Chapter 5 - Magic

In class, I see Hugo leaning over a desk of one of the prettier girls in our class, a braggart and a playboy, I walk over to him, Aurelie following a step behind, I greet, “Hello again mage Fremont, long time no see.”

Annoyed at being distracted from his ‘meticulous’ game, he looks up flashing me a forced smile, saying, “Ah, if it isn’t mage Agnes, I admit I was surprised when I saw you in this class, quite unusual for a peasan… uh, commoner.”

“Now, no need to be rude Hugo,” the girl reprimands from her chair before twisting to me with a polite smile, introducing her, “I’m Emilie Renoir, nice to meet you, Agnes.”

Emilie is a petite figure with long brown hair and cute face that holds an expression of innocence making people want to protect her. She seems like a rather normal person, I can do normal, I cheerfully reply, “Nice to meet you too, how’d you find the first class?”

Still awkwardly twisted around in her chair, she says, “It was actually quite helpful, cleared up a lot of confusion for me.”

Hugo concurs with a nod, “Yeah, but you have to admit, our teacher sucks, he’s such a bore.”

I shake my head adamantly, “No way I thought he was great, very engaging, not to mention he’s quite handsome.”

Emilie reactively cringes, “Ewww, he’s way too old for you.”

I raise my arms defensively saying, “Yeah yeah, I know, doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a pleasant view.”

Emilie’s cringe turns into a strange thoughtfulness as she slowly nods her head in agreement, “Mm, I suppose.”

Noticing Emilie’s still craned neck Hugo suggests, “You seem uncomfortable, how about we all go to the cafeteria to grab some food.”

Aurelie finally speaks, clearly not wanting to go, she says, “It’s a bit early isn’t it, it’s likely not even 5 yet.”

Hugo smirks as he dramatically takes out a chained pocket watch from his robe, informing, “4 40.”

Emilie squeals in amazement, “You have a pocket watch!? Aren’t those like super expensive.”

He’s such a show-off. Smiling with glee, he proudly says, “Yeah, I got mine recently from the Golden Fish pavilion, their auction house, I’ve even got a silver card…”

“Well, I think the cafeteria is a great idea, I want to study the textbook, might as well get my meal out of the way.” I say, interrupting Hugo’s blatant bragging.

“Oo, a hard worker, are we?” Hugo comments before saying, “Well let’s get going then.”

The cafeteria was rather enjoyable, I acquainted myself with Hugo and Emilie, and if you can get past Hugo’s flaws, he’s quite charming. On the way back to our dorm room I turn to Aurelie saying, “You didn’t seem all that talkative today, something wrong?”

“It’s nothing.” She curtly replies without looking at me.

Back at our dorm room I head to my desk, opening my textbook, oh wait, I have no sheets of paper, turning around on my chair I request, “Hey Aurelie, you have any spare sheets of paper?”

She sits on her bed and smirks in amusement while saying, “You’re really going to start studying on the first day?”

Nodding, I respond, “Yeah, I noticed you and your ‘friend’ were already able to channel spells, so I assume I’m behind.”

A self-deprecating mirth adorns her face as she says, “You’re behind? Leonore and I are from mage families. They care for one thing, talent, so our families will only marry people of high magical talent to create specialised heirs, along with centuries of magical knowledge. We are trained from a young age to reach the peak of our potential, you on the other hand, considering your circumstances I have no idea how your mana pool is greater than mine.”

“Ah, so you’re from a mage family, I suspected so.” I say before my face flickers with confusion, I then ask, “How do you know my mana pool is greater than yours?”

Aurelie jumps up from her bed as she ruffles around her desk while explaining, “Your will is untrained, just know that it can do more things than simply detect and manipulate mana.”

Picking out a small notebook she walks over to me handing it to me, “Here, have this, I won’t be using it.”

As I grab it, she suddenly asks, “Also if you don’t mind could I see your result sheet? I’ll show you mine.”

I shrug, it’s not like I really care, and I admit, I’m rather curious as to her results to understand how talented I am, she rushes over to get hers before we swap our papers.

Name: Aurelie L’Estocq

Age: 13

Mage rank: 1

Affinity: 3.3 shadow, 3.9 air

Mana: 25 standard units

Calculated Talent: 6.8

Cultivation talent: 9.2 (184%)

Mana manipulation: 3.0 (Gilbert grading)

Will: 1.9 (Gilbert grading)

IQ: 129 (97.3 percentile)

Classroom: A-2

She’s smarter than me and her cultivation talent is much greater than mine, Aurelie honestly blurts out, “You’re a lot less talented than I expected.”

