Christopher soon arrived at the location of his first-class under Instructor Sulus with a full reserve of his Soul Force. He was uncertain about what to expect of the Soul Frost class but felt excited about being there. The Academy campus seemed very large when factoring in the training fields, but he had found the nondescript wooden building with ease by following one of the other students. The building held multiple classrooms that appeared to be designed for both theoretical and practical lessons. Most of the interior seemed like a regular school building, but he could spot some contraptions and items wherever he looked that he could not begin to guess the purpose of.

He moved with the other students from the Soul Frost audition into the lecture hall. All thirty or so students were soon seated and ready. The seating was pitched upwards just like that of a regular university hall. Sulus was the last to arrive and he strode in with large steps, quieting all the conversation. “Students, I was glad to see that many of you had made some progress, but it was clear that many had also neglected the fundamentals. I have decided that it might be wise to focus on those fundamentals today. This will be beneficial for all of your Soul Arts, and especially for those of the new students present.” Christopher was pretty sure that he rested his eyes on him for a moment. A few students grumbled at the instructor’s words, clearly hoping for a more exciting lesson.

Sulus rubbed his hand through his beard, looking disappointed at the grumbling. “Do you want to get on your hands and feet each time you are going to use your Soul Frost? You must strive for excellence with all of your Soul Arts. Why else would you even bother attending the Academy?”

“Yes, Master Sulus” most answered but with little enthusiasm. The instructor looked at all the students, maybe trying to learn a few new faces. His gaze eventually stopped on him again.

“Ah, what about you? I thought that you were going to stick your whole arm in the water, did you never learn the fundamentals?”

‘Great, already singled out for that’ Everyone was looking at him, waiting for his answer.

“I have mostly been self-taught; I did not even understand that you could imbue from a distance.”

Sulus took the answer in stride.

“I see, normally I would tell you to try for a beginner class, but your Soul Frost has already developed quite far.”

Instructor Sulus continued by asking a few questions to the other apparent three new students as well.

Sulus went on to speak to the entire class. “Normally when you imbue an object, you direct your inherent Soul Force out of your body so that it can form a connection between you and the targeted material. We of course all know that some substances are more susceptible to Avalla’s gift than others. When you imbue directly there is of course no issue with forming the connection, but it is a little more complicated to infuse your Soul Force from a distance. To imbue substances from a distance you will need significant control over your Soul Force. Without that control, your Soul Force will quickly dissipate and lose the connection to your body. I find it useful to imagine yourself sending out a tin and dense tether towards the target substance. You might think that there is no need to bother, but I can assure you that there will be times when this is going to prove useful. It will also likely be useful when you start developing more advanced techniques in the future, there are plenty that require you to imbue from a distance after all.”

This all made perfect sense to Christopher, he was excited to work on his fundamentals. He wanted to have a strong foundation to build on in the future. He could hardly wait to form his first advanced technique.

“Now let’s put in some practice. Take one of the training disks and try to imbue it with your Soul Frost without touching.”

Christopher followed the examples of the others and grabbed what looked like metal dinner plates from the front of the class before returning to his seat. From the conversations it was clear that the other students knew each other well, many had their own groups.

“Excellent, try to restrict the Soul Force within your hands into a small area, preventing all leakage, then try to control that Soul Force when it leaves your body. Try to think of it as a thin but dense tether moving towards your target. Don’t let it snap loose and dissipate away. Keep your output to a minimum to keep from running out to quickly.”

Christopher concentrated on his task. He figured that he should probably start with the smallest distance possible, so he hovered his hand only a centimeter over the metal plate. He tried his best to keep the Soul Force contained and condensed but he was not having any success, he found it difficult to even sense the movement of his own Soul Force. He did not think that any scientific knowledge would help him here. After about fifteen minutes of messing around, he was feeling frustrated. ‘wait, what am I doing’ Christopher thought, He realized that there was an interface skill that might provide some help with this task.

It was one of the skills that he had been most interested in, and it might increase his rate of progress with this new Soul Force fundamental. Getting better at sensing his Soul Force would probably be useful for some time to come, especially now that he had started studying at the Academy. The total cost was 850 Soul Points. He had quite a few points saved and now felt that he was justified to choose this skill. ‘Let’s just do it.’

As soon as he confirmed his purchase, he made sure to focus. Christopher could start to feel something when he focused on the flow within his body. It was as if a spiral mist was originating from somewhere deep inside his chest, flowing outward, seeping into every cell. It made him think of a maelstrom, or even the shape of a galaxy rotating around its supermassive black hole. Unfortunately, it also almost made him throw up his lunch, he quickly stopped focusing on this new sense. ‘This might be difficult to get used to.’ Christopher worried. Hopefully, it would be easier with practice. His interface suddenly informed him of a change.

