The problem of my relative blindness was resolved surprisingly quickly. I still couldn't see properly, of course, but after a few minutes of thought, Archmagus Callahan somehow imbued mana into the chalk, and, with some testing, we found that I could see writing made with it.
[I suppose that confirms that my sight is based on mana,] I said as he wiped the scribbles away with a cloth.
"Yes, it's always good to double check such things," he replied, turning to me. "Again, my apologies for my short-sightedness."
[It's quite alright, Archmagus,] I told him, attempting my best to be friendly and personable. I would need him on my side when it came to convincing the Queen of my value. I didn't know the woman, not yet, and Callahan had assured me she was a fair and just leader, but it couldn't hurt to stack the deck in my favor, so to speak. It helped that I genuinely liked his eagerness to teach and be taught. [We were both excited to get to this. It's understandable for some things to slip our minds, and I didn't consider how you'd teach me these things, either.]
The man hummed and nodded slightly. "Yes, I suppose you're right," he murmured, scratching at his beard. He must have been a teacher that prided himself on his preparedness. Or he's attempting to get in my good graces as I am his. "Regardless," he said suddenly, standing up straight and turning back towards the board. "Let us get to the basics, yes?"
He took a few heart beats decided where to begin on the board, and, once his place was selected, he rapidly and precisely drew some manner of array, a simple one, with only a few symbols in it.
"Now, since you already know how to move your mana, my friend, we'll skip that step and move directly to weaving a spell," he started, pointing at a very simple symbol in the center of the array, a triangle with a line parallel with its base struck through it a third down and halfway out. "This is what we call an elemental rune. Every spell needs a 'center piece', an element to manipulate, no matter what tradition you cast with. In mine, we use runes to represent each aspect of a spell, but I know of several others that envision spells as sentences, others as constellations. Truthfully, it doesn't matter which you use."
According to the Archmagus, the elemental rune or 'key-rune' – Like a keystone in an arch, I suppose – he'd drawn was the symbol his tradition used for 'fire'. Around it, outside the center circle that contained the fire rune, there were descriptor runes, symbols that defined the behavior of the element to be manipulated, three of them, each spaced equidistant from one another, matched with the sides of the triangle in the middle.
"These descriptor runes, you may think of them as verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and so on in a sentence, and the elemental runes are the subjects, the things being acted upon, or the thing doing the acting," he explained, before pointing to the descriptor rune in the top left, then top right, and finally bottom in turn. "These are the runes for 'ball', 'forward', and 'explosion', in turn. Together, these three, and the elemental rune, make up the classic 'fireball' that many magi find themselves enamored with. For most, they could forgo 'forward' and bodily throw the spell, but as you have no hands, I thought it best to include the rune for your purposes."
[I see. Does the placement of the runes matter, in your tradition?] I asked, curious if there was a reason for where he'd placed them in relation to the triangle.
"No, not as such. The distance from one another matters, somewhat, but I place them around the elemental rune like this because I thought it looked nice as an apprentice," he said, chuckling to himself at his youthful habits. "They should be roughly equidistant, though, no matter their orientation. This ensures a steady flow of mana throughout the entire array. However..."
He fell silent for several seconds, until I prompted him to continue with a slight hum.
"Apologies, I was considering if that would be too advanced for you right now. You're still learning the fundamentals, after all. It may be best to leave that for later, but I'll leave the decision on that up to you," he explained, half-turning to look at me, as though he'd be able to see my face. I appreciated the thought.
[I'll admit, I'm curious, but if you think it best to put that off until I've at least learned the basics, then I'll trust your judgement,] I assured him, and focused on the array once more. [Before we move on, is there any reason to choose any given tradition over another?]
His eyebrow raised at the question. "That's a surprisingly relevant question, but the answer is no, not particularly, and the reasoning for that is what we'd just agreed to talk about later. Without dipping into that subject too much, many magi will claim their tradition to be the most efficient, the most effective, or some such, but it's largely nonsense.
"Aye, some are slightly better for some applications than others, but the differences are extremely minute, and you'd only notice them if you were actively studying the subject. For example, my tradition is marginally more effective with ritual work, and the traditions I mentioned that use sentences to construct their spells are, likewise, marginally more effective with combat magic."
[I see... So, shall we continue?]
"Ah, yes," he nodded, and reached inside his coat to withdraw... something. Whatever it was, it was extremely bright. Not as bright as the object the magus barking orders on the day of my summoning had used to disappear, but still half-blinding. "Now, if you would trace this array in your mind with your mana, and then release it?" he said, and, seeing no real reason to refuse or question him, began to do as he asked.
Halfway through the process, he gestured towards an assistant magus that had stayed behind to aid us if we needed anything. "Tesha, dear, get behind me, please. Just in case."
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The womans eyes snapped up from the book she was reading to the Archmagus, then to me, and they went wide in shock before she almost ran to his side as I finished drawing the array, a stack of books clutched precariously in her arms. Checking it a second time, I pushed as much of my will into it as I had when I'd invoked fire before, and released it.
Just as the spell began to collapse – No, this is more of a crash – into reality, I saw the Archmagus' eyes go wide, as well, and a second crash mirrored mine, and the world went white.
[Callahan!? Is everything alright? What happened?] I asked. I couldn't see anything still, but I heard something falling, and I heard one the witch-hunters shout for the Archmagus from the doorway – a doorway that had been closed a moment ago.
"It's alright, it's alright!" the middle-aged man called back. "Just a minor magical mishap, don't worry!"
