"Wake up, sleepyhead." Dingo woke Jack up by prodding him with his staff.

Jack groaned in his sleep. "Five more minutes."

"Come on. Wake up already, mate. We're burning daylight here."

Jack was sleeping on a simple medieval-style bed in the sleeping quarters of the Crimson Flame Temple, where there were a couple of beds strewn together. Last night, after equipping himself with a new set of gear from Kronli's smithshop, he was getting settled in with a bed of his own. At the end of the bed was a wooden trunk for holding his personal items. Even though his powers allowed him to store a good deal of items by dematerializing them, he didn't feel the need to do so unless it's absolutely necessary. It just wouldn't feel like an immersive fantasy world if he overused it anyway and, goddamn it, if he was to be reincarnated into a fantasy world, he might as well be immersed in it.

Jack reluctantly got out of bed and let out a yawn. He instinctively tried to look out the window to see if the sun was up but then quickly remembered that they were all underground so there was no actual sunlight shining down upon them. The city of Grumgrod did try to simulate sunlight to match the day-night cycle from outside by increasing and decreasing the brightness of their street lantern posts throughout the day, but it just wasn't the same. This type of artificial daylight was something he's going to have to get used to if he were to stay in this city long-term.

After changing into his light leather armor, he followed Dingo to a sort of backyard area behind the Crimson Flame Temple where Raven and Musashi were also waiting. It was a wide-open cavernous area with an array of training equipment scattered about. Some of the training equipment he recognized easily---training dummies, weapon racks, a rudimentary obstacle course---but others seemed more out of the ordinary---potted plants, small tables with cups and dice laying around---as though they did not belong in a typical training area.

As they walked across the area, Jack was greeted by a couple of fellow Crimson Flame members who were also in the process of training. The composition of these members were quite diverse---consisting of humans, dwarves, and anthropomorphic animals and mushrooms of various kinds. They all welcomed him in a very friendly manner and offered to shake his hand as he walked by, though it's going to take a while before he could remember all their names.

Together---with Dingo, Raven, and Musashi---Jack had arrived at one section of the training area where there were a couple of bookshelves stacked along the sides.

Dingo leisurely twirled his staff as he faced Jack. "Alright mate, before we get started, is there anything at all that you know about magic? Anything that we haven't told you, that is."

Jack scratched his head and thought hard. He could probably extrapolate certain things based on what he'd seen in this world so far---that coupled with his years of gaming experience, assuming that this world followed roughly the same sort of rules. "Umm, from what I can tell, magic allows you to do all sorts of crazy stuff. For example, you guys can sort of manipulate the elements---water, earth, fire, air---kinda like the Avatar and whatnot. And sometimes you can create weapons and summon ghostly animals. And you can also heal and such. And also enchant items. And then there's mana-tracking, but you've already told me that before. Am I missing anything? Hmm...nope, that's basically it."

Dingo nodded. "Well, it's decent for a beginner at least, but nowhere near the level of knowledge you'll need in order to be an effective member of the Crimson Flame. To make sure we cover all grounds, let's start from the very basics."

He twirled his staff one more time, this time activating a glyph that summoned a couple of miniature whirlwinds. These whirlwinds moved towards one of the bookshelves in order to grab hold of several of the books inside, hovering them in the air. There were a total of seven large leather-bound books of antique design, each bearing a different color. While they are hovering, they opened up with their pages flipping over each other in a continuous motion. As the pages flipped, small circular glyphs floated out of them before swimming gracefully in the air like a flock of butterflies. The way these glowing glyphs of various colors hovered in the air around them seemed oddly beautiful.

"In the magical community, it is widely accepted that there are seven categories of magic," Dingo explained. "Elemental, Biological, Construct, Summoning, Empathic, Divination, and Enchanting.

"Elemental magic is pretty self-explanatory. It allows you to create and manipulate the basic elements of the physical world. Fire, ice, lightning, wind, water, earth---these are the types of elements that are under your control. Very versatile and therefore commonly used amongst most magic users.

