“We have no reason to doubt that our daughter will do as she is instructed, but we must ask that she not be put into harm's way intentionally.” Zoey had said finally after several moments of contemplation between her and her husband. As Astaroth had said, spatial magic was potentially the most dangerous specialization due to the forces surrounding the magic being fueled by the power of the astral realm. The astral was a void of pure magic that encompassed all relativity of space. The magic existed in an untampered state not polluted by the effects of the world, it was pure. That pure state of magic became excessively volatile to whatever polluted substance it came into contact with for prolonged periods of time. This is what led to the specialization of spatial magic to be left out of official specialization titles, it was simply too dangerous to the caster to be condoned for academic teaching. “Very well, we can begin tomorrow. I would like to take today to assess your daughter’s talent in the arts as well as rest, the journey to this kingdom was long.” Astaroth replied to them before giving the family a ceremonious bow.
Outside in the backyard Astaroth observed Sallya, studying her, as he asked her questions about properties of magic. He hadn’t expected her to give an elaborate answer seeing as she was merely a child, but he had hoped for a fundamental understanding put into the words of a seven year old. “I don’t know how to say it. I feel the magic around me like the wind but not moving. It lets me touch and play with it. I think it reads my mind because it always seems to change into what I’m thinking about.” Sallya said to Astaroth explaining how her understanding of magic played out. This revelation astounded Astaroth. Not only was this child unknowingly using a grand magic known as mage sight, she was also subconsciously exerting her will into the magic to form into a state she desired. The implications of a seven year old girl able to use grand magic, that most mages spent their lives trying to learn, without realizing it would shake the core of the magical community. However Astaraoth now knew that this girl was in fact a magical prodigy and most likely able to reach the same heights that The Magus had in his prime, if not surpass them. After the short assessment Astaroth pulled Sallya’s parents aside into the kitchen.
“Listen your daughter… she isn’t normal. She isn’t a prodigy, that title is an understatement to her abilities. Her potential is already higher than mine, as ashamed as I am to admit it. She is unknowingly using grand magic as well as subconsciously manipulating the magic around her to bend to her will. I don’t think she simply displayed fire magic. I personally can’t cast mage sight but I do have magic sense and I can’t sense any magical channels of fire within a two hundred yards of your home. I believe she grasped the magic from another channel flowing within the area and transformed it into fire. Originally I had thought that this job would take the better half of seven years. Just getting to where you can sense magic in a way that allows you to alter took me three years to learn and another two to learn to manipulate it to my wishes. Your daughter can already do that so I simply have to teach her the correct mindset in which to change the flow of magic to draw power from the astral allowing her to create gates.” The look on Astaroth’s face was grave as he spoke to Zoey and Alex. Their faces had likewise gone pale as he explained the circumstances to them. “This leads me to my dilemma. I was under the impression that I would be teaching a fourteen year old the intricate process in which to stabilize a channel to the astral. Her mind would be able to grasp the severity of the concept much more reasonably. However with her being seven I fear that mistakes are at a much higher risk of occurring. So I will leave the decision up to the two of you. Do I teach her how to channel the astral or do I not?”
The Delvauxs looked at Astaroth for a moment then to each other. They gazed into each other's eyes as if speaking an unspoken language to each other for several seconds before both turning to look at Astaroth once again and in tandem nodded their heads. The shock of discovering that their daughter already possessed the capability to use grand magic left the two in a state of awe as Astaroth continued. “We understand the risks that are involved with allowing our daughter to pursue this field of magic at such a young age. But we also feel that your willingness to still tutor her although you know the circumstances means that you are confident that you can indeed teach her right?” Astaroth contemplated the question for a brief moment before closing his eyes. “Yes I am confident that with enough diligence on my part and enough patience on hers that there is a strong possibility she could learn spatial magic without issue. However I do still wish to inform you that at this age even a non-fatal mistake will more than likely leave her permanently damaged mentally speaking.” Zoey and Alex simply nodded once more at Astaroth, sharing similar small uncertain smiles. “Very well I will begin conditioning her mind for lessons tomorrow preceded by theory lessons.”
The following morning Astaroth sat in the living area of her home explaining the concept of meditation and how it would allow her to inter a mindscape. “So what this exercise will do is allow you to go into a dream and in the dream. But this isn’t just a regular dream, it's a special dream that you control. You can walk around wherever you want or even fly if you choose to.” Astaroth was doing a rather good job at keeping her interested in the more tedious aspects of the subject. While meditation was a very good habit to have as a mage it wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary. The process did have a plethora of benefits however. There were certain magics forbidden from civilian use such as the mental magics that intruded into one's mind which was commonly practiced in interrogation rooms behind closed doors. Meditation helped build up the mindscape to resist these intruding forces and better protect from magical forces that would otherwise harm the brain functions. It also increased the rate at which a mage’s inert magical energy, mana, was replenished. All mages had mana which allowed them to manipulate the flow of magic around them, and this mana diminished as it was used. Completely using one’s mana pool resulted in a terminal illness called mana poisoning. Mana had its own circulatory system that followed closely along with the system for blood separated only by the force mana exuded itself. If that force ceased to exist the systems would intertwine with each other resulting in the reintroduction of mana to put massive amounts of strain on the body.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Astaroth spent several months just going over meditation with Sallya day after day, having her go into her mindscape and develop it. At first she could only go in for minutes at a time before losing focus. That time eventually increased until finally Sallya could remain in her mindscape for hours on end. Her mindscape developed into a palace, far beyond in size what most mages ever reached. Astaroth was satisfied that her mind would be sufficiently safe once they finally began spatial magic application. That was still a ways into the future however. First Astaroth needed to teach her the principles of astral magic and then how to channel that magic into the flow around her. This was increasingly difficult as he thought of ways to explain the concept to an eight year old. She didn’t know and wouldn’t understand all the intricacies of magic and how it operated. He couldn’t simply say “Pretend to pull magic from the stars and funnel that into a strand of flowing magic around you.” The application of the astral magic itself was easy to explain; it was just the initial gathering and grasp of what astral magic itself was that he could wrap his head around explaining to her. Astaroth had been with the Delvauxs for a little over a year now and he had been struggling with this dilemma for almost two months. Sallya had progressed astronomically well in the cultivation of her mindscape. Astaroth had expected to have another few months at least to come up with a solution to this issue.
