Chapter 7: Student Instructors (2)

~7.2~

*****

“Well...” Alethea muttered as they watched a few of the older students sparring in the training grounds. Their spar was a three-way free-for-all and their match took up the entire building.

“What do we do?” asked one student.

Kye had already formed her weapon and was staring intently at the match. She walked toward the match. As the three older students clashed, Kye moved in and pinned all three of their weapons to the ground with a single strike from above, sending out a small shockwave. The surprised older students stopped.

“Hi! So, we have a class of fifty-something. Alethea and I are teaching them, and we need a large enough space to do so. Would you guys like to join us? We have a few older students already.” Kye paused for a moment, then it clicked. “You’re the first three students that watched Alethea and me during our first spar here. You’re the reason everyone calls me the Goddess of Light!”

“Hehe, sorry that’s my fault,” the girl said. She bowed as she introduced herself. “Greetings, I am Astrid Jorgensen, and I am in my fifth year.”

“I am Ulfric Jorgensen, fourth year.”

“I am Bjorn Jorgensen, sixth year. I apologize for my sister.”

Kye glared at Astrid, who tried to hide behind her large older brother. Kye dropped the glare and went back to her question. “So, what do you think?”

“I’d be fine with that,” Astrid said. “You two are practically legends already at age eighteen. Few would pass this up, though you said you have fifty-something? Considering who you are, that’s a surprisingly low turnout. Ric? Bor?” Her brothers nodded.

“With that solved...” Kye grinned at Alethea.

“Huh? What?”

“Get to teaching, teach!”

Alethea ignored her and began explaining to the several dozen students. She received many requests from students to help them with mana control, magic casting, and general combat skills. ...Hundreds of requests. She decided to hold classes each Saturday and knock out one topic at a time. The first class would cover mana control.

“Mana control is the base for everything. Before I address any of you individually, I want to go over a few things that I believe may help all of you, as well as provide an example to practice.” She formed a simple ball of mana and held it where the class could easily see. “Forming mana into a sphere is easy enough, but what of manipulating it afterward? It may be easier to disperse that mana first to do whatever you want next, but we’re not taking shortcuts.” She morphed the ball into an arrow.

“The goal of today is to accomplish two things in particular,” Kye said. “All of you will learn to manipulate already formed mana, and...” She formed a bow from her weapon bracelet, formed a ball of mana, morphed it into an arrow, and shot the arrow across the building. The arrow stopped and flew backward back to Kye, where she then turned it back into a ball. “Learn to do that.”

Half of their audience was dumbstruck, and the other half was excited. After a short bit of instruction, everyone set to work. The first stage of creating a ball out of mana was simple for everyone. They covered that in their regular classes enough, and the older students obviously had at least an extra year of practice, if not several.

The hard part came when they tried to manipulate the ball of mana into another shape. Some could do it fairly quickly and were allowed to take a break while the rest worked on it. The Jorgensen siblings had no trouble with the task, being in their fourth year or higher. After fifteen minutes of failures, Alethea called for their attention and gave them an example. She formed a ball of mana, then physically reshaped it with her hands. “Try visualizing the motions one step at a time or mimic my example even! If you do use your hands, try it again without them and you’ll find it easier.”

Then it clicked, and suddenly everyone started succeeding. Once everyone successfully transformed the ball into an arrow, they moved on to the next part. Kye demonstrated again from start to finish, where she created a ball, transformed it into an arrow, fired it, stopped and returned it, transformed it back to a ball, and finally dispersed it. Alethea gave everyone some encouragement, and they started. Even the Jorgensen siblings had trouble stopping their arrows. Astrid was able to slow hers on her first attempt, but the rest of the participants couldn’t manipulate the speed at all. After five minutes, Astrid completed the exercise. Her brothers slowed theirs down, as did others, but some still could not do it at all.

Alethea stepped in with advice after Astrid succeeded. She retrieved a classic wooden arrow from the supplies they brought in a large bag and tied a long string to it. “Everyone, stop for a moment. Watch.” She fired the arrow. Once the string stopped it, she yanked it hard to pull the arrow back to her. “Visualization is huge in mana control. Imagine you have a string attached to your arrow. Even if you must make the hand motions of pulling it back as I did with the actual string, do it. Do it until you don’t need to.”

“May I?” Astrid asked. Alethea nodded. Astrid repeated the exercise slowly and described what she did. She imagined a string attached to the arrow, but with a pulley behind her to automatically pull it back toward her.

“That’s a wonderful way to think!” Immediately, half the class completed the stop and return portion of the exercise. The rest took only a few more minutes to catch up. “Now do it all from start to finish and you will have completed today’s lesson on mana control!” She waited for the class to do as she instructed, then continued, “Great! Just remember, visualization is your greatest tool. You are limited only by your mind.”

As Alethea wrapped up that lesson, Kye leaned in and whispered to Astrid, “That was clever. I bet you’d make a great teacher.”

“Heh. I bet you had your own suggestions lined up if they had kept having trouble.”

“Perhaps. Would you be open to discussing-”

“No need, Miss Kye. I already intend to become an instructor here.”

Kye was surprised for a moment, but soon smiled. “That’s wonderful. It takes two years after graduation, if I recall. You could be an instructor during my sixth year. I look forward to it, teach.”

Astrid giggled. “I don’t know what I could teach you, but if we get that opportunity, I’ll do my best.”

Kye gave her a bigger smile. “Well said.”

*****

Revision: 12-2-2023