There was one rather large difference between this battle with his students than the one previous, and it was something immediately apparent as the students looked at him.

Previously, he just wore what he called his ‘city gear’, which was some light armor made of padding and leather, more enchanted for comfort rather than actual protection. This was because it was polite to dress appropriately to your station, and for the notoriously paranoid adventurer profession, that meant that you had some form of protection as well as some small weapon. Assuming you could walk confidently enough to make it clear that it was no costume, thieves would generally avoid your pockets and those who need some odd job completed know at a glance that you’ll at least hear them out. When that armor is made of dragonhide and padded with tormenter silk, they also know not to waste your time with just a few silvers.

No, what Casimir donned for this fight was his real armor, that he hasn’t worn since he got put on sabbatical. The under armor was the same materials as his city gear, just enchanted a little differently, with light metal plates adding an additional layer of protection where it wouldn’t interfere with his flexibility. It wasn’t the kind of comprehensive protection you’d expect from a knight’s armor, but it provided numerous extra surfaces that Casimir could safely block with, and his vital organs were covered by his breastplate. The preferred metal for this kind of thing was verenium-backed stuburium, with the stuburium layer enchanted for durability and magic resistance while the verenium was given enchantments that helped reduce the damage that got through the armor. In the case of Casimir’s set, physical attacks would be converted into force mana that the verenium would soak in. Casimir could then tap into that mana to use force magic, although the point of that was more to clear it out rather than because it was a good source of mana.

“Uh… Teach?” Peter said nervously as Casimir stretched in his armor. “What’s that you’re wearing?” Also unlike the previous fights, this battle was held within the bounds of the academy, on the sports field. None of the equipment was outside, so the only notable terrain feature was the sturdy poles they mounted the baskets on for battleball, beyond the track that was surrounding the field.

Casimir stared at his students. “Unlike before, I’m not trying to push you. You have something I want, and once I win, I’ll be leaving immediately. Thus, I’m wearing my good armor.”

Faron’s brow furrowed as he realized the unspoken implications of that statement. That frown evolved into a scowl as he hardened his resolve. “Peter? Illivere? Forget what I said.” Well that was ominous.

The start of these fights were pretty much always one of two things, because it was their best opener. This wasn’t a problem, because it was a rarity that adventurers fought the same thing more than once, and when they do… they’re usually the ones that learn more. The Soul-Devouring Dragon can attest to that.

The first option was Faron charging, with both Illivere and Peter close behind, and Hanna using some kind of control magic to bind Casimir’s movements. It never works. The second and more frequent opener, when they were fighting Casimir, was for Faron to brace himself in a defensive posture and the other three all launching some longer range offensive magic. This also never works, but it performed better than the first option.

Which was why Casimir was caught a little off guard when all four charged forward, with Illivere’s latest enchanted weapon, a long spear this time, leading the group. Further, Peter and Faron were both fanning out, going much faster than Casimir’s seen them go without tripping over themselves.

Still, a quick scan of the spear indicated the enchantments. It wasn’t actually a spear, it was an alchemical bomb on a stick, the sharp smell of fire aspected mana thick with power. Any kind of close combat dodge would be foolish, he’d have to disengage… which Peter and Faron were already cutting off. Dozens of possible plans of action were invented and discarded, as most of them required him to cast a new spell instead of relying on his long-term curses.

Most… but not all. Casimir leapt backwards at an even faster pace than Peter and Faron’s all-out sprint to cut him off, running up the five meter pole to the top and allowing the group to surround him. Casimir hummed to himself. “I might be in trouble here.” It was a logical move, and he suspected he knew what Faron was talking about.

Under the last agreement, if they had altered their tactics to reflect the fact that their opponent was aping a mana cultivator rather than a true wizard, using any tactic that Casimir had pointed out as being vulnerable to other mages, like alchemical bombs, would have been smart, but also against the point of the exercise, to assess their general competence. Well, that’s how someone like Faron would interpret the situation as, who still saw the mage knights as bastions of honor rather than pretentious mercenaries. But now that the stakes were real…

Casimir thought about what to do while the kids launched a variety of deadly projectiles at him. Hanna sent wooden thorns, which were dodged or blocked on Casimir’s armor without issue, Faron sent a lightning javelin, which was a new trick, but Casimir just empowered the lightning conduction curse he had woven into his cluster of mana interaction defenses, channeling the attack into the pole and ground harmlessly. Peter… tried to land a weight curse to slow Casimir down, but a flex of his own weight curse shattered Peter’s probing mana, leaving Casimir’s weight still under his complete control.

It was times like these that he kind of felt bad for the kid, because pretty much any spell the kid could master was basically impossible to hit Casimir with, as the various protective and enhancement curses that were already on Casimir’s soul made it difficult to latch on any more, and if it happened to be the exact same mana and effect type? It was nigh impossible. Casimir, as skilled as he was, could lay four or even five curses on the same body part, but he needed to use different mana types to get the room, as even theoretically redundant curses had some notable differences in structure that gave each one some breathing room. Heh, breathing room.