[Congratulations, you have increased your Soul Force attribute by one point.]

He would gladly take the increase. While fighting his nausea, Christopher decides to check his total attributes again.

Vitality – 16

Endurance – 17

Strength – 15

Agility – 18

Soul force – 15 (+1)

Not growing as quickly as he would like, but at least he was making progress.

After calming down and bringing down his nausea caused by the skill, he once again tried focusing on his Soul Force, he did not dare to inspect the strange currents and shifting that closely again. He focused on the Soul Force flowing to his hands, trying to move it into a tighter area. He felt as if he was able to change it into something slightly denser at least. Christopher proceeded to move his hand only a centimeter over the metal plate while trying to force his Soul Force to make a connection with the metal plate. He could feel it the moment he made the connection, at which point he started thinking of stilling the atoms in the metal plate. It seemed as if he had succeeded since he saw a small tuft of smoke rise up from the plate. Due to the now cold plate, the water vapor in the air had condensed into fog.

He was quite glad that he had managed it after buying the skill, affirming that he had made the right decision. A lot of these skills were like magical training wheels. This infusion from a distance was not easy to do though, even from such a small distance. It was another thing that required processing power from his brain for that short moment of infusion. Hopefully the process would become easier with practice.

Christopher looked around. Nobody else had seen his accomplishment; all were focused on their own practice. It was also getting rather cold in the classroom. Maybe it was not that surprising with thirty people practicing their Soul Frost in such a small space. Now that he was aware he immediately got goosebumps on his body from the cold. He thought about heating up his robes with his Soul Heat but realized that he might set himself on fire instead, so he refrained from doing so.

He tried to find the maximum distance from which he could make a connection to the metal plate. He made another ten attempts, of which six failed due to a lack of focus or too large of a distance. He had made one successful attempt from what seemed like two centimeters away, which was not bad since he had not even been aware that this had been possible a little while ago. Christopher was confident that he could increase the distance and also his consistency with more practice.

He wondered how much his new [Soul Sense] skill was helping him make progress. He had only barely felt his own Soul Force before he had this new skill. At some point, instructor Sulus stopped by to observe his infusion.

“So, you could do it after all. Just keep practicing and improving the distance.” He also gave him some recommendations about the speed and output that he should try for, which was appreciated.

‘Will this ability not be rather useful in battle’ Christopher thought. If he could freeze and burn monsters from a significant distance, then that would be quite the boon, even without an advanced effect. It would not be easy to muster the concentration during the stress of battle and while moving though.

The minutes always flew by while he was practicing his magic, and this time was no different. Soon the teacher signaled the end of the class, with a new one scheduled two days from now. They were told to keep practicing by making a connection from a distance. Christopher did not need to be assigned the homework, since he was already planning on practicing whenever he could. He could practice it simultaneously with infusing his Soul Light, so he was golden.

There was still plenty of time left, so Christopher decided to finally pay a visit to the Lumen library. This was a world with its own history, magic, and culture, and the library should give him the opportunity to immerse himself in all that it had to offer.

Christopher joined the throng of people that were descending the enormous stone staircase. He and the others did not have to descend into darkness, since metal strips of light made the smooth walls and ceiling well lit. He had been told that the library was straight down, and a glowing signpost seemed to confirm that fact. He was soon going down on another spiral metal staircase that should be leading straight to the library. The staircase ended in a tunnel with a checkpoint that he needed to cross. There were just a few people that moved both into and out of the tunnel.

“Student pass please, and please empty your pockets on the table,” said a 30 something man at the checkpoint. A young woman working the checkpoint in her early twenties was currently looking over the belongings of another person attempting entry. Christopher did as he was told and handed over his student pass. He placed his coin purse and Soul Light training set on the table. The man looked inside his coin purse and carefully examined the Training spheres. Christopher also realized that he could be a great smuggler with his Soul Mark ability.

“You are not allowed to use your Soul Force within the Lumen Library, not even a harmless Art. It will result in a ban and a fine if you are caught expending any Soul Force within its confines.”

That made sense to him, no playing around with Soul Heat in a library. Christopher nodded his understanding.

Everything was deemed in order and Christopher was waved through into the corridor that led to the library. This corridor was decorated with paintings of what he assumed was the Lumen of old. There was one painting that showed the wall with the trees in an early stage of growth. Another painting depicted people with pickaxes that were in the process of mining metals. The paintings shifted in the same way that he had seen before, the miners and trees had a slight motion to them. He could not imagine how it was done but it certainly looked impressive.

