Fork This Life!

Chapter 37: Magic

Now I just have to double check that the time slots don’t conflict… I’m fine. Excellent. I fill out the form, making only a small accidental ink blot on the corner of the page in the process… A slight lapse in concentration is all it takes.

We have today free while they process all our forms. So, what do I do with this free time? Of course, I head to the library. This being my second term, I should have greater access.

Ignoring the gargoyles as per usual, I head to the front desk. Mr Leyche isn’t here right now; he usually works through the night hours. Instead, professor Kelby is at the desk, poring as usual over some ancient tome.

Seeing that the professor still hasn’t noticed me by the time I’m hovering in front of the desk, I loudly clear my non-existent throat. “Ahem.”

“Just a moment. I’m nearly at the end of the chapter.” The professor mumbles absent-mindedly, not even looking up.

Not in any particular rush, I decide to wait.

After a while, I ‘cough’ again. “Professor… You’ve finished the chapter.”

“I…” Professor Kelby looks up and sighs. “I suppose I have. Is there a problem, Gerald?”

“Not a problem, no. It’s the new term, so I came to see whether I could get my new card today.” I explain.

“The new term? So it is.” Professor Kelby looks vaguely surprised. “Let me just get the registry.” Brushing the tome aside, the professor pulls out the registry and leafs through the pages. “Gerald, second term student… Everything is in order.” Pulling a card from beneath the desk, the professor meticulously writes my name on it. “I’ll need your old one back now.”

As I hand it over to the professor telekinetically, I ask, “Do you keep a box of cards under there every time a term starts?”

“All the time, actually.” Professor Kelby sighs, passing my old card over the new one. The new one briefly flashes. “You wouldn’t believe how many students come in here half-way or just before the end of a term and need to get a card. We had someone who had gone a full three years without going to the library once.” Shaking their head, the professor hands the card to me. “They needed me, Leyche and an assistant librarian just to have the proper authority to bypass the security measures… It’s a linear system, you understand, you need to turn in the previous level card to receive the next one. It’s not a problem if someone comes in second or even third term without ever having a card, but after that it can become… Irritating.”

“Makes sense.” I agree. “Thanks for the card.”

Professor Kelby nods slightly, already sliding the tome back to its previous position.

With my new card in telekinetic hand, I progress through the first section of the library. I had spent long enough in here that I knew every nook and cranny of its magically dustless shelves and tables, including the ever-enticing pair of doors that leads on to the next section. I hold up the card with a faint feeling of trepidation, an irrational fear that for some reason it won’t work – but it does, and the doors swing open.

I float through, filled with anticipation at what vast troves of information might lie within.

As the second section of the library opens itself to my senses, I stop my forward progression abruptly. It… Is much larger than I had imagined. While the previous section had walls lined with bookshelves that were almost all full, the room was not that large, just enough room for the few tables within it. This section is probably at least five times as long and wide as the previous – and it has three levels. The shape of each floor is perfectly octagonal, with a staircase to the higher floor on the side directly to the right of the doors, and a staircase to the lower floor on the side to the left of the doors. There are also additional staircases up and down on the sides on the opposite side of the room to the staircases next to the door. Another set of doors, presumably to the next section of the library, is situated on the side that runs perpendicular to the entry, on the right.

The centre of the octagon, on each floor, is occupied by a dozen tables, each able to seat four, or perhaps six at a stretch. The rest of the floor space is dedicated to scores upon scores of bookshelves, with open paths left in-between them so that people can easily navigate the floor.

The sheer quantity of books makes me change my plans. Initially, I had thought that I would be able to do what I had in the previous section, where I had read practically every book available. Clearly, that would be impossible. I don’t think I would be able to finish all these in a year, let alone one term – and that’s assuming I’m just reading through each book without pause.

Damn, this is going to be awesome.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t start today. If I go through and read all the titles, I’ll be able to find what I need easier later on when I need them. And I just know I won’t be able to stop reading once I pick up one of these, I won’t have the patience afterwards. Alright, that’s what I’ll do.

…If I can calm down enough.

I start slowly moving around the room, not touching any of the books, just reading the titles on the spines. I don’t even understand the majority of them – what’s ‘eyes to the soul’ supposed to be about? – but it doesn’t matter. For now, I’m just taking stock, so to speak. As I go, I notice another few things about this section. Unlike the first one, this section has signage indicating genres and subgenres.

