Sola
A week had passed since the raid on Fredrick, the trial had been concluded and the renovation of their new home had started but it would take a while, their plans requiring most of the interior to be ripped out and new walls being built. At this point, it might have been cheaper to just tear it down, but this was not what was important right now.
"I am sure you will manage it soon, Michael," that's what Sola had said earlier trying to sound positive but failing miserably. Now she was sitting in the retainer's dining hall with Geron and Solon, rambling over the fact that she couldn't figure out why the boy couldn't manage to cast any spell that went over the phrase-less level.
"I just don't know what is wrong," Sola said shaking her head. "He is so good with everything even though the phrase-less magic is more challenging for him than mundane learning, it doesn't compare with his absolute ineptitude towards real magic."
Geron looked unusually concerned, he normally took her rants in a relaxed manner, which could be infuriating at times. "It can't be his mana control; he is doing just fine in the augmenter training."
Sola sighed, "I have tried everything, guiding him through the incantations, giving him a part of the spell for every word to focus on, or even trying to speak the spell with him and showing him the effect, but nothing. He just can't make a connection between the spell and the incantation."
"That is indeed an unforeseen hurdle," Solon said while stroking his grey beard as he did often while thinking. "I have had lessons with the most different subjects with him and he had problems with some of them, but I have never seen him fail completely. His determination and will to learn carried him through every subject yet."
"His motivation is definitely not the problem," Geron agreed. "He is even trying the spells while we are going anywhere or waiting for someone all the time and I am sure he is practicing in his free time as well."
Sola leaned back, looking at the ceiling when Solon suggested, "How about you take us through your process of binding a spell to a phrase and we can see if we get an idea where Michael's unique way of thinking could lead to a problem. Explain it like we have no clue, step by step so we don't miss anything."
Sola frowned, she had thought it through a hundred times but no change she made ever worked, she was out of ideas, so she began explaining. "It is really not a complicated process in theory. As you know magic is the art of manipulating mana to force a certain effect. The mana needs to be told what to do, if you just want to make a light you can easily make the instructions in your head, that is what we call instinctual or phrase-less magic. Theoretically, every spell can be cast by just thinking the instructions if you have enough brain capacity but as the magic gets more complicated this becomes impossible for humans because you have to make these instructions fast, without error, and hold them all in your mind until the spell takes effect.”
“Making a light and having it follow you for example would entail, making the ball of light, determining the distance between you and the ball, and making it move accordingly. In a test environment that might work well enough but in combat it is ridiculously difficult to keep that amount of concentration. Because of that, incantations were developed to link a certain part of the spell to a word if you make the incantation your brain will have learned what it has to do when these words are spoken and you just have to funnel in mana to activate the spell."
"It is like when you train enough with a sword the movements will come naturally to you without much thinking," Geron asked to which Sola nodded. "That is correct, now the problem with Michael is that the spell doesn't trigger while he says the words even if he concentrates on making the spell with his mind. He can do it without the phrase but once he tries to add the phrase it doesn't work anymore."
"I will explain the bonding process. You normally start with segmenting the different parts of what the spell should do, in the case of the guiding light as I said, we have, make a light, determine distance, and the moving. You would now take parts of the phrase and learn them separately, in respect to this spell, 'god of light, follow me into darkness and illuminate the way forward. Guiding Light'. I split it into four sections, 'god of light', is creating the light, 'follow me into darkness', is the range between us, and 'illuminate the way forward', is the movement. 'Guiding Light' serves as the combining link and the point where all the parts are enacted together, which is why most of these spells have a name or something similar that is said at the end. I let Michael learn the different parts and bond them to the part of the spell and then let him cast them together but neither the parts nor the full thing works for some reason. I have seen him make a light and let it follow him without an incantation, so the spell is not the problem," Sola explained.
"So, if he can make it, where is the problem," Geron asked with a raised eyebrow.
Sola looked at him and looked annoyed, "As I said for a simple spell it might work if you have enough time and a quiet place to cast it, but he can't do that in a fight or with complicated magic."
"So, to conclude, he can move sufficient mana, he can make the spell and he knows the incantation but can't make it work together," Solon recapitulated everything to which Sola nodded. "If he can move mana and make the spell, the incantation should be the problem, no?"
"Yes, I got that idea as well but as I said breaking it down for or giving him other spells to try has not worked either."
