26:

  As it turned out, the training hall Cynthia had been talking about truly wasn’t anything special, or at least the chamber assigned to them wasn’t. The floor was smooth, polished stone that was polished to a reflective surface with a compact silver formation circle in the centre, while every inch of the wall and ceiling was padded with some form of specialized cushioning.

  “Disappointed, are we?” Cynthia asked from the opposite end of the room.

  “It’s not very magical, I suppose,” Lucan drily remarked.

  “You’ll find that to be a common theme amongst the general use facilities. Now, getting back to the lesson at hand. Can you tell me what a magic spell is?”

  Lucan tried his best to recall his lessons with his old mentor as he framed the best answer he could manage, “A magic spell has four main ingredients. The first is the mage themselves and their ability to process the world’s heavy mana into mana that is imbued to their will and thus, usable directly by them. The second is a medium, through which they can channel and fine-tune their internal mana into affecting the physical world. The third and fourth are interlinked, as the spell circle itself designates the true nature of the spell that is being cast, while the spell matrices that support it, encode delicate instructions like range, intensity and duration.”

  “A textbook answer,” Cynthia nodded, but her tone did not sound impressed by his explanation. “But do you understand what that actually means, in practice?”

  “Uh… I’m not sure?” Lucan replied.

  “That was a rhetorical question. Let me show you,” Cynthia declared, before pointing her wand in Lucan’s direction.

  Due to his mana sight, Lucan could watch as two magic circles formed in parallel before the wand, the one formed at the edge of the wand’s tip formed out of ice-attuned mana, as suggested by its pale azure hue, while the one separated by the thickness of a thumb was formed out of regular, unattuned mana and appeared as a construct of white light before his gaze.

  He watched as the two spell circles folded into a concentric arrangement, since the second spell circle formed out of regular mana was smaller than the first and before his very eyes, a shard of ice that had the thickness of his forearm while being sharpened to a killing edge on both sides.

  “This is the Second-Circle Ice Spell: Hummingbird. It’s identical to the First-Circle Ice Evocation Spell: Ice Bolt in weight and shape, yet it is a second circle spell. Can you guess why?”

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  Lucan considered the question that was being posed to him, undoubtedly certain that the focus required to cast a Second-Circle Spell was not a trivial feat for a Journeyman mage, yet Cynthia had managed it in less than thirty seconds. While that could speak to her overall proficiency, Lucan had a feeling that it was also because it was a spell she had practiced and therefore, saw value in, instead of being a one-off trick used for demonstration purposes.

  “That second spell circle, the one formed out of regular mana instead of being attuned to ice. It does something. Something important enough to warrant the extra effort,” Lucan gave his best shot, even knowing that he likely sounded like a country bumpkin trying to explain the flavor of an antique wine he’d sampled for the first time to a nobleman.

  “First-Circle Generalist Transmutation Spell: Mana Control is one of the most useful generalist spells you can learn as a first. It lets you control any one inanimate object as long as you can envelop it with your mana freely, even controlling its velocity and direction as long as you can afford the expenditure. In other words, it solves the weakness of Ice Bolt.

  Cynthia flicked her wand and suddenly, the ice shard that was content to float mid-air, shot forward towards Lucan with the velocity of a bullet, causing his survival instincts to go haywire as he stumbled backwards and instinctively reached for his own wand in a feeble attempt to mount any resistance.

  By the time he had unclasped his wand free from its belt holder, the shard of ice had already come to a stop outside his kill radius, which Lucan only inferred because the training chamber’s defenses hadn’t activated.

  Then Cynthia flicked her wand again and the ice shard shot sideways, before curving inwards and building up momentum as it tried to strike Lucan from the rear.

  As it stopped a few paces away from opening up his head, Lucan couldn’t help but realize how dead he would be if Cynthia was really out to kill him. And she didn’t even qualify as a threat in comparison to the people he was supposed to face.

  “So, how’d you like hummingbird? Cute, isn’t she?” Cynthia eagerly asked, as if she were asking about the status of a pet bird instead of what was definitely war magic.

  “It’s… impressive, I guess,” Lucan wearily muttered, more than a little surprised by Cynthia’s demonstration. “But there’s something I don’t understand.”

  “Go on,” Cynthia encouraged.

  “Since you mentioned that Mana Control can be used to control inanimate objects, couldn’t you achieve the same result by swinging around something equally sharp and heavy?”

  “Aha, a good question. Those are rare. I also sort of lied, hummingbird does have a little extra secret in comparison to Ice Bolt. Let me demonstrate the answer for you,” Cynthia said and her lips curved upwards into a mischievous smile as she flicked her wand for the third time.

  Before Lucan even realized what was happening, a dome constructed out of white light had snapped into existence around his form and it took him another few seconds to understand that the plinking sound he was hearing was due to what had to be dozens of thin ice needles striking against the shield’s surface, each likely sharp enough to pierce through his flesh without an ounce of resistance.

  “Uh, I hope this isn’t the shield breaking demonstration!” Lucan worriedly called out to his all too eager senior.

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