Chapter 74 - Growth (Patreon)

On a sandy stretch of ground the size of a football field, bordering a small woodland grove, stood a collection of shimmering targets scattered across the area in no particular pattern. Some resembled ordinary archery targets, while others were rings ranging from ones no larger than a hand to those wide enough for a horse to pass through. A few were stranger still, including flat targets laid horizontally across the ground and painted with geometric shapes.

The morning summer sun was already beginning to warm the earth. In a few hours, only the most unfortunate students, those who had drawn the last positions in the practical Mana Manipulation exam or purchased them for a few extra hours of practice, would still be moving across the examination field, hopping between patches of shade as the sand became hot enough to burn through the soles of their boots.

At the moment, Arien was focused on keeping his stream of water flowing through the sequence of rings without losing volume. It was the final test he could still fail.

He already knew he had performed exceptionally well today and would pass another semester, but he had stubbornly resolved to complete the entire course. Earlier, when he had been required to perform the same exercise using magical fire, it had come so naturally that he had been able to think about what he wanted for lunch at the same time.

A high-level assigned Aspect made an enormous difference when casting spells. Water Stream was barely a Second-Circle spell, but maintaining it while twisting the stream through a sequence of obstacles was considerably harder than simply conjuring it. Half a year earlier, Arien would have found the exercise impossible.

After reaching his second Mana Manipulation specialization, however, that level of control had finally become achievable.

The stream passed through the final ring and splashed across the yellow sand.

“Very good. That will be all. The combined results from all examinations will be announced tomorrow. Enjoy your semester break,” Master Serloy announced, wiping his sweaty, reddened face with a handkerchief yet again.

The rather overweight man perspired even in air-conditioned lecture halls, and behind his back students referred to him as Master Wipecloth. Arien had never joined in. He felt a little sorry for Serloy, but more importantly, he respected the man’s mastery of Mana Manipulation far too much.

The Master might have been somewhat clumsy in everyday life, but when it came to magic, the way he shaped and structured mana reminded Arien more of creating art than merely casting spells.

“Thank you, Master. I hope you enjoy your break as well. Are you still planning to travel to the Republic?” he asked.

His relationship with Serloy had always been good. They shared a love of magic and, despite the difference in age and position, somewhat similar beginnings. Serloy had also been born to a farming family before his talent for magic had taken him far beyond the life expected of him.

This year, after Arien’s considerable progress in spellcasting, the Master had occasionally stayed behind after class to discuss a particular spell structure or the speed of mana flow through one of his matrices. Sometimes they simply talked about more mundane things.

Contrary to appearances, Serloy was also an enthusiastic explorer who had traveled across half the continent.

“Yes. Achieving a third specialization is something worth both celebrating and investigating,” the Master replied dreamily. “Perhaps my friend’s success will inspire me on my own path.”

That made sense. Serloy had been stuck before his third Mana Manipulation specialization for eight years, and finding a way past it was one of the reasons he had joined the Academy in the first place.

Serloy wiped his forehead once more. “Besides, I hate the summer heat of Wayhold. The air at sea is wonderful.”

Arien wished him good luck and headed back toward the dormitories, passing fellow students still struggling with the final tasks of the examination.

The thought of several weeks without classes filled him with anticipation. It also made him think about how much his life had changed during more than four years at the Academy.

The first part of his life in this world had been spent trying to understand Erador and the rules governing it. His father and brothers had died just as he was beginning to adapt and think seriously about the future, and later, in Ribenne, there had always been another job to take or another problem to solve just to keep moving forward.

Without Will’s invitation, he might still have been living that way.

Now he had a routine, close friends, and a future he could make actual plans for rather than merely imagine. Sometimes he caught himself thinking that his previous life on Earth felt like an incredibly vivid dream. He remembered it clearly, but Erador had become home.

It was harsher than Earth and far less forgiving of mistakes, but Arien had discovered that he preferred living here. On Earth, he had spent years worrying about careers, money, and where he was supposed to fit into a life that never seemed particularly satisfying. Here, his priorities were simpler: magic, his friends, and becoming strong enough to find the family that had been taken from him and explore the world on his own terms.

He had done his best not to care when his Academy grades began to fall and other students started mocking him behind his back. He knew what he was trying to accomplish, even if some nights the fear of failure kept him awake long enough that he ended up practicing until exhaustion finally put him to sleep.

