"Did you hear about the Minmay issue?"

"That fight over the cast iron?  Yeah, I've heard of that.  It does not reflect well on Minmay to have such disagreements in his territory.  "

"I doubt Mayor Corbin can prevail over Minmay though, even with her town's cast iron.  Minmay is just too big.  "

"But perhaps he is weaker than we thought?  If he can't control Corbin.  There was a recent large battle against the zombies, he might have lost more than the report said.  "

"And not claim anything from the defence fund?  What good would that do him?"

"... A good point.  Then how do we explain his actions?"

"Do we need to?  Perhaps we are just making steam over hot water?"

The two men looked at each other for a moment. 

"A small issue.  "

"Yes.  "

"I'm rather more worried about Mayor Ymir's planned wedding.  "

"Choosing a bride from across the border is rather bad for us.  Chancellor Aldar is too weak to face off the Ranras.  "

"Perhaps Aldar will be willing to part with his food if we can help somehow?"

"Perhaps.  I know Centra will be interested, we should talk to her first.  "

"Lead the way.  "

----------------------------------------

Danine looked over the gang of six, including herself.  They were sitting above the baker's shop again and trying to concentrate on making magic, the first magical exercise Landar had taught her. 

"You push your magic out, like this," Danine held her ball in front of little Ashild, where the tiny girl was futilely trying to pool her magic. 

After less than a day, almost all of them were able to make some amount of magic appear. 

Ikine had picked it most quickly and by now a stable ball of raw magic was floating in front of her.  Yuti had created too big a ball and was now sleeping against the chimney.  Amra and Maen, the two other boys, had issues stabilizing their ball but were otherwise successful. 

Tim was already at the level of trying to purify his ball to make a heat source.  After he succeeded at summoning a magical ball on his first try, Tim had admitted that he had been secretly trying to copy Danine ever since she had shown him magic. 

The balls were tiny and only summoned with great difficulty but it seemed that they could do it.  Danine didn't mention how glad she was that it worked and that she hadn't turned out to be a special Fuka who learnt magic easily. 

Ashild flicked her one good ear and looked at Danine's ball.  Her ball coalesced and suddenly snapped into a clear smooth marble of stability. 

"Good!  You did it!" Danine jumped up and shared a grin with Ashild.  "Now put out the ball and try it again," she said, causing the little girl's ear to wilt, "you have to practice.  Until you can do it as quickly as Tim can. " Danine let her ball to dissolve in the air and summoned another one with a mere flick of her wrist.  Well, Danine had had a lot of practice. 

Ashild nodded obediently and went back to trying on her own. 

Ikine came up and asked, still balancing her ball above her hand, "when will you teach us how to shoot fire like you did yesterday?"

"It's been one day," Danine said incredulously, "and you can't even make the magic properly.  "

Ikine frowned, "but the humans.  They attack us every day!  How long must we wait before we can defend ourselves?!"

"I can teach you how to turn the magic to fire and how to move the magic," Danine said, "but how will you do it when you can't make the ball appear?"

Ikine didn't have an answer to that but Danine sighed and gave in anyway.  Ikine would change her mind when she experienced how difficult it was.  "You just push out all the other colours except red," Danine explained, "red is for fire, blue is for cold.  Green is for moving things.  "

"What about yellow?" Ashild asked. 

Danine looked up from her coloured ball to find the five of them gathered around her.  "Um, yellow?" she said stupidly, "I... never heard of a yellow.  "

"I thought I saw a yellow when I was trying," Tim said, "but I can't even make a red ball.  "

Actually, why not try?  She stuck out her hand and concentrated on the ball above it.  It cycled through the colours as she tried to filter it and then slowly, turned a bright yellow. 

"Huh," Tim said, "so I did see that right!"

"What does it do?" Amra muttered under his breath. 

She didn't have an answer.  Danine frowned, "I'll ask Landar tonight then I'll tell you tomorrow.  "

They nodded to each other. 

"So, back to practicing?" Danine asked.  They groaned. 

----------------------------------------

Landar lowered her hands and examined the line of magic laid into the walls.  It was tough, having to not damage the building when making her traps, but there was a challenge to it that made the task more interesting. 

Her stomach growled and she looked out the window.  Oh, wow, it was getting late already. 

