“Well. Improving overall power can only be done very slowly through constant effort, or by getting the skill.”

“The skill? I looked at him eagerly. He glanced at me then laughed a little.

“Don’t get too excited. I mean the magic novice skill. When you get the skill it improves your power, control, speed, and concentration by about double, then again when you get the magic apprentice skill, and then by about four when you get the magic journeyman skill.” He stopped and looked at me. “Honestly, if you got the magic mastery skill today your power probably wouldn’t even be ¾’s of Miss Kel’s or Mr. Grey’s.” I furrowed my brow a little at that evaluation. “But…your control now is what I had when I had been practicing with the magic novice skill. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I absolutely believe you should stay with us until you get the mastery skill.” Piercil locked eyes with me and delivered his opinion with a furious intensity before patting my shoulder and continuing to walk. “You may never be the powerhouse those two are, but you shouldn’t be ashamed to stand on the same stage as them. Not every professor teaches students one-on-one you know. I smiled quietly and tried rather unsuccessfully not to let his praise put too much of a spring in my step. I mean c’mon, summoning creatures made of magic lightning is friggin’ badass. I was a little curious about something though.

“Professor? I never asked but, why am I so good at control and so…weak?” Piercil glanced back at me as we continued walking.

“You don’t pay attention in class, do you? Affinity explanations were given in the first week of control class.”

“You only taught me how to be cool.”

“AND THAT’S ALL YOU NEED!” Piercil bent his back and fired a laugh at the ceiling. With a quick cough he quickly straightened up. “Right. Sorry. Anyway it’s pretty simple. All magic has a few characteristics that determine a person’s ability to use it. Those characteristics are power, speed, control, and concentration. Concentration is directly related to your ability to focus, which is why Limbmighty was so keen on using you to speed up the other students’ acquisition of the pain resistance skill. Speed is how fast you can cast and is directly related to how familiar you are with your spells. It’s essentially a measure of practice. Power and control are the more complicated ones, and hence are the ones we tend to focus on. Power, is based on talent, mana, and physical potential.” I widened my eyes.

“Physical potential?? Like how strong you are in a fight?”

“Yes.” Piercil gestured towards Limbmighty with a hand as he elaborated. “Horsig, Limbmighty and I are the main teachers for beginners because a mage is stronger if they can fight not in an intangible sense but directly through their power. The way the world measures this is the focus of one of the more advanced classes but to answer your question of weakness,” Piercil stopped and turned toward me, “it is at the very least related to that aura of yours. For now you will have to work around it but ridding yourself of it may be a shortcut to a higher magical output.”

That was bad. The aura came from my contract with the Guild. Ridding myself of the aura meant ridding myself of the contract, and that was both really hard and a fast-track to getting hunted down by an assassin guild.

“Finally,” Piercil continued walking, leaving me where I was. I shook myself from my thoughts and jogged to catch up. “Control is based on three similar things: talent, physical familiarity- so dexterity- and comprehension.”

“Comprehension?”

“How well you understand the magic.” Piercil waved his hand like it was obvious. I tilted my head and remained silent. “Look at it this way. When we first started with your lessons I asked you whether it would be more effective to detonate a fireball on, or above an opponent’s fireball.”

I nodded as I remembered. “Yeah. It’s more effective above because the fireball sustains itself off mana, so a vacuum won’t affect it much, but making a vacuum above it would pull air in that could throw off my opponent’s aim if their control isn’t high enough.”

Piercil smiled. “Precisely. That understanding along with your talent gives you naturally high control. Miss Kel, on the other hand, has high talent and very high mana for a beginner but finds the workings of mana less intuitive.”

So basically, there’s a mental and a physical side to it. Mentally, if you get how it works then controlling it is way easier, while power is based off of your mana pool. Physically, if you’re strong then so’s your magic, while if you’re agile you have a lot of control. I was trained as an assassin so I have a bit of a boost in control while Kel has a lot of strength from her skills. Grey, on the other hand, seems to be balanced in both.

“Hey wait, Prof. Wouldn’t that make all of the magic tech guys really good at magic?” From what I knew, making magic technology required a deep understanding of magic.

“Of course. I have many technology students in my advanced classes. Control is essential to their craft after all.”

Neat.

“Now hurry back to the coliseum, there are still two tests to take.” Piercil waved me off and walked into the academy. I waved to his retreating back and turned back toward the Tunderdome.

The last two tests were very simple affairs. Speed was just a test to see how quickly we could switch between elements, which was basically half of control anyway, and concentration was to see how much it would take to interrupt our spells. Almost everyone from Limbmighty’s combat class got high marks on that one. Grey and Kel, surprisingly, also got high marks there. Finally we were all sent to our dorms and we absolutely crashed. While using magic isn’t terribly exhausting, using it for an entire day with virtually no rest and at our limit was a bit rough. The next day, we gathered one more time in the THUNDERDOME to get our results. The ranking was supposedly to help encourage people to try harder to surpass their peers, but the real reason everyone came was that, if a person’s overall score was high enough, the academy gave them the skill magic novice. I was friggin’ pumped. “SPARKLES. ARE YOU FRIGGIN’ PUMPED??”

“JULES. I AM. ARE YOU FRIGGIN’ PUMPED??” I assumed a sumo stance and raised a foot while yelling at Julian. Grey and Kel shielded their faces so they wouldn’t get recognized.

“Nice to see them so lively in the morning.” Grey laughed.

“They’re ‘friggin’’ morons.” Kel grimaced. And like that we gathered in front of the principal.

“Hello, and welcome young……”