Chapter 71 - Breakthrough (Patreon)

Three weeks after Reyna first appeared in Arien’s dorm room, he was standing ankle-deep in water and beginning to reconsider whether accepting her proposal had truly been such a good idea.

A thin stream of water ran past Arien’s boot, joined by another from beneath one of the practice dummies. Across the room, Bud held his soaked notebook between two fingers and watched the ink spread across the page.

Sebastian glanced at him. “Sorry.”

“You drowned my notes.”

“I was testing something.”

Mel looked up from the papers she was rescuing from the floor. “And what did you learn?”

Sebastian surveyed the water covering half the room.

“Putting too much mana into a spell makes it harder to control?”

Their training room had probably seen worse.

The rectangular chamber occupied the second floor of an otherwise unremarkable stone building near the Sands. From the outside, nothing distinguished it from half a dozen other Academy structures squeezed between larger halls. Inside, however, nearly every surface had been designed with magical accidents in mind.

The stone walls were covered in old scratches, scorch marks, and patches where the surface had clearly been repaired more than once. Thin metallic lines formed protective arrays beneath the plaster, and narrow channels along the floor carried away water, spilled alchemical mixtures, and occasionally, according to Reyna, far less pleasant substances.

The room smelled faintly of hot stone and whatever cleaning mixture the staff used between rentals. Today, Sebastian had added wet cloth and damp paper to the combination.

Several practice dummies stood against one wall, each reinforced with enough enchantments to survive spells that would have reduced an ordinary wooden target to splinters. Along another rested three squat pedestals supporting fist-sized crystals that hummed softly whenever activated.

Those had impressed Arien considerably more.

One increased the density of Fire-aligned mana in the room. Another could be adjusted for Water, Earth, or Air. The third belonged to a set of artifacts that temporarily enhanced Intellect, Vitality, or Perception for up to three hours.

He had spent nearly ten minutes examining the artifacts during their first meeting before learning how much the room cost. 

“How much does everyone owe you?” he had asked Reyna afterward.

She had looked genuinely puzzled. “For what?”

“The room.”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. My maid handles that sort of thing. Don’t worry about a few coins.”

After more than a month at the Academy, Arien still occasionally underestimated how wealthy some of the students around him were.

Velia had already given him some idea of what properly reinforced practice rooms cost, especially those equipped with mana-enhancing artifacts. Reyna apparently rented one three evenings a week without knowing the price.

“Can someone reset that dummy for me?”

Pori’s voice drew his attention away from the last of Sebastian’s flood.

She stood near the center of the room with one arm extended toward a practice dummy. A faint spell matrix shimmered around her hand, visible through Mana Sense as a tangled arrangement of mana that seemed far too complicated for what it was supposed to accomplish.

Arien abandoned the puddle immediately.

Pori had recently discovered Air and, more importantly for what she was attempting now, assigned Spellcasting.

“Again?” Gilly asked.

“Again.”

“You’ve missed eleven times.”

“Eight.”

“Eleven. And remember, we have other things to practice. You’re going to run out of mana soon.”

“Eight. I aimed those other three at the pillar on purpose. I want to finally master the spell matrix completely. And as for mana, I still have a few crystals left to use.”

Arien moved closer before they could start arguing about the number again.

The spell formula around Pori’s hand fascinated him. He had seen Spellcasting demonstrated before, but watching someone his own age build a spell from only a few steps away made it easier to understand why Malbek had claimed almost every serious mage eventually assigned the Skill.

The structure was absurdly dense, with dozens of tiny connections forming and vanishing faster than Arien could comfortably follow. Some guided mana into position, others stabilized the shape, and a few seemed to exist only long enough to trigger another section. Apparently, all of that was considered a simple First Circle spell.

“How do you remember all of that?” he asked.

Pori gave him a distracted look. “I don’t.”

Arien frowned.

“The Skill does most of it,” she explained, returning her attention to the construct. “Once I know the spell well enough to invoke it, the matrix forms almost automatically. I still have to supply the mana correctly and control what happens afterward.”

“That feels like cheating.”

“It feels wonderful.”

Gilly nodded solemnly. “I support cheating when magic is involved.”

The final section of the matrix locked into place, and a fist-sized mass of air shot from Pori’s hand. It flew straight toward the dummy for several meters, drawing a cheer from the others, before veering sharply right and striking another target in the shoulder.

Pori lowered her hand. “I meant to do that.”

“No, you didn’t,” came several voices at once.

Pori crossed her arms with as much dignity as she could manage while everyone laughed.

Reyna had originally set up the training with almost military efficiency: three sessions a week, fixed hours, assigned rooms, and agreed training goals. In practice, the first week produced a flood, two minor burns, a broken chair, and a heated debate over which Aspect was actually the strongest.

Somehow, it worked.

Matt and Sebastian were already fairly comfortable with Fire and Water respectively, which finally gave Arien and Mel other students working with the same Aspects to compare observations with. Matt approached Fire very differently from Arien, preferring short, forceful bursts over prolonged control, while Sebastian seemed obsessed with finding increasingly inconvenient ways to manipulate Water.

