“Still struggling with it?” Vasta asked her as the older woman watched Thera try and fail a spell again as the hours of her practice wore on, with scrying seeming completely out of her grasp.
“I just can’t get the knack of it,” She admitted, feeling every bit of her failure as she reflected back on her last month and a half of practicing.
Since she’d started her lessons, it had become pretty obvious where her strengths and weaknesses lied when it came to using her non-affinity magic, with best results coming from areas she was already good at.
It wasn’t hard for her to move things with it or shape it into a solid form, nor was it too difficult for her to use it in a mental way, feeling emotions or provoking the sort or responses in a target that she could get by just using her dark magic instead, but that left plenty of other options she was struggling with.
Scrying and clairvoyance were spells she just couldn’t grasp, both ways to see from afar and both practically doomed to failure when she’d try, and trying to do something like corpse song was a non-starter when that was essentially just scrying through time.
And then there was magic nullification, something she’d felt so proud of when using against her uncle but had been quickly shown how much she’d overestimated herself when trying it against the archmage in practice. Uliel had made it clear that she’d only done so well at the time since she’d known exactly what was being thrown at her, and worse, that Thera didn’t seem to have much skill in using it in a general way, despite how powerful she’d be if she could, leaving the entire experience humbling after the way her goddess had talked her up.
Vasta, seeming to sense all of that and more, chuckled as she patted Thera’s arm. “Considering you’ve only had the skill for a month, it’s not exactly shocking it’s turned out this way, don’t worry too much about it. People are always going to start out strongest at the aspects of the magic that it awakened from, not to mention that the ones you had were all rather compatible with your affinitied options too. At this point, it’s really nothing to worry about.”
“Maybe I’d be less disappointed if I could use it like all of my affinitied options,” She sighed. “I guess I can at least buff with this but healing is still impossible.”
That got a laugh from her teacher. “Now that’s something you really shouldn’t be worried about, even I can barely heal anything with it. As flexible as the magic is, the difficulty spike that comes with it compared to the regular ten options seems even greater than normal when the goal is using it to repair a body instead of breaking one down. With your level of life magic and the mana at your disposal, I wouldn’t worry too much about it for now and instead we’ll look at this another way. Thera, why did you first try to gain a non-affinity option? You originally had telekinesis, yes?”
“Yeah, but originally I just got it to help with my earth magic and my control as a whole,” Thera admitted, feeling embarrassed to be saying such a thing to a person who’d devoted their life to wielding that sort of power, even if Vasta took it in stride.
“A reasonable goal and one you can keep up with. There’s no reason not to keep using it to empower your main options just because it’s grown so much. Of course, you should still try and improve in the areas you're lacking, there’s no such thing as a mage with too many spells, but if you become accustomed to using your non-affinity magic in tandem with your affinitied spells you might find yourself having an easier time wielding the option as a whole when you’re attempting other spells with it.”
“Alright, if you think so then I’ll give it a try.”
With the power she already had, she didn’t think she would feel or see much of a difference when using it with her earth or dark spells, but if Vasta thought it would be useful then there was no reason to decline, especially when she wanted to get better at it. She now had one of the most flexible forms of magic there was, not doing anything she could to improve would have been ridiculous.
“Good, so with that out of the way, come with me for a bit, there’s something else I’d like to discuss.”
She followed along, going outside and away from the practice of the other two non-affinity mages to find a different scene, one of Jake being mercilessly pummeled by the spells of Uliel as he did his best to defend himself in his training for his own non-affinity magics.
“Are you really trying?” His teacher tsked as a spear of earth stopped just short of skewering him. “We’ll never get another level out of you at this rate if you don’t try harder.”
“You’ll never get another level out of me either if you beat me into a coma!”
“Then aren’t we all lucky about the number of healers you know. Speaking of, take a ten-minute break while I talk to Thera.”
“Wait, really? Thera, you’re a lifesaver!”
“If you try to escape you won’t enjoy what’s going to happen after I hunt you down!” She yelled at him far too late. The second he’d been told he could have a break he’d teleported away, leaving just the three of them with all eyes on Thera.
“So what did you both want to discuss with me?” Thera asked politely, getting tired looks for her trouble.
“It sure would be nice if our idiot managed to keep his focus like this,” Uliel muttered.
“We’ll just count our blessings that our other students actually have some work ethic, but that’s not what we’re here to discuss. Thera, considering that you have four awakened magics at your disposal, we’ve wanted to talk about something it seems like you haven’t done. Have you given any mind to creating a signature spell for yourself?”
“Um, honestly, no.”
She’d read about the spells of plenty of others that Ben had recreated from his time in the library, spells of great mages who’d grown powerful in multiple varieties of magic and had devoted their time to creating something that would leave their marks on history, but if she were to be honest, she’d always viewed the idea as a little pompous. It wasn’t against the idea of creating great spells, but instead the reason that seemed to be behind it. Thera wouldn’t deny that she desired the respect and admiration that seemed to come to some people when they achieved great power, but she’d be able to get the same thing by focusing on learning and training in spells that had already been created and known.
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The response didn’t seem to bother either though, instead, Uliel just nodded before going on. “It’s not exactly a necessary thing, there are many great spells that have been discovered and developed throughout history, it’s fine to learn and work on those, but we’d like to suggest you still give some thought to how you’d design a spell that could incorporate all of your magic options.”
“Even if it goes nowhere, that doesn’t mean you won’t get anything from the experience,” Vasta added. “It might help you look at your magics in different ways and it can make you really consider how you use your magic as a whole. Even if you just give it a bit of thought each day, that can be the start of re-examining your approach to magic.”
Re-examining my approach to magic.
She wasn’t really sure if there was anything for her to re-examine. For the longest time, magic to her had been just as much of a curse as it had been a tool, but with her charm gone it was now solely a resource to use for solving her problems. She didn’t know if there was any other way she could look at it.
