The Pirate Magus didn't open a portal to take them back to the ship, he simply flew off on a cloud. Cooper looked to the three pirates that he had been left with. Harvey had ordered them to take him back to the ship, but they didn't look too happy about it. Or at least two of them didn't.

"Hey there! I'm Kluug! You're Cooper?"

"I am. Nice to meet you Kluug."

"Ooooh, that's neat. I can hear you in my head. Guys, did you hear that? Oh, that's Cam, he's my best mate, and that's Garo. He's a captain of his own ship, but he signed on with Harvey for a few months, so he's technically just another deckhand right now, but he's still in charge of us, so we just call him capitan. At least when Harvey isn't around."

Cam nodded at Cooper, but Garo just turned and began walking back through the jungle. They followed him a moment later, picking their way through the jungle. The pirates used big curved swords to cut their way through and were much faster than Gregory had been.

"How did you learn how to talk into people's minds?" Kluug asked. "It seems useful."

"My friend Olivander…taught me." The pirate didn't need to know it was an ability Olivander had somehow given him. He still wasn't clear on how that worked and didn't want any pirates trying to steal the power for themselves.

The other pirate, Cam, walked alongside them and surprised Cooper by asking a question. "You think you can beat your friend? Get stronger faster than he can?"

"I…I don't know. We've never tried getting stronger separately. We've been doing everything together since I got my class. He's four levels higher than me now, but I beat him in a dungeon yesterday."

Kluug gave Cooper an impressed look, "You ran a dungeon? At your level? Wow, I didn't know they had any that low."

"In Du'la'melio," Cooper replied. He decided he wouldn't tell them about the other dungeon they had cleared.

"Ohhh, okay. That makes sense. I've never been there, but I heard it's one that can take any level."

Cooper nodded and they walked in silence for a while. Eventually the jungle cleared and Cooper saw a small boat pulled up onto the beach and a huge ship out in deeper water.

"There's our ship," Cam said. "I don't suppose you can row?"

"Sorry, no hands."

Cam grunted but didn't complain. Garo was already setting up the little boat to head back to the ship. Together they pushed the boat into the water and hopped in. Cooper couldn't help row, so he sat at the front of the boat and watched the ship grow closer.

As they pulled up alongside the ship, ropes were lowered and the pirates tied them off, then they began climbing a rope ladder.

"Oh," Cam said before following Garo and Kluug up, "I guess you'll just have to ride the boat up. Unless you can climb this?"

Cooper eyed the rope ladder and thought he might be able to climb it if he had to, but it would be hard. He shook his head.

"Alright, hold tight. Try not to move, the boat can flip over pretty easily when we pull it up."

Cooper was a strong swimmer, but he didn't think a swim in the middle of the ocean was a great idea. Fortunately, when the pirates started hauling the boat up, he found a good balance in the middle.

"Out!" Garo called when the boat was even with the ship.

Cooper obliged and lept out onto the deck. The pirates pulled the boat onboard, flipping it over and resting it on the desk next to the pulleys they used.

"Welcome aboard!" Harvey said, suddenly behind Cooper. "Listen up everyone! This dog is Cooper, he's an adventurer, and right now, he's the most important thing on this ship. I'm going to be pushing him to his limits, and I expect everyone to stay out of his way. Are we clear!"

A chorus of "Aye-aye"s and "yes captain"s followed the question.

"Good. Cooper, come with me."

Harvey led him to a door near the rear of the ship, just under the ship's wheel. As he passed the crew, he received a combination of serious looks, mild confusion, and outright hostility. Most people wouldn't care about a dog, but some might be jealous that he had Harvey's attention.

"What has Olivander taught you about using that Eye?"

"Nothing yet, I only added it to the amulet today."

"Hmph. Naturally he just leaves it up to chance. Here's rule number one, you don't use it while we're training unless I tell you, or you ask for permission and get confirmation from me. Rule number two is just as important. You don't remove the Eye from the container under any circumstances. Third and final rule, you listen to me at all times. I'm going to teach you things you never considered, and I need your complete commitment. Got it?"

"Yes, capitan!"

"Very good."

Harvey steered him into the cabin and sat down in a desk. He frowned and looked over the desk toward Cooper, who had laid on the floor.

"What in the murky deep are you doing?"

"Laying down?"

Harvey sighed and mumbled something about dogs.

"Rule number four," he continued. "You don't lay down or otherwise act like a dog in my presence, unless I tell you to."

