“My Lady…?”

…

“My Lady…wake up.”

..

“Lady Teresa, wake up!”

…

The girl speaking frowned at the sleeping woman. She had come to the mages guild for her weekly lesson only to once again find her Master sitting at her desk, completely unconscious. This was not the first time this had happened, in fact lately her Master was constantly staying up well into the night, researching, and experimenting, and trying to find some unknown solution to whatever magical problem was vexing her.

The girl sighed in frustration, but let it go. After all, her Master was the leader of the Mages Guild. Whatever she was working on had to be of immense import to the entire country of Langrace, otherwise Lord Amad and King Leopold would never tolerate her spending as much time as she did on it.

It vexed the apprentice terribly that she hadn’t figured what her Master, the Lord, and the King were working so tirelessly on, but she had more important things to worry about at the moment. She would find her answers later on regardless, but for now…

“Scintillam.” she said, casting a weak fire spell on her master.

She waited for a moment, letting the hem of her Masters robe catch fire, and then

“ATATATA, PUT IT OUT, PUT IT OUT NOW-”

“Unda.” the apprentice said, creating a large water bubble over her masters head. “Release” the water bubble suddenly dropped, drenching her master from head to toe.

“Can’t you think of a better way than that to wake your Master up!” Lady Teresa shouted, looking daggers at her apprentice. Unfortunately, given her disheveled appearance and sopping wet clothes, Teresa’s anger did very little to intimidate the girl, who simply offered her Master an emotionless reply.

“I tried asking you to wake up.” she said, as if the next most logical step was to set her Master on fire.

This made Teresa even more indignant as she shouted “If asking doesn’t work then shake me next! What kind of apprentice is so horrible to their own teacher without even feeling a bit of remorse! You’re so mean to meeeeeeeee, Eriiiiis!” before collapsing to the floor and rolling around like a child.

The apprentice, Eris, said nothing and simply waited until her Masters fit was over.

After Teresa calmed down, Eris said “What will my lesson be about today, Master?”

“ ’sniffles’ You’re so cold to me too, even though I’m your Master…” Teresa said, still pouting.

“The lesson?” Eris said pitilessly.

Seeing that her student wasn’t going to give in, Teresa sighed and, still grumbling about her student, said “Haaaa, fine. For today your lesson is…” she looked over at her papers, trying to find the work she prepared for her student.

Planning lessons for Eris was not easy. Although she was only in her mid teens, the girl had already surpassed every other mage at this branch of the guild. Indeed, her talent was such that even Teresa didn’t think she would be able to stay ahead of her student for much longer.

And it wasn’t all raw talent either. Eris just greedily devoured every piece of knowledge Teresa imparted to her, and when she wasn’t doing the work her master gave her, she was studying magic in the guild library. The girl seemed to spend her every waking hour desperately trying to master the art of magic. Why she was so zealous in her approach, Teresa could never find out. The best answer she had ever gotten from the girl was when she directly asked her the question.

“Because my Master expects the best out of me, and so I will be the best.” she had said.

At first that answer touched Teresa, and she vowed to do everything in her power to help this girl achieve her goals, but now…

Now Eris’s ambition was driving her batty! Every week the girl was here, gazing at Teresa with those cold eyes! Before taking on her student, Teresa was living the good life! She could experiment until the sun went down, or spend whole days and nights on end researching her favorite subjects and devising new spells, only to reappear days or weeks later as unkempt as she pleased and show off all of her new discoveries!

The King and Lord Amad didn’t care how she lived, as long as she kept producing results, but then Eris came along with her…expectations. How could she shut herself in her lab when Eris would barge in and drag her out by the ears, telling her she needed to be present for their lessons! And if she went even a single day without bathing, Eris would wrinkle her nose at Teresa and look at her like she was some kind of gross bug!

“Ahhh, what happened to my easy life as a shut-in!” Teresa shouted internally, holding the burned hem of her robes and scowling tearfully at her apprentice. “I guess this is what I get for taking on a noble as an apprentice.”

