Chapter 0100

Cardis allowed her two days to settle into her new home, of which Tempest spent all the time making charms, arrays or brush up on her studies of formations.

After she explores her new home again, and again, and again, Tempest began to get antsy with all the spare time she has.

Tempest wasn’t much of an idler back on Earth. There was much to do, from reading to playing computer games for her to become bored.

Here, there was nothing for her to do except read the books in her new library.

Tempest tried to do just that, except she began to worry about the welfare of her sisters. Are they eating well? Are they sleeping well? Are they in trouble because of her? Will they still be there when she goes to redeem them? Is the scheming witch Madam Vynn treating them right?

All these questions and much more began to circle in Tempest’s mind, agitating her already frazzled nerve. She couldn’t concentrate on the book she was reading. It felt like she was idling her life away when they were out there waiting for her to come to rescue them. The more she delayed, the more they’d suffer.

She needed to do something constructive, so she went to catalog her new workroom, sorting the materials into two different piles - one where she can sell right away to raise money and the other where she can convert into useful items where she can sell for more money.

The second pile was limited to charm and array materials. Tempest immediately got busy replenishing her diminished charm stock.

Tempest focused on As Swift as the Wind and Flash Step. These two charms were her biggest sellers. Everyone wants a charm that can save their life and running away faster than the beast chasing after you is a good way. Killing said beast chasing after you is a better alternative, but you wouldn’t be running away in the first place if you could kill it.

Tempest didn’t make much of her attack charms. Although her attack charms are useful in a fight, it doesn’t have the killing power necessary to make a difference, especially in a life or death fight.

The mercenaries who bought her charm previously were mortals or cultivators at the start of their immortal path. They would be the ones who would buy her attack charms. As for the mages in the guild, her attack spells are too low levels to be anything but be fireworks to the mages in the guild, flashy but no substance.

She might be able to find a market to offload her charms. It might not be worth the time and material spent. It is best to focus on making the charms she knows is going to sell. As for arrays, aside from the Pather Strike, she learned when she first transmigrated to the Cardinal Realms, she added Roar of the Lion and Fox Charm. Roar of the Lion stun everything in a small range.  Fox Charm has an illusionary effect. Tempest can’t attest to the effectiveness of the array considering her current soul force. She’d have to test it before she sells it. Tempest made the arrays to add variety to the arsenal.

Tempest was churning out charms after charms when Cardis dropped into her home and grabbed her.

He found a secluded spot inside the forest and dropped her like a sack of potatoes.

“And hello to you too.” Tempest snarked. Couldn’t he land elegantly like a god descending from heaven to the mortal world and gently place her on the ground like she was the most precious thing he’d ever seen. Ummm… dropping her like a sack of potatoes sounds quite good right now. It would be strange for the pervert to take an interest in her beyond the student-teacher relationship.

“I don’t think you take me seriously as a teacher. I’ve told you my lessons are quite harsh, yet instead of resting, I find you making trinkets.” Cardis inspect the unfinished charmed Tempest was making when she got napped with a distasteful expression before throwing it away.

“I was bored. I needed something to do. Brushing up my current skillset through charm making is profitable and constructive.”

“Being what you are, having constructive hobbies isn’t a bad thing.” Cardis relent. “Before we start, tell me everything you know about mages and the spirits.”

“Nothing.”

“... are you joking?”

“No.”

“You embark on the path of a mage without knowing anything about it?”

“Yes.”

“How can you not know anything? Even a child knows about the immortal potential and the beginning stages of cultivation for each one.” Cardis scolded angrily.

“I think I told you when we first met. I woke up on a cliff with no memories of this world.”

Cardis stiffen, trying to think back to their first conversation. His little successor may or may not have said anything to that extent, but he might have been too focused on her identity as the True Daughter of Storm to notice.

“We’ll start at the beginning then. There are four stages to a mage’s cultivation, Outer, Inner, Sensory and Mastery. During the entire process, the spirits combined their elemental energy with the ambient mana in the air to create what we refer to as mana. They then infused the mana into our bodies, changing us from a mortal to an immortal. While some of the old fogies believe it is worthwhile to remember the specifics of each cultivation stage, I think it is complete hogwash and should be skipped altogether.”

