NOVEL NEXT Chapter 14 - Reflect
Gio stared wistfully at the dead sprouts.
“Well, you can’t be good at everything, bud,” Sapphire stated, clapping him on the back.
Mistress Blossom had been very helpful, detailing the different kinds of damping off, and root rot that could happen from overwatering. Gio wiped his brow and prepared to start over.
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The weekend had come and gone in what felt like hours, as Gio balanced studying, farming, and practicing with his spells. [Reflect] had still evaded Gio, as active defense magics aren’t easy to train without something to actively defend from.
Gio had attempted to get to class at his pace of “If you’re not 15 minutes early, you’re late” (courtesy of his father) when he was greeted in the Manse by a familiar blood-red glassy door with unsettling depictions.
Entering in stride, Gio announced his presence. “Hello? I don’t think I’ve been doing any unsafe exploration recently to merit the impromptu summons, professor."
“Gio! Come on up.” Professor A called, over the bannister.
Professor A was gathering his materials for class and pointed to a set of materials on the long embalming table.
“I got a little busy this week, and I really should have gotten these to you earlier. The Owl refused to take the materials, and by right of kill, they are yours.” Professor A stated, while highlighting something in a notebook.
“He refused them? Does that mean I still owe him for the book?” Gio asked.
“No… about that. I believe that I was being rather unfair to the Librarian to assign malice to his actions instead of… ineptitude.” Professor A said, taking off his glasses.
“You see, Gio, I have lost more than a couple of students to the school. It’s inevitable, yes, but I refuse to be complacent about the safety of my pupils. The Owl… did his job, and offered information to one of my students a few years back, and that information killed her. I don’t think I've fully forgiven him. We weren’t able to recover her corpse, and so her family still seeks closure.”
Professor A got up from his seat and faced a curio cabinet, full of different specimens.
“I see a lot of her in you, Gio. She came from the Silver Ring, born to a family of middle-class entertainers. She had an incredible talent for illusion magic, and she dreamed of taking her family’s shows to new heights.” the man said, looking back at Gio.
“But I digress. I think the Owl offered you the riddle, thinking that you would either approach it differently or not understand it at all. As you’ve noticed, certain divinations behave differently depending on their environment. The mana-shaping technique that you used is especially powerful when it resonates with sympathetic targets. You used knowledge mana, to locate a piece of knowledge, in a place of knowledge, guarded over by a high spirit of knowledge. I do not doubt that that act was the catalyst for your skill advancement.” Professor A offered.
“I actually had a question about [Fledgling Knowledge Seeker], Professor. I can feel that the skill has been stellar for my studies, but what about it makes it so good that I have to be careful about talking about it?” asked Gio.
“It’s a unique skill, and it only occurs under certain conditions. That skill is something of a key, to a specific lock. This school is a giant, space-dilated dungeon, built by incredible forces in ages long past… but it has always been a school, you see. The Crystal Ring Academy was a school for spirits long before the mortal races ever stepped foot inside.”
“The [High Knowledge Elementals] of the libraries that the manse has access to have largely assented to being bound to the greater good of the school, as it is within their nature to foster learning, but there are places deep within the school that have remained hidden. [Fledgling Knowledge Seeker] while uncommon, is not unheard of. There are several knowledge seekers in the dungeon delving teams that use the skill to uncover libraries, troves, and other hidden places by resonating with the information secreted away inside.” Professor said, capturing the imagination of Gio.
“But! As you already know, this school is also fiendishly dangerous. Such places rarely appear unaccompanied by danger in some form. I ask that if you ever find yourself in such a place, remember what we’ve taught you- back away if you are able, and notify the staff” Professor Anaximenes concluded.
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The class that day consisted of mock duels, where both duelists were required to lob easy-to-dodge balls of condensed force mana at their opponents, to practice using their defensive magic. Gio was suffering. Jean was his opponent, and Jean’s aim was incredible. Gio was attempting and failing to get [Reflect] to work at all. The spell summoned a shimmering mirror-like surface for all of a millisecond before the construct fell apart in motes of shimmering mirror mana, an odd mana type to begin with. Gio could not get the hang of it at all and was currently feeling very bruised by the balls of Force Mana.
Professor Anaximenes shot a small bolt of white and green mana directly into Gio’s arm, providing a small bit of relief to the physical symptoms of his anguish.
“Hey, Gio, maybe we could try having you use that spell against a slower target so that you could get the hang of what it feels like when it connects?” Jean offered. Gio looked at the taller student, feeling slightly humiliated, but grateful for the change in pace.
“Sure… thanks Jean,” Gio said dejectedly. Jean motioned for Gio to sit on the ground, with his palms facing outwards. Jean rolled a bowling-ball-sized amount of mana toward Gio, which Gio wished felt more patronizing, but under the current scenario felt very necessary.
Gio watched as the ball approached him, at a middling pace, and prepared himself.
I will not miss this. I. Will. Not. Embarrass. Myself. In. Front. Of. Jean.
As the ball neared, Gio sent his mana out into the familiar sigil for [Reflect] and felt the spell connect to foreign mana for the first time.
Whoa!
Gio felt a draw upon his mana and allowed the spell construct to strip a small amount from his reserves. The initial bowling ball rebounded against the shimmering membrane and bounced back towards Jean. After a short while, Jean snuffed out the ball of mana with a burst of satisfying white and gold flame.
“Great job Gio!” Jean replied, cheerfully.
I will not be resentful.
Jean and Gio fell into lockstep as their training continued, and once class was over, they even transitioned over to the House of Torches, to use the training halls there. By the end of the day, Gio could reflect about half of the projectiles that Jean launched, softball style.
And so the week went by, with the addition of training with Jean added to Gio’s daily schedule.
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Gio was floored. His studies were going well, he had a beautiful seedling crop of beans, squash, and corn that would hopefully be ready for harvest in a week or so, due to the high nature and life mana concentrations of the grove, and he had come upon the unexpected windfall of receiving the materials from the Inkling that he had killed. Gio planned to celebrate by safely creating an inaugural spellform to officially launch his journey into spell crafting.
Having read up on the theory for days in between his other activities, Gio was ready to try copying a well-known beginner spell, for which a blueprint existed in the text of Gio’s copy of Mortimer’s Meticulous Primer on Making Spellforms. The spell was a relatively simple form, consisting of a few minor sigils that connected the spellform to the plane of knowledge, where a construct of mana held instructions that could possess a writing instrument to take notes or draw perfect shapes. [Scrivener’s Charm] was officially a common spell, but was very popular among certain trades.
A day later, Chandrika, Sapphire, and Jean watched Gio carefully scribe his final draft of the nascent spell onto a perfectly cut piece of paper from the Inkling. Sapphire has been kind enough to loan Gio some petals from a deep purple flower known as [Amethyst Dreamlily] so that he could experiment with inkmaking. Gio also bought a set of cheap laboratory equipment for his dorm at the price of 20 Academic Credits.
As the spellform dried, Gio typed and channeled knowledge mana into the paper, repeating a chant present upon the instructional material.
A moment later, Gio had prepared a mundane pen, paper, and ink, and had his hand outstretched over the spellform. Everyone held their breath, as Gio channeled mana into the page.
A glimmer of black and purple mana sputtered out over the pen, and it righted itself onto the tip and began scratching out a jagged line. Cheers erupted from the room.
“I did it! I made a spell! My first spell!" Gio cried.