“I know I’m not the first to say it, but welcome to the Marifond Federal Academy of Magic,” Templar Roose said, “I’ll be serving as your class’s advisor for the duration of your time here, and I hope we can build a good rapport. I won’t ask to become your best friend, but I hope you’ll be able to at least trust me as an advisor and a teacher.” He’d gathered everyone to the front of the room and addressed them, rather appropriately, like a teacher speaking to a classroom.

Cliff glared at the man with irritation. “Why are you late?” he asked. Next to him there was a sharp intake of breath, and he glanced at Loria. Somehow, the prissy girl had ended up seated beside him. Her angry glare was telling him to shut his damned mouth, but he hated having his time wasted, so she’d have to forgive this one question.

Templar Roose, unlike Loria, did not seem at all put off by the annoyance. “I was handling some administrative business,” he said with an easy smile, “I hadn’t expected it to take such a long time, or else I would have sent someone to let you all know.” He shrugged lightly. “I hope you’ll forgive me for making you wait, hmm Cliff?”

Cliff blinked, wondering how their advisor already knew his name, but before he could press the point, Roose continued his introduction. “I’m sure a few of you are wondering why a Magepriest is the advisor of a class of Couriers. There are a few reasons for that, but the largest is that I used to be a Courier, once upon a time.” His voice turned suddenly wistful. “For fifteen years, I was a fully-certified member of the Courier Alliance, and I worked full time fulfilling all sorts of contracts for the average citizen.” He shrugged, and his tone became neutral again. “Not anymore, I’m afraid, but I still remember what it took to be a good Courier – skills I hope to impart onto all of you.”

“Why’d you quit?” a girl called out. Cliff glanced at her. She had short brown hair, not quite shoulder-length, with bangs that hung on her forehead. She was short, even for a woman, but she had a stoutness to her that suggested she wasn’t at all frail.

Roose smiled wider. “It’s a good question, Nym, and one that I’ll give you a full answer for, some day. For now, I’ll just say that I felt a different calling – one that led me to the Church.”

“Are you actually a Templar?” Percy asked. His voice sounded awed, though Cliff couldn’t venture why. He knew a few facts about the Templars, but little beyond that they were the Church’s soldiers.

“I am, Percy,” Roose confirmed.

“Then you serve one of the Hierophants?” Percy asked.

“All priests do,” Roose said with a light chuckle, “But yes, I’ve met the Hierophant of Marifond – many times actually.” That, at least, Cliff knew was impressive. The Marifond Federation was not a theocracy, but the Hierophant was the closest thing to royalty they had.

“Now,” Roose said, preempting any other questions, “we are already behind schedule, so I’d like to move forward with the administrative business.” He turned to the crate next to him, the one Cliff had hoisted onto the table. “When I call your name, come forward, and I’ll give you three sets of your uniform for this year – you listed your sizes on your application, but let me know if there are any mistakes.”

***

Cliff ran his fingers along the freshly ironed seams of the stack of clothes in front of him. The material was soft, more finely spun than even his most formal outfit. The bottoms were a muddy brown, and the top was a forest green. The thing was absolutely covered in pockets, and Cliff could do nothing but admire the practicality of it all.

“Right,” Roose said, “now that that’s squared away, we can move on to the testing.” Cliff grinned. He’d been looking forward to this. “Hopefully, this is mostly a formality, but we do need to test your Magical Rating to verify that you’ll be capable of using a Personal Magetool.”

“I thought everyone could,” Percy said hesitantly. Cliff had noticed that just about everything the boy did seemed hesitant.

Roose shook his head. “Not quite,” he said, pinching the tip of his chin between his thumb and a knuckle. “How much do you all know about PMTs – that’s – ah, Personal Magetools? ”

Percy shrugged. “Not much beyond what was in the primer readings,” he said, “I’d never – well, PMTs, as you call them, are not exactly commonplace for ranchers.”

“True enough,” Roose said with a nod, “well, I won’t bore you with the history, but suffice to say – about eight percent of people have an MR – that’s Magical Rating – too low to be able to use a PMT. Their primary function is to emulate a Natural’s Gift, and that control is motivated by the magic in your blood. Understand?”

“Uh-huh,” Percy said in a way that meant he definitely did not understand.

Roose breathed a chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose that explanation doesn’t make much sense if you don’t know the theory behind it-” He shook his head quickly. “Okay, how about this – your MR is something like the strength of the magic in your blood, and you need at least a certain amount to control a PMT. How’s that?”

“Okay,” Percy said, nodding thoughtfully. “Does that mean that the higher the MR, the more powerful your PMT is?”

The expression on Roose’s face suddenly became pained. “Not exactly. Generally, for Gifts, the higher the MR, the more powerful the magic, but for PMTs, that’s not the case.”