"Biological magic focuses on the manipulation of life and organic matter. Obvious applications include healing and curing of disease and poisons, but also inflicting those same diseases and poisons. Also, it allows you to manipulate certain types of organic matter, such as nearby vegetation, to aid you in combat. Additionally, it can allow you to create various potions through alchemy that can usually have more potent effects than glyphs.

"Construct magic involves creating ethereal constructs formed out of your own raw mana---things like weapons, wards, and armor. Although these constructs are temporary---lasting only minutes at a time---they can be quite handy in situations where your main weapon is lost or confiscated. As a offensive type of magic, they may not be as flashy compared to elemental magic, but are relatively more mana-efficient and are a great pick for someone with a high proficiency in martial arts and weapon skills.

"Summoning magic allows you to summon animals and other creatures that you can control. They can aid you in battle, but are also useful in reconnaissance. Imagine a bird or a rat pass by you as you and your mates are having a conversation. It may just be a normal bird or rat, or it may be a summon by your enemy trying to spy on you. You can never truly tell. Very useful when used correctly.

"Empathic magic specializes in the manipulation of emotions. With it, you can sense the emotion of others and even alter them to a degree. Imagine striking fear to your enemies to make them flee from battle. Rile them up into anger so that they accidentally attack their own teammates. Motivate your own allies with courage to boost their morale in a fight. Outside of battle, you can also use it for interrogation purposes, able to more easily tell if someone is lying or not by detecting the wavering of their emotions as well as pressuring them to tell the truth by weakening their willpower. A more nuance type of magic for sure.

"Divination magic is, of course, the magic of divination---seeing the past, present, and future. One of the common applications in combat is to see a couple seconds into the future and predict your opponent's movement in order to better evade and counter their attacks. Alternatively, you can use it to see even further into the future and predict more large-scale events such as weather patterns or the rise of future leaders. While it may seem like an overpowered type of magic, there are certain limitations that you need to keep in mind.

"Enchanting magic, like the name suggest, is about enchanting items such as weapons, armor, and trinkets to reproduce, enhance, or hinder the effects of spells from other categories of magic. Having a lot of overlap with the smithing profession, it is perhaps the most suitable type of magic for the craftsman-type. With enough ingenuity, the possibilities with enchanting are near limitless.

"So there you have it. These are all the areas of magic that you can focus your training on. What do you think?"

Jack listened attentively to the white dog mage explaining all the types of magic and was admittedly a bit overwhelmed. "Wow...that is a lot to take in. I might have to jot down some notes on a notebook or something."

Dingo chuckled. "Relax, mate. Anyone who starts out learning magic will feel that it's a lot to process. Just take it slow and steady and you'll be alright. We'll get you started on some basic spells from each of the categories first. See which one suits your fancy."

"Sounds good."

Jack started out with elemental magic by trying out every basic spell---one from each of the elements. He was now at the shooting range with a glyph called "Fire Shot" hovering at the palm of his hand. With his glyph-wielding hand outstretched, he launched a couple of fireballs at the target dummies, incinerating them into ash. While his aim was decent at the short-to-mid range targets, he had trouble hitting the really far-off targets, often missing them nine times out of ten. He reckoned that at that range, it'll be easier to take those targets out with his sling instead, though the simple act of shooting fireballs out of your goddamn hands like some sort of wizard was admittedly kind of cool. After the "Fire Shot" glyph, he tried the "Lightning Shot" glyph next, which kind of had a different feel to it. The lightning bolts this glyph fired was quick and direct, unlike the fire balls he tossed earlier. However, they did not leave as much of an impact in terms of damage.

"Listen, mate. When it comes to elemental magic, each element has its unique characteristics," Dingo explained. "Fire spells are the most devastating of all the elemental spells---able to take down hordes of weaker enemies easily---and thus are most often used offensively. Ice spells allows you to weaken the metal of your opponent's armor as well as impeding their movement. Lightning spells usually have the longest range and have the the ability to stun your enemies for a brief period, both physically and magically. Wind spells gives you the ability to push enemies away as well as grants you enhanced mobility. Water spells can obviously put out fires and allows you to traverse across bodies of water more easily. Earth spells allows you to create defensive walls and attack with slow but powerful boulder-like projectiles.