All of this still occupied some of Casimir’s precious focus, which meant that Illivere unleashed her own advanced curse. Casimir’s first reflex against Crushing Despair was to tap into his long-term mind curses… which haven’t been long-term for his entire sabbatical. They had caught on to his condition!

They must have connected the dots after his lecture on the subject…

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“Today’s lecture is on the subject of Mana Burn.” Casimir said, flipping his chalkboard to reveal the term. “Yesterday, we talked about how long-term curses go into active and inactive states, and roughly how the structures of the spells allow for this. However, even well-made curses can be dangerous, if they’re strong enough, due to this affliction.”

Casimir glanced over his students, who were well-trained enough to know he was checking to see if anyone had read the assigned pages. “Horace.” Casimir said, pointing.

The dwarf stood up on his chair and recited his answer like he was a politician addressing a crowd. “Mana Burn is when a soul is damaged by a specific mana type dominating in the system for an extended period.”

“Correct.” Casimir said. “While it’s theoretically possible for a wizard to catch Mana Burn just by using the exact same mana type exclusively, even a full night’s rest and solid breakfast clears out your system enough to make that nigh impossible.” He shrugged. “That said, it’s why it’s important that a Sorcerer attunes themselves to their chosen mana type, because if done improperly or not at all, they’ll eventually suffer from Mana Burn.” After a moment of thought, he added: “Well, it’s also possible to get Mana Burn by using exceptionally large amounts of mana for extended periods, regardless of type, but as long as you make sure to cast most of your magic from your mana heart it’s not a concern. Domain Wizards can suffer this problem if they have to maintain a domain for too long, which is measured in hours.” Well, assuming they didn’t try and maintain a water domain in a desert or something equally crazy. Then it could maybe go under a full hour.

Damn, he got on another tangent. “But the type of Mana Burn we’re focusing on today is the kind you get from having active-state curses be in place for an extended period.” Some of the students who had relaxed after his tangent started focused their wandering attentions on him again. “The type of mana takes a big impact on how much is needed. For someone with a spirit bloodline, it’s nigh impossible to mana burn on your specialty, but it’s a lot easier to mana burn on anything else. For those without such a trait, the easiest mana type to burn on is metal aspected mana. The hardest type? Life mana, of course.” Ironically, it’s still the most common type to burn on, solely because of the condition’s other name, ‘Potion Sickness’.

After fielding a few questions about roughly how difficult various mana types were to suffer mana burn with, Casimir moved on. “The effects of Mana burn can vary, but for the most part, it manifests as various gut illnesses, you end up vomiting your food, a little dysentery, and horrible stomach pains on top of that. In addition to those, you can see headaches, dizziness, temporary blindness, burning or freezing sensations, sweating… pretty much anything you can think of when you say ‘that person’s sick’. Anything more specific than that is beyond the scope of this course.”

Time to take it home. “I tell you this to warn you against trying to create a long-term curse before you’re ready. There’s a reason you don’t have curse wizards selling permanent Strengthens on a street corner, and it’s not because it’s below their dignity.” Well, for most wizards that’s a pretty good reason, but not all, but even Crusand ensures that their Hex Warriors get enough education to be able to handle themselves without needing checkups every other day. “It’s because it’s a restricted magical trade.” For most magical trades, the training you get to learn it in the first place is considered a large enough barrier that there wasn’t any need to further limit the practice. You totally had novice enchanters selling their inferior goods in market stalls to make a quick silver, after all. “It would not be difficult for some shady curse mage to cast a stock standard strengthen on someone, make it last two days and claim it would last two months, and be out of town before anyone was the wiser. Worse, they could actually make it last two months and the guy ends up with so many minor injuries from Mana Burn that he can’t even track down the hustler and put the boot to him.” Thus the illegality.

A few students had their hands raised. “Ruzum.” Casimir said, pointing at the Aviost.

Ruzum spoke as if he wanted desperately to salute or point, but kept his arms as still as a statue despite that. “Professor Toomes, how can we make use of long-term curses without breaking the law?”

Casimir shrugged. It wasn’t that big of a deal, honestly. “Mostly you just have to check in on them or make sure that the people you’re using the curses on can do that themselves. The construction of the curse can make a big difference as to how disruptive the curse is to the systems of the target.” He glanced at his chalkboard, debating whether or not to draw a diagram. Nah. “Remember how spellcasting is a little more difficult if you’re cursed? It’s because y’all are still new to spellcasting. People who are new to walking on boats have the same problem, eventually you barely notice yourself compensating for it. The same factors that cause that interference affect the rate of Mana Burn in that curse. Keep in mind, the thing that makes a curse long-term is that it draws on the mana of the target, which is crucial for causing Mana Burn. The stuff you learn in this class will never cause Mana Burn, but it’s important to know about it far in advance of being able to cause it.” Well, some people like calling Inherent Magic Resistance reactions as a form of Mana Burn, but while they were similar, it wasn’t in the textbooks and honestly there were a few holes in that comparison.

