Saintess Summons Skeletons

Simply sitting on the Visualizer’s platform, Sofia and Shaily spent a while talking about their respective childhood, they had lived though quite a different path in life, but the struggles felt similar. Whereas Sofia’s class had been a trap from Scripture, Shaily’s class had been the result of a chance encounter. The winters in Exidion were very cold, explaining the countless chimneys decorating the city’s rooftops. Shaily, living alone in the small house inherited from her parents had no extra money for firewood, she would go through the winters shivering under her old blankets. She only had whatever wooden branches and kindling she managed to collect during the year to last her the entire cold season, allowing her the luxury of a rare hot meal and glimmer of heat once in a while.

One night, as she was down with a high fever during a snowstorm, dying from heat in an ice-cold house, only lit by the faint ambient moonlight, she thought she was hallucinating as she saw snow fall through her window.

The strange glowing snowflakes fell on her blanket, enveloping her body in a weirdly comfortable breeze; she felt her fever recede, falling asleep soon after. The next day she woke up feeling better, the soothing snowflakes nowhere to be seen. Her class had changed during the night. And that was the whole story of her unlocking the [sprite Caller] class at age 9.

“And I woke up chained to a bed surrounded by guards, the Church had summoned me during the night.”

“And you managed to escape?”

“That’s a story for another time. We should get back to today’s lesson, don’t you think? I only rented this place for four hours.”

“Ah, yes. Do you really want to learn one of my skills, then?”

“Only if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll do it! Teacher Vak-, I mean, Sofia, just tell me what to do, was my guess right?”

“Not quite,” Sofia explained, “put your hand on the crystal, and think really hard about the skill you want to share, try to remember how the mana feels when it leaves your body to activate it.” She also put her hand on the black crystals. “I’ll be the one fueling it, so don’t worry about that, this should work I’m pretty sure.”

Shaily pressed her delicate blue hand against the black sphere, and almost instantly, beams of light shot around the room, creating a strikingly different pattern than anything Sofia had ever seen.

That was fast!

The mana patterns of my skills are all very chaotic but this is more like… A plant? Like a forest of vines branching out from a central point around the heart. This should be about the same complexity as the explosive bolts, so a bit easier than the piercing ones.

“You got the hang of it even faster than I did. Which skill is that? It’s almost all internal so maybe [Split Focus]?”

Sofia had found out that Shaily’s class shared that one skill with Alith’s, truthfully it was probably the only skill of the girl which she could learn, the rest all had to do with using sprites one way or another. Surprisingly, Shaily shook her head. “This is [Call Elemental sprite],” she corrected.

“What? You probably shouldn’t share this one, it’s the entir-”

“No! I want you to learn this one!” Shaily protested.

“A- Alright. Sure. Ah, but wasn’t it a locked skill? Those usually change something fundamental about how your body works. I'm not so sure I can learn it just like that, but it might be worth a try.”

It would be funny to hide a sprite inside the skeletons’ skulls, ready to jump out and unleash a surprise attack. But still… “Didn’t you say sprites would only heed your call if you had a good affinity with them? I may not be able to call any. I had never even seen a sprite before you summoned one in class.”

Shaily furrowed her brows. “If the lightning sprites don’t even listen to your call then nobody deserves to call them. But we can test your affinity with the sprites I have.” She withdrew her hand from the crystal and closed her eyes. Sofia could see the girl’s mana spreading around her body in the same pattern the visualizer had just shown. Slowly, it spread out and gathered around her, coalescing in a few colorful glowing spots. Somehow it felt adjacent to spatial magic, yet not quite the same.

Six dots of color appeared like this, they fluttered around her body slowly, like dancing lights reluctant to leave Shaily’s immediate surroundings. Pointing at the red one, Shaily explained, “This one is a fire sprite, green is wood, white is ice, yellow is light, gray is rock, and the almost invisible one is water, these are all the sprites I can call for now. Go ahead, try to touch them.”

“Touch? Aren’t they just mana?” Sofia asked.

“Not really, they are like… The weakest equivalent to Gods? Sparks of their element. I have read a lot about them after I got the class, but it’s hard to find good documentation on them. Still, you will understand what I mean when you touch one, if they let you. Just approach your hand and see how they react.”

“Alright, let’s see what these cute little sprites think of me.”

Sofia slowly brought her hand near the red sprite hovering around Shaily’s short blue horns. The sprite trembled at her approach, and fled to Shaily’s back.

“Not fire,” Sofia said.

“I think they could get used to you, they didn’t flee outright. Try another one.”

One after the other, Sofia tried to reach for the other elemental sprites, but they avoided her like the plague, the fire ones had actually been the closest one until the Light one, which somewhat hesitant hopped onto Sofia’s hand and back, nestling itself inside Shaily’s neck, but not fleeing.

“What does this mean?” Sofia asked the young sprite expert.

“It looks like it’s conflicted about you, I think. The light sprites like warmth, clarity of mind, healing, energy and shadows. It’s easy to make them like you by just being a good person… You’re very nice so… Do you… Use light in abnormal ways?”

“Ah… I see. Yeah. I do, actually.” What about spreading mana devouring rot through light? It makes sense this sprite of Light, made entirely of mana, would be wary…

Shaily’s expression of incomprehension made Sofia giggle. “Well, should I still try learning the skill? I guess this is the only way to know if at least the lightning sprites will like me.”

“I’m sure they will like you!” Shaily enthusiastically answered, putting her hand back on the crystal.

“Alright, focus on maintaining the Visualizer, I’m sculpting a bone schematic.”

By the time the clerk came to tell the two women their four hours were up, no skill learning or teaching had taken place. Sofia had barely managed to make bone sculpts of both Angel’s Bolt and [Call Elemental sprite]’s mana patterns, leaving her with a huge headache.

Nevertheless, Sofia was very satisfied. She had learned a lot, just not about skills, but about her pupil.

On the way back to her room, she stopped abruptly in the middle of a hallway.

Do I not…?

Frowning, she entered the closest empty classroom, she wanted to be somewhere quiet where she was less likely to be attacked. Sitting on a desk, she searched through the mess in her storage ring.

It’s got to still be around, no? Did I get rid of it?

Did I sell it? No way…

Did I give it to someone?

Was it among all the shit I threw at the eye monster in the trial?

How would I even lose that?

Sofia dug and dug through her stuff, eventually finding what she had lost, buried under piles and piles of gold which she had totally not stolen from Sun’s space temple.

“Got it! I knew it was still somewhere in there! There we go, no need to buy a storage ring! Astelia will be fine with me giving it to one of my students, right? Size of a barrel, it’s perfect!”

Hmm… That is a lot of money though. I should see with Zerei if she can enchant it with a soul-bind first… Space mages like Cardinal can just take stuff from an unlocked ring without the wearer even realizing. Even Orvod has a lock on his golden tooth, you really can’t leave a storage ring just like that or someone could get ideas.

I don’t want Shaily’s stuff to get stolen. Or worse, what if someone attacked her to get the ring?

I could leave her with the black orb from the trial? That would also solve that problem until she’s strong enough to defend it herself.

Or both.

Sofia made her way to Zerei’s room. She was not there. Does she have a class right now? Maybe she went out to eat. Right, when is Astelia’s class? I really need to learn that teleportation skill. I also need to get Saria and go confront Jen with her. And I’ve barely even started progress on VPPV! And now I also need to work on the sprite skill…

“Argh, so much to dooooooo…”