“Wait, but why?” Cliff said – he’d read a bit about PMTs, and that was the conclusion he’d come to. “If MR is like strength, I would imagine the PMT works like an amplifier, no? Wouldn’t that mean that the stronger the input, the stronger the output?”

“You would think so, but that’s not the case,” Roose said, scratching at his head, “Listen, I teach tactics and history – explaining theory is not exactly my strong suit.”

“My grandfather always explained your Magical Rating not as strength, but like the volume of your voice,” Thalos said, waving his hand in the air in front of him. Cliff turned to the boy, seated beside him. “And Magic, broadly, as issuing commands to the world. For a Gift, it’s the power of your own voice that issues the command, so the volume of your voice – that is, your MR – is the strength of command you can issue. A PMT,” he continued, “is like a friend, standing off to the side, waiting to issue commands for you. He will always shout the command at the same volume, no matter how loudly you shout at him.” His head tilted slightly. “You can think of the minimum MR required to use a PMT as him being able to hear your command – if he can’t hear what you’re saying, he can’t shout it to the world.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Cliff clicked his tongue. “I see – the power comes from the prime stone, not the user itself, so the MR doesn’t have an effect.” He nodded. That tracked with what he’d seen in Barry’s Magetool. He frowned. “But what about things like Magetool vehicles – they don’t require a minimum MR to use – I know that for a fact.”

“That, at least, I can answer,” Roose said with a nod and a smile for Thalos, “PMTs are designed to mimic a Natural’s Gift, so they require fine, intuitive control. Other forms of Magetool are much cruder in their control schemes – a light switch or a steering wheel don’t need to be controlled with a thought, you see – so no internal magic is necessary.” He nodded with a bit of finality. “That’s enough of the theoretical talk, though, we need to get this testing done so we can move on.”

From below the table in front of him, he lifted another one of the crates, pulling from it a case of glass vials as well as a shiny metallic Magetool. Cliff had never seen anything like it before, but he guessed it was what would measure their MRs.

“This,” he said, “is a Magimeter. A bit of blood, and it’ll tell you your MR, down to the tenth of a point.”

“How’s it work?” Cliff asked eagerly.

“I – ah-” Roose said, looking between Cliff and the little machine in front of him, “I don’t know.” Cliff clicked his tongue. “Anyway,” Roose continued, “Again, I’ll be calling you up one at a time to take a reading – hope you don’t mind having a bit of blood taken!”

The first name was called, and Cliff turned to Thalos, watching the machine work with one eye, and the boy with his other. “Your grandpoppa is some kind of researcher for magical theory?” he asked the other boy.

Thalos looked at him levelly. “Was,” he said before nodding, “But yeah – how’d you know?”

“Call it intuition,” Cliff said.

“Your Gift?” Thalos asked with a smirk.

“Maybe,” Cliff replied, shrugging, “it’s hard to separate, sometimes, what comes from the Gift and what comes from me.” In front of them, the Magimeter whirred as the first girl’s blood was processed. After a moment, there was a beep.

“Eight hundred and forty three,” Roose said with a smile for the girl. She returned to her seat, and the priest called up the next person.

Cliff hummed to himself. “Ah, it works by sending a pulse of magic through the vial of blood,” he muttered, “it gets its reading by how much – hmm, no, how little, if the MR is defined by the absorption of magic – yeah, how little gets through.” He turned back to Thalos, speaking louder. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Some folk felt awkward, addressing death, but he figured most would appreciate a little sympathy.

“You got all that, watching the machine run once? Impressive.” Thalos said with a light smile. “And don’t worry about it – he lived, in his words, ‘a damned long, damned busy life’. He died happy, I think.”

“And that’s all we can ask for,” Cliff said. Another whir and beep.

“One thousand six hundred and four,” Roose said before sending a beaming boy back to his seat. There was a small reaction from around the room.

“Is that high?” Cliff asked, “that sounds high.”

Thalos shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you – I’ve never had one of these tests.”

Cliff turned to his other side, asking again, “Is his MR particularly high?”

Loria, who had been watching the machine in front of her impassively, gave him an odd look. After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. “Yes,” she said, “Anything above 1600, most would consider to be quite high. Gifts start to manifest in people with an MR above one thousand.”

“Hmm,” Cliff said, “And whats the minimum MR to use a PMT?” He ignored her obvious confusion at his speaking to her. Sure, they had bickered before, but Cliff was far too interested in what was going on in front of him to care about something like that.

“Around 350, and control is inconsistent,” she said, “below 300, and using a PMT is impossible.”

“Hmm,” Cliff said again, turning back to the machine. Percy was up next, sweating bullets as he waited for his reading. He’d been looking nervous since Templar Roose had mentioned a minimum requirement.

The beep sounded, and Roose looked up at Percy with a smile. “Don’t worry, Percy. Six hundred and twenty one – you’re fine.” With a hefty sigh, Percy moved back to his seat, just about collapsing from relief.