Cooper wasn't sure how to do that. He was a dog. It was natural. Reluctantly he got up and hopped up into the chair across from Harvey and sat down.

"Very good. How many rituals do you know?"

"Four, I think. Identify, shock, a looting ritual, and a minor healing ritual."

Harvey nodded and wrote some notes on a paper.

"Good, good. A decent foundation. If there's one thing Olivander knows it's rituals. Sketch them out for me, one after another. Be quick about it!"

Cooper drew the rituals one at a time in front of him, breaking them apart with his nose when Harvey nodded at each one.

"Precise. I know full Magi who aren't so clean with their rituals. Where did Olivander find you…"

"The village," Cooper responded helpfully.

"That was rhetorical, I don't care what pit you crawled out of, just that you're here now. Still, you clearly have some talent. Try this ritual. Take your time and get it right, let me know when you're ready."

Harvey summoned his blue grimoire and a ritual was projected over it. The man set aside the notes he had been taking and began looking over a map.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Cooper got to work sketching out the ritual. It wasn't too hard, but he didn't know exactly what it did, which made his intent harder to guide. When he completed the ritual after a few false starts, he wasn't sure if it would work, not because it wasn't copied correctly, but because it hadn't had any intent added as it was drawn.

"I think I'm ready," he told Harvey.

Harvey looked at the ritual.

"What do you think it does?"

The question surprised him. He considered the ritual more closely. It has some familiar elements. Lines for capacity and source, direction and concentration. Most of the middle was unfamiliar, but it did look similar to the shock spell. He suspected the elements were different, but it would have a similar effect. He tried to intuit what the element was, but the runic script was essentially alien to him outside recognized symbols.

"Some kind of elemental attack spell? It gathers up some power and then focuses it, shooting it out in a single burst."

"What element?"

"I can't tell. Not lightning, but I don't know beyond that."

"Hmm. Adequate. I was wondering if you'd recognize the element naturally, as it's one of the three elements your magician class is associated with."

Cooper looked at it again. He assumed the elements were those that made up a storm — lightning, water, and wind. Even with the extra knowledge, he couldn't tell if it would be water or wind.

"Go ahead and activate it. You should be able to tell how much mana to use."

He could. Unlike the shock activation symbol, which could take a varying amount of mana, this one was hard capped at twenty, and he thought it wouldn't activate until that much was added. His Silent Casting skill only applied to learned skills, so rituals still required him to bark.

He charged the ritual and then activated it with a bark. An invisible bolt of air lanced out into the wall of the cabin. Papers were scattered all over the cabin, and Cooper froze, thinking he had done something wrong. Harvey just waved a hand, and all the papers reorganized themselves on his desk and around the room.

"Copy it again, but this time focus on the actual spell, 'Wind Bolt' as you craft."

Cooper did, and when Harvey directed him to activate the spell a second time, the bolt of wind was practically visible as the wind whipped dust and air in a tight formation around it. It slammed into the back wall with an audible thud, and none of the papers in the cabin were disturbed.

"What's the lesson here?" Harvey asked.

Cooper had to think about that. When he focused, the bolt became more focused. It probably would deal more damage, and was less likely to have unintended side effects. On the other hand, if his goal was to mess up all the papers in the room, then the first method of preparation was clearly the best.

"The spell can be cast in different ways for different effects?"

"Exactly right. You are limited by the general effect and composition of a ritual or spell, but magic is inherently flexible. Can you craft the same spell so it only moves a single piece of paper off my desk? Take this paper, and allow the wind to pick it up, and then pin it to the back wall."

It sounded impossible. He needed to let his mana regenerate, and he took a few minutes to think about exactly what he wanted to happen. When his mana was restored enough he drew out the ritual. The completed ritual looked slightly different, but not enough that he would consider it wrong. He focused on the task and activated the ritual.

It wasn't perfect. It picked up several pieces of paper and blew them through the room, but the one he had aimed for made it the closest to the back wall.

"An admirable first attempt. This is your task for the day. Figure out how to make that spell do exactly what you want. You need to learn fine control before you learn power. It will be quicker that way. We're heading to a place where you will be able to become stronger. The journey will take two days, and I expect you to master this trick and another similar trick tomorrow. We'll run through the next ritual tonight.

"When you're waiting for your mana to recover, you will report to the deck and find Garo. He'll give you a task to do. When you complete the task, you may return to your practice. No slacking off! Is everything clear?"

Cooper nodded.

"Good, now get out of here, you can come back when your tasks are done and your mana is full."

