“What are foundational noers?”

He raises a hand and suddenly a bunch of slightly glowing noers appears on them. The noers look a bit familiar, and yet they remain unfamiliar. “These are foundational noers. There are quite a lot of noers that use a particular alphabet or word as a base, with a few tweaks those noers can be made in a way that is open-ended. When you want to use them, you complete it depending on which of their effects you want, and boom, you’re now capable of casting complex noers in very short periods of time. Before creating your True Body, you’re most likely going to get more than a few of them.

“But apart from that, there’s also speed casting. And it is exactly what it sounds like, casting spells as quickly as possible. But for our training there’ll be a twist, most of the time you will have no idea what spell you’re going to cast beforehand.”

“Won’t that be very slow? I mean it takes a lot of time to figure out how to put a spell together, I think at the very least you’ll need a few minutes to do it.”

Justin leans forward. “That’s where you’re wrong. Yes, it is a bit slower than using foundational noers and other methods, but once you have a good grasp of noers and how they work, it is possible to put together a spell in a second or less if it’s simple, and maybe a few extra seconds if it is complex. How about this, tell me anything you want me to do, anything at all. I’ll do it.”

I say the first thing that pops into my mind. “Create a flaming sword.”

He reaches out with a hand and for a brief moment some noers flash at his fingertips, then he pulls a flaming sword out of midair. He brandishes it for a moment before stabbing it into the ground next to his chair. As he lets go of it and it vanishes. He turns to me with an almost bored expression. “Why don’t you give me something actually challenging?”

So that’s how you want to play? Challenge accepted. “Create a ball of ice surrounded by lightning.”

He pauses and for a moment I think he’ll waste time, but then he points his palm upward, and exactly what I asked for appeared above his palm. I am not giving up yet though. “Let a buffet appear on the table.”

He waves his hand over the table and various dishes appear on the table. The aroma hits me hard and makes my mouth water, but as I reach out to take a bite Justin makes the dishes vanish. “Hold up. I didn’t make those out of thin air you know, you can’t just go eating it.”

I smile as I thank him inwardly for giving me my next idea. “Alright then, make a dish out of thin air.”

He pauses. “Nice one.” He snaps a finger and a bowl of meatballs appears in his left hand. Then a bunch of noers appear above his other hand. Wind begins to swirl around him and the windows in the room are forced wide open. Random bits of dirt, leaves and other sorts of debris gather around the noers and slowly begin to take an appearance similar to that of the original bowl of meatballs. After a few seconds, everything calms down and Justin is left holding two identical bowls, the original bowl disappears leaving the one he had created from scratch.

“Do you want a taste?” He offers the bowl to me. It looks and smells delicious but when I remember what was used to make it - the dirt, leaves, and other random bits - I can’t help but wonder how to kindly refuse his offer.

“How did you make it?” I ask instead.

“Transmutation. It’s a bit difficult but it gets the job done. The only downside is that whatever is created is usually a bit radioactive.” He uses telekinesis to guide a meatball into his mouth and starts chewing.

“Isn’t that dangerous? Eating radioactive substances?” I am genuinely concerned. I once read the effects of being poisoned by radioactive waves and let’s just say they are not pretty.

“I said they’re only a bit radioactive. A bit. Besides, don’t underestimate your constitution. If you were still human then yes, eating this could be potentially dangerous, but you’re not. The presence of Uua changes a lot of things in our bodies and increased resistance to radioactivity is one of them. Something this weak can’t hurt us. Anyway, is that the best you can do?”

I narrow my eyes. Very well then I'll give it my best. What follows is a minute of me randomly naming the hardest things and Justin doing them after brief moments of thinking. The longest I managed to make him think was three seconds, and even then the execution of his act barely took a second. In the end, he bursts out laughing.

“Alright let’s stop this here, it’s just bullying at this point. Our Court has a speed casting competition every year and I am a three-time champion. There’s very little you want to give me that I haven’t done before. But at this point, you should be able to see why speed casting is so useful, especially in combat. It gives you the ability to be able to do almost anything that comes into your head, within certain limits.”

“So you’re going to teach me how to do it?”

“Yes. Our time together will be spent on two things. On Mondays, I will teach you everything you need to know about creating a True Body and also give you some help as you begin to design yours. On Fridays, you will learn speed casting. But before you can learn speed casting, you will have to first bring your knowledge of noers to a certain level. Today, we will begin with that.”

He brings out a book. "Here's how things are going to go. Each week we'll study a particular topic and noers associated with whatever we are studying. Then we'll have a little speed-casting training at the end of each class utilizing the noers we learned. Over time as we do this more and more you should begin to get comfortable with speed casting. Alright, now let's begin."