Throne of Time - Chapter 48: Invitations to a Dead Future (Patreon)

With time slipping away before she needed to go to class, Suria instead sat on her bed, reading over the letter yet again.

After no word at all, Maut-mai had suddenly sent her a letter. It was unnecessarily long, as if the other woman was using the writing as an outlet, and mostly concerned her day-to-day life. According to the letter, when she had tried to leave Darkmoon University, officials had intercepted her and said she needed to remain secure for reasons of secrecy. They had taken her to a sort of estate that - with certain exceptions Maut-mai complained about - sounded luxurious and expensive.

Even though Suria should have felt relief, the question in her mind was whether this could be a cruel trick. Were the professors so ruthless as to kill Maut-mai and then fake a letter from her to try to make Suria relax her guard?

The specifics of the letter were all consistent with what she knew about Maut-mai, though that didn't mean much because across loops Suria had seen how much the other woman could change. It seemed absurd to think of some staff member writing out irrelevant details, but then again, that was just the sort of thing that someone might do to shield their intentions.

To buy time to think, Suria composed a letter to send back; regardless of whether it was authentic, it would be suspicious not to do so. That made putting together her actual words very uncomfortable, but she thought she could be forgiven some awkwardness given the situation.

In the end, Suria decided that she would hope the letter was authentic and stick to her plan. Logically, if the professors were so suspicious of her that they were setting up elaborate traps, she had much bigger problems than the ways she intended to probe.

During the final days of the loop, Suria would have all her classes once more except for Foundations of Modern Spellcraft, which would occur twice. She intended to use every one of those opportunities, and fortunately it began with the least suspicious. When Suria headed to Skypiercer Tower she already had a list of questions forming in her mind.

It felt strange to be walking across campus among so many students: some cheerful to return, some begrudging, some nursing hangovers. For the vast majority of students, there had been nothing at all unusual about this term. That might have been troubling once, but now her mind felt scoured clean and she focused on her first goal.

The first session of Advanced Evocation Fundamentals after the break started up with no acknowledgment of any gap, as if Professor Milirent had been coming to the empty classroom and delivering his lectures to no one. Suria had been practicing her force spells and demonstrated her new skills during the practical section of class and the professor seemed blandly approving.

As he did every time, exactly a minute before the end of class, he sat back and watched them. "You made good progress today. Does anyone have any Evocation questions for me unrelated to their work?"

Sometimes students would ask about a particular spell and they always got a civil response. The only questions the professor seemed to dislike were procedural issues about the course itself, or anyone asking what would be on examinations. Yet Suria always saw a hint of disappointment in his face and she was fairly certain that wasn't what he had been looking for. She wasn't entirely sure what he wanted, but there was no reason she couldn't sate her own curiosity, so she cleared her throat and asked the question she'd prepared:

"It's commonly claimed that mages are each suited to casting specific elements. Setting aside magical lineages, do you think that's true? If a mage is truly suited to casting fire spells, how much more powerful would they be than spells of a different element?"

"Oh, you've put thought into this." Professor Milirent's eyes fixed on her and he didn't merely look interested, he looked delighted. "It's a fascinating question, and one not without controversy. First, I have to question one of your foundational assumptions: are you so sure that magical lineages make a person substantially better suited to a specific magic?"

"Uh, it's pretty widely believed." Now that she was past her prepared question, Suria risked fumbling over her words and tried to keep her thoughts together. "I knew a student who said he had a family gift for fire magic, and he definitely seemed stronger with fire than me."

"There is no question that some will learn more quickly than others, but your question, which was well-focused, was whether the output of their spells is actually different. One common argument is that such mages are not fundamentally stronger, their talents merely grease the wheels, one might say, along the track of increasing their power.

"This is more than merely theory. There was a fascinating paper from the National Glyphic Institute that attempted to measure spell output and came to exactly that conclusion. Now, you might object that research coming from the Republic of Junn would be, hmm, ideologically compromised on this subject. But there has actually been similar research done at the venerable institution of Lagwynn that reached similar conclusions."

Suria listened in surprise as the words poured out of him. Normally Professor Milirent always left the class precisely one minute after his question, and she had almost expected him to just stop talking and leave at that point, but he was still at his desk, actually leaning forward slightly. Some of the other students had awkwardly shuffled out while those most interested in Evocation stayed behind. Well, if it had worked this far...