The genres seem to be the schools of magic – Destruction, Illusion, Restoration and so on – with the addition of a ‘general’ genre. Subgenres vary more, especially in the general section. There are the elements, of course. Then there are the less basic ones: astral, blood, alchemy, nature, force, emotions, harmonic, sympathy, divination and what seems like a thousand others.

After going through all of them, I feel like I have a much better grasp on where everything is, even if I don’t fully understand what they might contain. Doing all this takes enough time that it’s a bit after midnight by the time I finish. I head out of the library again, passing by a second set of gargoyles guarding the entrance of the second section of the library that I had barely even noticed earlier, through the first section and past the front desk, where Mr Leyche is now sitting instead of Professor Kelby.

“Evening.” I remark as I pass by, to which he nods shortly in response.

Passing through practically deserted halls, I head out into the courtyard. Dreyer will likely be asleep; I won’t be able to get through to the house, so I’ll have to pass the time outside. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, as I’d just read through the night, but I’m afraid that I’d just get too into reading and not notice the time passing by.

I could use one of the practice rooms in the duelling grounds, but I honestly don’t feel like doing anything except reading right now. Aimlessly hovering around the courtyard, I look up into the sky. As always, I can’t see much more than a few of the brightest stars as distant blurs. This eye of clairvoyance doesn’t have as good vision as a normal human eye. I remember being able to see many more stars and much brighter ones, even when I needed glasses.

Eventually, I decide to just settle down on a table and meditate until the morning comes.

Once morning comes, I rouse myself and head off towards Dreyer’s office, feeling much calmer than earlier. When I get there, I tap lightly on the door. To be honest, it’s difficult for me to tap hard, considering how light I am.

Dreyer opens the door and nods hello to me. “The letter came through. You got all the classes you wanted, but if I can ask, why light magic? It doesn’t seem like something you’d be interested in.”

“Call it an experiment.” I say vaguely. “I have something I want to test, and the most likely way to do it is through light magic.”

Shrugging, he moves back to his desk and throws one of the papers there towards me.

Catching it with telekinesis, I take a look. It’s basically just an official notice of which classes I have, and when. Since I’ve already memorised those details, I toss it into the waste bin in the corner.

My first class, in just a couple of hours, is earth magic. I don’t know that I’ll go too deep into learning earth magic, but my objective in doing it is more for a learning experience, getting the hang of casting magic and finding out some of the applications of the different elements.

Light magic… I’m not sure if what I’m thinking of will work. I’m not sure that I want it to. Regardless, there’s no harm in learning some light magic. At the very least, I could use it to blind people, or just for… Well, light.

“Most you should be starting your second term.” Jald, the teacher for basic earth magic, states. “Activating magic is much simpler than your teachers will have implied. The academy does not want students experimenting with magic before they have learnt proper caution.”

Jald stares out at the class stonily, causing some of the students to shift in discomfort. “There are many methods of activating magic. For the sake of being concise, I will limit my explanation to the three primarily used methods.”

“Free-form magic, sometimes referred to as imagination magic. If you practice this, you might already have experience casting magic. Infuse your will into your mana and bring it out into the world, if necessary. So long as your image of the magic you wish to create is strong and does not shift, your magic will cast successfully. Is there anyone willing to attempt this?”

A single, nervous boy tentatively stands up.

“Good. Come out to the front.” Jald nods slightly.

The boy glances down at his desk for a moment before stepping out from behind it and slowly walking to the front.

“Draw out some mana above your palm.” Jald instructs.

Without any difficulty, the boy quickly expels a ball of mana above his outstretched hand. It’s quite steady and uniform. Nice control.

Seeing this, Jald begins to verbally guide the boy. “Keep an image of rock in your mind. Imagine your mana becoming hard and smooth, grey and heavy. Will it to be so. Believe it.”

The boy stares at the mana in his hands, and for a few of his nervous, bated breaths, nothing changes. After another few moments, though, the ball of mana slowly gains a grey tinge and shrinks slightly to a less spherical, multifaceted shape. It even begins to sink downwards from where it was floating just above his hands.