* * *

Cooper spent far longer than he ever thought he would trying to figure out how to hold a mop in his mouth. His usual excuse, "No Hands," didn't seem to apply while doing tasks for Garo. The man had him scrubbing the deck, and his neck was killing him.

He finished and practiced his ritual. He did worse than the first attempt. He had tried thinking about it less sharply. It was hard to describe the process, he found. Even when he just tried to explain it to himself.

Garo had him pull up the anchor after they stopped for supplies at a nearby island. There was a large winch that men could push on to ratchet the anchor up. Luckily he had help for that, since he wasn't quite strong enough to do it on his own. It was still exhausting. Kluug explained some more information about what to do when the anchor was up, and some general advice about life aboard the ship. Apparently…the poop deck was not for pooping. He was glad that got cleared up before he embarrassed himself. Being a dog, he didn't have much shame, but he did have some.

Cooper accomplished his goal, using the ritual to pin a single piece of paper to the wall, about nine hours later. Unfortunately, it was a fluke. He had no idea how he had done it. When he focused on the steps he had taken for his second attempt, he failed once more.

Garo didn't have anything else for him, all the ship chores that he could probably manage without hands were done for the day, so the grouchy pirate sent him down to the mess room for some food. The ship's cook was Harvey's personal cook, and didn't much like being on the open sea, but he went wherever Harvey went. The food he gave to Cooper was good, but it wasn't quite as good as what Sous made for him.

After he had his fill, he returned to the cabin to find Harvey back inside, looking over a new stack of paper. Cooper didn't know where the man had gone between this morning and now.

"Well, let's see what you can do, pup."

Cooper once again tried to capture the feeling of his first attempt, but it wasn't quite right. He broke apart the ritual before completing it. Harvey motioned for him to stop.

"What was wrong with that one?"

"It didn't feel right. I got the trick to work once a little while ago. I'm trying to get the same feeling."

Harvey stood up and walked to a shelf where he had a row of books. They were slotted into a depression so they wouldn't fly around in bad seas. He looked through them for a moment and picked one out. He paused before turning back.

"You can read, right?"

"I can, but not really well outside of messages."

Harvey nodded. "That should be enough for this, not a complicated book in terms of actual reading. You're stumbling in the right direction, but getting caught up on the wrong problems. How a ritual feels can have repercussions, but with a wind spell? It's going to feel a little different every time. Temperature, elevation, weather, and even more things all play a role in how a wind spell will function. They're some of the most finicky effects to get right, and most would scoff at me for trying to teach you a wind ritual."

"Why?"

Harvey brought the book back and set it on the desk in front of Cooper.

"Because they're hard. They'll start with something simple, like that shock spell. It's extremely flexible and you can get it really wrong before it breaks. This wind spell? Somewhat similar in that it's flexible, but if you do it even a little wrong, the effects can be much different. You haven't seen that as much because you have a proper mind for drawing rituals."

Cooper was surprised at how casual the man seemed. He had assumed the pirate would be a hard man, and this training would be rough and painful. Aside from some solid work that had left him feeling a little sore, it had been painless so far. He didn't imagine it would stay that way.

"Here's what I'm going to have you do. Read this, it will give you the foundations for doing what you're already trying to do. There are a lot of ritual examples in here. Sketch them all out, but don't activate any of them, just read the notes and study them for yourself. I expect dedication, and I expect you to finish by tomorrow afternoon. When you're done, we'll go back to the wind ritual, and I'll teach you the second one."

Cooper flipped open the book with his nose and read the first two sentences.

Ritual magic is a powerful tool that is often poorly executed and regularly misunderstood. In this volume, I will show the finer detail of ritual spell construction, and the pitfalls of figuring it out as one goes.

The handwriting seemed familiar. He closed the book and looked at the cover.

Ritual Spellforms

Primer for Advanced Construction and Improvisation

Volume One

By Olivander Casumus

Harvey laughed.

"I wondered if you'd recognize the handwriting. Olivander isn't the best at training apprentices, but his knowledge of rituals is unsurpassed. I'll give him that."

Cooper began reading, and his eyes were opened to a new world — that of ritual design. It was both far more varied and challenging than he thought, and somehow easier to understand than he expected.

Cooper understood that it was Olivander who had written the volume, but he doubted the man would have had him read his own book. He probably would have just tried to explain everything to Cooper, or even more likely, just flung him through a portal into a difficult challenge. He was very big on self improvement through challenges.

Gregory doesn't stand a chance, he thought as he began sketching out some of the ritual examples.