Christopher finally passed through a wide-open doorway and got his first look of the library. The entire entrance hall was well lit due to various metal plates infused with Soul Light. Another selling point for magic light, it was apparently not a fire hazard. The ceiling was startlingly high considering that they were so deep underground. An elaborate scene of a battle between a human army fighting against an army of the Blight was painted on the ceiling. Rows of elegantly designed wooden bookshelves could already be seen upon entering, filled with an impressive number of books, more than he could ever hope to read. Open doorways could be seen in every direction, likely leading to new halls full of knowledge. A large clock was placed prominently against one of the walls. Christopher was sure he was going to need it since it was easy to lose track of time when reading.

There were a lot of people about, but it did not feel crowded due to the enormous spaces. He also saw employees carrying baskets full of books back to their shelves. It appeared as if there were no more checkpoints, suggesting that he had free reign to browse to his heart’s content. Now, what the hell should he start on. There were so many things that he needed to research. Maybe he would start with reading about Lumen. The Mage district had caught him by surprise today, and it had made him realize that he should endeavor to understand the city that he was defending. He walked through the halls with a spring in his step, enjoying the smell of books, and the relaxing atmosphere. The classification system in the library was clear enough. He soon had picked up a large tome called ‘The History of Lumen’ by Yallen Sternelkeep from the history section. He sat himself down at one of the beautiful wooden tables placed all over the library and started reading.

The book was a little dry, but he still quickly lost track of time. He learned that Lumen had been founded eleven hundred years ago, then still far from the battle lines with the Blight. They had never really experienced an invasion of the scale that Christopher had seen here during their entire history. People were often drafted for battles further from home though. The main export had always been the Sternel wood and the metal that were so abundant. The book also went into some detail about the Noble families that had ruled Lumen over the years, as well as some of the battles that had been fought. The book only covered Lumen until a hundred years ago, which was when the book was written, but that still covered most of its history.

It was difficult to tell the time in this underground bunker, but Christopher kept an eye on the large clock in the main hall. They had some smartly placed mirrors that allowed him to check the time while staying seated. He had not read through the history book with too much detail, which gave him a chance to pick up another book. He decided to use this time to search for books on the Blights Essence, but he found no such mentions in any of the books on the Blight. He worried that those books could only be found in some restricted section of the library. He hated that they had to keep it a secret, was the power so tempting? At least there seemed to be some writing on the Turned, but those had not appeared that detailed either.

He had scheduled to meet with Sunchal today, so he would have to do some further reading on another day. He made sure to remember books on the Blight that had looked the most promising. He made this way to this tunnel that led to the western district, and was able to easily navigate his way through the maze-like underground. Everything was well lit, and he spotted some interesting places. Some led to wide and exotic-looking training halls. Others were simple classrooms. He even walked by a huge cave that was filled to the brim with strange-looking plants, he heard insects chirping somewhere among the foliage and fungi. He even had to cross a bridge at some point to cross a subterranean river. It made sense now that the Academy held one of the largest defensive strongholds against the Blight, the tunnels seemed perfect for defense, although he was not sure how they would hold up against attacks from the Earth Slithers.

Eventually, the tunnel sloped up and he walked up a staircase into a building on the surface. He could see that night had already fallen. He was pleased to see that he was only five minutes of walking from his lodgings.

The meeting with Sunchal did not bring him any new intel. Sunchal had not found any leads on other Summoned in the city. The man seemed to be settling in just fine though. He had gotten himself a license that allowed him to trade within Lumen, and had somehow scraped together some products to sell by making deals with crafters in the city. He was able to sell their products for a tiny share of the profits at the Arena Plaza. He claimed that it would not be long until he could fully buy his own stock and take the full share of the profits. Christopher was impressed that Sunchal managed to adapt so quickly to the new environment. Maybe he could lend him some capital on future loops, it might give him a good return on his investment.

They drank a few tankards of Sessu together and talked about their own experiences. They talked about everything from how people dressed, to the Lumen ladder. It was kind of fun to talk about it with another outsider. He was amused with the very different perspectives that they held. He also learned more about Sunchal’s first days in Lumen and where he had stayed. This would prove useful on subsequent loops. Christopher decided that it was time to leave when Sunchal loudly complained about the prices of the local brothel, which Christopher had not even known to have existed until then.They made plans to meet again in another four days and said their goodbyes.

It was quite late when Christopher got back to his lodgings. He thankfully entered his alcove, knowing that another punishing morning would soon follow under Netello Brave. Still, this loop was turning out to be quite interesting, and he was pleased with his enrollment at the Academy.