"Could the advantage be quantified?" Suria asked. "Instead of final power output, what if you had students with different degrees of talent each putting the same amount of time into studying?"

"It would certainly be a fascinating experiment," Professor Milirent agreed. "However, my personal suspicion - and this is just an instinct, mind - is that the advantage would be less than is commonly believed. Even the greatest magical talents do not allow a mage to skip study and practice."

"What about Professor Eortrax? Isn't his ability so powerful that it allowed him to become a professor here?"

Professor Milirent smiled as if charmed. "Ahhh, Eortrax. An interesting case, but this class is about Evocation, not Enchantment. However, to respect your question I will say that there is an element of, shall we say, sour grapes. In my years I have met fewer mages who coast on their talents than undisciplined mages who would very much like to believe that life would be easy if only they had the advantages of others."

That had been more of an answer than Suria had expected, so she was out ahead of her plans. She wanted to pursue the subject further, but talking about Eortrax was risky because she hadn't meaningfully interacted with him in this timeline. While she considered, Professor Milirent looked around the room eagerly.

"Anyone else? Any Evocation questions for me?"

No one else had any, and most needed to get to other classes, so the remaining students dissolved. Professor Milirent immediately assembled his papers to leave, as he always did, but this time Suria pursued him. If that question had gone well, she thought it was worth asking another. From what she had seen, he was a man who truly loved his discipline, not someone likely to be involved with the deeper conspiracies.

"I have another question," Suria said as she struggled to keep up with his pace. He had long legs and moved quickly for such an old man.

"Yes?" Professor Milirent looked over at her, not at all annoyed.

"How could a hypothetical student maximize their efficacy with Evocation? Obviously higher runic capacity, better inscriptions, and more experience would help, but what else would have the greatest effect?"

"Oh my, such an interesting hypothetical." The professor's look was now more amused than anything. "You don't need to reframe a personal question like that."

"Will you answer it, though?"

"Unfortunately, there are problems that are both simple and difficult. You've shown reasonable facility for Evocation, but I believe your runic capacity is still under twelve, is it not? A great many of the techniques for efficient spellcraft start from the assumption of a runic square with four augments, so there's really no shortcut."

In fact, Suria's runic capacity had reached eleven over the saintsday break. She thought she could do even better in another loop, but that didn't help her now or in any future cycle where her ability to train was limited. His answer frustrated her, since she knew from his perspective she sounded like an impatient student and she couldn't exactly ask her real question.

"Let's say I have a competition in a few months," Suria tried again. "My time to prepare is limited, and I may have to face other students who have more experience and other advantages. Is there anything I can do to make up that gap?"

"Ah, that's a more viable question." Professor Milirent paused for a moment to consider. "In such a scenario, I think one must follow the principle of leverage, utilizing the advantages one can. For example, a student with great wealth could spend it on materials. Now, I recognize that, at an institution like this one, your opponents are more likely to be the ones with wealth, but do you have any advantages you could leverage?"

"Possibly." Suria bit her lip as she considered. Being trapped in the time loop certainly offered her advantages, but she couldn't ask him about that explicitly.

"You could also consider the principle of leverage from the other side: not advantages, but targets. What efforts would be most likely to bear useful fruit? For example, if you seek to create a revolutionary new fire spell... well, I fear mages have been casting such spells for thousands of years and you are unlikely to find much they missed. But a less common element, even if less obviously useful than fire, could still have low hanging fruit for improvement."

"I think I understand." Suria gave the professor her best smile. "Thank you."

"No, no, I'm happy to talk. Please bring another good question next time."

Sadly, there wouldn't be a next time in this loop, and Suria wasn't even sure if she could take this course again without a professor's recommendation. She thought that, more than any of the other professors, she felt some kinship with Professor Milirent, and would find a way to take more of his classes in the future.

As she left the tower her mind began racing with thoughts of what advantages she could leverage. He was right that she needed to continue working on her runic capacity, mana reserves, and basic skills, but those were the tools she'd use to craft something more essential. She might be too young to revolutionize any fields, but she could try a few experiments that might never have been tried before...