Ok ouch, she continues, “Which is why it makes no sense that your mana is so high, your mana manipulation and will too, how did you cultivate so much, do you take heavenly elixirs?”

“Goodness no, my father kicked me out of the estate as soon as I was of age, no I just cultivated from young age.” I explain with a wry smile before asking curiously, “What do most of these measurements even mean?”

She jumps back onto her bed, shuffling around to get comfortable as she lies sideways, explaining, “Ah, yeah I suppose you wouldn’t know, well affinity increases the power of that particular element, every 1 increase in affinity increases the power of that element by 50%, for example a 2 affinity is 1.5 times stronger than a 1 affinity; a 3 affinity if 1.5 times stronger than a 2 affinity and 2.25 times stronger than a 1 affinity and so on.”

I decide to get relaxed too as I slither over to my bed, slumping into it, she continues, “The mana is simply how much mana you have in your core, when this reaches a limit you need to create a new runic structure that is able to compress your mana, the limit of a rank 0 acolyte is 10 mana, and a rank 1 mage is 50 mana. Calculated talent is some crap the academy calculates from all your other talent markers, they use this to assign your class I believe. Your cultivation talent is how fast you pull in mana, the standard is 5 at 100% speed, every .1 increases cultivation speed by 2%, and the other way is true too. Mana manipulation is pretty self-explanatory, the number is a metric that grades you against the average mage, for example a 2.0 means you have the mana manipulation of an average rank 2 mage.”

“Our numbers are quite high then.” I comment, inciting her to smirk, “We’re in class A for a reason, also the higher ranks a mage reaches, the harder it is to keep your mana manipulation above your rank. The same goes for will, it is measured in the same way as mana manipulation, but yours are unusually high even for someone talented. As for IQ, well that’s just your intelligence, the percentile represents the percentage of people you scored above, so a 90 percentile means you’re smarter than 90% of people, more or less…”

My eyes feel heavy as I shut them, she continues talking but I don’t really listen, her melodious voice soothing to the ears.

I groan, the orange light of dawn shines through our window as our curtains are furled open, that was an oversight. It’s fine though, this will give me some time to study before class, my movements rouse Aurelie; she dramatically stretches before turning to me, jokingly saying, “You must’ve been tired, you feel asleep while I was talking, am I that boring?”

I shake my head as I rise from my bed, truthfully saying, “No, your voice was quite soothing actually.”

Aurelie giggles happily. Sitting at my desk after making my bed, an inkwell and a quill already supplied, I open my textbook ‘Fundamentals of spell construction’ and get to studying. I didn’t get straight into creating the runes, unlike internal runes, external runes require near instantaneous construction for obvious reasons, you can’t waste a few hours in a battle constructing a rune after all. So, mages came up with a way to streamline runic structures, using mathematics. Most of the initial content in the textbook was learning new mathematic equations to assist in the mental construction of external runes, this will allow a mage to cast a spell at the speed they can mentally calculate the mathematics. This seems absurd to someone from my previous world, but my ‘will’ seems to substantially assist in mental calculations, this must be one of the other benefits of will that Aurelie alluded to. This leads me to question the usefulness of intelligence, and it’s obvious if you think about it, it helps a mage understand deeper mathematical concepts and increases their speed of understanding. The stuff I’m starting on right now already seems ridiculously difficult compared to my old-world high school math of my final year, so it’s rather foreboding thinking about what I will learn later.

Four week later. Through a combination of intense self-study and assistance from the class teacher I’ve learnt all the required mathematical formulae to cast the spell ‘lesser magic missile’. I need to use my will to visualise the formulae, if the correct parameters are mentally input and calculated, my mind will create the external runic structure, allowing me to cast the spell, the only thing which limits me is the speed of calculations, but that will improve simply through practice. Right now, I am on the training field with Aurelie to perform my first practical application of the spell. Generally, it takes about 6-8 weeks for a student in the A class to cast the lesser magic missile from scratch, students in the B or C class take 8-12 weeks. My performance of 4 weeks is exemplary, which I believe is heavily related to my high mana manipulation and will.

