After the basic introduction to how the spellcasting system as a whole worked, Matt got me started on forming magic circles, which needed to be created inside of the mind before one  could cast any spells at all. Apart from that, he also gave me some basic exercises to work on to help familiarize myself with fire. I was to spend several hours a day observing a candle flame, and observing fire in other related environments. I suspected that I would also benefit from seeing any other form of fire, and I could probably take the same methodology and apply it to any other magic symbol I wanted to familiarize myself with. Fire was a good start, but force and water would be just as useful in the future, and after I formed those, there were numerous other magic symbols I would also want to learn. However, at least for now, I was just focused on making a magic circle and learning my first symbol.

I didn’t manage to form my first magic circle in one session, unlike my incredibly fast successes with alteration essence. But I thought I could still form my first magic circle within a week.

Which made me think about how useful the spellcasting system could be in future worlds, compared to the rune magic system. For runes, I needed to wait for my body to acclimate itself to each new rune before forming another one. Trying to form several in a row would seriously damage my body and hurt me. This put a massive limitation on the rune magic system; one needed quite a bit of time to get it working. Sallia managed to largely avoid this problem, since her extreme affinity for the essence made the acclimation period much shorter. However, I didn’t have this advantage, which significantly reduced how useful the rune magic system was for me.

By contrast, the spell circles of the spellcasting system didn’t need any acclimation period. One could be done forming them in a month or so, if one was particularly fast. This meant that spellcasting required much less setup time before I regained mastery over the magic system.

Of course, there were also notable downsides. As far as I could tell, spellcasters of this world didn’t get any stat bonuses at all. Shapers seemed like they could get some Stat bonuses if someone figured out how Orukthyri were made, but I had no idea if we would get that information before dying and leaving this world. Meanwhile, runes had the massive upside of giving us 3 extra grades in all our physical and mental Attributes once we had 9 runes, making us faster, stronger, and harder to ambush. The rune system had massive upsides in addition to its massive downside.

As I thought about these problems and tried to figure out what I wanted in the future, my learning session with Matt finally ended. My master congratulated me for a productive first day, before she took me to another building in the city, where all of the children who were magically gifted could meet up with each other and socialize. 

Including Sallia, Felix, and Anise.

“Miria!” Said Sallia, the moment she saw me. It had only been a few days since we last saw each other, but she immediately tackle-hugged me the moment she saw me.

“I learned to do magic! I’m getting close to being a super witch!” Said Anise, who had been tagging along behind Sallia.

Felix was still a little bit behind the other two, but when he heard Anise’s words and saw how enthusiastic the girl was, he seemed to be trying very hard to resist the urge to burst out laughing. I had a sneaking suspicion that when Anise got older, she would never, ever live down her enthusiasm for being a super witch. I felt my lips quirk upwards at the thought. Even if I fully intended to tease her mercilessly in a few years, it was also fun seeing what a real child looked like. Sallia, Felix and I had largely forgotten what it was like to think like a child, since the three of us were essentially adults crammed into children’s bodies. Something about Anise managed to brighten up my day, even if I was pretty sure she would die of embarrassment when she was older and remembered this.

“That’s great to hear, Anise,” I said. “Are you enjoying learning so far?”

“I’m learning lots! Mister Lauren is really good at teaching me how to do spellcasting, and while I haven’t learned any magic symbols yet, I’ve decided to work on a symbol for stone first! Mister Lauren says that the best way to survive as a spellcaster is to learn some good second-circle spells to keep you safe during fights and keep opponents from killing you, and then blast them down with a third or fourth circle spell once you’ve stopped them from hurting you. And stone is really good at hardening skin and tripping opponents in the caves!” said Anise, her four eyes blinking and glittering like jewels as she talked about magic.

“Is that so?” I said, giving Anise a lighter hug, before giving Felix a hug of his own. “I’m sure you’ll become a super witch in no time! You just need to practice lots and do your best to learn!”

“Mm-hmm!” said Anise, nodding happily.

“How’s Lauren as a teacher?” I asked Sallia and Felix after Anise finished gushing.

