Another day, another lesson with Karine.

Yesterday, I went way ahead of myself and confessed to Avilia after telling myself that it was too soon all this time. I’m not usually all that impulsive but sometimes you have to do something, right? It was the right thing to do, right?

I need to concentrate. At least my experimentation with converting my mana into charge for my arms has shown promising results. It’s not the silver bullet I need, but every time I’ve fed magic into the system it has increased the time until I run out of power by a few seconds. I think it’s because it stops my arms from using charge for that time. I wonder if I could get Karine to do the same to my legs?

Right. So, I’m again at Karine’s shop’s yard. I wonder what she has in store for me today? Ugh. I can’t stop feeling a bit distracted. Forlorn, even. I hope she isn’t going to teach me anything really important today. Oh sure, my software would remember the important parts for me, but I’d rather not cheat like that!

“Today, we’re going to continue with shields since you were having trouble casting them fast enough last time.”

“Alright. Oh, sorry in advance if I might seem a bit out of it today.”

“Oh,” Karine says with apparent concern in her voice, “Did something happen?”

I shake my head. “Nothing to worry about. How about you, how’re things between you and Flore?”

“I, um, followed your advice!”

Oh no!

“How’d it go?”

She looks positively giddy! I guess it went really well?

“Things are a bit of a blur,” she says with a bit of hesitance in her voice, “But we’re dating now!”

“Wow, that’s great! Congratulations!”

We hug.

“Thank you! I’ve never been happier!”

She looks a bit preoccupied for a moment and sighs. “I couldn’t sleep almost a wink last night, though. Too many things to do.”

I playfully pat her head with a smug smile on my face. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with Flore, would it?”

“What?” She gives me a flustered look. “No. We agreed to take it slowly for now. I actually have too many things to do right now.”

“Oh yes, I understand. Family obligations and the like?”

“Those, too. But then there’s these lessons, my position as a bit of an important person in the village, the shop. And on top of that I found out about the guards a bit late last evening.”

I wonder why that would matter to her? Is she afraid they’re after the documents I brought her or something?

“There’s a lot of them around right now, that’s for sure.”

She nods. “And that’s a problem. We didn’t ask for them and we weren’t told they were coming. I doubt they’re up to anything good. You wouldn’t even want to know how much extra work that means for me.”

“Sounds rough!”

“So, what about you? How are things between you and Avilia?”

I sigh. “I went and followed my own advice, too. I... may have told Avilia how I feel.”

Karine first looks surprised, but then she smiles. “Isn’t that good?”

“I told you how I felt like it was too soon, right?”

“Yes,” she nods empathically, “I distinctly remember you saying that just yesterday.”

“Well,” I start, holding my forehead with my left hand for a moment, “She got really embarrassed and didn’t know what to say. She said she needed a bit of time to think.”

Karine looks thoughtful. “Did things feel worse than usual afterwards?”

“No, not really. She acted the same way she always does. It helped me feel a bit better.”

“So, isn’t that a good thing?”

“I… guess? I’d just rather know where we stand than have things be ambiguous like this. It’s kind of painful, you know?”

“But she didn’t reject you outright and she still feels comfortable around you. Shouldn’t that be enough for now?”

I sigh. “Yes, I know. I know, but it doesn’t help with how I feel.”

She hugs me. “I’m sorry things didn’t go quite as you wanted. I’m sure everything’ll be fine, though! You’ll see!”

She’s right, of course.

Jeez, it’s been too long since I courted someone! Avilia looked like she wanted to say yes but just couldn’t in the moment. She’s told me about being left alone and everything. I’m being horribly unfair to her. I really put her on the spot. If she needs time, I should let her have it. We’re adults for crying out loud.

I smile. “Thank you. Just talking about it helped a lot.” And I’m not exaggerating at all. She may have pulled a big cliché but it’s the thought that counts!

“So,” she responds, smiling back, “Shall we get started with the lesson?”

“Shields again, right?”

“Yes, they can save your life you know! You need to get better at casting them. You wouldn’t want to find yourself in trouble and get hurt just because you couldn’t get your shields up fast enough.”

“Good point!”

