Kyroth and Nivora made there way through the Academy in silence. They only got lost once making them have to get out their maps to get back on track. When they showed up they were the last ones to enter the others already seated. Checking the map he noticed that they still had at least twenty minutes left.
Sliding into his seat he waved at Syn, she blushed but waved back. A minute later the door burst open and Professor Assera walked in. "Glad to see you arrived early. Must be eager to practice magic, sadly we will not be casting anymore today." Assera stated leaning against her desk.
"How did you know we were all here?" Kyroth asked puzzled. Many of the other students shared the same interest that he did.
Chuckling softly she pulled out her map, it was much more worn then theirs but looked otherwise the same. Folding it open it showed that all of them were on the map sitting in their chairs. "When you got assigned to me your badges were linked to my map. Sadly you cannot manually block this like you can with each other." Assera added with a wink. "Got to keep a eye on you guys." Her gaze lingered on Kyroth and Nivora for just a brief second.
Folding it back up she slipped it into her dress, what pocket in was stashed in, he had no idea as he saw none from where he was sitting. "So, for the rest of today we will discuss the types of magic you will probably run into. We have gone over quite a few this morning, Offensive, Defensive, supportive.I showed you guys debuff's when i blocked Isen's mana from his reach. This is considered both offensive and supportive." Assera stated clearly so that they could jot down what they wanted to.
"Many spells can fall into any of the categories, some only falling into one where as some can fall into all three. Every element is capable of each however some are naturally better at certain ones."
"There are a few other types but they are more specialized such as constructs and summoning. Both of these are hard to do." Assera added as she sat back down on her desk.
Syn raised her little hand up and sat patiently her eyes looking down a bit afraid to ask the question but driven to. Assera nodded for her to ask the question. "What is summoning then?" Her voice quiet voice was hard to hear even for Kyroth who was right next to her.
"Well, for one it is a much higher type of spell then you should be attempting. It is the act of using your mana and the mana around you to create a creature. It takes a vast amount of mana and once started cannot be stopped. Very few people actually have the raw potential to even pull it off. Some spells you have to have a affinity for to gain the higher levels of it, or to cast in general." Assera stated with a soft smile.
"It usually takes a person until they are a Second or even Third Shard to really figure out what they are best at. A person's element and starting powers help guide us the teachers but that does not always give defined specialties. I mean Charvor has a very low chance not to excel at attack spells due to both light, fire, and his arcane blast are attack heavy." Charvor smiled and held himself even higher in his seat, something Kyroth did not know was even possible. He hated that scum like Charvor was getting praised.
"Again, those just help guide us. With practice and hard work you can get quite high in a area that you are not naturally gifted in. It will of course be harder, but possible. With the exception of summoning, you either can or cannot do it." It seemed weird for her to contradict herself, but it made sense.
Ash was the next to raise his hand, he kept his other arm crossed over his chest. Curiosity covered his face, which was a new look on him. "So is summoning the only way to gain a animal partner?" Ash asked when Assera nodded for him to ask.
"Heaven's no, the other main way that you can is called Taming. Basically you capture or befriend a creature and then you cast a binding spell on it linking you two together. Once that is done you can cause it to teleport to you from where ever it is. There are other spells that can be used with a tamed creature as well." The professor answered as she added it to the list of spell types.
Isen raised his hand quickly before she could move on. "Well then what is a construct?" Assera seemed as if she was trying to avoid those types of spells from the get go but now she was cornered into answering them.
"So with constructs they are creatures formed from mana but not in the sense of summoning. They have no mind of there own and are made of pure mana. You give them instructions via your mind and they will follow them as best they can. If they complete the task and have no further instructions they will just stand there until they run out of mana." Assera explained with a flick of her hand.
"Alright, now that we have loosely covered the types of spells lets go into how to learn them. I am sure you guys would love to learn new spells right?" She asked energetically watching as all of them nodded eyes lighting up in the prospect of learning new spells.
A sly smile crossed her face as she watched this. "Sadly it is not as easy as you would think. I explained that magic is basically you willing something to happen, infusing mana to it and poof it happens. Well that is the simplified version, it takes practice, lots of it before you can learn a new spell. You have to visualize and direct your mana perfectly. Once you learn a spell that direction is not as strict." Assera stated pacing in front of them again.