"There are more intricacies, of course. I'm only scratching the surface of what's possible with this type of magic. Many people take years just to have a grasp on the basics. Not only that, each person uses the elements a bit differently. Use it long enough and you'll start to develop your own style. You gotta experiment with different spells, see which ones synergizes well with your fighting strategy."

After trying out all the basic glyphs of elemental magic, he moved onto biological magic. Musashi was the expert in this particular field of magic, so it'll be the one to show him the ropes this time. It handed him a pot from the area with the potted plants. The 'plant' inside the pot was hardly even considered a full-grown plant---more like a sapling than anything else. Jack held it curiously, wondering what he's supposed to do with it.

"Biological magic is the magic of life," Musashi explained. "Those who wield it can control the various aspects of things that bear life. They can make things heal, grow, and cleanse---but they can also do the reverse. Proper care must be taken when using this type of magic, even more so than others, for life is a complex thing that should be treated delicately. For this basic exercise, you must make the plant grow."

"Make the plant grow?" Jack asked with a doubtful look.

"That's right, sporeling." The mushroom samurai picked up a potted plant of its own before activating a glyph, channeling its own energy into it in the form of a reddish-pink aura. In a matter of seconds, the sapling grew in size---sprouting extra branches with bushes of vibrant green leaves---to which Jack watched with awe. "This is a simple way to train a basic healing spell. Allow your mana to flow into the target of which you wish to heal. Go on, give it a try."

Following its instruction, Jack activated a healing glyph and focused on his own plant, channeling his own mana into it. He concentrated intensely---pouring his mana into the plant with all his might---but all it managed to do was to cause the sapling to grow a few centimeters taller and maybe sprout an extra leaf or two. Compared to what the mushroom samurai could do, this was noticeably disappointing.

Jack lowered his head in defeat, but Musashi merely patted him encouragingly on the shoulder. "It's okay, sporeling. You will get better with practice. Besides, not everyone is skilled in every type of magic. Most people are good at certain magic but bad at others. Focus on your strengths and allow it to cover your weaknesses." Such wise words, ol' mushroom sage.

Next comes construct magic. Dingo activated a glyph and formed a sort of green ethereal quarterstaff in his hands. Jack did the same, though his was light-blue in color. They sparred at an arena with flooring made of padded straw mats. The two swung at each other with their mana-constructed staves, dodging and blocking as they do so, though Dingo was noticeably more agile and graceful than Jack was. Not only that, it only took a few strikes before Jack's staff fell apart, disintegrating into light-blue mist. That left Jack completely wide-open for an attack, to which Dingo used to his full advantage by sweeping him off his feet and pressing the tip of his staff onto Jack's chest, signifying his victory of this round.

"You need to concentrate more," Dingo said, gracefully twirling his own ethereal quarterstaff, which remained a solid piece. "In order for a construct to hold its shape, the user must maintain concentration. If your concentration breaks, so does your construct."

"Right," Jack replied, forming another quarterstaff in his hands. They sparred again and this time, Jack's staff lasted a bit longer. Though it was an improvement, it was hardly a huge one.

Afterwards, it's time for summoning magic, Raven's specialty. With a wave of her feathered hand, she activated a glyph, summoning a small group of ethereal crows which perched on her shoulders and the tip of her eerie bird-skull magestaff. As the crows landed, their appearance change from that of an ethereal form to that of a normal-looking form, nearly indistinguishable from that of regular crows.

"When it comes to summoning magic, one of the most important things to keep in mind is that a summon is its own individual being, with its own sentience and independent thought," she said as she pet some of the crows clinging on her arm. "This can be an advantage in a way. Let's say that you are knocked unconscious or is under an empathic spell and wasn't in your right mind, a summon can perform certain tasks while you're incapacitated, which can get you out of a bind. However, this can also be a disadvantage, for it will disobey your orders and even turn on you if it feels that it is being disrespected or mistreated in any way. Therefore, it is imperative that you must treat your own summon with respect. The effectiveness of a summon is highly dependent on the strength of the bond it shares with its master. In a way, it is similar to animal training, only that the animal or creature is formed out of your own mana. Now, go on. Try summoning a crow of your own."