But if they’re my teachers right now then I should properly listen to them. Maybe it will go somewhere.
“Alright, if you both think I should then I’ll do my best.”
----------------------------------------
After her practice for the day came the walk home, which she spent on two things, doing a bit of training for her dark magic and working to get an annoying skill under control.
It hadn’t taken long to finish her high dark mage job and move onto the master branch so she needed to constantly work at it, keeping a small shadow ball flying around her head on the way back to Stonewall while using the mind and debuff aspects of that power the only way she could while passing through both Allfaith and Anailia, using it to attract and scare away and of the small creatures she could see in an urban setting.
It wasn’t the most complex or laborious way of using her power, she practically couldn’t even feel the small amount of mana leaving her to cast it when compared to her entire supply, especially after the extra thirty points she’d gotten to her regeneration thanks to Ben, but when she wasn’t safely far enough from society as a whole while hunting, she could only make do with those smaller acts as a way to train.
And at least it pushes my control a bit.
“Quite right, princess,” An air spirit agreed with her, pointing to the other area she was trying to work on.
Spirit comprehension was supposed to be an active skill so any time she saw a spirit who didn’t seem to have anything else going on she asked for a bit of their time to see if she could get a better handle on controlling it, with mixed results. She’d gotten to the point where she could use it intentionally, getting her will across to any spirit in the area when she wanted to, but she still struggled to keep anything from slipping out by itself. It was like she kept constantly talking to herself, with far too many listening ears present.
Of course, if it was just the regular spirits it wouldn’t have been so bad, but given that all of the great spirits could hear her too, she wanted to put a stop to letting things slip out as fast as possible.
And then there’s Insia too. I’d prefer she couldn’t hear any time I think about murdering her father. Plus I don’t know if Seren can hear when I do this either but even if I don’t have anything bad to think about Aunty Lux I really don’t want him hearing everything I think, that’s a pretty surefire way to accidentally be a bad influence.
It was an annoying worry she had to deal with but all she could do was her best to learn to handle it and kept up the practice as she passed through her parents’ home to get back to her uncle’s shop, finding five matching faces all at work when she did.
“Uncle’s not here today?” She asked as each Ben turned to smile at her, talking in one voice.
“I guess he’s busy meeting people to produce growth bracelets all day. Of course, given how fast he is at it, I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow to move on to whatever other crazy task the gods have for him.”
“Hmm, and you?” She asked, moving to his real body without needing to ask which one it was, able to tell with ease thanks to her mana examination letting her see the sort of strain he was under as she began healing him. “Honestly, how are you getting headaches again when you don’t even think with your brain? I feel like this should be impossible.”
“Ha, what can I say, I’ve got a lot on my various minds. At the very least, it’s not anywhere near as bad as what it was before I’d awakened my skill, it’s basically ignorable.”
Mmh, true I guess.
It wasn’t a nearly debilitating pain like he’d had to deal with in the past, instead being just a minor headache that had seemed to come and go over the past couple weeks, even without her intervention, but it still left her worried. It felt like a warning of things to come and left her imagining him getting some new mind skill that would leave him passed out from whatever effect it would have.
“Don’t worry so much,” He told her, trying to be reassuring. “My brain is fine. Instead, grab a seat and we’ll work on your lessons with me now.”
“Ah, so it’s my brain that won’t be then,” She laughed but did as he asked, putting on one of his circlets that he’d designed to be as comfortable as possible while improving her ability to learn before she was pulled into his head as he stood before her, explaining different aspects of the magics she possessed while at the same time creating examples in a way he’d never be able to in real life, all of it being powered solely by his mind with no mana behind it.
It felt like an hour by the time they were done, but Thera knew that couldn’t have really been the case, with the time that had to have passed in the real world being at most a few minutes.
And when I think about it like that, is it any wonder he keeps getting headaches? Days have to feel like years to him.
“I am once again wondering how you’re still sane-ish.”
“I’m not sane-ish, I’m completely sane.”
“Debatable, especially when not even your god believes that, Ben.”
“That’s because Myriad’s a jerk, and you really shouldn’t look to him as a judge of sanity when he’s a billion some-odd number of people who decided to smoosh their souls together.”
“Ha, I think that might give him the perfect frame of reference to judge you,” She told him as she got up, wrapping her arms around him. “But there is one other thing you pretty obviously are.”
“Cute? Lovable? Kissable even?”
He leaned down to kiss her as he said it, letting her give a real answer after he was done.
“Tired. I’ve been feeling it for the last few days you’ve been teaching me Ben and if it’s so bad that it’s slipping through when you’re obviously trying to keep it to yourself then I can imagine how bad it really is. You need a break.”
She was being serious too, but he did his best to laugh it off. “Don’t worry, I get a break when I’m dead.”
“Ben-”
“You know I have too much to do for that,” He said more seriously, gently holding her cheek. “Yeah, I could probably do with a day off, but even if I’m almost done making all of these gates I still need to make weapons too, plus after I’m done my orders I need to keep trying to push out as many legendary items as I can to pump my skills a bit more, plus all of my other projects I have on the go. Everyone’s working hard right now, I’m just one more.”
“Everyone else properly sleeps at night instead of spending the entire time talking to gods.”
“Ha, maybe, but I need to do what I can.”
She could see she wasn’t going to convince him, so instead she decided to take the only victory she knew she’d be able to get from him, no matter how small.
“Fine, then I’m handling dinner tonight. You can at least enjoy an hour of sitting down and doing nothing.”
“Hey, I’m never going to say no to a meal from my beautiful girlfriend.”
With a cheerful expression on his face, he held out an arm for her, letting her take it as the two went back home for the day, all to enjoy the bit of time they had.