They had been eating dinner when a shooting star flew across the sky at the perfect place to be seen through the dining area window. Watching it slice through the night sky it came to him. This whole time he had been thinking of Sallya as just some child. Sallya wasn’t just some child, she was a child that could use mage sight allowing her to physically see the magic she was looking for. Without preamble he got up and took Sallya outside. “Sallya i want you to go into your mindscape for me and instead of expanding it i want you to open the door and go outside. Then fly up into space and beyond it. I want you to go past the stars and find the magic there.” He said as he was kneeling in front of her, looking her square in the eyes. Sallya let out a confused nod then closed her eyes for a brief moment before reopening them. “But teacher I thought I was always supposed to keep the door shut and locked? That's what you told me when we started. Make my mindscape extravagant and impenetrable.” Sallya had a mocking look in her eyes as she replied to Astaroth’s request. “Yes. Yes. I know what I said but just do it. Unless you think you can understand the intrinsic properties of astral magic and the rudimentary principles involved in channeling astral magic into the magic around you?” Sallya looked at Astaroth as if he had just spoken an entirely different language at her, which in all fairness wasn’t far off considering her age. Without another word she closed her eyes and did as Astaroth had instructed.
Sallya had been cultivating her mindscape for just over a year and though it had started off slow, her mindscape was nothing short of a multileveled labyrinth. Towards the end of her meditation training she had been able to enter her mindscape and immediately start expanding it for hours. This had unintentionally made the task he had given her seemingly impossible to her. “Teacher has had me making this place bigger for hours a day every day for months. How am I supposed to find my way back to the door?” The question was unbidden in her mind as she wandered through the maze of hallways within the palace that was her mindscape. “Why didn’t he have me do this before I made this place so big I couldn’t even find a way out of it.” She said letting out a frustrated growl as she continued onward. Astaroth had told her that using spatial magic put a tremendous strain on the mind of the caster which was why she needed her mindscape to be as large as possible to protect her from the assault it would inevitably attempt. As she rounded the fifth corner to an identical hallway she let out a frustrated yell and collapsed onto the floor tears rushing down her eyes. “I’m lost in my own mind and I don’t even know how to get back to the sanctuary so that I can leave my palace. Teacher said I controlled this dream but I don’t know what to do.” She sobbed before it finally came to her. She controlled the mindscape and she could do anything she could conceive of doing here. Sallya closed her eyes for just a second before reopening them to see a door. She had figured out how to traverse her mindscape, all she had to do was think of where she wanted to be and she would be there as if she teleported.
Opening the door within her mindscape to leave her palace she stepped outside and immediately took off upward into the sky. “Wait what am I doing, why don’t I just wish myself to be beyond the stars like I did with the door” and with another blink of her eye she was there. A pitch black void broken up only by the faintest traces of some unknown magic. This magic looked strange from what she was used to, normally there was some sort of element or impurity that linked the magic to its form. This magic however didn’t have anything mixed with it. It was just there, existing, raw. Sallya reached out to but as she made to grab it a searing pain shot up her arm and a bright flash of light exploded from the flow sending her plummeting into black. Sallya’s eyes shot open within an instant. A shocked and slightly panicked look on her face. “You found it didn’t you? The pure magic, unlike what we have in our world. And it reacted to you when you touched it didn’t it.” Astaroth had been bombarding her with questions as her parents looked on worry clearly written across their expressions. “Y-yes I saw it. It shocked my arm and blinded me, sending me away from it.” She responded as she looked up at the night sky. “I see it. I never could before but it is there now everywhere in the sky.” The next morning Astaroth began teaching Sallya how to channel the astral magic into other magic so that she could properly use it without hurting herself. This was surprisingly easy considering how well Sallya was able to manipulate other magics to bend and form into what she wished them to be. Sallya progressed through her gate lessons faster than she had meditation and had successfully been able to gate from her home to the opposite side of the city walls after only eight months of lessons. “It would appear that I have taught you everything you need to become a spatial mage. I leave you now after only two years with the title of adept. With time and effort you will advance to the title of practitioner and be recognized by the society. Everything is up to you now young Sallya. In six years you will officially be able to join the academy but I will see if I can’t speed that process along for you.” With those final words Astaroth left the Delvaux household.