Jack wielded his own crow-summoning glyph and summoned one single ethereal crow, which flew in the air before perching onto his left forearm. He noticed that, with a thought, he could change the appearance of the crow from its ethereal form to its normal-looking form. He assumed that changing it into its normal-looking form would be better for blending into the environment, which was more ideal for reconnaissance tasks.

"Ooh, hello there, little crow," Jack cooed at the crow before turning to Raven. "Hey, can I give it a name?"

"You can if you want. Some summoners don't bother giving them names or assign them with numbers instead as it can get confusing when summoning in large numbers. Those who name their summons are often the ones who are truly dedicated and specialized in the art of summoning, though one does not necessarily translate to the other. Like I said before, what's more important than giving your summons pet names is to treat it with respect. You must learn to understand and empathize with your summons's behavior and temperament, which can vary between species to species and even amongst individuals of the same species. It is because of this that many considered summoning magic to be the one that requires the most patience to learn out of all categories of magic."

"Okay, then." Jack turned back to crow on his arm. "I'm gonna call you Crowy McCrowface. How does that sound?" The crow simply let out a caw. "Hey, I think he likes it." The crow then attempted to peck at Jack's face. "Oww! Bad Crowy! Bad crow! Oww! Stop it!"

Raven sighed while shaking her head. "You still have a ways to learn."

After messing with the crow for a while---which mostly involving just the crow pecking at him incessantly---Jack moved onto empathic magic.

"Empathic magic is the magic of emotions," Raven explained. "A user of empathic magic is able to sense and manipulate the emotions of others in order to gain an advantage in a situation. Even amongst empathic mages, there is a wide range of emotions that one can specialize in. I, for example, specializes in the emotion of fear. As a demonstration, I will now place a basic fear spell onto you. Are you ready?"

Jack nodded. Raven then activated a glyph which emitted a sort of dark-purple aura onto him. Once he was hit with the aura, he suddenly felt a sense of unease creeping into him. His heart started beating faster, he felt goosebumps on his skin, and he'd gotten slightly more paranoid than he was just a while ago. At that single moment of intense emotion, it felt as though the humanoid crow mage in front of him was a much scarier presence that she was before, even though logically he shouldn't feel this way. It's as though the spell was enacting a sort of emotional pressure that is overriding his own instincts. It's a very weird feeling to describe.

"You are now under the influence of a fear spell," she continued. "As such, you will experience the effects that one will typically experience when they are in fear. Do keep in mind that what you're experiencing at this moment is the spell at its lowest intensity. At a higher intensity, these effects will be enhanced, such that you will instinctively panic and try to run away."

Raven deactivated the spell and Jack was back to his normal self.

"When using empathic magic, you have to be aware of not only the power of your own spell but also the emotional defense of the target against a specific type of emotion. Empathic spells affect different people differently, depending on what kind of emotional strengths and weaknesses they have. For example, people who are naturally courageous are more resistant to fear spells, people who are naturally calm are more resistant to anger spells, people who are naturally optimistic are more resistant to sadness spells, and so on. Not only that, understanding a person's emotional profile will make the empathic spells even more effective. Simply knowing a target's emotional response towards a specific person, object, or event will enhance the spell's effects towards a particular emotion. This bit of knowledge is what's known as an 'empathic amplifier', or 'empathic amp', for short. True experts of empathic magic are the ones who uses empathic amps to its maximum potential. Take you as an example. Jack, what do you fear?"

"What do I fear?" Jack scratched his head. "Well, aside from the usual suspects: death, poverty, microtransactions---ooh, cockroaches. I trucking hate cockroaches. Especially the big ones. They gross me out."

"Alright. Let's say someone has the knowledge of your fear of cockroaches and place a fear spell on you. That knowledge alone is enough to intensify that fear spell to a much greater degree. I will now place that same fear spell on you, this time having the knowledge of your fear of cockroaches."