“Clifford Everhart,” Roose called, looking to Cliff with a smile. Kicking his chair back, Cliff just about dashed over to the Roose and the Magimeter, eager to see the thing working closer.

“How much do I have to beg for you to let me take this thing apart and put it back together?” Cliff asked the advisor.

Roose chuckled. “I think the headmistress would fire me on the spot if she heard I let a new student tinker with an expensive piece of equipment. Give me your hand.”

Cliff stuck out his hand as he studied the Magimeter. His fingertips itched to tear the thing apart, but he could still tell what most of the parts did, just from a glance. It was not a particularly complicated device. On one end, there was an emitter that blasted magic through a tube, and on the other, some kind of measurement device. Besides that, it was just a few calculations and an output – honestly, he might be able to put something like this together on his own if he had a few spare parts.

He felt a prick on his fingertip, and he hissed a pained breath. Roose had stuck him with a needle, and his blood was slowly dripping to fill the little vial.

A moment of slow drips later, and Roose released his hand. “Did you bring a PMT with you?” Roose asked as Cliff rubbed at the needle wound in his fingertip.

“No,” Cliff said, watching as Roose inserted the vial into the empty slot on the Magimeter. “Was I supposed to?”

“Not at all,” Roose said, pressing a button. The whirring started low, but quickly picked up in volume and pitch. “I just need to know – we’ll use your blood to key a PMT for you when this is finished.”

“Oh,” Cliff said, watching the machine work. After a moment, he processed what Roose had said. “Wait, I get my own PMT? Do I have to pay?”

Roose laughed. “No, it’s part of your scholarship – how did you expect how to work as a mage without your own PMT?”

“I – I guess I hadn’t thought about it,” Cliff said. The machine beeped, and Roose’s eyebrows rose.

“Twelve hundred and fifty six,” he said with an appreciative nod, “quite the high MR, especially for the son of a pair of farmers.”

Cliff grinned, returning to his seat. He knew his MR would be above a thousand – after all, according to Loria that’s where Gifts started to show up – so that wasn’t really a surprise to him. The real surprise was that he would get a PMT, and so soon! He thought back to Barry’s Magetool, and how much he wanted to tinker with the insides – he wondered just how much function he could pull out of his own. He was almost shivering with excitement.

Thalos was next, and Cliff was surprised to see that the boy looked pretty nervous. His MR was a respectable 834. Loria was soon after, with an impressive 1264. Cliff noted, with amusement, that it was nearly the same MR as his own.

When she returned to her seat, he glanced at her. He grinned as a wry comment came to mind, but his smile faded when he recalled how she had reacted the last time he tried teasing her. “Hey,” he said. She gave him that same incredulous look, like she didn’t believe he was actually talking to her. “Sorry, about before – I, ah – I didn’t mean to set you off, I guess. My momma always says I run my mouth thoughtlessly.”

“She’s right,” Loria said drily. Cliff blinked – that was not the forgiveness he had hoped for. He was about to turn away when she spoke again. “And I’m sorry for snapping at you. That was… crass of me.” Her expression hadn’t changed at all, though, and it was hard to read if she was actually sorry, or just trying to be polite.

Cliff coughed awkwardly. “Right, well – all is forgiven – let’s forget it ever happened.” Loria nodded, and he turned to Thalos, who was watching him. Cliff raised an eyebrow, and the other boy shrugged. At least Cliff wasn’t alone in being unable to read the girl.

The rest of the readings passed rather uneventfully, with the exception Nym – the girl who’d asked why Roose quit the Couriers – having the absurdly high MR of 2419, by far the highest in their class. Interestingly, she had looked extremely nervous before her reading, and seemed almost disappointed after Roose read her number.

“Alright!” Roose said, placing the now-full vials and Magimeter back into their box, “now that that’s finished, we can move on to room assignments and then get to the fun part.”

“The fun part?” Cliff asked, looking longingly at where he’d stowed the Magimeter – he still wanted to take the thing apart.

“Yes,” Roose said with a wicked grin, “The reason I was late. Real quick – raise your hand if you brought your own PMT.” Cliff was shocked to see twelve hands shoot up. Only he, Thalos, Percy, and one girl he didn’t know kept their hands down. “Wonderful,” Roose continued, rubbing his hands together. “In a moment, I’ll give you your room keys. Go and drop your stuff off and meet back here in ten minutes. The Army and the Church have far more incoming students than us, you see – lots more administrative stuff to handle.” Cliff had wondered, briefly, if there would only be fifty students in the entire incoming class, but he was glad to hear otherwise. “I could have given you free time to get situated, but I decided to have us use our time for some – ah – hands-on practice.”

“What do you mean?” Percy asked.

Roose clapped his hands in front of him with a grin. “Everyone, bring your PMTs – I’ve booked us a medic and an arena. We’re going to fight!”