This is leading nowhere, we are just repeating all my thoughts, Sola thought with an internal sigh.
The dwarf shook his head and clarified, "No, you misunderstand, it is not a problem with Michael not understanding the phrases but that the phrases don't work for him. Have you tried having him come up with his own phrases for a spell?" She looked at him as her brain registered what he had said. Her eyes lowered to her hands and still, her brain was trying to wrap itself around the idea and follow it to the conclusion. "These incantations were passed down to us by the greatest minds of the order of purity. They are meant for beginners, made extra-long and clear.
The others didn't say anything as she sat there a realization dawning on her. "But Michael is not a priest", she said more to herself than the others. "He doesn't see each spell as something that is granted by Idas himself. He can't make the connection between the prayer and the spell because those are two fundamentally different things for him."
Solon smiled at her and nodded, "I came to the same conclusion."
Sola slapped her hands in her face and said, "Dammit, I am the worst teacher to ever walk this land. I tried to force-feed Michael these incantations because that is what I and every member of the order of purity did. But I never did the same classes on the connection between Idas and magic with him, that I have gotten so he never understood."
"Hold on a second," - Solon laughed - "That is not the moral I was thinking about. You should let him come up with his own phrases."
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"Yes, I know my head was just running circles, I had no plan to do something different." She was still depressed by her lack of insight, and that the dwarf had found the problem in minutes that she couldn't in months.
"Sometimes everything that is needed to solve a problem is another's perspective," the dwarf said, obviously having guessed her thoughts.
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Michael
Michael was sitting in his room. Three days ago, Sola had come up with the idea for him to try to find his own phrases for his magic, he had spent the last three days researching, trying, and writing down potential options. Making phrases was not easy, Sola had told him, he needed to make something that was clear and prevented his mind from trailing off. All his attempts hadn't given him any success yet, which is probably the reason new mages were normally provided phrases as they are made to guide the mind to the right outcome.
He leaned back and inspected a piece of paper where he had written down a couple of phrases that he had come up with, but they didn't feel right. This whole training didn't feel right. It was immensely frustrating for Michael he couldn't understand why it didn’t work; magic was just so illogical. Say a couple of words that don't describe what I want but are linked to what I want to describe what I want, he thought, even the sentence was convoluted, and he wasn't even sure if it made sense. He had tried to make a phrase that actually described what he wanted but it didn't work, it either didn't give him any effect or was too long and he couldn't finish in time he lost control, and losing control of a spell was not fun even with as little mana as he was working with. Once control was lost the mana would just fly off in all directions with force, he had been catapulted off his chair once or twice, so he had started to try his spells with his back against the wall. It wasn't enough to do any actual damage though and he had no way of controlling it.
He threw the paper on his table and closed his eyes. I have an affinity to light mana, everyone that has an affinity can use magic, he thought annoyed. Well at least instinctual magic. He wasn't sure if there were people who just never managed to do phrase magic, he hadn't had the courage to ask yet. He wanted to get back to his work when a sudden knock pulled him out of his thoughts, and he turned to the door. "Come in!"
Eydis opened the door and stepped inside. "Michael, your father is calling for you. He wants to meet you in the great hall." She had started to share the guard duty with Geron and much to the latter's annoyance also weighed in on the martial training. He nodded and washed the ink from his hands, cleaned up his quill, and returned the order to his desk.
They left the room and made their way to the great hall, where he saw that most of his family was already present, only missing the two youngest and his parents. He walked through the room when he was stopped by the twins, he sighed as they stood in front of him, looking at him with a cheeky smile. "We heard that you are going to move into the town. Father finally kicked you out?" He had successfully avoided them for the last one and a half weeks.
Michael smirked at them, "I am just afraid your stupidity will rub off on me if I live so close to you." Oska snarled and made a step forward. Michael fixated on him and said with a smile, "You want to try again?" The last fight Oska and Michael had was a huge disappointment, where Harlov had at least some sense of tactic, Oska only relied on his strength and that didn't work against Michael anymore.
He gritted his teeth and growled, "Good thing you will be gone soon, I can't stand being associated with vermin like you."
Michael shook his head while smirking, but Eydis stepped forward and signed, "Do you want me to teach them a lesson?" Michael answered in her language and relished in the confused look of the twins. "No, they are making fools of themselves perfectly fine. It is actually quite entertaining."