“... Ummm then why did you introduce the topic.”

“To wipe away any illusion you might have had about cultivation in the first place. You might have amnesia, but during your trip, you might have picked up rhetoric spout by ignoramus about cultivation. You might think cultivation is all about mediation, eating pills to increase mana, learning and mastering high-level technique to kill other people, stabilizing your foundation, stay on the righteous path or you’d develop inner demons, blah blah blah. Wipe the information out of your head immediately. Cultivating as a mage is completely different.

“The Heavenly Mountains has oppressed the other domains and spread their notion of what cultivation should be even though it does not apply to the other immortal path. They try to enforce their ideals on to us even though it won’t work. Some of their efforts stuck, especially their attempt to classify the mage’s cultivation level.”

“Ignore everything I’ve heard about cultivation. Got it.” Tempest hastily agreed with her teacher. She didn’t want to spend all of her time listening to his ranting. Tempest sense Cardis have issues with the cultivators from the Heavenly Mountains or at least their leaders. When an easygoing person rant, there is a story behind it. Tempest wasn't interested in Cardis’ story. It is his issue to resolve.

“Mages does go through the classification sequence mentioned but the major problem with the classification is the intent. Aside from the mage himself, no other can determine their stage of cultivation. What is the point of the classification if it isn’t used to determine a mage’s power level?”

“There -”

“Exactly. There isn’t any!” Cardis interrupt Tempest before she can finish her thoughts.“The need for mages to judge another mage’s power exists. We don’t have any sensing abilities to determine our opponent’s strength so we run into trouble with no idea if we can win or not. Even when we don’t go out looking for trouble, trouble finds us. Therefore, another classification was created based on mana output instead of the cultivation stages that came into being.

“The new classification takes into account three aspects: power, complexity, and control. When mage cast a spell, they have to write the spell circle and input mana to power it. The mana injected into a spell circle determines the strength of the spell and also gives an indication to the strength of the mage. The classification goes red, orange, yellow, green, indigo and purple, where red is the weakest and purple is the strongest.”

Cardis demonstrated the concept by casting a series of Fireball.

The red circle Fireball had a three-meter blast radius when it hit the water. The orange circle Fireball had a fifteen-meter blast radius when it hit the water while the yellow circle Fireball evaporated an entire section of the river. Tempest was able to see the riverbed for a good ten seconds before the river continued to flow as it did before.

Cardis was sensible enough not to demonstrate green circle Fireball. The power of an orange circle is about five times stronger than a red circle, yet the power of a yellow circle is exponentially higher than an orange circle. She’d believe it if Cardis told her he can create another Serene Spirit Lake with the power of a green circle Fireball.

By this time Tempest had stars in her eyes when she looked at Cardis.

“When can I do that?”

Cardis immediately pinched her cheeks, “You're trying to run before you even learn how to walk. I’m only demonstrating the power of each level so you can get an idea of what you can handle and when to run.”

“Aaahh ggoot iiit (I got it).”

Cardis release Tempest's cheeks and resume his lecture. “Complexity is the second part of a mage’s classification. This is measured by the number of circles a spell has.”

Cardis cast and released a one circle red Fireball and a two circle red Fireball. There was no noticeable difference between the two spells.

Tempest looked at Cardis for an explanation.

Cardis puffed up his chest a bit, enjoying the attention his little student was given to him.

Every woman has their vanity; every man has their pride.

Cardis had always prided himself on being the object of adoration of every woman in the Magus Alliance. Women look at him as if he was their every dream come true as if he was their god, descended from heaven just for them. They look at him with love and greed. They desire him, wish to monopolize him and do everything in their power to attract his attention. He gives every woman who desires him a moment of his time. Just a moment. After all, there is only one of him.

He has forgotten a man can take pride in other things aside from the lustful gaze of the opposite sex. A man can take pride in being a teacher.