There was a smell of roasting meat from the ground floor kitchen and a loud sizzle accompanied it.  Landar grinned ruefully and made her way down the stairs. 

The sight of what Cato was cooking almost made her gag. 

"Sandwiches?!" Landar said incredulously. 

Cato waved the strangely shaped oily stick in his hands, "it's the only thing I know how to make.  "

"Then I'm never going to let you cook again," Landar sniffed then frowned, "it smells different though.  "

"My request for cooking utensils got fulfilled," Cato explained, "as well as the oils I asked Kalny to prepare.  "

He gestured at the cast iron bowl sitting on the stove.  Landar had seen pots and pans before but this bowl was not like any pan she was familiar with.  It was too big for one thing.  And even the stove itself looked different now, with four little legs holding up the big bowl.  Landar squinted at the utensil in his hand and noticed how it would make scooping up the frying paka meat in the bowl easier. 

"That's clever," was all she could say. 

"I know it's not impressive like the blast furnace," Cato said, "but little things like this make life much nicer.  Still, I'm surprised Inath has never heard of cooking oil.  I wonder how the chefs ever manage to get their pots and pans clean.  "

Landar shook her head, "what do you mean by that?  I always see them cleaning and scrubbing.  "

Cato smiled and turned over the pieces of meat, "see?  No sticking!"

Landar raised an eyebrow.  There was only a little bit of charring where the meat had met the black metal but there was none of the usual rinds left behind by cooking. 

"It's the cooking oil," Cato said, "there is a tree out there that's similar to the oil palm in my world.  The fruit is a hard kernel that can be crushed to make a oily residue that is edible.  We don't eat it because the oil has a bitter taste but I hope can be used in cooking.  The taste might not carry over to the meat.  "

He scooped out the oily meat and placed it on the waiting pieces of bread sandwiches, then carried the large bowl over to the washing buckets and washed it clean.  Landar would have watched but her growling stomach wouldn't let her ignore the sandwiches. 

She picked one up and bit into it.  Hm, the bitter was still there but the sweetness covered it.  It gave the sandwich an interesting aftertaste.  Not so boring, although she would have preferred it spiced. 

"Did you add sugar?" Landar asked. 

Cato nodded as he put the iron bowl against the wall to dry, "yeah, I thought it might help to cover the taste.  "

They ate the sandwiches in silence. 

Cato looked at his empty plate and asked, "you mentioned elemental Water back when we were defending the blast furnace.  "

Landar nodded, paying attention. 

"That's not part of the six magical functions you taught Danine," Cato said, "and I haven't seen any of the knights make it.  Do you not use elemental Water?  At least it sounds like it could help with cleaning the pots and pans.  "

A cook using Elemental Water to clean?!  Landar laughed, "you can't!  The Water would dissolve the pot.  It eats everything.  "

Cato frowned, thinking, "where does the things it dissolves go?"

"It goes into the Water.  Elemental Water, like most magic, disappears eventually and the things it dissolved are left behind.  "

Cato shot out of his chair so fast that it fell backwards onto the ground behind him.  "That... That!" he sputtered, "that's incredible!"

What.  Landar stared at him.  Elemental Water was universally recognized as quite useless except in very rare circumstances.  "You can't store it, you know?" Landar said, picking up the chair, "it just dissolves the container.  "

"There must be something it doesn't dissolve," Cato paced across the kitchen, muttering to himself, "that depends on how you make it.  And depending on how it disappears, the materials left behind..."

He looked up at Landar sharply, "we really need that laboratory.  Without experimenting, I can only speculate and Elemental Water sounds too dangerous to try in here.  "

Landar frowned and she popped a ball of magic in front of her.  Shaping a dense cloud that was impenetrable to magic was simple enough, for once her high power helped, then she condensed her magic into the liquid Elemental Water. 

"One of the ways to contain Water is to use a magical barrier," Landar explained, "there's nothing to dissolve.  Other methods like levitating it suffer from control problems, liquid Water is too runny to lift properly without splashing it.  As long as I'm around, it's not that dangerous.  If we spill it, I can always dispel it.  "

Cato's eyes widened at the handful of liquid Water pooling seemingly in the air.  Then he picked up an oily spoon from the plate and stuck it into the Water. 