Again, the crow mage activated a glyph emitting that same dark-purple aura from before. Jack was hit with same wave of fear, only this time it felt more intense. All the physical responses of fear had been multiplied, so much so that he thought he might have a mild panic attack. Then, all of a sudden, he felt something crawling up his arm. He saw that a horde of cockroaches started crawling up his body. He screamed, trying to frantically sweep them away before tripping and falling onto the ground. Once he collapsed to the ground, those cockroaches immediately vanished from his sight, leaving not even a single trace of their presence behind. It's as though they were not real at all, but a mere illusion of some kind.

"When an empathic spell gets strong enough, it can sometimes causes the person under the effect to experience hallucinations for brief periods," Raven explained. "The type of hallucinations experienced is most often related to the emotion of the spell and the empathic amp that is used."

Jack got up from the ground and brushed himself off. "Jesus Christ, that was scary! I never want to experience something like that again. I'd rather be hit by a fireball."

"Remember this well, Jack. The effectiveness of an empathic spell is dependent of the emotional knowledge that a person has on you. The more they know about your emotional profile---what you fear, what you hate, what you love---the more they are able to emotionally influence you. Therefore, as a precaution, refrain from casually sharing your emotional knowledge to just anyone, especially to those whom you do not completely trust. Aside from that, there are also special magical items---such as those with the Stoneheart enchantment---that can help defend you against empathic spells by lessening their potency."

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind. Though it'll be kind of hard to make friends if you close yourself off from people like that."

"It is a balancing act for sure. It's impossible to completely isolate yourself emotionally. One has to pay close attention to who they can trust or not. A good rule of thumb is that if you were to share a piece of emotional information to someone, he or she should share a piece of emotional information to you in return. If they know your emotional weaknesses, you should know theirs. That kind of precaution is a reliable way to maintain a level playing field when empathic magic is concerned."

"Yeah, got it."

Next comes divination magic, which was supposedly Musashi's specialty. The two were now at one of the table with cups and dice laying around, sitting on opposite ends.

"Divination magic is the magic of observing the past, present, and future," Musashi explained. "A basic spell for this is 'Seersight', which allows the user to see a few seconds into the future, allowing them to predict their enemies' attacks in order to more easily counter them. I often use it in conjunction with my swordsmanship to great effect. With it, I can more easily fend off multiple enemies and deflect incoming arrows."

"Wait, hold up," Jack interrupted. "So back then, when you and Raven came to the scene to rescue me, the way you deflected those arrows, that was you using divination magic?"

"That is correct. I've used Seersight to precisely see the future trajectory of the arrows in order to more easily deflect them. Though my skills in swordsmanship is at a level where I was able to deflect even a few arrows without the assistance of magic, having divination magic certainly enhances my combat abilities significantly."

"Wow, that is kinda cool. But, uhh, what does that have to do with all these dice here? Are we playing a game of Liar's Dice here or what?"

"Since a large part of divination magic is about sensing the future, you are going to practice doing just that. In this simple exercise, you are going to predict the outcome of the dice roll using a divination spell." Musashi took three of the dice and put them in the cup, then shook the cup with the dice in it before placing it firmly onto the table. "Now, try wielding the glyph and tell me the outcome."

Jack did as he asked. Once the glyph was activated, his vision started getting blurred and distorted in an extremely bizarre way. It's as though he was seeing multiple versions of the same image overlapping each other, some more translucent than others. He looked down at the dice cup, doing his best to focus his altered vision into observing what the outcome of the dice roll was. With how blurry the image was, he could hardly make out any of the details.

"Woah, my vision is really blurry right now," Jack described, feeling a mild sense of nausea simply from looking at the blurred images. "I'm seeing doubles here, maybe even triples. Is that supposed to happen?"

"What you're experiencing right now is quite common actually, especially for beginners of divination magic. The future, after all, is not something that is set in stone but is instead an everchanging entity with multiple possible paths, all branching out from a singular point known as the present. What you're seeing is those multiple paths intertwining with each other, each of varying probabilities in terms of their occurrence. The more probable a path is, the more visible and clear the image becomes. Your proficiency in divination magic is not high enough yet so what you're seeing right now is most likely a muddled and confusing image. Clear your mind, Jack. Focus on what is in front of you and nothing else. Once you do that, the true future will naturally reveal itself."

