One month later, on a Saturday...

“Your first class, huh?” Kye said. She and her group walked down the hallway toward a source of anxiety for Alethea.

“I’m afraid, Shi-chan.”

“It’ll be fine, there’s probably only a few people attending. It can’t be that bad.”

Liliana and Aliana exchanged doubtful glances as the group came upon the door to the classroom. When they entered, Alethea froze. Even Kye was surprised. The two attendants sighed.

“Wow...” Kye said.

Each classroom was designed for up to thirty students. The over fifty that showed up barely fit in the room - that’s without the desks.

“I think we need to relocate,” Liliana said, giving Alethea an apologetic smile.

The noise from fifty people chatting suddenly changed as the students realized Alethea had entered the room.

“Lady Alethea, please teach me!” “Me, too!” “Make me your disciple!” “Marry me!”

Kye caught that last comment. “HEY! She’s mine!”

“Everyone, look! The Goddess of Light is with her! Are they dating? Of course they are you dummy.”

Those comments brought Alethea out of her freeze giggling. Kye was annoyed by the title. “Why don’t you have a title?”

“I think it’s fitting!” Alethea replied. “If not for them, will you be my personal Goddess of Light?” She put on her best puppy-dog eyes. The other students went crazy and Kye’s face reddened. The two attendants next to her burst out laughing.

“That’s...” Kye was too embarrassed. The students were cheering and whistling, and that only served to embarrass her more.

“Okay, okay, come on guys, that’s enough!” Alethea managed to get them quiet, allowing Kye to recover. “It seems we have too many for this one room and given what this is for we don’t really need a classroom anyway. Shall we move to the training grounds?”

“““Yes, ma’am!”””

“Well...” Alethea muttered as they watched a few of the older students sparring in the training grounds. Their spar was a three-way free-for-all and their match took up the entire building.

“What do we do?” asked one of the students.

Kye had already formed her weapon and was staring intently at the match. She walked toward the match. As the three older students clashed, Kye moved in and pinned all three of their weapons to the ground with a single strike from above, sending out a small shockwave. The surprised older students stopped.

“Hi! So, we have a class of fifty-something. Alethea and I are teaching them, and we need a large enough space to do so. Would you guys like to join us? We have a few older students already.” Kye paused for a moment, then it clicked. “You’re the first three students to come watch Alethea and me during our first spar here. You’re the reason everyone calls me the Goddess of Light!”

“Hehe, sorry that’s my fault,” the girl said. She bowed as she introduced herself. “Greetings, I am Astrid Jorgensen, and I am in my fifth year.”

“I am Ulfric Jorgensen, fourth year.”

“I am Bjorn Jorgensen, sixth year. I apologize for my sister.”

Kye glared at Astrid, who tried to hide behind her large older brother. Kye dropped the glare and went back to her question. “So, what do you think?”

“I’d be fine with that,” Astrid said. “You two are practically legends already at age sixteen. Not many would pass this up, though you said you have fifty-something? Considering who you are, that’s a surprisingly low turnout. Ulfric? Bjorn?” Her brothers nodded.

“With that solved...” Kye grinned at Alethea.

“Huh? What?”

“Get to teaching, teach!”

Alethea ignored her and began explaining to the several dozen students. She received many requests from students to help them with mana control, magic casting, and general combat skills. ...Hundreds of requests. She decided to hold classes each Saturday and knock out one topic at a time. The first class would cover mana control.

“Mana control is the base for everything. Before I address any of you individually, I want to go over a few things that I believe may help all of you as well as provide an example to practice.” She formed a simple ball of mana and held it where the class could easily see. “Forming mana into a sphere is easy enough, but what of manipulating it afterward? It may be easier to disperse that mana first to do whatever you want next, but we’re not taking shortcuts.” She morphed the ball into an arrow.

“The goal of today is to accomplish two things in particular,” Kye said. “All of you will learn to manipulate already formed mana, and...” She formed a bow from her weapon bracelet, formed a ball of mana, morphed it into an arrow, and shot the arrow across the building. The arrow stopped and flew backward back to Kye where she then turned it back into a ball. “Learn to do that.”

Half of their audience was dumbstruck, and the other half was excited. After a short bit of instruction, everyone set to work. The first stage of creating a ball out of mana was simple for everyone. They covered that in their regular classes enough, and the older students obviously had at least an extra year of practice.

The difficult part came when they tried to manipulate the ball of mana into another shape. Some were able to do it fairly quickly and were allowed to take a break while the rest worked on it. The Jorgensen siblings had no trouble with the task, being in at least their fourth year. After fifteen minutes of failures, Alethea called for their attention and gave them an example. She formed a ball of mana, then physically reshaped it with her hands. “Try visualizing the motions one step at a time or mimic my example even! If you do use your hands, do it again without them and you’ll find it easier.”

Once everyone successfully transformed the ball into an arrow, they moved on to the next part. Kye demonstrated again from start to finish, where she created a ball, transformed it into an arrow, fired it, stopped and returned it, transformed it back to a ball, and finally dispersed it. Alethea gave everyone some encouragement and they started. Even the Jorgensen siblings had trouble stopping their arrows. Astrid was able to slow hers on her first attempt, but the rest of the participants couldn’t manipulate the speed at all. After five minutes, Astrid managed to complete the exercise, stopping, returning, transforming again, and dispersing. Her brothers managed to slow theirs down, as did others, but some were still unable to do it at all.