Seeing the changes happening, the boy’s eyes widen, and the ball of mana starts to lift again, quickly paling to its original colour. His face falls.

“A good first attempt.” Jald nods, although his face doesn’t change expression in the slightest. “The most important thing for magicians that practice free-form magic is to keep their image constant, no matter what happens around them. Go back and practice this again at your desk - quietly.”

“Vocal. Infuse your mana into your voice and allow your mana to be guided by your voice in turn.” Jald explains roughly. “Does anybody speak Terran?”

Everyone glances around at each other, but nobody puts up their hand.

Jald’s expression doesn’t change, but he sounds vaguely disappointed as he says, “Learn it. It has an excellent affinity for casting earth elemental magic.”

“Vocal is a bit more complex to learn at first. For now, I will demonstrate.” Jald raises his chin slightly, and when he starts to speak again, he speaks a gravelly word that I don’t recognise but can somehow understand. “Stalagmite.”

A small stone spire rises from the surface of the desk in front of Jald, before shortly crumbling and dissipating into the ambient mana.

“Finally, formations.” Jald takes a piece of chalk and draws a simple formation circle on the blackboard, the likes of which we’d drawn a hundred times practicing the previous term. “Simple formations are easy to activate. Simply infuse your mana into the formation.”

Placing a single thick forefinger on the formation, Jald does exactly what he said. Other than the brief glow of mana, nothing happens.

“This formation does not work. Why?” He asks the class.

“Chalk is bad at carrying mana?” A girl a few seats over voices uncertainly. She looks rather familiar. In fact, wasn’t she in my class last term? What was her name… Right, Joyce.

“Partially correct.” Jald replies. “Chalk is not an effective conductor of mana. The mana seeps out and dissipates into the air. This means more mana is required to activate and sustain the spell. It could still be activated.”

“Is it because there are no diagram components to shape the spell?” I ask.

“Correct.” Jald states unblinkingly. “This is known as an empty formation. It does nothing. It is merely a template to be altered and built upon.”

Lifting his chalk once again, Jald draws a simple symbol on the black board near the circle, and a second, more complex one next to it. Pointing to the simple one, Jald states, “This is the Common symbol for earth. The other is the Terran symbol for earth.”

Copying the former into the circle, Jald states, “I have now defined what the spell will be made of. It still lacks a form or a function.”

Jald adds a few words in common to the inner circumference of the circle: stone, emerge and form a spike. Then he draws another circle, this time with the Terran symbol and Terran words - which, obviously, I can’t read. Psychic translation doesn’t translate written languages.

Placing a forefinger on each of the formations, Jald infuses both with mana, causing two stone spikes to emerge from the blackboard. The one emerging from the Terran formation is visibly thicker than the Common formation.

“As seen by the difference in the size of the spikes, Terran is superior to Common in casting earth elemental magic.” Jald states. “As another method of casting formation magic, you can form the formation itself out of your mana. This is much more difficult to accomplish, but there is no need for external tools.”

Jald extends his hand, and the same Terran formation swiftly forms out of mana in front of it, forms a spike then crumbles into nothingness.

“For the rest of the lesson you will practice casting magic. Formation mages, copy the one on the board. Vocal mages, the incantation you will be…”

“So, are you following me to all my classes, now?” I ask Joe as I head out of class.

“No.” He shrugs. “I’m not in the advanced mana control class.”

“But you still know all my classes.” I sigh.

“Of course. Did you expect any different?” He asks with a hint of amusement.

“No, not really.” I admit. “So, earth, fire and light. What other classes are you doing?”

Joe scratches his beard idly. “Keeping it simple for the first term. Just doing the basic elements.”

I pause. “The elements… As in, all of them? Water, earth, fire, air, light, darkness?”

“Those are the ones.” He nods.

“Huh.” It’s out of the ordinary, but then again, so is he. I still don’t really know how he even enrolled. It’s supposed to get much harder the older you get. “You know, I’m kinda surprised you don’t already know magic.”

“Oh, I do.” He says. “But I was originally self taught, and it’s been a long time since I’ve done any study or research on the topic. You coming here gave me an opportunity to update my knowledge and learn some of the newer techniques, so I thought, why not?”