Unlike most of the Mages guild, who were either ex adventurers or career magicians, Eris was a Noble. Apparently she was the promising daughter of some petty Lord from Erstshire (Or something along those lines, Teresa had barely been paying attention when she introduced herself). That Noble had paid the guild a very generous sum of money to have his daughter educated by the Guild Master herself, and Teresa had greedily accepted the proposal, already thinking about all of the projects she could fund with the tuition fee.

As for the apprenticeship itself, she figured she could just assign excessively difficult lessons to the poor sap. That way she would have weeks of time to herself while the blue blooded twerp was stuck studying. What she did not expect was to receive a cold hearted, judgmental, genius who mastered all of their lessons almost instantly and then lit their own teacher on fire! More than once!

“It’s so unfair!” Teresa thought, still searching through the papers for today’s lesson plan “How come I have to teach a motivated genius! Why couldn’t she have just been a lazy princess type! Then I wouldn’t have to plan these intricate lessons for…for” and then she remembered.

She had spent every night and day this past week working on her most recent project for King Leopold and Lord Amad. She was satisfied with the progress she was making on her assignment, but in her fervor to pursue this exciting new branch of magic she seemed to have forgotten something.

Something important.

She slowly turned to face her apprentice, wearing a big ‘nothing is wrong, I swear’ kind of smile, and said “I-it would seem that I uh…forgot to plan today’s lesson.”

Teresa could have sworn the temperature in the room decreased by a few degrees as Eris’s cold expression became even icier.

“B-B-But there’s some good news in there too! Looks like y-you get a free day today, so why don’t you make the most of this opportunity and go enjoy yourself in the city! I-I can even give you some money, so don’t be afraid to visit the merchants quarter!”

Teresa couldn’t be sure, but her sixth sense was telling her that every word she said was making her students' opinion of her drop lower and lower. It was as if she could hear Eris’s thoughts say “Is this really the top mage in the Mages Guild? Is this my Master?”

So, in a last ditch effort to regain her apprentices respect, Teresa said “Ah, I know! Instead of a lesson, how about a hands on demonstration of the kind of magic I’ve been working on lately? After all, you’re my apprentice so it should be ok for you to see the important work your Master is doing, right?” Teresa expected this to fail as well and that she would be forced to listen to a long and painful scolding from her student, but to her surprise the offer perked Eris right up.

“Can we really? That suggestion sounds incredibly interesting, for once.” Eris said.

“Really?-I mean, of course it does! By the way, you didn’t have to add ‘for once’ to that…” but Eris had already stopped listening, and was looking expectantly at her Master.

Teresa sighed, again defeated by her student, and stood up to lead Eris out of her office. Together, the two of them walked into the underground levels of the Mages Guild. The building portion of the guild was actually quite vast as, in addition to being the base of operations and research for many of the continents top magic users, it was also treated as a college for new prospective magicians to study the sorcerous arts in. In terms of sheer area, the guild was easily as large as the Palace of the Sun, where Lord Amad lived.

But that was just the surface. The Guild's real worth lied in it’s underground, where experiments were conducted. There labs, research halls, great libraries and rooms full of untold magical treasures extended hundred of feet below the ground. It was a place where new magic was born into this world, and every mage dreamed of joining those practitioners who were privileged enough to be deemed worthy of studying in it’s contents.

Eris had been allowed in after just a month’s time in the guild.

“Such is the luck of a genius…” Teresa thought warily. There had been no refusing her request. Partly because letting Eris in there drew attention away from Teresa, allowing her to do as she pleased for a while. But mostly because the girl had already proven her worth by developing her own new magic!

She called it Mimic, and although she refused to share the spell’s process with the rest of the guild (even her Master!), the fact that she had created a spell that could transform one into a different species was unprecedented!

Which was why Teresa felt comfortable showing her student the secret project she was working on.

“And hey, she’s pretty smart so maybe she’ll be able to offer some insight on how to proceed.” Teresa thought, grinning a little. She was stuck with this prodigal daughter anyway, so might as well put her to good use, right?