Moving on. “Now, most cases of Mana Burn are relatively benign and short term.” Casimir said. “However, there’s a subset of Mana Burn known as Mana Addiction. It’s when someone becomes reliant on certain magic, like healing magic, that while the mana isn’t enough or pervasive enough to injure the soul, an imbalance is created that lingers.” Master forced him to read everything there was to know about the topic when he moved in with her, reading all of it every day until he could recite the relevant facts every day for a week. Only then did she get him the teaching gig. “Life addicts have trouble dealing with injuries without magic and occasionally just start bleeding randomly. Fire addicts will simultaneously shiver and sweat regardless of the current temperature, and Mind addicts will randomly forget things, have massive mood swings, and will basically be constantly drunk.” Crying for hours, spontaneously thinking you’re years younger after remembering something from that time period, confusing the people around you as completely different people… The list went on. “These symptoms only arise when they’re not under the influence of the mana in question, mind you. It takes specialized therapies to recover from such a state, but it is possible. Even then, there are still some metaphorical, and in the case of Life Addiction, literal, scars involved. Your curse resistance will be permanently lowered at least a little bit, as the lingering mana clogs up your meat’s mana absorption, and against the type in question?” Casimir scoffed instead of providing a real answer. “Yeah, you’re in trouble.”

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“I’m in danger.” Casimir said in a monotone as he fell off the pole, landing heavily on the ground. He could have landed on his feet, but why bother? It wasn’t dangerous, after all. A flash of pain cut through the fog of existence, which gave him the energy to stand back up as some weaklings decided to wave their weapons at him. WIth the minimum amount of effort, he turned one of his armored sections onto each attack, deflecting the damage without much trouble. Why was he doing this, again? It seemed like such a good idea to kick their asses before.

Right, Luci’s not around anymore to tell him when he’s being stupid. So, how is he getting out of this? Casimir idly disarms whatshisname again, launching the fire sword at the girl approaching with her bomb stick. The sword curved in mid-air as it was reclaimed by the wannabe knight, and the kid with the axes has started on his own attack routine. It saved energy to just break the things, so he parried the blades with his armor forcefully, shattering the cheap weapons. As the knight kid reached out to catch his fire sword, Casimir brought out his knife and stabbed it through the kid’s forearm, cutting straight through the weak force armor he had erected in an attempt to stop other disarms. The fire sword exploded as his concentration was shattered, catching both boys on fire and causing the bomb girl to jump back to try her approach again.

He could just let them win, send them on their own. That seems like less work. He just needs to cast something to lose. But what to cast? …He’ll have to dispel this curse eventually, might as well do that. With a pulse of mana, Casimir assessed the situation. For a combat curse, it was a lot better made than Casimir expected it to be, but all it amounted to was requiring two negative fulcrums to dissolve the structure instead of the expected one and a small vortex mixer to co opt the now free-floating mind mana into a quickly dispersing but polar opposite curse: Hyperactivity.

In a burst of speed, Casimir removed the knife he embedded into Faron’s arm, extinguished the fires, and went back up the pole. “You got me!” He shouted, the energy from the curse starting the fade. “You didn’t play fair, and I respect that.”

Casimir’s students cheered at their success, although Hanna had to interrupt the celebration to heal Faron’s bleeding arm.

“Was winning really that simple?” Peter asked once Casimir leapt down. “I can’t believe we never tried to curse you!”

Casimir smiled at their anger. “Well, in any kind of real fight it would be a pretty stupid move, to try and curse a curse wizard that you don’t totally outclass.” Casimir explained. “I can counter any curse you could name faster than you could cast them… the issue was, if you did so in a mana type I didn’t currently have a long term curse running for, I had to use a spell to break it. Which means you win.” It was a good choice of mind curse, too. Crushing Despair was actually a relatively weak curse, as any kind of life or death danger to yourself or others generally breaks it, but given that there was no such immediate danger, it instead had the full effect.

Hanna, having finished healing Faron’s injury, smiled widely as Peter hooted and hollered in celebration enough for all four of them. “We’ll be able to help attack the ones who tried to kidnap Illivere, then?”

Casimir winced, but nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Come on, we have preparations to make. Follow me, I have some gear ready for you.”

“New axes?” Peter asked, intrigued at the idea of new gear.

“New everything.” Casimir clarified. “It’s time I teach y’all how an adventurer prepares for a dangerous mission.” It was a bit advanced of a lesson, given how they wouldn’t normally have the budget for this lesson, but the Archmagus was effectively picking up the bill, so… “My Master and I have been enchanting them over the last couple of weeks, so it should be mostly ready anyway.”

It was time for their first real adventure.