By now, my 'vision' had begun to clear, and I balked at what I saw. The stone chamber was an utter mess. The desk shattered into splinters, the chalkboard likewise largely destroyed, chunks of stone spread across the floor, and the door was missing. The two magi were uninjured, however, though Callahan looked somewhat taxed by the ordeal.
[My apologies, Callahan, I... I put as much power into it as I usually do when invoking, I didn't realize it would be that much more efficient, even with my amateurish attempts at the runes...] A back up weapon? That was a grenade!
"No, no, I-" he coughed, waving something away from his face. Powdered stone, I'd guess, from the damage. "I expected something like this. It's why I brought the shield," he said, holding up the object from earlier, though significantly dimmed, almost invisible to my 'eyes', in fact. "Still, that was... incredible. And you could put that much mana into a spell without casting properly? Without falling unconscious?"
The witch-hunter behind the magi shook his head and sheathed his weapon, turning around to leave, muttering something about 'magi and their damn spellwork'.
[Yes, though the result... wasn't anything like that. A back up weapon, at best, the equivalent of a boot-knife, perhaps,] I explained, running my focus along the damage again. It would take some time to repair all that, if it ever was repaired.
"Even that much is incredible, my friend," he said, dusting himself off and there was a slight snap as he cast another spell, a wave of some kind, if the colors dancing across my vision were any indication. Tesha staggered a little from behind the older man, and leaned against the wall, slowly sliding into a sitting position. "Most magi can only managed to light a candle without a proper weave of the spell. Once you catch up on the theory, and put it into practice, you'll be a very formidable magus."
[That, I think, will take some time. Months, most likely, if not more. I have too much to learn to focus on only magic right now,] I said, and sighed internally, frustrated that I could not vocalize my emotions in the same way anymore. When I had a Human body, I would have thought it would be useful, to avoid a slip of facial expression or body language during negotiation, but now... [Before we finish for the day, how will... recovering my mana work now? When I had a... In my previous body, I would just need to rest and eat.]
"Ah!" he clapped, nodding. "An excellent question, and one I should have answered before you felt the need to ask it. It's largely the same. You will draw in ambient mana from the surroundings, and slowly recover that way. It is slower, however. We mortals, with our squishy bodies, can draw mana from our food and drink, and we can drink elixirs and infusions to speed the process.
"However, as a Core, your rate of recovery is tied to the amount of 'territory' you have influence over. Right now, as you only have just this room, your recovery rate should be about that of a Human that isn't eating or drinking, so perhaps half or two-thirds the rate of a fed and rested one," he explained, stroking his short beard. The details were somewhat fuzzier now than they had been before my first invocation – Spell, not invocation. My 'vision' must be based on my own mana to some extent... I'll have to make sure I don't dip lower than necessary.
[I see... That seems a substantial downside. Is there any way around it?]
"There are methods to recover faster, and improve the capacity your Core can hold, but those are irrelevant right now. We'll talk about them as they come up, I'm sure," he replied, nodding to himself about something. "Don't worry; you'll be recovered by the morning, even with how much you put into that spell."
[I understand, I'll trust you on that. Thank you, Archmagus.] I made sure to use his title to impress on him how much I appreciated his expertise. I wasn't sure if cultural norms would be similar enough for my social maneuvering to have the intended effect, but there was little I could do about it if they weren't.
"Think nothing of it, my friend! It's been some time since I had an opportunity to teach such an eager student, and a clever one, at that," he said, smiling at me. "Now, let's... Get all this cleaned up. I'll have to have a new desk and board delivered..."
[Ah, would you mind copying the array onto the wall with your infused chalk? So that I can reference it after you leave. I won't be throwing any more of those, though, I assure you.]
"Yes, of course, one moment." As he spoke, he turned to Tesha, and instructed her to send in some of the witch-hunters and other magi to help clean up, and take a moment outside in the fresh air, before approaching one of the walls close to me, and doing as I'd requested.
As he worked, I focused on the young magus shuffling to the door. She was perhaps one hundred and sixty something centimeters tall, and had opted for a practical, jaw-length hair cut, parted near the side and tucked behind her ears. Young, too, I thought, in her early twenties, with a pretty face.
Cute kid. Didn't mean to scare her like that.
Of course, she could likely dismantle my Core with passing ease, and there'd be little I could do about it. I'd surprised her with the force of that spell before, but she was a magus, and one the Archmagus trusted to work with on an unknown, untested Core. Now that she knew what I could do, I was very confident she would be able to counter anything I could throw at her and shatter me like glass.
The rest of the day was filled with the soldiers and magi filing in and out of the room, clearing debris and chunks of charred wood as I practiced my 'spell-weaving', using only the elemental key-rune, for now, to avoid accidentally harming the people I found myself at the mercy of. It was slow, agonizing work, though I did get results.
I took the amount of mana I had used in my first 'spell', reduced it to a tenth, and then reduced that to a twentieth again, intent on using as little mana as possible and aiming to use just enough to create a tiny flash of flame, not unlike a candle-flame. The first dozen attempts resulted in nothing but a spark, as my weaving had been too... imprecise and sloppy, but by the time the soldiers had finished cleaning, and said their goodbyes, I'd managed to improve that to a fresh lighter or large match.
As they left, I asked one of the witch-hunters to apologize to Tesha for me, and turned my attention back to my practice. It really would take quite some time before I managed to trace the runes with the same speed and precision the Archmagus had, despite the fact I didn't need to sleep.