Teresa’s lab was situated in the lowest level of the underground, so just getting there took the better part of 20 minutes. She’d wanted to set up a transport gate from her office on the upper floors to her lab, but the King had shouted her down! He went on and on about some nonsense involving a ‘grave breach of national security’, but Teresa didn’t care about that- she had sore feet to think about, ya know!?

When they got there Eris tried to open the door for them, but she found that it wouldn’t budge. She looked for a keyhole, or a latch but there was nothing there except the knob.

“Can’t open it, eh?” Teresa said, happy to finally get one over on her student “Watch this-”. She placed her hand on the wooden door, and as soon as her flesh touched the wood a path of light appeared around the hand. Suddenly, the sound of a lock moving rang out and the door swung open for them to enter.

“What was that?” Eris asked curiously “Don’t tell me my…esteemed Master developed something as unnecessary as a ‘door locking’ spell.”

“Oooooh, can’t you just be impressed for once! I’m trying my best to look cool for you here, ya know? And it’s not a ‘door unlocking’ spell! It’s a lot more useful than that!”

“If you say so…” Eris said, looking dubiously at her Master.

“I’m serious! The spell I just used is something I developed myself, it’s an incredible piece of magic! On the surface it looks like all I did was unlock the door, right? But the real magic is so much more interesting than that! You see, the spell I just activated is fundamentally different from any normal magic. It works on a somewhat abstract concept of ‘conditions’.”

“Conditions? I’m afraid I don’t follow you…”

“Ho Ho Ho, well then listen up! At it’s core normal magic, while taking years to understand and master, can be summed up rather simply. ”Connect the paths, power the spell, and cast the spell“, right? But my magic adds a fourth mechanic into the mix- that being the ‘condition’. By adding a ‘condition’ you can introduce a series of events that you want to have enacted before the spell can be cast. For example, say you have three spells. They are as follows, Spell A, Spell B and Spell C. With conditional magic, you can make it so that, even though Spells B and C are cast, they will not activate until Spell A is activated. Conversely, You can make it so that Spell A never activates until Spells B and C are both in effect. And you want to know what the best part is? The condition to activate Spell’s A, B and C doesn’t have to be magic based! It could be something as simple as, say, Teresa must touch this door. Isn’t that incred-” But Teresa suddenly paused her tirade. She hadn’t noticed it right away, but her pupil’s expression had gradually been changing as she spoke.

Usually Eris’s face was an emotionless mask, completely devoid of surprise, joy or fear. But now her eyes were wide and she had an intense look on her face.

“Master” Eris said, more eager than Teresa had ever seen her “You must teach me this ‘condition’ magic.”

“Eh? I mean, don’t get me wrong it’s impressive magic, but wouldn’t you rather learn a flight spell or teleportatio-”

“No. This is what I want to learn. Please teach me.” she said, gazing at Teresa with her icy stare.

“Ok, ok! Jeez, you’re all fired up today, huh? I’ll teach you about conditions for your lesson tomorrow, alright? Gives me time to make up the rest of the months lessons too…”Teresa muttered

“What was that last thing you said?” Eris asked sharply.

“Awawa, nothing! Anyway, the reason I brought you down here was to show you something else!” And quick as a flash Teresa began rummaging around the room, desperate to escape her students glare. She seemed to be looking for something small, as she was pulling out drawers and cabinets and searching underneath chairs for the mystery object. Finally, after searching through the stacks of paper under a table laden with various experiments and projects, Teresa spotted what she was looking for.

“Found it!” She squealed, punching the air. In her left hand she was holding a small, black object shaped like a disk. Inscribed on the disk were various runes and patterns, as well as a seven pointed star inside of a magic circle.

“A Heptagram? But that can only mean…”

“Great Magic, that’s right!”

“But how? To try and enchant an object this small with Great Magic, the spell would surely fail and the conduit would be broken, right?”

“Ordinarily, yes that is the case. Even adamantium and orichalcum would break under the pressure of such immense magic in the conduit is this small. However, after years and years of research, I believe I have discovered a material strong enough to handle the stress.”