What mattered most was that his friends had stayed beside him. They offered advice, worried whenever he failed spells they had already mastered, and never pushed him away even when he contributed less and less during training.

Only Will knew that Arien had never assigned Spellcasting and had deliberately chosen a longer, riskier path.

There was still no guarantee that path would succeed. Every Skill level became harder to obtain after a specialization, and Arien continued to struggle with Third-Circle spells whenever he lacked the appropriate assigned Aspect. Master Serloy was hardly the only mage who had spent years unable to advance, and many eventually accepted that they had reached their limit.

Arien was nowhere near that point yet. If anything, he had more ways to improve than he had time to pursue.

He opened his Status and considered what he should focus on during the semester break.

Name: ArienRace: HumanProfession: MageTraits: Emissary of ▉, AvengerLevel: 23Experience: 780/2400Stamina: 110/110Mana: 601/915

Endurance: 11Agility: 11Strength: 11Perception: 57.5 (+8 +8 +4)Intellect: 91.5 (+12 +8 +16)Wisdom: 15Vitality: 59.5 (+8 +8 +4)

Unassigned Points:0

Assigned Skills: 8/9

Mana Sense (Uncommon): lvl 39 (+15)First Specialization: Hawk Eye

Mana Manipulation (Rare): lvl 54 (+30)First Specialization: Magic ResearcherSecond Specialization: Mana Weaver

Lightning Aspect (Rare): lvl 33 (+12)First Specialization: Lightning Mage

Fire Aspect (Uncommon): lvl 47 (+27)First Specialization: Fire Mage

Unshakable Mind (Rare): lvl 30 (+15)First Specialization: Blissful Sleep

Life Aspect (Rare): lvl 55 (+31)First Specialization: HealerSecond Specialization: Guardian of Life

Earth Aspect (Uncommon): lvl 29 (+29)First Specialization: Earth Mage

Words of Magic (Rare): lvl 28 (+28)First Specialization: Inner Voice

Available for assignment:

Water Aspect (Uncommon): lvl 12 (+11)Foreign Language Learning (Common): lvl 9 (+2)Danger Sense (Uncommon): lvl 16 (+10)Writing (Uncommon): lvl 24 (+0)Reading (Common): lvl 24 (+1)Death Aspect (Rare): lvl 7 (+6)Wind Aspect (Uncommon): lvl 13 (+13)Spellcasting (Uncommon): lvl 16 (+16)Healing (Uncommon): lvl 24 (+10)Light Aspect (Uncommon): lvl 9 (+9)

Lightning Aspect, perhaps.

It was supposed to remain his hidden advantage, but secrecy had also made it difficult to train. If he never reached a second specialization, that advantage might not amount to much when he finally needed it.

For his first specialization, he had chosen Lightning Mage, which, much like Fire Mage and Earth Mage, had been the most versatile option available. It offered no particular advantage, but neither did it restrict his future choices.

After assigning Guardian of Life, however, he had become increasingly eager to reach a second specialization in every Aspect he possessed.

Then again, Fire was probably much closer to its next breakthrough.

“Arien, are you done already?” a familiar voice called.

He looked up to see Pori and Gilly walking toward him along the path.

“Yeah. Serloy was examining me, so it went quickly,” he said as he approached them.

His friends had changed enormously over the last four years. They were taller, obviously, but the greater difference was in how they behaved. The children he had met during his first semester were gradually becoming teenagers who understood far more about the Academy, their families, and what society expected from them.

“How did it go?” Pori asked, her brows drawn together.

“What are they testing?” Gilly asked at the same time.

“Rings, Serpent, Wheel, Jumper, Pendulum, Tag,” he answered. “Oh, and Shapes.”

“Not Shapes.” Gilly actually went a little pale.

She was quite good at manipulating mana, especially when it involved throwing it at things or people. Conjuring a flaming cube or a pyramid of water and simply keeping it suspended in place was another matter.

“I was hoping they wouldn’t put those on the exam again this semester.”

“You’ll be fine. We’ve practiced them countless times,” said Pori, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Arien smiled. Pori was worrying about Gilly despite struggling with Tag herself. He was not particularly fond of chasing spheres of pure mana around with a Master either.

All of the exercises had much more sophisticated names in the textbooks, usually accompanied by several pages explaining how they improved later spell control. Arien still thought “Tag” was a better name than “remote control of a spell matrix while accounting for sudden vector changes.”

