A few days had passed since Esme had left Winsor, and the situation was getting more and more desperate for the guards of Winsor. Main Street was almost taken and the [Mayors] of the city had not appeared in public for a week now. The only one that did was Morten, the captain of the city guard.

He kept fighting, and in his short speeches to the population and his men, he said he'd fight to the last man until reinforcements got there to retake the city. Of course, he didn't know that the Mob knew of these speeches and appearances, since they were 'hidden'.

They weren't hidden well enough for the few [Spies] the Mob had at their disposition. That is how Hannah had heard of this. But she did not care at the moment. She was worried about Esme. She was supposed to be back in two days, but that was two days too many for her taste. Going out there was dangerous!

In other news, she had gotten used to using [Sense Threat] as a skill. It was like alarm bells ringing in her head whenever she was put in a dangerous situation, so it was a self-explanatory skill, and Hannah had not found any hidden uses it could have.

She tested it by having Edali attack her, which had been... interesting to say the least. Right now, however, she was on her way to meet her mentor once again. The time had finally come.

She was going to learn a new spell! Or she hoped she would.

They had no spellbooks of course. Edali would teach Hannah the spell manually like she did for [Light]. Hannah was in a rush to get there because she longed to be a good [Mage] but there was also another reason. She felt useless.

It was true, she was useless. A level 10 [Thief] was not very useful to the Mob, and the only time she was used was in a pair with Esme, who could fight. But the [Rogue] was gone, and so she had been like a sitting duck, doing nothing since her friend has left to scout.

Hannah was stumped, and the only way to become useful was to become strong. Or at least competent. She nodded and turned around a corner of one of the streets the Mob controlled. There was nothing special about the street, except that it was on the edges of the city, near where they held a part of Winsor's walls. Every time she saw them she was astonished at how tall they were.

"Ah! Hannah! Over here."

Edali was waving her arms wildly to get her attention, but there was no way to miss her on the empty streets of Winsor. Most citizens were barricaded inside of their homes and crimes were rampant. It was what happened to humans when the social order collapsed around you. Gangs formed and broke the law. Fortunately, though, this was a safer place than most of the city, mostly thanks to the regular patrols set up to defend the wall in case of an attack in an attempt to retake it.

"Hey, Edali."

They went inside an abandoned house. It looked like it had been broken into and the people that did it stole everything inside. Or the people living inside of it had just packed their things in a hurry and left. Either way, this was now going to be Hannah's classroom for a few hours. Edali started clapped her hands once and to speak.

"So! Your first spell! Any preferences on what you want to move towards? Want to be a [Hydromancer] like me?"

Hannah gave herself a few seconds to think. She put her hand on her chin and stroked it like she was in a movie.

"What are the advantages of hydromancy?"

"Well... isn't controlling water nice? If you're high level like me you can even conjure your own water! You'll never have to worry about dying of dehydration again! Have you ever wanted to make a giant wave? A giant water vortex that sucks up your enemies and drowns them? No?"

Hannah giggled. It was like watching a horrible salesman trying to sell you their pitch. And it wasn't working.

"Hmm."

"Don't 'hmm' me. Yes or no?"

"I don't know, it's a hard decision. I feel like I'm supposed to regard this as a life long commitment. What if I change my mind?"

"Well, you won't gain the [Hydromancer] class right away of course. You'll have to level up your [Mage] class to 20, but it takes even longer for some. I've seen up to level 30."

"What about a fire mage? What are those called?"

"[Pyromancers]. Don't you dare go there. I don't know any fire spells except [Fire Jet]. It's one of the more basic ones that they teach you in school. Everyone's forced to learn it."

"Draemary right? Tell me more about it! How is–"

Edali put her hand on Hannah's face to prevent her from coming any closer.

"No! We're here to teach you a spell, not for a lesson about magic schools! I've already told you about them so many times."

"But you haven't told me how it was to–"

"No means no. So. What spell?"

Hannah was pouting like a child, but after a few minutes, she was back to normal. However, she still couldn't figure out what spells to learn She figured she'd just ask for a useful one in battle she could use.