Nothing seemed to happen at first but when Cato withdrew it a few moments later, taking care to draw the spoon through the magical barrier to scrap it dry, the spoon had become shiny. 

"No oil on it," Cato said, rubbing the surface with one finger, "and I think it lost the top layer of the metal.  "

Landar wrapped up the Elemental Water and turned her barrier actively dispelling.  The Water sank downwards and vanished, leaving only a strange silvery ball that fell to the floor. 

Cato picked it up and it crumbled into oily droplets and iron flakes. 

"This..." Cato's hands were visibly shaking.  Was it really that surprising?  Residue from Elemental Water was just useless residue. 

"This is crazy," Cato said, still staring at the flakes, "we should have investigated this first.  The number of uses for it is incredible!"

"But you can't contain it," Landar said, "an active magical barrier like what I did needs someone to maintain the magic or it'll disappear very quickly.  "

"We don't need to store the Water," Cato said, still fingering the oily drops on his hand, "this thing, the precipitate is useful.  In my world, we had composite materials, layered steel with carbon fibre.  It's light and strong but also hard to make.  But Water... this dissolves anything you say?  If we can control the deposition and the shape of the precipitate, or perhaps even grow it like a crystal...  I cannot imagine the kinds of the materials you could make with this.  "

Cato squatted over the iron flakes, "and there might be even more simple uses.  It can contain chemical reactions.  And maybe there is a way to fractionate the components so they come out one at a time?  We could use it to separate mixtures by how well they dissolve in the Water.  If carbon and silicon can be separated, you might even be able to turn cast iron into steel without the heat.  "

Steel without the heat.  Landar felt a sudden need to sit down.  Steel without the heat!  "Are you sure?" she asked him. 

"We don't know," Cato said, "this is why I said we need to investigate magic.  A laboratory would be nice to have.  "

They shared a look.  "Yes, it would be nice," Landar said wistfully. 

----------------------------------------

"So how is this elemental Water any different from a spell?" Cato asked later over dinner. 

Danine nibbled at a stick of braid, Cato thought of that vegetable as a long red cucumber.  She had been uncharacteristically silent over dinner today, perhaps due to Cato and Landar discussing this new concept of elemental magic. 

"It's similar, in that magical barriers stop it and you can use magical disruption effects to remove Water," Landar said, "but it's also a physical thing.  Like this tea I'm drinking.  If we had a material that wouldn't dissolve in elemental Water, you could pour it into a mug and carry it around.  "

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"So while purely magical spells pass through non-living objects, elemental Water will not," Cato nodded, "it does sound like something completely different to normal magic.  "

"Can I learn to make it?" Danine asked suddenly. 

They looked at her.  "Danine, most people don't bother to learn elemental magic," Landar said, "they're hard to control, because they're not spells.  You can make elemental Water but you can't push it around or make it fly like you would with a spell.  The most you can do is use a spell to make it where you want it to appear, but if you're going to shoot a spell at a target, you may as well just attack directly.  "

"So why did you learn it?" she asked. 

Landar shrugged, "because I could?  I was curious about elemental magic, but until I showed it to Cato, I never thought I would find a use for it.  "

"I'm curious too," Danine said, "and Cato thinks it's useful.  "

Landar chuckled, "all right, I'll teach you.  "

Cato was about to continue his discussion when Danine interrupted again. 

"I'm teaching the other Fukas here in Corbin about magic," Danine said, with a defiant glint in her eye.  As if she expected them to argue about that. 

"How did you teach them?" Cato asked, "Are there any problems?"

Danine blinked at the unexpected lack of scolding but recovered quickly.  She continued with more enthusiasm, "I tried to do the same lessons that Landar taught me, but they're not improving as fast as I did.  "

"How many people are you teaching?" Landar asked. 

"Five, including Tim," Danine said. 

"That's the problem," Landar said, "most mages only take a single apprentice at a time.  I teach the exercises based on what I think you can handle, and what I think you need to improve on.  That's why you're getting power exercises now, your control is improving faster than your magical strength.  Most mages can't handle two apprentices, you've barely started learning magic and you want to teach five?!"

Cato asked, "Danine, have they managed to learn magic?"