Mel benefited most from the latter. She had begun staying after everyone else finished, asking Sebastian questions about pressure, maintaining shape, and how much attention he devoted to each part of a spell. He usually answered with the same slightly amused expression he wore whenever he thought he knew something other people didn’t. That did not seem to bother Mel. She simply kept asking questions until he explained properly.

The others found their own roles just as naturally.

Bud remained behind in practical magic, but his merchant education made him surprisingly useful whenever their studies touched crystals, artifacts, materials, or anything involving numbers. Pori knew more theory than most of them and had quickly become the person everyone asked whenever the Academy’s terminology made no sense. Gilly contributed enthusiasm, stubbornness, and an apparently inexhaustible willingness to repeat the same exercise hundreds of times.

By the end of the second week, nobody hesitated before correcting someone else’s technique. Matt and Bud had developed an ongoing competition over who could come up with the worst possible theoretical application of a spell. Pori had discovered that Sebastian was almost impossible to offend and therefore treated provoking him as a personal challenge. Gilly had begun arriving early enough that Arien suspected she occasionally skipped dinner.

And she was the next to make a breakthrough.

It happened during an exercise so mundane that nobody noticed immediately. She had spent nearly twenty minutes sitting cross-legged beside one of the Aspect crystals, eyes closed and hands resting on her knees, while everyone else practiced around her.

A sharp gasp made Arien turn. A tiny flame had appeared on the cuff of Gilly’s robe, and she stared at it for half a second before screaming, “I GOT IT!”

The flame spread another inch up her sleeve while everyone was still reacting.

“Gilly,” Matt said.

“I FOUND FIRE!”

“Your sleeve.”

“I CAN FEEL IT!”

“Gilly.”

The warning finally broke through her excitement. She looked at the spreading flame and hurriedly began slapping at her sleeve.

Once the danger had passed, Gilly spent the remainder of the session insisting that setting herself on fire had been intentional.

Nobody believed her.

Reyna discovered Fire less than a week later and reacted with considerably less enthusiasm.

She opened her eyes midway through the same meditation exercise, stared at her palm for several seconds, and said, “Ah.”

Pori looked over. “What?”

“I found Fire.”

The others immediately congratulated her. For once, Reyna seemed caught off guard, and a faint flush rose to her cheeks before she recovered.

The others had yet to discover anything new, but even Bud had stopped treating every training session as evidence that he was hopelessly behind. His Mana Sense had improved enough that he could now distinguish the denser concentrations around the Aspect artifacts without someone pointing them out first, while Pori and Gilly were becoming increasingly comfortable with Mana Manipulation.

Arien found himself enjoying their progress almost as much as his own. Perhaps it was because he remembered learning nearly all of this alone.

His own progress still mattered. He remained impatient whenever a Skill refused to advance and probably spent far too much time thinking about whatever experiment he intended to try next.

But there was something different about watching Bud’s face light up when he sensed something unaided for the first time, or seeing Gilly repeat an exercise that had frustrated her for weeks and suddenly succeed.

The group’s progress was becoming noticeable outside their little circle as well.

According to Bud, half their class had already started asking questions about Reyna’s training sessions. A few were subtle about it. Others simply asked whether there was room for one more person.

Not every meeting involved actual practice. On some evenings, everyone was too exhausted to do much more than sit around, eat, and talk about Masters, upcoming courses, Academy rumors, or whichever student had done something particularly stupid that week.

One recurring topic was which people they expected to die before graduation. It was perhaps not the healthiest game for children their age. The Academy, unfortunately, provided plenty of candidates. The list changed constantly as new stories circulated.

Will remained stubbornly near the top.

Their progress also made his own lack of progress with Fire Fist harder to ignore.

Watching Pori use Spellcasting had at least shown him how much work the Skill normally performed for a caster. Her matrices assembled almost automatically once she invoked a spell, leaving her to concentrate largely on supplying mana and controlling the result.

Arien had no such assistance.

Every connection in Fire Fist had to be formed deliberately. Each section needed the right amount of mana at the right moment, while every instability had to be corrected without disturbing the structures he had already completed. A single attempt did not cost much mana, but starting over again and again made the drain add up quickly.

By now, he had long since lost count. Hundreds of failures had become thousands: some collapsing almost immediately, others surviving long enough to give him hope before unraveling near the end. A handful had even produced something vaguely resembling a Fire Fist, only for it to scatter before he could launch it.

His unusually large mana reserves had not solved the problem, but they did allow him to make far more attempts than most students could have managed. Again and again, he practiced until his reserves were nearly empty, recovered, and started over. Whenever he eliminated one mistake, another became apparent. Progress came in increments so small that on most days he could barely tell whether he was improving at all.

By the final afternoon of the weekend, Arien was tired of failing, but he had no intention of giving up.