“Right…” I reply dubiously. I never do know when he’s joking or serious. Maybe he’s always joking. Maybe he’s always serious. The problem is, everything I know about him is what he himself has told me. Who knows what’s true?

Almost immediately after basic earth magic, I have a basic light magic class. As I move towards the class, I’m surprised to see both Iueia and Lamar heading in the same direction.

“Hey, it’s Gerald!” I hear Iueia exclaim excitedly to Lamar as he spots me from down the corridor.

“Morning.” I greet them as Iueia runs up to me, Lamar trailing slightly behind him in a power walk.

“You’re in the light magic class too? That’s great!” Iueia grins. “Are we in any of your other classes? I’m doing light, water, nature and advanced mana control and Lamar is doing light, wind, water and advanced mana control.”

“Just this and mana control, I’m afraid. I’m doing that, light, earth and fire.” I explain.

“Aww.” Iueia groans, before perking up again. “Well, two out of four isn’t bad! There were so many different classes to choose from that I’m kinda surprised that we got two of the same between all of us!”

“And there’s only going to be more next term.” I agree. “Most of the classes here require you to have done other classes beforehand, so once we’ve done these classes, all the classes that required these ones will be open to us. Chances are that we might not even share one class next term.”

Iueia frowns sadly, almost tearing up. “Don’t remind me! I’ll still see you guys around… Won’t I?”

“Of course!” I reassure him, just as Lamar hugs the little guy.

“Look, how about next term, once we all have our timetables, we come together and figure out a time we all have free so we can still chat.” I propose.

Lamar nods in agreement and Iueia wipes his eyes. “That sounds good.” He says, smiling, but not quite as fully as before.

The lesson, taught by Mrs Zita, a surprisingly pleasant minotaurean lady, is mostly identical to my previous class, with the spell being taught obviously being a light elemental spell that just provides a soft source of light. Honestly, even something like this can be an effective weapon – just provide enough mana to the spell, and you could probably blind someone quite easily.

Not to mention the utility applications. Just having a source of light that can’t be doused or accidentally cause a forest fire is quite useful.

It appears that both Iueia and Lamar are going the vocal route for casting their magic. Since I had already become somewhat familiar with casting via formations in the previous class, I take the opportunity to learn how to cast vocally, as well. After all, there’s no deficit in learning alternate methods of casting.

In my first few tries, I was so unsuccessful that I started to wonder whether I could even cast magic this way, what with my ‘voice’ being generated through a magical tool, but with some careful assistance from Mrs Zita, I manage to figure it out.

“It’s so bright… It’s like a little fairy!” Iueia exclaims in awe.

Almost instantly, a rather cross voice comes from a few desks over. “I’m not little! I’m tall for a fairy!”

We look over to see a fairy glaring at us with crossed arms.

“I’m sorry.” Iueia apologises. “I was just saying that the light magic is pretty.”

“Are you saying that all fairies are pretty? I’m not pretty, I’m handsome! Witness my manliness!” The fairy flexes his tiny limbs mightily.

“No, I didn’t mean… I meant…” Iueia splutters, attempting to find a way to apologise.

The fairy flies over, his own little ball of light bobbing along behind him, and slaps Iueia on the shoulder, laughing. “Just kidding! You should have seen your face. It’s pretty cool, huh?”

Iueia breathes a sigh of relief. “Yeah, it’s-” Just as he starts speaking, the ball of light in front of him flickers and vanishes. “Aww, I’m out of mana!”

Lamar’s light spell flickers into nothing a few moments after, with spells all around the room similarly vanishing as the majority of the students start to run out of mana.

“Witness my awesome power!” The fairy raises his hands dramatically. After a few more seconds, his light ball also flickers and dies. He drops his hands down and slouches exaggeratedly. “Never mind.”

I surreptitiously end my spell. It’s not like there are any particular deficits to standing out, but there aren’t really any benefits, either. Not that I actually weigh the pros and cons for this sort of thing. I just prefer not to stand out when I can help it. The tallest trees catch the most wind, as they say, and I’m perfectly happy if a few taller trees shelter me from the brunt of the gales.

“Well, that was fun.” The fairy stretches in the air. “The name’s Spark. Yours?”

I hover at the entrance to the second section to the library. A world of possibilities awaits, but where do I begin?

Gerald