Their teacher was a refined gentleman, to say the least (the kind who could drink tea with royalty and still be the classiest person in the room). He was dressed in an immaculate, pressed suit, corners so sharp you could also shave with them. Long, braided hair that somehow stayed perfectly still and in position fell past his shoulders.

Theo noted that he had more than a passing resemblance to Rowena, not only in how they looked, but how they moved and even the slightly bored look that graced their faces.

The teacher cleared their throat, and acted as if they had not witnessed five teenagers acting exactly like teenagers (but in a way that they clearly disapproved of).

“Welcome to your focus magic audit. I am Reginald, the Head of House Flake, and a teacher here at the College of Spells.” Reginald of House Flake. Rowena of House Flake. Yep, Rowena’s dad.

“Today we will be covering the basics of focus magic: forming runes outside of one’s body.” Reginald raised his hand, and in his upwards-facing palm, a circle of runes started to form. Inside that circle, more runes were created, and as the space became filled with runes, the spaces between each rune became filled with more and more smaller runes, which were in turn filled with even smaller runes.

The fractal circle became a desert with endless grains of sand, blown away by the wind as Reginald closed his fist. Theo watched as all the motes of mana flowed through his fingers and dissipated into the air.

“Focus magic is different to all other forms of magic in this regard. We focus and form the shape that the mana takes to our will. We do not imbue meaning into it, we allow the runes to be the meaning instead. This allows for more control, more standardisation, and more, well, focus than other forms of magic."

A concentrated blob of mana formed in front of Reginald, and it shifted between various shapes as it orbited around him. One moment it was a flat star, the next a spinning pyramid, the next a pulsing set of rings rotating around each other like a gyroscope. His eyes tracked its movement, but he didn’t move his head or body to follow.

“While it is true that focus magic is more limited in its effects than the other forms of magic, do not mistake that for a lack of versatility or variety. It is more than enough on its own for most scenarios in and out of combat. For example,” The bundle of shifting mana orbiting Reginald formed into a series of interlocking rings that reminded Theo of chainmail. They circled around him, and then they shifted.

A robust sphere popped into existence around him, shimmering in the sun. His voice was distant and echoed, as he continued to speak from inside the bubble. “If one of you could be so kind to attack this barrier.”

After a shared look between all present, Simo nocked an arrow, and aimed at Reginald’s head. It seemed to glow with mana, and as he let go it cut through the air, reaching its target far faster than Theo thought possible. It was a shame that an instant later it shattered against the barrier, bursting into glowing splinters.

The shield didn’t even seem to react to the attack. Reginald nodded in thanks in Simo’s direction, as he resumed. “Now, that same spell can be used in many different manners.” The sphere disappeared halfway through his first sentence, and it was jarring for Theo to hear his speech instantly shift from the ghost of a thousand echoes to a normal voice in any regular conversation.

The same series of rings formed once more, but then they seemed to tie themselves into an incredibly complex series of knots. This time, the protection took the form of an ornate set of armour, appropriately embellished for a noble (it was only missing the excessive embossing of gemstones in its surface).

The suit of armour disappeared almost as quickly as it came, as the mana reformed into a buckle-sized shield orbiting Reginald, and then a tower shield seemingly glued onto his body.

“All the same base spell, all arranged in ways to increase, if not refocus its power into different applications.” Theo’s interest was piqued. Reginald clapped his hands, and the mana disappeared into the ether once more. “Now, we are starting with the first step. Forming a rune.” Theo nodded along, and as mana formed once more in Reginald’s hands.

This time, it stayed in its vague shape, gently hovering in place. Reginald flicked their eyes over the mana, and it instantly became a perfectly proportioned ball. As he lifted his arm, it followed, locked in motion around his hand.

“The first step of forming a rune is to pull the mana out of yourself and form a stable sphere. This, incidentally is also known as the first “spell” that focus magic users learn. It is simply a sphere of mana that one throws.” Reginald demonstrated this, as the sphere in his hand was lobbed forward. It arced forward, before causing an explosion on impact.