He sat alone in a secluded corner of Gilfra’s garden with a thick blanket wrapped around his shoulders. An earlier drizzle had left the grass damp, and the air carried the smell of wet earth and fallen leaves whenever the wind stirred the hedges around him. The house was barely visible through the branches, while the nearest path remained far enough away that servants rarely passed unless they had business in this part of the garden.

It was quiet and private, and after several unfortunate earlier experiments, Arien had specifically chosen the spot because there was relatively little nearby that could catch fire.

Arien raised one hand and started again. The first attempt collapsed before he completed half the matrix. The second lasted longer, while the third consumed too much mana in one section and had to be abandoned. By the seventh, his fingers had begun to feel cold despite the blanket; by the twelfth, frustration had settled into the familiar numbness of repetitive practice.

He stopped expecting success. The only thing that mattered was making the next attempt slightly better than the last.

Mana gathered above his palm once more.

Arien began constructing the matrix.

The opening sections came almost automatically now. No Skill was forming them for him; he had simply repeated the sequence so many times that he no longer needed to hesitate over each connection. He knew how much mana each connection needed. He knew which parts tended to destabilize when he moved too quickly and which could be formed almost simultaneously.

The structure grew layer by layer until a familiar weakness appeared near the middle. Arien adjusted the mana flow before it could spread, then continued without allowing himself to feel encouraged. He had reached this point hundreds of times.

The next sections formed without trouble.

His reserves were already running low. He had burned through most of his mana during the previous attempts, and the pressure behind his eyes warned him that he would not have many more before he had to stop for the day.

Arien kept going.

The troublesome final section approached.

His concentration narrowed until the cold, the wet garden, and the ache in his back barely registered. He had not discovered any new trick. After thousands of attempts, he simply knew where the matrix was most likely to fail.

He reduced the mana to one connection, waited slightly longer before closing the next, and kept the previous section stable while continuing.

The final connection settled into place, and for once the matrix remained stable.Heat gathered above his palm as Fire mana rushed through the completed structure. The diffuse glow compressed inward, becoming denser and brighter until a fist-sized mass of orange-red flame hovered in front of his hand.

Arien stared at the hovering flame. Several previous attempts had come this far, but he had always been able to feel the matrix beginning to unravel. This time, it remained stable.

A grin spread across his face. “Finally.”

His concentration slipped as soon as he relaxed.

At that moment the Fire Fist jerked sideways instead of traveling toward the bare patch of ground he had selected as a target. The spell struck a nearby shrub. The branches smoked for half a second before catching fire.

“Oh, come on.”

Arien threw the blanket aside and scrambled up. Over the next several minutes, he tried to smother the flames while servants arrived with buckets and the gardener came running from the house.

Once the fire was out, the gardener stared at the blackened shrub and then at Arien.

“Sorry.”

Judging by his expression, the apology had not helped much.

Arien decided that remaining nearby would contribute nothing useful to the recovery effort. By the time Arien reached his room, he was already thinking more about the successful spell than the ruined shrub.

He closed the door behind him, dropped the slightly singed blanket onto the bed, and sat down before finally turning his attention to the notification he had ignored since the Fire Fist stabilized.

Possible Skill Specialization: Fire Aspect, lvl 25

Fire Mage: increases understanding of fire magic, increases magical efficiency and control, grants a wider selection of future specializations.

Fire Warrior: increases understanding of fire magic, allows you to envelop your weapons in flame, enhancing attacks and enabling them to break through magical defenses. Limited number of future specializations.

Fire Crafter: increases understanding of fire magic, allows the creation of artifacts related to the Fire Aspect. Limited number of future specializations.

Flame Shaper: increases understanding of fire magic, improves control over created flames, and makes it easier to alter the shape, direction, and spread of Fire spells.

Fire Warden: increases understanding of fire magic, increases resistance to heat and fire, and reduces harm caused by your own Fire spells. Limited number of future specializations.

Flame Tamer: increases understanding of fire magic and allows limited manipulation of naturally occurring flames without first creating them with mana. Limited number of future specializations.

Arien read the choices once, then went through them again more slowly.

Fire had finally reached level twenty-five. After years of experimenting with the Aspect and weeks of throwing himself against Fire Fist until his mana ran dry, he had reached the threshold for its first Specialization, and the options were more interesting than he had expected.

Fire Mage caught his attention first. The description was frustratingly broad, but a wider selection of future specializations made it difficult to ignore. Fire Warrior and Fire Crafter clearly pushed him toward paths he had little interest in, while Fire Warden offered useful protection against heat and flame without changing how he actually used the Aspect. Flame Tamer was stranger, allowing him to manipulate natural fire rather than only flames he created himself, which opened possibilities he had never really considered before.

He had already begun comparing the five choices when more text appeared beneath the list.

I posted something about the magic and the System today. If anything is still unclear, or if there are other things you’d like to know more about, feel free to ask.

Tomorrow, the final chapter of Arc 2, “Decision,” goes live, and starting next week, we’ll begin the Academy Arc.