“But how? Adamantium and orichalcum are already among the rarest and most expensive metals in the world. What on earth could be stronger?”

“Well, it doesn’t have an official name yet, since I only recently created it and all…”

“You created it?” Eris said.

Teresa’s sixth sense was telling her that Eris’s opinion of her was rising.

“Ho ho ho” she laughed, puffing out her chest “of course I created it! I’m not the leader of the Mage Guild for nothing, ya know!”

“But how, how could you create something more powerful than adamantium?”

“Well, I don’t want to go too into detail about it, but…” She then proceeded to explain the process in excruciating detail.

Essentially, the ore was a combination of two volatile and extremely difficult to work with materials. The first was the core of a dragon, which had been obtained years ago by the Saint before she defected to the popedom, and the second was…

“A human soul.” Teresa said excitedly. The way she described it, a human's spiritual and magical energy could be captured after their death inside of the dragon core, and after the two materials combined they transformed into the black ore via a process called “Transubstantiation”. This new ore, made with a human spirit and dragon's body, was almost a living thing and as such was capable of bearing Great Magic without destroying itself.

Teresa seemed supremely excited about the discovery, so much so that she once again didn’t notice her apprentices expression change.

“Master.” Eris said, her flat tone breaking through Teresa’s excitement “Where did you get the soul for your experiment?”

“Hm? Oh I just had a few slaves brought in from one of the sellers at the market. I made sure to only buy the sick ones so I could get the materials needed faster-”

“What did you do with the others?” Eris interrupted.

“? I passed them out to my colleagues who needed research subjects. Oh, jeepers I’m sorry Eris! I should have known you would want one for your own research! If you want we can go right now and-”

“No. There will be no need for that.” Eris said.

Her reaction this time alarmed Teresa more than any other. Not because she was being cold, or distant. No, those were things she had come to expect from the girl. It was because right now Eris was giving her teacher her biggest, warmest smile.

And it was so incredibly scary! What’s more, it didn’t even look like she was looking at Teresa, but rather someone far off into the distance.

“O-Oh, I see. Well then…ah ha, haha, would you look at the time! It’s almost lunch! Come on, I heard there was a famous chef in town today, maybe we could see if he has a restaurant open or-”

“No, please, I want to know more about all of the incredible experiments you have been running, Master” Eris said, her smile gradually fading.

“Is…is that so? Well, alright then…” Teresa stammered.

The two of them spent the entire day discussing the myriad of projects that the Guild Master was presiding over. The whole time Eris gave critique and offered what solutions she could think up to particularly difficult to solve problems and, over time, Teresa’s wariness of her students' odd smile wore off.

Over the next month, Eris would become an indispensable part of Teresa’s team, and together the two of them made a great many advancements in magic. For Teresa, it was a newfound joy to work alongside a mind as brilliant as Eris’s, and the bond she felt with her student grew stronger because of it. But for Eris…

“Ho hum, is that true? If so, you were right to force the issue with that ‘conditional magic’. It’s a far cry more valuable than some measly Great Magic.” a voice said, speaking directly into the girl’s mind with Telepathy.

“But Master, aren’t you upset? If that core belongs to the dragon I think it does…”

“Hmm…well, it might be worth retrieving. If only for my Master’s sake. Grab it if you can, but either way your mission ends tomorrow, first thing in the morning. Retrieve your target before my declaration of war is over and then come home, my child. We have missed you terribly.”

The telepathy cut off there, leaving Eris all alone with her thoughts.

Finally. Finally, her mission was ending. She had spent a year away from her true Master, learning the ins and outs of etiquette with that Lord of Erstshire, and then coming to this place to refine her Mastery of magic with the most up to date information she could find. All so she could return to her Masters with a job well done. All so she could make them proud of her.

“Ahh” she thought, picturing her beloved Masters smiling faces congratulating her “Just a little bit longer. Please, Illumi, Merry, wait for your Eri! I’ll be home soon!”