Intent to cast. Desired outcome. They may be the building blocks of all spell-casting, but when using gestures, there’s two ways to go around it. You can drawing something into the air and feeding magic into whatever you’re drawing. Or you can use pure hand movements to do the same. Just that the latter tends to require the former for more specific parts of a spell.

Based on the lessons so far I’ve come to find that drawing everything tends to make more sense for defensive spells, while “throwing” a fire ball can feel more natural. If I didn’t know better, I might think this is some sort of a game mechanic. But it feels too natural and all of this is definitely real. As real as the world I lived in. I wonder if a lot of the other outworlders end up thinking they’re in a gamel or something?

“Let’s start with a lightning shield. Cast it slowly at first. I want to see what you end up with.”

What do you draw when you wish to cast a shield? You could write the words for “lightning shield” in the air with the magical alphabet which Karine taught me shortly after I learned how to read and write.

But that’s really slow.

Instead of doing that, you can draw a glyph for a particular type of shield you could find in the spell books. That’s definitely quicker. Then it’s a matter of memorizing all those glyphs. That’s a lot better, right?

I draw two glyphs, one for “lightning,” another for “shield.” The glyphs are like a form of arcane writing. The same ones are used in the rune stones you see everywhere.

I’m surrounded by an aura of electricity. At first I was scared of using spells that’d use electricity. Defensive or not, wouldn’t they interfere with my augments?

Turns out, not really. Due to counter-intuitive magic logic it just encircles your body and whatever you’re carrying while leaving you unharmed. Casting offensive lightning magic does the same. It doesn’t hurt you at all. I have absolutely no idea if it’s because of some sort of self-preservation instincts kicking in while casting spells or if it’s a function of magic, though!

After she gives me the signal, I draw the glyph for “cancel.” The shield around me disappears.

“There’s nothing wrong with your glyphs,” Karine says, “But your lesson for today is that you shouldn’t follow the books religiously.”

She raises her right hand. “Observe.”

She makes the glyph for lightning, but then surrounds it with a symbol that crudely resembles a shield. The result is the same: A crackling shield of lightning surrounds her.

She then hastily draws a line through them and the shield dissipates.

“The first secret to fast and efficient casting,” she says, raising her index finger, “Is that you don’t even have to use glyphs, just like you don’t have to use legible words. You can use symbols that you understand to mean something. The second secret,” she continues, raising her middle finger as well, “Is that the sizes of your gestures don’t matter. And the third one,” she says, also raising her ring finger, “Is that you can cut a spell short by striking a line over whatever you gestured instead of using the ‘cancel’ glyph every time.”

Karine lowers her hand. “Now, you try it.”

Is she seriously telling me to spell craft? Just like that?

She looks serious. Really?

… Alright. Let’s give it a try.

I draw a crude shield and a simple high voltage sign all the while feeding minute amounts of magic into the drawing.

Just as I finish with the gestures, the shield crackles into existence again.

I gasp. I honestly didn’t think that’d work!

I hastily draw a line through my drawing like Karine did over hers, and the shield disappears again.

Wow. I had no idea magic is this versatile.

“See? Depending on what’s faster, you can save a lot of time by drawing a thing you understand to mean something instead of using complex multi-step glyphs. If you want to become good at casting spells, you need to be willing to experiment.“

I stare at my right hand for a moment. The magic crystals underneath my fingertips are still giving off a little bit of light after all that casting. “Why didn’t you tell me I could’ve done this from the beginning?”

“Because you needed to learn the basics first,” Karine says with a wink, “And you also needed to learn the glyphs anyway! You aren’t always going to have a symbol that’ll give you the result you want faster than a good, well placed glyph.”

“Couldn’t I just make up whatever doodles on the spot?”

“Sure. And you wouldn’t be the first to think of that. At that point you could just as well use visualization instead of gestures. You’d also potentially weaken your spells by making gestures and drawings you don’t associate with the spell you’re trying to cast. You don't want to confuse your desired outcome at such a crucial time!”

Ah, right. The more random gestures you use instead of something you’ve gotten used to, the more conscious effort it takes I guess. Muscle memory and stuff!

“Okay. Combine glyphs and symbols. Sizes don’t matter. I think I get it.”

“Great! Next, I want you to go through all the different elemental shields and after that we’ll continue with the more general ones. Does that sound good?”

“Yes!”

Who thought learning magic would be fun?