Chapter 13

The next few days were a blur; a whirlwind of classes and training, interrupted only for reading, eating, and sleeping. Rather than feeling exhausted, Az felt invigorated by the intensity of his studies. Nearly every moment was spent pushing for that next breakthrough in understanding, that explosive connection where each bit of previously disjoint bit of information suddenly fit together.

Az was learning as many new spells as he could, studying and dissecting their spellforms, and for those that seemed truly useful, he was engraving them onto his very soul through continuous practice. In time, those spells would become instinctual, the need for memorization of their spellforms no longer an issue. Already. Az needed only to focus his mind and pull mana from his nexus, and the Force Lance spell would spring into being, ready to be unleashed.

There was only so much time in the day that he could devote to practising casting spells, so Az was forcing himself to be ruthlessly selective in his choice of spells. Only those that he deemed truly useful in a life or death situation did he try to reach the level of familiarity needed for instant casting. Not that he expected to be in a life or death situation any time soon, so long as he had any say in the matter. Indeed, Macedar was one of the safest cities in the world thanks to the presence and oversight of Iskander and the city’s ruling council, and the academy was at the very center of that security. The only danger Az could think of was if Iskander suddenly changed his mind about simply observing the effect of the Fallen God’s influence on his destiny. In that case, Az didn’t think any of his practise would make much of a difference anyways. He might as well try fight the sun for all the good his magic would do if Iskander chose to kill him.

No, he was in no immediate danger in the city, and yet he still devoted most of his training towards bettering his combat ability. Why? Was it simply that the years of tutelage his father had arranged for him had set him on the path of a battlemage? Az wasn’t sure; the simple answer was that he was focusing his efforts on the aspects of magic that he enjoyed. There was something viscerally satisfying to improving his body’s power through body enhancement or seeing the strength of his Force Lance or Fireball spell increase day after day. That was not to say that he didn’t enjoy some of the more scholarly topics they touched on in class; Kayla had recently introduced his group to a number of spells used for the analysis of chemicals; truly essential to the field of alchemy. That was all interesting from an academic point of view, but it just didn’t hold his attention in the same way Zim’s regimented approach to nurturing his students’ destructive capabilities did. Az wondered if it said something about his character that he would rather watch stuff explode than study the properties of a strange colored liquid. He had considered briefly if he should dabble in alchemy; there were a myriad of tales of mages synthesising any number of incredible elixirs; immortality potions, potions that gave the strength of a dragon, potions that filled a mage’s nexus with an ocean of mana, catapulting that mage’s power to incredible heights. Upon looking deeper into the topic, Az had quickly decided that alchemy was not the path for him. For one, the resources required were rare and often ridiculously valuable, and to be an alchemist required years of study to be able to create anything of worth.

The one field that had truly piqued his curiosity in class was their brief discussion of enchanting items that had taken up most of an Introductory Magical Theory lecture. The notion of taking a mundane object and infusing it with magic was wonderfully fascinating to him. Every child had grown up hearing tales of legendary artifacts crafted by the Gods or mortal craftsmen, whether it was the Sword of Tal’ar or the Aegis of Myr. Ms. Lenz had been quick to comment that the skill or knowledge required to create such powerful objects was largely lost to the fog of time. Still, it seemed like an interesting subject and Az had noted a few books he was hoping to get to reading whenever he had the time. The basic principle of enchanting was to inscribe runes upon an object’s surface in a similar fashion to how runes serve to guide mana in a spellform. Az couldn’t help but wonder what manner of treasures a truly skilled mage could create.

His father being who he was, Az had investigated the art of creating great formations of magic and quickly recoiled from the amount of math that seemed to be required. A formation required countless runes to function, and the spacing, size, and structure of these runes had to be almost impossibly exact. Mistakes in calculations tended to result in explosive results. He would leave all that to his father, Az decided.

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All in all, Az felt that he was progressing quite nicely. He was managing his schedule as best he could, finding time to focus on his classwork, his body enhancement, his willpower training - courtesy of Dorian’s technique - and his spellcasting. In the periods spent waiting for his nexus to refill, Az was usually struggling his way through a book on whatever currently held his interest or trying to figure out how to get a start on enchanting. He had decided to try and visit home on the weekends as often as he could; it provided a needed respite from the admittedly spacious confines of the academy. Az was conscious of the possibility of him burning himself out mentally, though he felt that so long as he was truly interested in his work that wasn’t likely to happen.