"It took me a week to learn my first spell. Some of my classmates took longer, others shorter. What you need to do is figure out what type of magic you want to use and then go from there. I wanted to be a offensive and defensive mage. Naturally my first new spell was a simple firebolt, allowing me to shoot a concentrated bolt of fire." Lifting up her hand she pointed it to a dull crystal in the corner and a small ball of fire ripped out of her hand, a tail behind it. Slamming into the crystal it exploded fire going everywhere.
The crystal hummed to life and the fire was pulled back sucking itself into the crystal. "That is a absorption crystal, it absorbed any spell targeting it and breaks it down to raw mana. When I was learning how to cast the firebolt I thought well this should be simple, just have a concentrated ball of fire and launch it." Assera stated standing in front of Nivora.
"I was wrong, I needed to visualize how it would look when it was fired, how it would react when it hit something. Not only that but what the color of it would be as well as how it would feel leaving my body. Also getting the mana to form into a ball and stay that shape posed a huge problem. All things you take for granted starting out because you Awaken already knowing all of that instinctively." She continued, Kyroth was furiously writing trying to get every word she stated. He had no idea it would be this difficult to learn a new spell.
Digging behind the chalkboard she pulled out a stack of books probably only a few hundred pages each. "Luckily for you, here we have some First Shard spells that others have been so kind in recording allowing you guys to learn from them if you wish. Be aware that you will only be able to know a few at a time. Why, well to be fair to you we do not know that answer but it is similar to mana capacity, it grows with you. So if you use one of these choose wisely for your first spell it might be your last for a while." Assera stated passing them out letting them land on the desk with a loud thud. "I personally feel you should learn one on your own first." She stated shrugging.
Flipping through the contents he realized that only a couple dozen pages were dedicated to each element with almost fifty covering arcane. Eagerly he flipped to the chapter about wind and scanned it. At best there were only five of them going into great depth on how each one of them could be learned. Kyroth felt that he agreed with Assera and learning a spell on your own would be better. He was curious to see if Nivora would do the same or just go for a spell in the book to learn one as fast as she could.
"That is all for today's evening session. The rest of the day is yours to do as you wish. If you practice magic, make sure you do it at the firing range. Your map can guide you there and your badges can let you into your designated area. Remember that you will not have my constant mana supply so do not push it. The next two days are yours, next we meet I will have a surprise for you." Assera stated with a sly wink before leaving the room.
Knowing that Kyroth should probably go practice a bit more, his body was feeling a bit strained from his early practicing. Slipping the book into his pack he started for the door when Syn pulling on his sleeve. "Hey Syn, what can I help you with?" He asked as the rest of the team pushed past them to leave.
Holding her hands behind her back she continued to look at the ground her body waving back and forth a bit. "Um, could you help me try to learn a spell tomorrow?" Like usual her face blushed whenever she talked to him or asked for help.
"Sure, I know that she told us to practice at the range, but we should meet and then go to the pond at the park. Being a water element you will probably have a better time using your magic near a large body of water. I read somewhere that it helps, granted not as much as the elemental region." Kyroth stated, rambling a bit near the end. "Now come on, lets go get some rest." Smiling they left the classroom together.
Kyroth stayed up for most of the evening, reading through his book of spells trying to figure out exactly what they all had in common. Assera did say that you had to be able to envision the spell as if it was happening and from the book it validated that. Some of the spells were not bad in the book, but it was clearly made to give people ideas not to be a guide book.
Rubbing his eyes he sat in the middle of his room and closed his eyes pulling at his mana and letting it flow into his body. Activating his Full Augument his opened his eyes and stood in front of his mirror looking at the bluish glow to his body.
Taking deep even breaths he visualized cutting parts of the mana flow to remove first his legs as they faded to normal. Next he cut off only one arm watching it lose the glow, the change in feeling was quite intense. Finally all that he had left was his eyes as he started focusing on certain objects in the room trying to figure out how they work entirely. Looking out of the window he was shocked to see that things showed up in the night.
He could make out shapes in the darkness with pretty decent clarity and it seemed that living creatures glowed a soft blue against the darkness. It was something he had not seen before because the glow was so soft. With concentration he focused on just the blue glowing dots and the glow got a bit deeper. "So, even effects of a spell can grow the more you use it." Kyroth stated to himself as he severed the flow of his mana all together.
Sliding into bed he felt his mana and figured that he had used up half of his reserves just with that one practice. It had only taken ten minutes, he was told it was a higher level spell so that would make sense. Kyroth knew that if he needed to really use it he would need to try and pace himself. With that final thought, he drifted into a dreamless sleep his body exhausted from the day of spells.