"They can do the basic on and off exercise, yes," Danine said, "I taught them how to stabilize a magical ball, most... can do it.  With help.  "

Landar frowned, "most mages learn to do that within a day.  You did also.  How long have they been learning for?"

"Slightly more than two days," Danine said, "we didn't get much done on the first day.  "

"That's pretty good then," Cato said, drawing their attention.  Her answered Landar's unspoken query, "one mage teaching one student has them learn a simple exercise in a day.  One apprentice teaching five students?  They might learn it by tomorrow.  "

It was Danine's turn to frown.  Cato reassured her, "it's all right to continue, Danine.  I'm interested in seeing how fast they can learn, and if it helps them in the future, that's a bonus.  Landar, how many people do you think you can teach at once?"

"They won't learn it properly, and they will hate me for not teaching them magic the correct way," she huffed, "how many do you have in mind anyway?"

"Let's say, thirty?" Cato ventured. 

Landar practically choked on her tea.  "Thirty?!" she sputtered, "they won't learn anything at all!"

"The teachers in my world often had class sizes that large," Cato said, "and outside of practical lessons, we had lecture classes that sometimes had a single teacher teaching a few hundred students.  "

They gaped at him in utter astonishment.  Cato elaborated, "there are times when all a teacher is doing is explaining a subject to the student.  A simple transfer of knowledge.  There is very little feedback needed from the student in those cases and you can get away with teaching large numbers of students.  In other times, like when you're showing someone how to perform an experiment or develop a manual skill, you need to actually show them how to do it.  Of course, in those cases you cannot teach quite that many.  "

"But but," Landar visibly swallowed and put down her teacup carefully, "but what do the other students do when their teacher is teaching those lucky enough to get the demonstration?"

Oh.  Cato suddenly felt stupid, no wonder she was confused.  "Students don't just have one teacher," Cato explained, "our teachers have specialist subjects.  For example, one teacher would teach newtonian mechanics, another would teach chemistry and so on.  The students gather together for a large lecture, but split between many teachers for their demonstrations.  "

"Your teachers share their students?!" Landar was looking shocked again. 

"Well, of course," Cato said, "how else would someone... I mean, if they're trying to learn alchemy, wouldn't the student want to learn it from the best alchemists?  Like you, for example.  Then learning spellstorms from the best teachers of those, and so on.  Right?"

Landar shook her head, "it doesn't work that way.  All the teachers would want to steal each other's secrets!  You would ask your apprentices to teach you whatever they learnt with the others!  And you wouldn't teach them yours.  "

It was at times like this that Cato felt most strongly that this was truly a different society.  He pointed at the books containing whatever he could remember from his studies, stacked up in a heavy chest.  "What about that?  Would you say those are my secret knowledge?" Cato asked. 

Landar nodded, "what else could it be?"

"The knowledge in there is quite common in my world.  Anyone can learn whatever I know just by buying the correct books," Cato said, "and not very expensively either.  About what a normal person makes in a month is quite enough to get all the books you need to learn it.  "

Landar had that fish out of water look again. 

Cato just couldn't resist, "in fact, you could say there are too many books.  There's not just one book to teach you chemistry, for example, there are a few hundred books all about the same subject written by different people.  All of the books slightly different and all the writers trying to sell you their book.  "

"But surely there are some teachers who only have one or two students?" Landar cried, "or does your world not have any sense?"

"We do," Cato said, "at the most advanced level of study, where we are learning new things, a teacher does not have more than a handful of students.  And in those cases, we do worry about having our secrets stolen.  "

Landar shook her head, "then you mean to say that those books you wrote are such basic knowledge that anyone would give them away for a scant day's work.  "

"Yes, indeed.  "

She could only shake her head more. 

"Landar, I think it's time for my lessons?" Danine asked, once she had the chance to get a word in. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, yes," Landar said. 

Cato was about to reach for their plates to do the cleaning when Danine dropped another bombshell. 

"When I was teaching, one of them asked me what a yellow colour was," Danine said, creating a new type of magic that Cato hadn't seen among the basic exercises.  Nor was it the same as the elemental Water Landar had shown him. 