“Ok, you ready?” Aurelie asks. I nod, solemnly standing as I mentally prepare myself, this will be the first time I perform all my calculations together. Each calculation will basically create a mini rune, external runic structures are just a collection of these mini runes. I shut my eyes as I start mentally recalling the mathematical equations, inputting the parameters for the lesser magic missile. My brain strains slightly as it works at lightning speed calculating the equations, every equation I successfully complete creates one section of the main rune. I perform the calculations slower than usual to not make any mistakes, after about 20 seconds I feel a fully formed rune resting in my head. The rune will dissipate shortly if I don’t do anything, so I follow the typical method of casting I learnt from the textbook. I raise my hands and extend my fingers before willing the rune towards the open palm of my hand, only mages would be able to detect the presence of the rune, that is until I start channelling my mana into the rune. I feel an odd collection of pulls from my core; these must be my elemental affinities, choosing my strongest affinity, a palpable energy shimmers in front my hands as fire begins to form out of nowhere and take shape. Once I feel a natural limit be reached, the safety rune, I know that my spell can now be cast, a slim fiery missile has been brought into existence, I can feel the heat radiating from it, my mana is draining just from sustaining the spell so I will the ‘control rune’ causing the missile to shoot forward, it flies at an extraordinary speed losing some power but retaining it’s shape, it hits a tree with a burst of power that partially destroys the tree trunk, a fiery mass still lingering. Even from my distance I can feel the immense power carried in that lesser missile, it would instantly kill any normal man, and from what I can tell, probably even kill any rank 0 fighter. I feel my jaw drop in awe, no wonder, no wonder I haven’t seen any magic until now, no wonder I haven’t come across any spells until I was in the academy, the power from what is considered the weakest offensive spell is unbelievably destructive. I feel a sliver of fear travel through my body, I hold this power now.

Aurelie excitedly runs up to me and consumes me with a wholesome hug, squealing, “Damn girl, a successful first cast, that’s bloody impressive.”

I happily return the hug feeling giddy with excitement, now I truly feel like a mage, and this is only the first step, how much further will I be able to reach? I push her away as I stop to consider something, this casting seemed rather dangerous, so I ask suspiciously, “Was I supposed to cast a spell without teacher supervision.”

Aurelie grins playfully before drawing a finger to her lips, oh crap, let’s get the hell out of here before anyone sees.

The next day, at the end of class I walk towards the teacher as he’s bent over the desk collecting his books, hearing my approach he turns around, praising, “Ah mage Agnes, remarkable work as of late, I have a feeling you will be able to cast your spell soon.”

I nod my head with a wry smile, “That’s actually what I wanted to talk about, I believe I’m ready to cast the lesser magic missile and I’d like free reign to practice it.”

He raises his hand to his chin thoughtfully as he says, “Hm, well the first few spellcasting sessions are meant to be monitored by a teacher at all times to prevent any accidents, however, exceptions do exist and I wouldn’t want to limit someone’s potential due to mere bureaucracy, how about I have a talk with grand mage Manuel, the councillor for your year, see if an exception can be made. If all goes well, I should get approval tomorrow and then I’ll watch over one session of yours to see if your skill is adequate, though I’m sure it will be, your will and mana manipulation are well above average.”

It only took two days to allow me to freely cast the lesser magic missile spell. I do my practice in the training facility rather than the training field, so I don’t burn down any more trees.

A couple weeks after my first casting, at lunchtime in the cafeteria, Aurelie, Emilie, Hugo and myself chat over our meal. Emilie inquires, “Have you guys looked into clubs? I’m really interested in the dance club; I’ve never tried it.”

Emilie then digs into her food comically while Hugo shakes his head, logically explaining, “If you want to get ahead you have to attend the useful clubs. The duelling society can land you a lot of fieldwork jobs, the noble and imperialists societies have valuable connections, and the magic theory club is useful to get into magic research jobs, the other clubs are just fluff.”

Emilie frowns a little at the cynical perspective, she always been a little naïve, but as much as I hate to admit it, Hugo is right, ‘to get ahead’ you must walk the extra mile. I swallow my food before asking, “What do you do in the duelling society and the magic theory club?”

“Well, I’ve heard from my other friends…”

“You have other friends?” I interrupt thoughtlessly.

His mouth drops slightly in humiliated surprise before he quickly says, “Of course I do, although they’re in the other classes or later years. I’ll be honest, I chat with you guys mostly because people in an A class generally always have distinguished careers, it’s doesn’t hurt to be friends with future leaders.”

Wow, I really annoyed him, I nod in agreement anyway as he continues, “Well anyway, my friends said that the duelling club differs depending on when you join. If you have low combat experience they’ll train you up with their more experienced students, once you’re good enough it’s possible to do some proper fieldwork, working with adventurers and such.”

I tilt my head with doubt, saying, “Why would we need to join the duelling club, wouldn’t the academy teach us how to fight anyway.”

Hugo laughs heartily before saying, “Oh goodness no, unless you get into those incredibly selective battlemage academies, most academies do not teach any form of magic combat, they give you the tools to fight, sure, but their main purpose is to simply give mages tools to, well, cast magic or research it.”