It didn’t sit quite right with Theo.

For the amount of mana he felt in that ball, comparing with his own (painful) personal experiences with backlash, the explosion didn’t seem the right size.

He raised his hand slowly, stopping at head height. Reginald turned his head and looked impassively at him, no expression changing on his face. “Yes?”

“For that amount of mana, shouldn’t backlash be much stronger?” And with that, Reginald finally had some emotion on his face. He raised his eyebrows a fraction, before they returned to where they were previously.

“Good question. There is a simple answer and a complex answer. The complex answer requires an intimate understanding of focus magic and how it uses mana. The simple answer is that even that ball of mana had things constraining its size and shape, and various other characteristics. These are thus not mana that could be used in the explosion. A backlash abruptly cuts of connection with the mana, so every scrap of it normally used on these properties also contributes to impact.”

And with that, Reginald turned his attention back to the group, acting as if that had never happened. “You will draw on the mana within, and let it leave your fingers. Then you will use that mana to form a sphere in your hands.” He demonstrated the mana leaving his fingers and forming a sphere a few times, but even so it wasn’t intuitive.

Reginald walked around, arms crossed behind his back, as he inspected everyone’s efforts. Theo managed to get the mana leaving his fingers, but he was having difficulty getting it to form together in his hands once it left his body. Looking around, he found everyone besides Simo struggling. Simo had formed a messy clump, but it was still together.

Reginald looked at Simo’s hands, and nodded. “You have good instincts. Continue doing what you’re doing and you will be fine.” He swept his vision across everyone else still struggling and quickly checked over everyone to make sure that they were doing things vaguely right.

---

That was how the next hour of Theo’s life went by – trying to draw mana out of his hands, and trying to form it into something vaguely resembling a ball. He had some success, but Simo was making the most progress. His actually looked like a rather round ball of dough, rather than a slightly dry clump of mud.

They had all sat down at some point, cross-legged in the courtyard. It was one less thing to worry about (even if Reginald tried to hide his frown at Jenny also sitting cross-legged).

Jenny was also making some progress, as Theo did a scan of the group. She was staring at the ball in the palm of her hands, as it refused to move or change. She almost willed it to form a more coherent ball, but it stayed a mushy snowball. She closed her eyes and sighed, leaning back (but still carefully keeping the hand with the mana aloft).

She raised her other hand, and Reginald stopped supervising from the side (while also fiddling with his own advanced runes) to come see what was the issue. “How do you backlash?” Reginald paused for a moment to process her question, brows furrowed. Eventually, he relaxed his face as he nodded in understanding.

“Ah, yes. The way to dissipate mana without causing backlash is to slowly reduce the flow of mana. This will stop feeding it, and it will gradually dissipate. If you wished to be more mana-efficient, you could reverse the flow of mana, and return it to your body, similar to Meditation.”

Jenny wrinkled her nose, mouth set in a thin line. “How do you backlash.” She repeated her question, this time more of a statement. She forced the words out between clenched teeth (like a ring stuck on a finger that had gotten fat). Reginald blinked three times, eyes widening slightly for a moment.

“The greatest risk of backlash comes from pouring in too much mana too fast, or cutting it off abruptly and letting the mana there out of your control, but I cannot see why you would wish to-“

“I-, I can’t hold this mana anymore.” Jenny interrupted, slowly standing up, with her palm raised skyward.

Theo realised in this moment that Jenny was shades paler than she had been an hour before, breathing shallow. As she stood up, the sun glinted off her face. Trails of sweat marked her face.

Reginald’s eyes truly widened in this moment, as he realised what was happening. “You don’t have to stay- you should have told me earli-“

Theo’s ears rang. The loudest backlash he had ever heard rocked through the courtyard. He could see heads turning around and looking, and the Arts Exchange off in the distance in the College of Song’s courtyard had paused as everyone stood up to search for the source of the sound.

Reginald’s face switched out of shock and surprise, setting into steel as a truly staggering number of different runes started to orbit his person. Some shot off into the distance, while others settled around Jenny.