Alethea decided to step in with advice after Astrid succeeded. She retrieved a classic wooden arrow from the supplies they brought in a large bag and tied a long string to it. “Everyone, stop for a moment. Watch.” She fired the arrow. Once the string stopped it, she yanked it hard to pull the arrow back to her. “Visualization is huge in mana control. Imagine you have a string attached to your arrow. Even if you must make the hand motions of pulling it back as I did with the actual string, do it. Do it until you don’t need to.”

“May I?” Astrid asked. Alethea nodded. Astrid repeated the exercise slowly and describe what she did. She imagined a string attached to the arrow, but with a pulley behind her to automatically pull it back toward her.

“That’s a wonderful way to think!” Immediately, half the class was able to complete the stop and return portion of the exercise. The remainder took only a few more minutes to catch up. “Now do it all from start to finish and you will have completed today’s lesson on mana control!” She waited for the class to do as she instructed, then continued, “Great! Just remember visualization is your greatest tool. You are limited only by your mind.”

“Next up, magic!” Kye said with a quick hop. “Okay, let’s start with something fun!” She formed four golden flaming orbs, but Alethea cut her off quickly.

“You put that away this instant!” Liliana and Aliana tackled Kye to the ground while Alethea placed a barrier around each orb. “Kye! What are you doing?!”

Kye was grinning the whole time, even while on the ground. She pushed her attendants off and popped the bubble barriers around her orbs, reclaiming them. “These are MINE! You can’t have them!” Her three friends glared at her intensely. Kye sighed and explained, “Look, I am one hundred percent in control!” She pulled them close together. “See? No boom. Relax. They’re not even catalysts for Detonation, they’re just basic-tier fireballs... with a lot of mana. Anyway, you asked me to cover magic, so shush!”

Meanwhile, the class was watching and unsure what to make of the interaction. “What’s Detonation?” “Yeah, I’ve never heard of that.” “Is it a higher tier spell?” “I think I saw it in a video once.”

Alethea, exasperated, just said, “Okay fine, but I’m gonna call some help over to observe.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s no problem.” Layla and James arrived mere seconds later, sat on a bench, and watched as Kye began her lesson. “As you just learned with the mana control exercise, visualization is your best tool. These here,” she moved the four orbs around, “are simple balls of fire with light mana. The most basic of fire magic spells is Fireball. The exercise I want you to complete is to generate and manipulate four of these at once. Sounds easy right? Well, it’s not. For every additional catalyst, you require that much more control. Control is the most important thing in casting. Not power, not grand flashy spells, not high-tier spells... control!” Kye snapped her finger and the number of orbs multiplied. She created a hemisphere of golden fireballs, earning some oohs and ahhs from the class.

“Wow, you can control that many at once?” Astrid asked. “You truly are the Goddess of Light!”

“I wish you’d stop with that title...” Kye sighed in exasperation, but quickly bounced back and dispersed her magic. “Anyway. There is an equivalent to fireball for every element, so I will hear no excuses for affinities. Remember to visualize. To complete this exercise, you must insta-cast the basic spell four times simultaneously. Anything less will not suffice!” Kye stepped back and left the other students to begin working on the exercise. She walked over to the bench where Layla and James were sitting and leaned against the wall. “Remember how I was almost asked to become an instructor at the council meeting? Is that possible if I’m a student myself?”

“What you and Alethea are doing is about the closest you can get. Officially, you cannot hold a teaching position without certification. I doubt you’d have any trouble with some of the requirements for that, but you fail two right from the start and probably one more.”

“Oh?”

Layla started tapping in midair, and soon Kye received a message on her phone. It included a link to a private document that lists the various requirements for instructor certification.

1. Must pass the Instructor’s Mana Control exam.

2. Must pass the Instructor’s Magic Casting exam.

3. Must pass the Instructor’s Combat Proficiency exam.

4. Must pass the Instructor’s Certification course.

5. Must possess a General School Diploma.

6. Must be legal age 23 or older.

7. Must be capable of channeling 1B or higher in mana without compression.

“I see. One, two, and three are a given. Four is probably not an issue. Five and six I assume are the two I fail right from the start, with seven being the one I’d probably fail, which you’re correct about. Overdrive aside, I can’t channel that much without compression, not even close. Probably in another year or so. Six is straightforward enough, but what is the General School Diploma?”

“You don’t know?”

Kye shrugged. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“It’s granted differently depending on the school, but the requirements are generally the same. You will obtain it at this academy at the end of your third year.”

“So, by the end of my third year, the only thing in my way will be number six. I’m guessing that’s there so that no instructor at this academy would also be a student at the same time.”

“That’s right.”

Kye sighed. “I guess I’ll have to wait to do this professionally, though I may not get to even then. Father seems to be determined to pass the throne to me as soon as possible.”

Layla nodded. “That he does. However, if you decide you want to become an instructor that actually does take precedence over the throne.”

“It does? Hmm...” She shrugged again. “Well, to be determined. Would you mind bringing it up with the council during the next meeting anyway? If it becomes possible for us, then I’d legitimately consider it.”

“Us? For you and Alethea, I assume?”

Kye nodded.

“Okay. I’ll see if I can stir the pot a bit.”

Kye gave her mother a smile. “Thanks. I should go check on the students.”