“You’ll both do fine,” he assured them. “Just think about all that free time you’ll have once it’s over.”

“Not everyone can lie around on their backside soaking up the sun like you,” Gilly said. “If I don’t make it onto the trip to the Reznan Forest, I’ll have to travel with my father to our ancestral lands to ‘meet other promising young people from good families.’”

She scuffed the toe of her boot through the warm sand.

“What kind of promising people could there possibly be outside the Academy?”

“You know perfectly well the Academy isn’t the only option,” Pori said. “Some Houses have their children taught privately and only send them here once they reach fifth year.”

Arien had long since grown accustomed to the fact that, when it came to the kingdom and its society, few people could rival Pori. Reyna was probably even better informed, but whenever she started explaining something, Arien usually lost track somewhere in the maze of relationships and nuances she considered common knowledge.

“I won’t keep you any longer. Good luck on the test.”

“Arien, are you coming to the Port tonight, or are you heading home already?” Pori asked before he could take another step.

“I’ll be there. I might be a little late, though. I promised Will I’d help him with training today.”

“You could at least try to slow him down a little and get him to spend more time with people. The amount of time he dedicates to training gives all of us a complex. It’s not healthy.”

“Will is unfortunately beyond reform,” Arien replied with a sigh.

He spent the rest of the morning packing his remaining belongings so he would not have to do it tomorrow, when, after an evening at the Port, he would probably be sleep-deprived as usual.

At least he would not be hungover. That had become one of his more useful discoveries during the last few years.

There was no legal drinking age on Erador. In villages, children were commonly given weak beer or watered-down wine, and nobody found it particularly strange to see thirteen- or fourteen-year-olds in the taverns of the Port. With Erador’s longer years, that put them closer to fifteen or sixteen by Earth standards.

The first time Arien’s group had gone out to celebrate the end of their semester exams, things had gotten somewhat out of hand.

He remembered only fragments of the evening and had been extremely surprised when he woke the following day around noon in his own bed. His skull felt as though someone had been striking it with a hammer, his entire body hurt, and because he lived alone, there was nobody around to bring him so much as a glass of water.

He had somehow ignored every rule about drinking he had learned in his previous life: eat properly, drink water, avoid mixing everything in sight, and stop before things became stupid.

Judging by the pieces of the evening he could remember, they had instead sampled almost every drink available, eaten little more than olives and bread, and eventually started competing to see whether the boys or girls could drink more.

While lying in bed regretting every decision that had led him there, Arien realized that Life magic might actually help.

His perception showed enough wrong with his body to give him something to work with. He could not have cast any complicated spell in that condition, but his Healing had never depended on spells in the first place.

A few minutes of carefully circulating Life mana through his body and helping it deal with the lingering effects of the alcohol left him exhausted and sore, but the pounding headache and nausea disappeared.

Useful as that discovery was, it still came second to Mana Weaver.

Arien had read the specialization description so many times before choosing it that he could still recite it almost word for word.

Second Specialization: Mana WeaverSignificantly increases understanding of magic and grants greater control over unstructured magic and spell matrices.

Of all the available second specializations, it had seemed the obvious choice for the path he wanted to follow. Consulting Lamaral had been little more than a formality.

The difference had been noticeable almost immediately. Mana Weaver did not create spell matrices for him, but it gave him far greater control over the mana threads used to build them.

First-Circle spells mostly required releasing mana in the correct pattern and maintaining its speed and stability. Second-Circle spells introduced true matrices, built from multiple threads of non-aspected mana before Aspected mana could be channeled through them. Arien thought of the process as constructing a building, except every piece had to be assembled within moments while he also controlled the mana flowing through it and aimed the finished spell.

Third-Circle magic made the process even harder by adding another dimension to the matrix. That was why almost every mage assigned Spellcasting. Mana Weaver offered Arien another way forward, making familiar threads easier to guide into place without taking the construction out of his hands.

Second-Circle spells that had once required considerable effort had become almost routine, and Third-Circle spells had finally become realistic.

Arien had spent much of the year practicing them, and the culmination of that work had been his first successful Fireball striking a training dummy three meters away. A real opponent would hardly stand still and wait for him to finish casting, but that had not mattered much at the time.

It was the first time his offensive magic had felt genuinely dangerous.

The last four years had given him more progress than he could have imagined when he first arrived at the Academy. Somehow, that only made him more aware of how far he still had to go.