Jack did as instructed. Inwardly he tried to empty his mind and enter into a zen-like state while staring calmly at the dice cup. After a few intense seconds, the blurry image he's seeing started getting a bit more coherent. He couldn't make out the entire image however---only a small part of it---but it was better than nothing.

"Umm...I think one of the dice is a three," he finally said.

Musashi lifted the cup and revealed the dice, showing a one, a three, and a four. Well, one out of the three wasn't bad, at least not on the first try.

"Very good. You've gotten one of it right." Musashi praised with his signature gentle tone.

"You know I could have just guessed that, right? I mean, what are the chances? Probably one out of six that at least one of the die rolls a three?"

"This exercise often needs to be done multiple times in order to make sure that it isn't out of pure luck. With a high enough skill level, one is able to answer correctly almost every time."

"Multiple times, huh? Ugh, just one is already enough to make me super dizzy. I don't think I can continue on like this without the risk of hurling."

"There's a term for what you're experiencing. It's known as 'chrono sickness'. It's similar to motion sickness, in which what your senses are receiving mismatched sensory information, leading to the feeling of slight disorientation and nausea. As you train further into divination magic, you can focus your sight into developing a clearer image and thus be less disoriented by it. Here, I have some candy that will help you with the nausea." Musashi gave Jack what appeared to be some kind of yellow candy.

"Ooh, thanks." Jack popped it in his mouth. It had a flavor that was sort of a mix between ginger and peppermint---a nice pleasant taste that definitely helped a lot with the nausea.

"You're welcome. I often keep these candy for many of my divination students. Now, shall we try again?"

Musashi rolled the dice again. This time, Jack was able to see even more clearly, able to make out two of the dice instead of one. "Umm, a two and a five."

Musashi revealed it to be a two, a three, and a five. "Not bad. You're improving."

"Heck yeah! Wait, if this were that easy to do, wouldn't people be cheating at dice games left and right? And probably not just dice games either. They'll make a killing at a casino!"

"There are precautions taken, of course. Most gambling dens have enchanted devices that will detect and/or negate all types of magic within its vicinity, including divination. Not only that, using magic to cheat in games is highly frowned upon in many places and will often get you into a lot of trouble if you are caught."

"Ahh, I see."

With that, Jack had basically trained for the entire day, dabbling a little in all of the categories of magic. All except one.

"Well, you still need to get a basic understanding in enchanting magic," Dingo told him. "As of right now, our best enchanting expert is Yemi and since enchanting magic is closely tied to smithing, you're probably not going to learn enchanting without learning a bit of smithing from Oren. Those two kinda go hand-in-hand. Though, judging from yesterday, they're probably not going teach you unless you become their apprentice, in which case, the choice is up to you. Aside from that, you're free to come down here to train whenever you like. You can also use our library to read up on some of the books to get a better understanding of the principles. Once we feel like you've got a good enough grasp in magic, we'll take you out on missions."

There was a surge of excitement welling up in Jack, knowing that he had just taken his first step in exploring this incredibly dense and complex system of magic. But, at the same time, there's also one problem that came into his mind just now.

"Umm, you said something about reading books? I can't exactly read."

Dingo turned towards him with a curious look. "You're illiterate?"

"Well, not exactly. I do know a language. That language just isn't used in any of the books around here. Trust me, I've checked." And he highly doubt they'll have Google-translate for whatever Tolkien-esque fantasy language those books are written in.

Dingo scratched his white-furred head. "Well, that's a predicament I certainly didn't expect to have. It'll be quite inconvenient for you to not know how to read. I suppose you'll just have to get a quick lesson in language comprehension on top of everything else. Hmm...perhaps you can ask Oren and Yemi about that when you go visit them."

"Oh, are they willing to teach me language as well?"

"Not exactly, though they do know a fairly good teacher who will, assuming he even wants to. Just ask Oren and Yemi about him. They'll probably work it out for you."

"Okay, then."