured then?”

“No,” replied Samuel immediately. “Not as far as we know. It is a very rare condition to begin with. It barely has a name. Unfortunately, there is hardly any interest in researching aspect impairments. Those with major aspect impairments would never graduate from the Academy. Therefore, you won’t find any of them among the Council or the magic sovereigns. Even if there were some with minor or irregular impairments among them, they would prefer to hide their condition.”

Pelliana rolled her eyes at the last statement.

“No representation in the Council means no influence on the government’s research direction. No research means no knowledge,” summarized Samuel.

“A person with oscillating mana would normally never find their way to the Academy’s doorsteps, much less stand any chance of being accepted,” added Brynn. “If Terry’s talent in mana foundation had not been an extreme outlier, no one would have ever noticed. He would simply live his life as a mana cultivator – forever unaware of his condition.”

“So?” asked Pelliana. Impatience radiated from her whole being. “What am I here for?”

“We need to tell Terry and you are his mentor,” responded Samuel.

“Hmph. Alright then, sure,” said Pelliana and she casually shrugged her shoulders.

“We planned to meet with Terry tomorrow…”

Pelliana had already stopped listening.

***