SpellShocked (SpellShocked Saga: Book 1)

Chapter 21 - It'll Be Fun!

"Conjuration involves opening portals to the same or different planes of existence and then bringing creatures through breaches to do your bidding or using the breaches to transport yourself and others to somewhere else.

"Divination is a strange one that very few people have a Focus in. Diviners, depending on their power, can see visions of the future with different levels of clarity. They can also find people or objects by scrying. You can use it to read minds or communicate telepathically, detect magical objects and sense when magic is present or is being used."

"Necromancy is a weird one too. It's manipulation of life and death, like I explained; it can be used to heal the sick or to do horrific things like drain the lifeforce of something or raise undead creatures. Obviously, the darker side of necromancy isn't taught here – they focus on the healing aspect of it all."

"Non-Focus necromancy allows you to heal minor to moderate external injuries, but for larger external injury or internal injury, those can only be healed by a Focus necromancer. And non-Focus necromancy tends to leave a lot of scar tissue and isn't as definitive a treatment because it just sticks damaged cells back together, whereas Focus necromancy repairs the cells and the bonds between them to completely repair a tissue; it's like non-Focus necromancy is stiches, compared to Focus necromancy which is a complete resealing of wounds, no stiches required."

"And that's about it," he finished, shrugging as if it were no big deal. I suppose to him it wasn't considering he'd been studying it for two years already, but to me it was a bit overwhelming.

"That's a lot to take in," I said as I scribbled down the last of what he said.

"It is, but you'll pick up the basics of each discipline as you learn to use them. Trust me, it'll become easier after some practise."

"Okay," I nodded, not quite believing it was as easy as he made it seem, "What about spell Classes, how do they work?"

"Spells are split into Class based on how hard they are to cast and how much magic they need to cast; the higher the Class, the harder it is to cast and the more magic it uses up. Most people can eventually cast spells from Classes One to Six from all eight Disciplines, but typically Class Seven to Ten spells in each discipline can only be cast by sorcerers who have a Focus in that discipline; that's because having a Focus in a discipline reduces the magic required to cast spells from that discipline by a significant amount, and using those spells comes more naturally to the caster.

"For example, it would take you a fair amount of concentration and magic to cast a Class One Necromancy spell, but for me, I would use next to no magic at all and would be as easy as snapping my fingers. The only real way around the Class restriction is to have such a huge Vessel that it doesn't really matter if you need to use loads of magic to cast a Class Seven or higher spell, but it's not really practical."

"At MerPrep, you learn spells of Class One to Four for each discipline, with the year corresponding to the Class of spell you learn that year; so, Class One spells in first year, Class Two in second year and so on. In Focus classes though, you tend to learn spells a year early, meaning by the time you're in fourth year, you can cast a couple Class Five spells in your Discipline, maybe even a Class Six if you're good."

"So, I have to learn all of the Class One and Two spells from all eight Disciplines to catch up?"

"Yup! Honestly, they're not complex spells, and you're really talented. I think you'll breeze through it."

"I hope so," I lamented, "The sooner I learn them, the better I'll feel."

"That's a good reason to crack down and study, I suppose!" he joked.