The creature gave out a Peep! Of annoyance, but after a moment it snuggled into Jessica’s hair, before draping itself over her shoulders and quickly falling asleep.

“What is that?”

“Who Peep? Oh, he’s my familiar. He’s a sweetie, don’t worry. He doesn’t bite. Unless I tell him too.”

“Good to know,” Isaka still gave the little dragon thing the side eye as she put the headsets away. “Well, I think we’re ready to start on the curriculum.” She pulled up her tablet and sent the design for the magic school to Greg. He’d get it approved by the architect on his team, and make any alterations they thought it needed, then add it to the queue for building construction.

“Sounds good. We can base most of it off our work in the corp. It shouldn’t be that much of a stretch to adapt it for younger kids, teens, and then adult classes. We’ll just remove the military jargon and stuff.”

“I think it might be a good idea to at least include that info, though. Particularly if most of the adults are going to be involved in the military at first.”

“Smart.” Jessica pulled up her own tablet and got into the rover next to Isaka. The two continued sharing notes while Max drove them back to the outpost. “There is a conference room we can use on the first floor.” Jessica suggested as they disembarked in the vehicle bay Isaka knew from the night before. They found their way to the conference room, and Isaka dropped the box of binders in the middle of the table.

“Let’s start with the curriculum. I’ll deal with compliance issues on the rest of these when Greg gets back. So, tell me about magic.” Jessica smiled.

“I love it, it’s freaking awesome.”

“No,” Isaka grinned. The comment reminded her she was dealing with a teen. A responsible, world wise, intelligent teen. But still, a teenage girl. “I mean, tell me about the basics.”

“Oh, okay. Well, a bunch of geeks from the states set up a worldwide wiki revolving around the system to try to document everything they could. Kinda like one of their old-fashioned RPG video games or whatever. A pretty large subsection of that wiki breaks down the basics of magic. The first thing everyone who uses mana learns about, whether it’s casting spells or using abilities, or whatever, is the Basic Magic Skills. Tier 1 skills in the Magic Skill Store. How you proceed from there depends on what you want to do with your mana pool.”

“What are those?”

Jessica raised a hand and ticked them off in her fingers as she went. “Well, they are Innate Sense, Mana Generation, Magical Manipulation, Magical Lore, and Mana Pool.” Jessica pulled out a sheet from her paperwork that had detailed breakdowns and definitions of each of them. Along with a list of activities people could do to earn or improve the skill through hard work and practice. “These are all Tier 1 skills available in the Magical Skill Store.”

“I’ve heard of the Skill Store. I even got access to the Improved version for a couple of minutes once and bought an upgraded version of Weapon skill for my rifle, called Weapon Mastery. Reset my skill score to 1, but I actually got better at shooting. What’s the Magical Skill Store?”

“It’s another store that the system rarely grants people access to. Usually people earn magical skills through practice, or things they do. Titles, practice, research, or any number of other things. But, on rare occasions, the system grants some people access to the Magical Skill Store. Usually, that only happens if a person is clearly on a pure magic path. Or, sometimes, it seems the system is determined to send you down a pure magic path. Like me.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are two things a person can do with a mana pool. They can either choose to fuel abilities, skills, or special attacks using their mana, or they can try to use mana in its raw form, manipulating it into,” Jessica hesitated. Trying to find the right word. “Shapes. Yeah, that works. Trying to force mana into the right shapes to cast spells. These two things are very different. But as far as we can tell, both are perfectly legitimate paths to take. One is focused on internal improvements to what you can do anyway, that’s the skills and ability path, and the other is focused on external use of mana to manipulate or enhance the world around you.”

Isaka had a couple of magical skills herself. “But there are other magical skills besides those basic ones, right?”

“Yes, of course. It’s hard to catalogue them all. From what the Major told me, you have a magical skill, right?”

“Yeah, besides the basics, I have Strike From The Shadows. When the system gave it to me, it also gave me Mana Generation and Mana Pool.” Jessica nodded, as if the news were perfectly reasonable.

“That happens a lot. The Strike From The Shadows skill is rather common, but it’s what we call a ‘Unique’ magical skill, because it’s not listed in the Magical Skill Store. At least, not right away. Most of these ‘unique’ skills that don’t automatically show up in the store, people get access to later. Either because of growth, or because of some feat of awesomeness they do. Yours is a bit frustrating for us. No one we’ve run into has purchased it from the store yet, so we do not know what tier of skill it is. But it’s commonly enough earned that we know it probably isn’t above tier three.”

“What are the tiers?”

“Tiers typically denote rarity, difficulty to master, utility of the skill, or its raw power. You probably can see the same interface I see in the Magic Skill Store in the normal Skill Store. Same principle. Tier 1 skills can unlock tier 2 skills, and so on.”

“Huh, okay, well, that makes sense. I only got a quick glimpse at the improved store. But when I purchased Weapons Mastery it was the only one available in the higher bracket. I guess I had ‘unlocked’ it?” Isaka used air quotes and Jessica snickered.

“Yeah, something like that. Well, that’s the basics. Tier 1 Magical Skills, tiers, and the difference in how you use your mana along with the training activities.”

“Sounds like a plan. So, what scores should people have before they move on to the next higher level of training?”

“One thing my uncle, and cousin taught me from their experiments early on is that the further along you can get through your own hard work and labor, before you use skill points to increase your skills, the better. The further along you are, the more progress each point is worth. The more time it saves you in the long run.”

“Is the growth exponential or like, adding one plus one?”