Emilie comments, “Apparently there is a massive spike in mage deaths right after they graduate an academy. They have no experience in monster fighting and die while adventuring; the adventurer’s guild is rather ruthless from what I’ve heard.”

I ponder for a moment while everyone is eating, then remark, “It’s called the duelling club, but it seems more than just a ‘duelling’ club from what you’re telling me.”

After wiping his mouth, Hugo says, “Hey, I don’t know everything, ask them.”

I look at Emilie and she just shrugs, I ask, “And the magic theory club?”

Hugo laughs mockingly, “A bunch of nerds who have fun working on mathematical theories.”

Mm indeed, not my cup of tea, I study out of necessity not enjoyment. I suppose I could check the duelling club out; I feel ambivalent about fighting but intrigued regardless. While in the middle of our conversation I spot Leonore walk towards us with a bowl of food, is she going to eat with us? That answer is shortly answered as Leonore stands right behind the unaware Aurelie and tips to bowl of soup on her head, what! Everyone in the near vicinity just stares at Aurelie, Hugo and Emilie stunned into silence just as I am. Aurelie’s eyes glance around in confusion as she touches the top of her wet hair with the tips of her fingers. Her eyes begin to redden before she raises from her seat and runs past Leonore, out the cafeteria. Leonore stands there with a satisfied smirk, her expression irritating, I raise from my seat impulsively yelling in rage, “What the fuck was that!”

She looks at me derisively, her noble visage warping with arrogance, she scoffs, “She deserved it, you understand nothing peasant, keep your nose out of our business.”

She then walks off without another word, I just stare at her back in shock, what the hell is even going on. I plop back down into my seat with my arms crossed asking in bewilderment, “Who the hell does she think she is?”

Hugo shuffles in his seat saying in surprise, “Aurelie hasn’t told you? Leonore is from the De la Rue house, they’re very influential for a mage family. The aunty of the current house head is the imperial court mage. Getting on their bad side could mean serious trouble and spell an end to your future prospects, I’d suggest you keep your distance from Aurelie, I know I am.”

Emilie glares at Hugo as I angrily remark, “You’re too pragmatic for your own good, it’ll bite you in the ass eventually.”

“Ha, I’ll take my chances,” he laughs in amusement.

Seeking out Aurelie I return to my room, I spot her dirty clothes on the ground and notice a little ball under Aurelie’s blanket, I hear quiet whimpers as I walk over. Slowly sitting down next to the curled figure and not really sure what to say I just pat the outline of her head. Eventually the small ball unfurls as Aurelie’s head pokes out, revealing her red eyes and tear drenched cheeks. I ask, “You feeling better?”

She nods sadly, after a moment of silence she says, “I suppose I owe you an explanation.”

Shaking my head, I bluntly state, “No you don’t.”

A small smile forms as she lightly giggles, quietly saying, “Well, I want to tell you anyway.”

I shrug, drama hasn’t never been of much interest to me, and this feels like it’s packed full of drama, but I like Aurelie now, regardless of my initial thoughts of her. My mulling is broken as Aurelie begins her explanation, “Our families are both in the west of the empire, so Leonore and I had many interactions while we were young, we were best friends even.”

I can’t stop my eyebrows from raising, that was unexpected, Aurelie continues, “You see the thing about Leonore is that she’s always been arrogant and proud, so she didn’t have any friends, at least none that were as close as me. One of the reasons we were so close is that we were both the least talented among our siblings.”

I reactively say, “You guys? The least talented?”

She nods sadly, “For a millennia old mage family, our talent is lacking, especially closer to the imperial lands, the reason we’re both here is that we weren’t able to get into the central academies, instead we had to come to this second-rate place. Anyway, we were close until around 2 years ago when the political climate changed, our houses ended up becoming rivalled against one another.”

She takes a deep breath as her emotions start spilling out again, she slowly says with sorrow, “Leonore is very wilful, and said she didn’t care what her family did, she wanted to remain friends… When I said I couldn’t, she, she begged, and cried. But I’ve never gone against my parents before, I couldn’t, back then I valued honour over my feelings.”

She stifles her tears as she asks, “Do you hate me now, I deserve whatever Leonore does to me, I’m evil.”

I shake my head as I bring her into a hug, “You’re not evil, it was the unfairness of the situation, and you were what, like 11, too young to choose between friendship and your families. Neither of you are at fault.”

She grips me tighter as she starts crying into my shoulder, I just rub her back comfortingly until she lets it all out.