The one area of his life in which he felt he was floundering was socially. Besides infrequent encounters with Michael and the other nobles, he rarely spoke to anyone throughout the day. Az had always enjoyed his own company growing up for the most part, so he was surprised to feel the first hints of loneliness beginning to creep into his heart. He supposed the company of his family back home had always been there, whenever he wished to seek it out. At the academy, there was no such choice. He felt that any overtures he made to the other students were doomed to fail. At this point, everyone knew who he was, whether it be from gossip or from Zim’s continued fixation on him which was often expressed through unfavorable comparisons of others in the class to Asmodeas himself. The result was that he was something of an outcast, a curiosity that the other students did not seem too eager to engage. He was determined not to let it get to him, true happiness must be found within one’s self, he thought, rather impressed with his own philosophising. Friendship is not something that can be forced into existence, rather it has to spring up organically, and often when it is least expected.

Soon, the days stretched into weeks, the events of each day melding into the next. Az maintained his near singular focus on his studies, sparing the welcome respite offered by his trips home. Classes were beginning to become more engaging, as the foundation of each student’s knowledge was now rather considerable. His passing interest into the field of enchanting had blossomed into an unexpected passion that consumed a sizable portion of his free time. It was an incredibly rich subject that was surprisingly rewarding. There was something deeply gratifying, Az felt, to holding in your hands something that was the result of hours of work and planning. Especially when that something could do things like fire a crude approximation of a Force Lance, or release an ear-splitting scream. Admittedly, most of Az’s attempts at enchanting resulted in failure, though thankfully not of the explosive kind, usually. There was one particularly charred looking section of the floor of his room that he had retrieved an old rug from home to cover. More often than not, his enchantments failed to produce the desired effect, going wrong in unexpected though usually intriguing ways. The metal rod that released a rather horrible scream when mana was passed into the activation rune had been meant to light up when activated. Not quite what he was going for, but he could see how it could be useful.. maybe. There had been an Introductory Enchanting elective on that enormous list that Pillard Quark had given him.. if only Az had not been locked into the very unique experience that was “Free Spellcasting” with Dorian.

Strangely enough though, Asmodeas was beginning to feel that he was coming to a rather amicable understanding with Dorian. The man seemed to enjoy Az’s attempts to maneuver him into actually teaching his class of three something useful. For his part, Az did appreciate Dorian’s ability for verbal sparring and more often than not these days, he actually deigned to teach them something during class in addition to making them continue the incessant practising of condensing a sphere of mana. Asmodeas had found him a surprisingly adept teacher when he wanted to be, and they had touched on a number of more eclectic topics than was covered in his other classes.

They had discussed those mages who focused on so-called “elemental” magic; that is, the manipulation of the classical elements - earth, air, fire, water. Dorian had explained that it was a hotly debated topic whether anyone could actually have an “affinity” for a certain element. Most people were of the view that mana was mana, and the result of a spell had no bearing on the mage casting it, just their execution of the spellform. Az’s own father was famous for his use of magic that was best described as shadow magic, so he had something of a bias towards the less upheld view, which Dorian seemed to champion. That is, that there truly were cases where a mage was more powerful, or more adept with spells that produced effects that seemed to align with a specific aspect of nature such as shadow, light, fire, water… Dorian claimed that he had known a wandering trader who had never touched magic until late in his life, who upon learning the basic Fireball spell had been able to cast it instinctively almost immediately and soon mastered increasingly complex fire based spells with astonishing speed. It was an interesting thought, and Az wondered if he should try to focus his efforts on spells of a particular type too. Something else that he wondered why his father had not discussed with him before.

Once Dorian began to speak about a topic in earnest, he spoke with an intensity that held Az and the other students’ attention effortlessly. The difficulty was getting the man to be serious and actually take an interest in something, Az found. Still, he was a fount of curious bits of information about strange types of magic and Asmodeas was actually beginning to look forward to attending the class. Dorian had redeemed himself somewhat in his eyes, and it was starting to look like Asmodeas would not be receiving the Chancellor’s personal tutelage afterall…