“Eh, I don’t know. That’s like asking how long it will take for someone to learn to read and write. Learning is a tricky thing. If there is anything I’ve learned from the last six months of helping people control their powers, it’s that everyone is unique. But we know a few things. Like it’s better if someone starts young rather than old, and we’ve also found that for about a week after someone upgrades their Mental Acuity score, learning becomes easier. Then, those old mental patterns start falling back into place and learning becomes harder.”

“Does the increased score help at all?”

“Oh yeah, mental acuity basically increases your IQ score. People have put a LOT of emphasis on IQ that is undue, in my opinion. All IQ is, is a measure of how quickly someone can solve a problem. How quickly they can recall information, and put it into a usable form. An increased Mental Acuity score helps that along. But for some reason, after it’s increased, even by just one point, the synapsis in the brain becomes a bit more pliable. The effect is increased the more points are upgraded at once. The brain reverts to being roughly a teenager again in terms of its willingness to accept new information. At least, that’s what the docs at The Mayo Clinic seem to think.”

“Huh, does it also make someone more impressionable? Like a teenager? More impulsive?” Jessica shrugged.

“Don’t know for sure if that’s what happens, but it stands to reason and it’s what we’ve seen anecdotally. It’s one reason my bosses have suggested that people should have protected status while they are fresh off an upgrade. They need to be watched because they tend to be more impulsive, lacking self-control.”

“Okay, well that’s a bit scary.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. There was a lady in New York who raised six levels in one day all at once when she woke up from a medically induced coma after a surgery. Dumped all her stat points in about a three-minute period. Turned her into something like a 10-year-old. Her grandkids tricked her into giving them their inheritance early, and she signed over everything to them. Her entire retirement savings, gone because those jerks were greedy. She tried to sue them the week after she recovered, but, well, it didn’t go well. She summoned her familiar, a giant Kracken thing, and went into a rage.”

“No way, you dealt with that crazy naked lady destroying New York? She didn’t look like a grandma at all.”

“Well, it was New York and New Jersey, but yeah. Her name is Agnis, and she’s actually a sweet lady when she’s not blinded by rage, feelings of betrayal, new to having nearly god-like powers, and not as impressionable and impulsive as a thirteen-year-old girl in the middle of puberty. Also, apparently, when you hit level five, your body gets renewed. The faster you reach that point, the more the body is renewed. Its some kind of reward from the system, a way to balance things out between the old and the young. Or at least thats what the geeks seem to think.” Isaka smiled. She had the same thought.

“Huh, I guess you can’t trust everything the news reports can you.” Jessica scoffed dismissively. The amount of scorn Isaka felt rolling off the eighteen-year-old in front of her would have put her mother on a rampaging, self-righteous guilt trip to shame.

“Those people couldn’t get a story right if I wrote it for them. Particularly those fuckers over at the New York Times. They can go die in a whole for all I care. Probably did when Agnis ripped the top three floors off their stupid fucking building.” Jessica sat back, folded her arms, and stared off. Anger poured off her like rain in a hurricane. It was clear she was trying to control it.

Isaka leaned back in her chair as well, staring wide eyed at the woman in front of her. This woman had called the rampaging Kraken lady who destroyed most of New York and parts of New Jersey a friend. She had, if Isaka was reading between the lines correctly, probably helped take her down and subdue her. Hell, Jessica might have helped train her to control her powers. The girl in front of Isaka was probably strong enough to level the entire outpost on her own, if not the fort.

“What?” Jessica’s shoulders slumped slightly as she let go of her petulant teenage anger. Replacing it with teenage snark, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like they actually got hurt. The building was empty, we had evacuated all of downtown at that point. Not that there were many people worthy of evacuating after the rioting and looting. Everyone fled upstate or to New Jersey. Do you know how bad something has to be for New Yorkers to flee to New Jersey?” Isaka just stared, stunned.

“Well, I heard about it all the time during the resettlement. Agnis only attacked their building, because they wrote a hit piece about her for suing her grandkids to get her retirement fund back. Called her an ungrateful Indian giver, and a hag. It was only after, that she summoned her familiar, tamed it, and went on a rampage.” After a moment of contemplation, Jessica’s demeanor changed.

“Oh, that’s another thing we should add to the beginner course. Caution about summoning your familiar too early, and never trusting the media. Both can be dangerous.”

“For the state of New York, apparently,” Isaka said under her breath. Jessica smirked and nodded.

“Yeah, those jerks deserved it.”

“Did they?” Jessica’s confident, almost smug demeanor faltered for just a moment at the older woman’s question. Isaka had to remember she was dealing with a teenager here. No matter how powerful, or responsible, or intelligent Jessica seemed to her, she was still a kid trying to figure her stuff out. Isaka smiled and waved it off. “I don’t doubt the NYT lied. They lied about a lot of stuff. You remember the Covington Highschool Kid’s story from a few years ago?” Jessica stared at her uncomprehendingly. “Wait, that was longer than a few years. Sheesh, I’m old now aren’t I? Well whatever, they’ve been lying for a long time and I’m sorry that happened to your friend. But I doubt that all those people whose homes, work, and lives got destroyed were to blame.”

Jessica frowned, but Isaka didn’t sense any anger in it. More uncomfortable contemplation. “Look, None of that matters now. And from what you’ve said, your friend wasn’t fully in control of herself, right?” Jessica smiled weakly at that and nodded. “Good. You helped her? And she wouldn’t do it again?” Jessica nodded again, this time with more certainty. “Good. Then that whole thing is over as far as we’re concerned. Let’s get back to what we were doing.”

The two started in on the intermediate courses as the daylight outside burned away.