We stood in the town's practice field, facing the wall that was supposedly reinforced with anti-magic barriers, receiving our first real magic lesson.

"Natsuki, Yuki. Fire a firebolt, or some other simple spell, at that wall."

We fired firebolts side-by-side. Natsuki's was stronger, by far. It blasted against the wall, and mine fizzled against it.

But, Agnia, impressed with neither of them, just rubbed her forehead.

"You two... are entirely self-studied, right?"

As expected of a sorcerer! "Ah, can you tell, Professor?"

Agnia walked in front of us, and stretched her right arm forward. "Can you see what is happening right now inside my hand?"

Natsuki frowned. "No."

I couldn't see it either. Maybe if she took off the black glove...?

"Okay, then touch my hand, and feel it instead."

I carefully rested my fingers on the back of Agnia's hand, and could feel mana surging around her hand like a whirlpool.

"You can feel it, right? Now take what you feel, and make it visible."

Natsuki, irked by these illogical words, opened her mouth to complain. "Isn't that just straight-up impossible? It's not like you can just make your eyes— oh, I see it."

I see it too. Golden mist, thickening and thinning, wrapping in and around itself like a ball of yarn whose thread constantly rotates and inverts, flowing vigorously in sync with her pulse much like blood. And in a much vaguer color, I could see it flowing through her lungs, her heart, and her blood vessels. Natsuki taught me that mana in the human body flows through air and blood, so this is undoubtedly Agnia's mana.

Agnia sighed. "So you haven't done this before? This is a basic skill commonly called Hexed Eyes. It allows you to see the flow of mana. At your level, it'll probably deactivate if you lose your focus. The easiest way to activate it is to feel the pulse of someone else's mana."

"Um, professor..." I raised my other hand. "When you said that you cast magic on your eyes earlier, was that Hexed Eyes?"

"No. Hexed Eyes is not magic. But you can enhance it with magic. Now look closely. I'm going to do some demonstrations."

The golden mist crashed against the insides of her hand, and flowed out from it here and there, and some went back up her arm towards her elbow, and only a small firebolt, even smaller than the one I had created earlier, emerged from her palm. It fizzled out before reaching the wall.

"Wow, Agnia... your magic is even weaker than mine..." Natsuki scoffed, and Agnia frowned.

"I told you this was a demonstration, so watch."

Golden mist once again collected inside her hand, but this time it tightened and tightened and became denser and denser, until it became so dense that it looked like a tiny shining gemstone. Nothing escaped, nothing flowed backwards. And then, I saw what could only be described as a tiny sun spawning in the space between her straining fingers. It shot forward faster than my eyes could track and exploded against the wall, momentarily covering the entirety of the wall in flame.

"What I showed you first was, in effect, what you two are doing right now. What I showed you second was what you could do today if you fixed your technique. And what I will show you third is what I can do, with the same quantity of mana."

One more time, golden mist flowed into her hand. No, that's inaccurate. Wisps of smoke in other colors flowed as well, tying knots and nets around itself, in patterns that I could tell existed but which I could not understand. The green of fresh plants, the purple of kings, the blue of the deep sea. According to the eight trigrams, gold is lightning, green is wind, purple is earth, and blue is water. That said, I didn't see any red— fire trigram— mana in Agnia's earlier spells.

The mist separated into five clumps, one shifting into each finger, and again condensing into gemstones. I held my breath, awaiting what was to come.

Her gloved fingers shone like magma, and from each finger shot forth a projectile travelling in a waveform of different wavelength. They collided against the wall, one after the other, drawing successively larger explosions.

"Don't look away."

In the path those projectiles had taken, there were thin strands of red— thread? glass? frozen in midair. Agnia twisted her wrist and snapped her fingers, and the strands shattered like glass, but did not fall, and the fragments of glass themselves exploded too, and the entire practice field was covered in fire.

Hellfire.

Breathing out, Agnia pushed her palms down, and the flames disappeared. In the wall that was supposed to have an anti-magic barrier, there were six large dents.

I was flabbergasted.

"Professor... what is this spell called?"

"Uh, I don't know. Maybe something like, "A Demonstration that the Planck Relation Does Not Hold for Classically-Sized Magical Projectiles", or something like that. Anyways, you understand the difference now, right? What you need to do is cast magic in a way that your mana doesn't flow backwards or escape from your hand. Get from the first stage to the second stage. Use Hexed Eyes to keep an eye on your magic. I'll be watching as well. Let's begin."

Agnia stepped back. Natsuki and I stepped forward, and paid close attention to the flow of mana in our own arms as we fired successive firebolts— admittedly, not quite as efficiently as her.

"Yuki, your wrist is too tight. Natsuki, you keep losing mana through your ring finger. Yuki, it's alright to bend your elbow, but make sure you don't have mana backflow at the joint. Natsuki, make sure all your mana is centered in one spot before you materialize it. Yuki..."

In between her directions, I noticed that Agnia had moved to right behind Natsuki, her hand hovering by one of Natsuki's horns, with mana flowing through it in unnatural patterns. Research, I suppose.

---

After an hour or so, the two of us were completely out of mana. I think we were able to improve with Agnia's advice... somewhat.

Agnia pulled out a tape measure from her coat. "That's all for today, I suppose. Natsuki, I'd like to take some measurements, so stay for a bit. I think they're isosceles triangles, which would lead to a uniquely directional field structure, but I need to be sure."

"Umm... Pr... Professor..." Natsuki was barely able to make out the words, and she could not meet Agnia's eyes. "I'm sorry for doubting you, Professor. I was doubting whether you were a legitimate sorcerer..."

Agnia also turned her reddened face away. "Well, you know, it's not a bad thing to be a bit skeptical. If you've corrected your prejudices, then let's say no harm was done."

And somehow, watching these too, I can feel my own cheeks flushing with embarrassment. Is this what they call a vicarious experience?