"Just teach me anything useful. Something I can use to fight. Like this [Fire Jet] you talked about."

"That's impossible. [Fire Jet] is too complicated to learn for a level 1 [Mage], and especially without a spellbook. Let's see..."

Edali looked like she was in deep thought and Hannah understood. It wasn't easy to teach someone spells other than really simple ones like [Light].

"... I got it! What about a [Mist] spell?"

"A mist spell? Come on! That's useless!"

"It's not. It's actually good and goes well with your [Thief] class. Your loss killjoy."

"Just... get me a spell with some offensive power! Some!"

"Fine. How about [Mana Bolt] then. Easy. Simple. Every low-level mage learns it at one point in their life."

"That sounds fine."

Hannah sighed in relief. She had no idea picking a spell would have been this hard. They had already wasted twenty minutes thinking!

"So, what do I do?"

"Hold on, I don't really know how to go about this..."

"What? This is supposed to be your job! Skull assigned you to me and you can't even teach me this 'simple spell'? Come on."

"It's harder than it looks! Okay. Okay. I can do this. Alright, remember all the stuff about moving mana towards your palm to create [Light]? Well, you're going to do it again, but instead of doing it slowly like with [Light] you do it as fast as you can."

"Oh. That sounds easy."

Hannah and her teacher went outside to not damage the house and then Edali held out her hand.

"Let me show you an example."

Instantly, purple energy burst out of her palm and flew out towards the clouds.

"Woah! That's... that's awesome!"

"You try."

Hannah focused and cleared her mind. She took a few deep breaths. Learning a spell always took a clear mind, or at least that's what Edali told her. She felt her mana swirling around her body, and she pushed it towards her palm and–

The spell failed. [Light] came out of her hand and apart from the fact that it was bigger and had a tiny tint of purple, it was no different from the [Light] spells she could cast without even thinking now. Her palm also was slightly burned.

"Ugh... what was that? It didn't work."

"Hmph. Classic. You didn't move the mana fast enough. Haven't you been practicing mana control like I told you to do?"

"I did... a tiny bit... maybe."

Edali sighed.

"Hannah... how can you expect to go to learn new spells if you can't even control your mana properly... I told you. Magic is all about–"

"Repeated regular exercises. I know."

"Well if you know, why didn't you do it?"

"I felt like it wasn't yielding enough results so I stopped after two days."

"Two days?! How can you expect results in– you know what, I don't even want to know. You need to practice your mana manipulation. Or control. Or whatever you want to call it."

"Fine..."

"Now!"

And so Hannah practiced. For hours. Moving her mana around her body, alternating between agonizingly slow and impossibly fast. The [Light] spell also required you to draw your mana slowly, but doing it this slow...

After a few hours, Hannah was laying on the floor and she felt exhausted. Night was falling now, but she was panting and sweating, but she still wanted to practice more. She got up and held up her hand.

"Stop. You're pale. I think you're almost out of mana. Here."

Edali grabbed Hannah's hand and helped her up.

"If I had a mana potion, I'd give it to you, unfortunately, they have to be saved for the battles. I'm sure you understand."

The [Thief] nodded and looked at her hands. They were charred and swollen, and closing them hurt. She looked down at her feet and wondered to herself. Why couldn't learning spells be easy like in games? She sighed.

"Don't feel down. You practiced an extremely long time. You'll level tonight! If I'm wrong I'll buy you a drink when the stores open again!"

And that was Edali, always so optimistic. Always being positive even in hard situations. That was what astonished Hannah about her. Her teacher was never sad, always smiling and helping others. Hannah admired her.

She wished she could be like her, but alas, she was now depressed. When she looked at the rate Esme leveled, well... it couldn't even be compared.

"Hey, Edali."

"Hm?"

"What level are you?"

"Wh– don't you have any manners?! That's a private matter!"

"Maybe if you tell me I'll tell you where I'm from."

"Really?!"

"Yeah. You go first though."

"Think I was born yesterday? No!"

And so they bickered into the night. Hannah went home at around midnight and she collapsed on her bed instantly, and a messaged ringed in her head.

[Mage: Level 3]