"Oh that," Landar said, mirroring Danine's sphere, "well, I may as well teach you.  Create as small and as powerful a ball as you can, while maintaining that structure.  Once there, you activate it, like this.  "

Landar's ball of magic condensed into a tiny point and was suddenly replaced with a shining spark.  It was actually shining, not just in the magic sense, Cato could see it casting shadows in the kitchen. 

"Wow," Danine whispered as her own spark appeared, a firefly glow trapped in her hand.  Almost as quickly as it appeared, the light faded and vanished along with all traces of magic.  "What is that?" she asked. 

"Liquid light," Landar replied.  Her spell hadn't used all its magic in one go, instead slowing feeding the drop in her hand as it replaced what disappeared.  "The principle is very similar to the elemental Water we were talking about earlier, but liquid light isn't dangerous.  All it does is glow.  "

"So you mean to tell me that elemental Water isn't the only magical material you can make?" Cato said, with a rueful grin, "I suppose I should have expected that.  "

Landar nodded, "yes, I keep forgetting that you don't know anything about magic.  But first, I'll create an exercise for Danine today, I will introduce the magical materials to you later.  "

Cato smiled, "all right.  I can't wait to see what sort of miracles you have up your sleeve.  "

----------------------------------------

Klaas crouched on the roof across the wide street.  The wet rainy night obscured enough of his vision that the dark figures in the street were only vague blobs without defining features.  He sighed and tucked the oil coat tighter around himself, at least the cold would prevent him from getting sleepy even in the dead of the night. 

The three figures scurried up to the front door.  The magical door right next to a familiar large crate. 

Klaas smiled to himself.  Now, how would these mercenaries deal with it?  The myriad magical signatures inside the house screamed trap to anyone who had ever fought in a defensive battle. 

One of the three stepped back and leveled a long staff towards the door.  The figure didn't get to blast it however, another dark hooded figure was walking up the street, a spell held ready in front. 

The first three and the second later arrival considered each other for a long moment. 

So there were two people out for Landar?  Klaas wondered who sent the other person, and which side was the mercenary from Corbin.  He watched the lone figure approach the three confidently and they exchanged inaudible words. 

There was some disagreement, with much waving of arms and rain-muffled words.  Most of the gestures were towards the door.  Then the lone figure separated from the other three and the two groups took some distance from each other, on guard but not outright hostile.  Klaas would give good money to know what that talk had been about, but he wasn't going to get between them.  His was only to watch after all. 

Klaas somehow managed to yawn and shiver at the same time.  That jostled his vision and he blinked, sleepiness blowing away in a hurry. 

There, the shadow in the corner of the alley was a big darker than it had been.  Almost as if someone wearing pure black was standing in it trying not to be seen.  Klaas rubbed his eyes and squinted.  Yes, there was someone there.  In fact, there were quite a few shadows looking darker than night scattered around and in the alley.  How had he not noticed that?

The four figures in front of the door certainly hadn't.  They were still sizing each other up when the shadows started to move, all at once as if at some signal. 

There was a loud crash as one of the shadows smashed in the wooden slats facing the alley off the main street.  The four figures jump and looked around, just noticing the new arrivals. 

The group of shadows converging on the house didn't stop for them though, instead rushing towards every entrance, smashing and scrambling with improvised weapons. 

Klaas gaped at the flash of a signature red arm band.  Redwater?!  Seriously, this gang was really coming back after what the Mad Alchemist had done to them?  He idly wondered who paid them and how much it had cost.  He could use a few minions too greedy to live as well. 

The first of the Redwater tried to kick in the front door and the entire door simply blew outwards, bits of wood smashing into the face and body.  There was a high pitched scream and the woman went down thrashing.  Klaas raised an eyebrow, he hadn't known there were women in the Redwater, he had always figured them too obtuse to manage to work with women. 

The Redwater didn't seem to care and simply charged into the house, axes and clubs raised. 

The other four figures standing in the street in shock recovered admirably and approached behind the Redwater, more cautiously.  They were still keeping an eye on each other too, Klaas could see them splitting up to take a different direction. 

He sighed and wondered if Landar knew just how popular she had become.  Almost overnight, there were now at least three sides gunning for her and Cato's knowledge. 

No, wait, there were at least four.  Klaas was here too after all.