"Speak a civilized language," Harlov snarled. "This animal should be in chains and not our esteemed great hall."
Michael narrowed his eyes and snapped at him, "If you want me to beat you up so badly just say the word." He clenched his fists and watched Harlov for any indication that he actually wanted to fight. He just scoffed and said with an arrogant tone, "I won't fight over beasts." Michael wanted to beat some respect into his half-brother but a strong hand held him back. He turned around and saw Matthias.
"It is not worth it Michael; they are just jealous of your success. just keep your calm and you will be fine," he said. Michael knew all that, but he had this sense that he had to challenge them on their actions against his retainers, maybe because they couldn't actually fight back? "Go away, you two. You won't achieve anything here," Matthias turned to the twins and they walked away saying something under their breath that Michael couldn't hear.
"They will never change, I'm afraid," Mattias said but before Michael could reply anything, Lord and Lady Rowan entered the room. They gathered their children around themselves, and Lady Rowan began to speak. "Children, we have been invited to the capital by his royal highness King Johann, for the Festival of Light." The Festival of Light was a yearly event that celebrated Lord Idas and his gift of light, and the start of summer. It was one of the biggest festivities the whole year around and would be in around one week and last for three days. The preparations in the town were in full swing already and Michael had been looking forward to it, even though the mood was slightly dampened by last week's events.
Next, his father spoke up, "We will be taking along Luciel, Harlov, Oska, Lira, and Michael. Matthias, you will stay behind and take over my duties and take care of your younger brothers while I am gone." Matthias looked disappointed at this, but he quickly nodded in acknowledgment. "Yes, Father." "
As the event is close and the invitation has arrived rather late, we will leave tomorrow at noon, so I want all of you to prepare. The journey will take us around five days by carriage and we will stay for at least two weeks, possibly longer depending on what his Royal Highness has planned. Any questions?"
"Is it proper to bring Michael, we don't want to make a bad impression," Oska said with a nasty grin. Lord Rowan sighed and said, "I am beginning to wonder that about you sometimes. Anything else? No? Good." With that, he turned around and left through the door he came from.
Michael laughed at his father's remark and grinned at the confused Oska.
"Congratulations on going to the capital while I have to work my ass off here." Matthias's voice had a joking tone, and he chuckled a little.
"Well, Father trusts you enough to keep everything running," Michael said with a playful punch to his brother's arm. Michael got distracted for a moment by Luciel happily bombarding Lira with what they could wear and how great the capital is and that they were going to have so much fun, while Lira looked like she was stuck in a cave with a wolf. Michael turned back and said, "You have been in the capital already, right? How was it?"
His eyes moved up as they often did when someone tried to remember something. "It is a huge city, way bigger than anything we have down here, and the palace is huge and built out of stone. It is a great experience, and you can find people from all around there, the strangest creatures, and weird food."
Michael listened to him ramble for a while longer when they were interrupted by Michael's mother. "I fought for you to come with us before you leave our home forever," she said melodramatically as always.
Michael rolled his eyes internally and ignored the accusation, "Thank you, Mother, I am sure it will be a great learning experience."
She made a face at his polite answer, he knew it would annoy her, and said, "Why don't you use the time to rethink the whole moving out thing, you are way too young for that anyway." She had been like this since Michael had asked for the Red Lady. Michael loved her, she was his mother after all but she was never a mother really. There were always servants taking care of him and he mostly saw her at dinners or when she wanted to dress him up in something. After his coma, the latter had mostly vanished, so they hadn't spent much time together anyway, so it was a little hypocritical of his mother to now make a fuss about him moving a couple of minutes away.
He smiled at her and said this time a little less politely, "Mother, we had this conversation five times in the last one and a half weeks. I am going to go through with it and will only be a few minutes away. I will visit the castle often and you can visit me, you won't notice a difference at all." If they never did anything together his being away won't make a difference. She pouted and looked at him with big eyes, lately, he often had the feeling their supposed roles were reversed, him being the adult and her the child.
"We can talk about this on the way to the capital, we will have the time, but I need to get going to prepare for the journey," he quickly weaseled out of the conversation, silently hoping they wouldn't need to talk about it again. He quickly said goodbye to his siblings and got out of there as fast as possible, excited for the upcoming trip.