Four days later Shae was decently acquainted with her routine at the college. Her morning was Breakfast then a one-on-one with her own teacher in magic control and practice. Once mid-day meal was over Shae once again had her own teacher for magic science, geography, history of the Monarchy, and spell craft. Those courses took up just over three hours. Then she was sent off to learn from her own combat teacher. Shae felt a bit out of place.

While there were only twenty other students enrolled currently, all were a lot younger than she was. There was a young girl, six, who was going to be a prodigy in earth magic, with a minor affinity for water and air. The other nineteen youths ranged between nine and twelve. So, not only was she the oldest by far, the only other person near her age that worked at the college she could relate to avoided her like the plague. She just couldn’t pin Jessica, the attendant that Mel gave a dressing down to, down long enough to try and make nice.

At least her biggest issue was covered. For now. She had a roof over her head and three very decent meals per day, with the ability to snack later if she desired.

Her training would take “As long as it takes” Shae was told. To repay her tuition she would be required to spend double the time it took her to complete her mastery over magic, which Shae figured was fair. Especially since whichever branch she enrolled in at the mage guild she would again receive free room and board. Once that stage was complete, she would be free to choose her own path.

Magic control class was just that. Her tutor was the man in blue robes from her first day, Mr. Forest. His first name was Jacob, but to Shae he was Mr. Forest, or Sir. He taught her how to draw upon the flow of energy within her. How to shape and channel the energy into a solid manifestation and how to apply it in a metaphysical way. How you could force your aura upon objects, people, and creatures. The better control you had the better your chances of overriding a person or creatures’ own aura and forcing your will upon them, which made Shae mentally squirm. Or how to control objects by using her aura, for instance she was given a rock garden to rearrange every day for twenty or so minutes. The smaller stones she was starting to move around, but anything larger than a big toe was no go yet. Her control after four days was just not good enough. Her teacher likened it to working a new muscle, you had to keep flexing it until it got stronger.

Magic science was an interesting class. Shae was taught how you could use magic and enchantments to better society through inventions. The best example she had after four days was the running water setup at the inn she had stayed at. Sadly, she had not gotten far into this class yet. This class was also taught to her by Mr. Forest, as was spell craft. Which was as the name suggested, your own ability to craft spells. You could alter existing spells, or with a decent enough imagination, totally create something new.

Geography and history were taught by Mrs. Narn. The teacher was stuffy and boring, which translated over to the classes. Shae found herself very bored in these two classes, even though geography and history were important to her right now. Learning about the world around her was important. Oddly enough geography also encompassed flora and fauna or the surrounding regions. But maybe so odd since those things were related to the lands.

Shae was on the fence so far about combat training. Her teacher was an average woman. Ms. Fell. Or Madame. They would practice form and go through slow motion movement, much like tai-chi. There was strength training and weapon knowledge. How to use and defend against all weapon types. “A weapon was only as inferior as the wielder.” Then Shae was tossed about for the last thirty or so minutes of her day before evening meal. For an unassuming woman, Ms. Fell was very agile, very strong, very fast, and very merciless. But “When you have to fight for your life, you will seldom find mercy.”

The rest of the evening was hers to do as she pleased. Last night she had spent with Mel and company. Tonight, she had borrowed a book from the library, by J.K.R.S. Goodman on the study of and control of the aura. After four hours of reading Shae came to realize this world, while it had priests of the gods, who could wield the gods power, they had not yet realized that all auras were the flow of power through and back to the gods. Shae’s hypothesis was this was how the gods came to know you. How they could read you and know all your desires and thoughts etc. While she was pretty sure her ideas were well founded, she was no where near ready to throw out her own musings into a world that was already structured. Turing people’s knowledge upside down was a fast track to heresy. The history of her own world taught her that much.