Sallia frowned. “He kind of reminds me of my tutors when I was a… special person, long ago. He’s very… structured in how he teaches. He has a certain way he thinks is optimal when it comes to teaching and learning, and he wants us to follow those ideas. Which isn’t a bad thing. But it’s also very rigid. I think it’s a good way to learn how to excel in this world, since he’s so specialized in counterspelling and improving his spellcasting with shaping. But it also doesn’t really lend itself to the skills we’ll need in future… areas we visit,” said Sallia, taking some effort to mind her words around Anise. Even if it was unlikely that any adults would take Anise seriously if she told them that we always talked about being from other worlds, or the Market, there was no reason to tempt fate. I made a small reminder to myself to also mind my words around the excitable young girl.  

“It’s a really good thing that you got a different teacher. If you had learned under Lauren, it would have been a waste,” said Sallia, finishing up her thoughts as I thought about Anise’s presence in our group.

Felix nodded. “As for the man’s personality itself… he’s fine. A bit strict, since he’s very set on what he thinks is ideal, as Sallia mentioned. But I would say he’s a little more flexible than Sallia makes him out to be. When I was asking him about my attunement, and how to use it for shaping tools, he didn’t try to force me to learn specifically how to combine spells and shaping essence, the way I was afraid he might. Which is good, honestly. I won’t have my passion buried under his teaching methods, which I’m grateful for.”

“Is that so?” said Sallia, giving Felix a curious glance. “I didn’t really get that impression. In my first… set of experiences, I had a really strict teacher that used to hit my hands with a ruler whenever I messed up a question. He was responsible for teaching me religion and history. He was awful about mistakes. I got a similar kind of impression from Lauren as a teacher.”

“I get the impression that he’s pretty strict about how shaping and spellcasting synergize, but I think it’s mostly limited to that field of study. It’s his field of expertise, and I think he’s extremely proud of it. But I also get the impression he’s just average in the field of regular shaping; he’s mostly a wizard that uses shaping on the side, rather than a specialist in both fields.”

“Well, attunements are pretty centered around your personal understanding,” I interjected. “It’s good that he’s only strict about his field of expertise; in that field of study, at least, he’s probably earned the right to claim that his method is the best one, since as far as I know nobody else in the city is really specialized in changing how spells work on the fly.”

Sallia nodded, after thinking for a few moments. “I suppose you have a good point, Felix. He’s pretty strict when it comes to spellcasting, but he was much more open when he was teaching us how shaping works. I just wanted to see if I could try out a few new things when it came to magic symbols. It feels so weird that manifestation doesn’t use our understanding of an idea, while shaping and runes work entirely off of our interpretation of something.”

Felix snorted. “You haven’t even learned one symbol yet. Leave the wacky experimentation until you at least kind of know what you’re doing. There are way too many ways for spells to blow up in your face if you mess them up. And even if you’re much stronger than most people, you can still hurt yourself if you mess up. Miria and I would both be really sad if you hurt yourself, you know?”

Sallia’s expression shifted a bit, as she looked at Felix and I, before she sighed. “Fine. But I still want to mess with things once I get a solid idea what I’m doing.”

“As long as it’s only after you figure out spellcasting,” I said, giving Sallia another hug.

Then, I gave Sallia, Anise, and Felix curious glances. I thought about my first day with alteration essence, and my attunement, and grinned.

“So, what attunements are you guys going for?” I asked.

“Right now, I’m thinking I want to do something with flesh, or maybe bones.” said Sallia. “I figure that since I’m best with melee weapons, and I have a really strong body already, I could probably strengthen my body even further with some sort of body-related attunement. Turning my body into hardened flesh and bone in the middle of a fight should probably combine really well with my, uh… special spells,” said Sallia, glancing at her feet, where I knew she had also stuck her runic tattoos.

I nodded. “That could work really well with strengthening your body, yeah. I can see how it would work. How about your third… special spell?”

“Well, I already have healing and stealth. I’m thinking that I’ll do either flesh or bones with my attunement, and then whichever one I don’t form an attunement around, I’ll turn into my third special spell. Healing myself with shadows, hiding myself and my weapons with shadows, and then strengthening my body by layering my special spells on top of an attunement and regular spells should make me incredibly hard to fight. Combine that with a few long-range abilities from spellcasting and a little bit of counterspelling, and I think I’ll be a nightmare to fight. Maybe I’ll be able to fight an Orukthyri after layering everything together!” Sallia said, grinning at the thought. “I don’t really know how strong they are as a species, but hopefully I can match them with everything concentrated towards my physical abilities.”

“I’m going into metal,” said Felix. “Since this city has a pretty robust blacksmithing community, I figure it’s a good way to train my tool-making abilities for the future. And metal conversion and manipulation will obviously work really well with tool creation. Don’t worry; I’ll still develop some proper combat spells to help during fights, as well. I’ll probably have a low number of maximum magic symbols per day, but I should be able to manage at least a couple third-circle spells every day. And I’ll have archery, too. Even if I’ll definitely struggle with fighting, I won’t be useless in a fight. And, of course, long-term I’m hoping to rediscover how to make magic items, since Lauren mentioned them a few times. We’ll have to look into that later though.”

“I’m doing magic symbols for my attunement!” Said Anise, and I widened my eyes in surprise. I hadn’t…. actually realized that was possible, honestly. It was a very clever use of the shaping magic system. “I want to be a super witch!” She frowned. “I don’t think it’ll work until I can make magic symbols, though. So even if I make my attunement tomorrow, I’ll probably need to wait before I can use it. But once I have both magic symbols and my attunement, I’m going to be the strongest witch in the city!”

I chuckled.

“How about you? It’s your big affinity, after all,” said Sallia, grinning at me. She seemed to know that I was eager to talk about my own shaping experiences, and she seemed more than happy to bring up the topic for me. 

“I’ve already formed my attunement. Look at this,” I said, before I pointed out a patch of moss.

“Extinguish!” I said, incredibly dramatically, before visualizing the life of the moss as a small, flickering candle. A moment later, a single droplet of water formed near my finger, before flicking through the air like a raindrop of death. A moment later, my drop of water hit the moss.

Instantly, the moss died. I giggled, incredibly satisfied with seeing my ability work again. 

Sallia and Felix’s eyes widened. “What did you make for your attunement? Is that… death or something?” asked Sallia. “That’s really cool!”

“It’s the ocean!” I said, grinning. “I figured I should stick with my ocean theme, since it helps me activate my other stuff.”

“The ocean? What does the ocean have to do with…. ah. Drowning? I can actually see how the ocean and death relate to each other quite a bit,” said Felix, his initial surprise being replaced by curiosity.

“Take a closer look at the water,” said Sallia, as she took a closer look at the patch of dead moss. “I didn’t notice it at first either, but it’s not a normal ocean.”

Felix inspected the drop of water lying on top of the moss for a moment, and then his eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Did you…”

I grinned madly. “Yes.”

Felix started cackling. “I guess we know who’s responsible for long range sniping when we get to the surface. To actually turn that into a weapon… and it just… instantly kills things, too. How much essence does it cost?”

I winced. “Right now, the cost is completely absurd. It’s prohibitively expensive. But a lot of that is just because I don’t have much practice yet. It’ll be usable when I get better with it. I’m hoping that later, I can just dump a cloud of rain on an Orukthyri warband and kill them instantly. We’ll see how far I can take this ability though. I’ll need to practice much more.”

Sallia looked at the drop of water again curiously. “I wonder if I can do something similar with my special affinity? Suddenly, I wonder if I’m severely underutilizing my extreme affinity.” Then, she sighed, and chuckled. “Something to think about for my final… special spell, I guess. Either way, when we journey to the surface we’ll be unstoppable together.”

I grinned, and then wrapped the two of them in a hug. “As a team, we’ll make sure to send the Orukthyri running for the hills and scour the surface for ancient spells and item crafting information.”

Sallia’s eyes glinted. “Together.”

Anise gave the three of us curious, slightly hopeful glances, and I chuckled and wrapped her into the group hug. “You can come too, if you decide you want to when you’re older. It’ll be the four of us against the surface. But only if you really want to, all right?” Unlike the three of us, Anise was actually a kid. I didn’t want her to throw away her life, but I also didn’t want to restrict her freedom to choose her own path. We would just have to see what she wanted in a few decades.

Anise’s eyes brightened up, and she nodded enthusiastically.

acaswell

Reminder: I will be gone next week, so two more chapters this week, and then one week of no chapters before we return to the normal schedule.

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