Danny and Linh continued to walk around the block. Danny realised that she hadn’t grabbed any food. “Not eating?” The woman gestured to the cigarette in her hand.
“Smokes and coffee keep me going.”
The woman was unhealthily thin now that Danny looked. “I’m not sure that’s a well-balanced diet, dude.”
“Bah, it's gotten me this far.”
“Uh huh, whatever you say.” Danny’s phone suddenly buzzed, someone was calling him. He took out his phone and realised it was his sister.
“Yo, Belle, what’s cooking?”
“Danny. I know you’re not one for the gram, but you might want to see this. I’ve just sent you a link, open it up.”
Danny checked his messages and found the link in question, he opened it up. Linh was curious and looked over his shoulder. On his screen was a video of someone punching a heavy bag. Steam was evaporating off of this figure, who happened to be glowing faintly orange. The figure threw a series of punches that tortured the bag, before breaking the poor thing.
“Is that you?” Linh exclaimed.
Danny put the phone back to his ear. “Yeah, that’s uh interesting for sure.”
“Danny, Mikey put it up on his page and it’s going wild everywhere. He didn’t tag you but called you the Wizard Warrior, pretty cringe, but it’s going viral Danny. Local people have already compared it to some of the videos of your fights, it didn’t take people long to link you to it.”
“Oh, that sounds bad.”
“Well, it’s not too bad. You don’t actually have any social media presence so nobody can get a hold of you, Mikey’s insta is blowing up though.”
“Oh, good for him.”
Belle sighed. “You don’t care do you?”
Danny shrugged. “Nah not really, as long as people don’t bother me about it. It’s not like my face is in the video, nobody can prove anything.”
“Danny,” Belle’s tone changed. “Are you okay? You sound like you’re doing that thing again.”
Danny blinked back tears that he refused to acknowledge. “Yeah I’m fine, not sure what you’re saying Belle, what thing?”
“Danny. That thing where you pretend nothing is going on.”
“Nah nah, lots is going on, but I’m okay, promise.” It hurt Danny to lie to his sister, but it didn’t hurt so much if he pretended he wasn’t lying.
“Look, I’ve got to get back to class, but I’ll call you when it’s over. I love you Danny, look after yourself.”
“I love you too, Belle.” Belle hung up the call. Danny put his phone back in his pocket and kept walking. Everything is fine.
“Woah Danny, was that your girlfriend?” Linh asked.
Danny scoffed. “Nah, my little sister.”
“Sounds like you two are close, that’s nice.”
“Yeah, she lives in Melbourne, but we talk a lot. Have you got siblings?”
Linh took an extra long drag. “A couple of older brothers who haven’t talked to me in years.”
Danny winced, hearing the dryness in her voice. “I’m sorry to hear.”
“Bah, their loss. I was a great sister.”
The two started making their way back to the academy, lunch was almost over. Linh was on her third cigarette when she asked something. “What was going on in that video? That was you right?”
“Yeah, it was. I’m not sure what was going on, I was just training.”
“Did you feel like you were doing magic?”
“Nah, but now that I look back, I felt stronger, fitter, yaknow?”
It was Linh’s turn to scoff. “No, I don’t know. Can’t say i’ve trained a day in my life, but I can imagine. Seems like this magic stuff doesn’t make as much sense as the simple explanations we’re getting.”
The two of them made it back to the building and were quickly separated by their instructors. Danny was walking down the hallway with the short chancellor when he decided to strike up a conversation.
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“So, Retta, what’s your deal?”
She turned to look up at him as they walked. “My deal?” Her eyebrow raised.
“Yeah, I dunno. You don’t give me chancellor vibes. You’re too chill.”
“I don’t know if I should feel offended or complimented, Danny.”
Danny shrugged in reply.
“Well, I guess I am a bit different than most heads of Academies.” Retta followed with a chuckle.
“What makes you say that?”
“This is usually a very prestigious job, but the chancellor of Madley doesn’t hold the same prestige, even if it does on paper.”
“Oh yeah?”
The two arrived at the practice room, the hole in the wall was already gone, with new plates replacing the broken ones. “Let’s get you practising before I continue talking about me.”
Retta then walked him through what was considered the most basic of basics for a wizard. The first was what he had already practised yesterday, the mana projectile spell, sometimes called mana bolt or bullet. The second spell was mana shield, something that Retta was confident wouldn’t have such disastrous outcomes for the room around them. She demonstrated the spell for him, creating a semi-transparent blue screen between the two of them.
“Now, there are lots of variables to this spell. Such as size and thickness. They can be changed on the fly, but most wizards have a default mana shield that they can call upon in an emergency, that’s what we’ll be working on creating today.”
The process was pretty similar to the creation of the mana projectile, and to nobody's surprise, the first shield he created was a sight to behold.
“Well, that’s certainly one way to defend yourself,” Retta’s muffled voice could be heard behind the giant wall of solid glowing orange that separated Danny from the other half of the room. Danny dismissed the shield with a thought and found the woman looking perplexed. She didn’t say anything at first, but eventually walked him through some more practices, trying to help me control the shield he created better.
It took a few more room-spanning shields, but Danny eventually created a shield that resembled Henrietta’s, albeit a translucent orange, not blue. “Woo!” Henrietta cheered. “Wow, this teaching stuff is actually pretty fun.”
“You haven’t done it before?” Danny asked.
“Nope, feel like I’m doing a decent job though,” the short woman grinned.
That made Danny spin. “Wait, how did you become the head of a magic school, without teaching experience?”
Retta chuckled. “Firstly, you’d be surprised to know that most chancellors don’t have teaching backgrounds. Second, I wasn’t chosen for any of my achievements or experience.”
Danny continued to play with making magical shields appear and disappear, all varying sizes and thicknesses. “Why were you chosen then?”
“Politics, I was the leader of the largest coalition against what was happening here in Madley.”
“And so they made you the head of a school in Madley?”
“They removed me from my community back in the States. Old Man Madley has a lot of sway in the Consortium and the council was more than happy to acquiesce to his demands, as always.”
“Hang on, Old Man Madley?”
Henrietta’s face went grim. “Yeah, who do you think founded this cursed city?”
“Madley was founded like 180 years ago.”
“Wizards live a long time, I probably should have included that in the basic information. It’s crazy what you forget is just a given to people who’ve lived with this their entire lives.”
Danny’s head was sent reeling, again. “Okay so, let me get this straight. The guy who founded Madley, a guy named Madley-
“Aldous Madley”
“A man named Aldous Madley, is still alive, and is an important guy?” Danny remembered a comment that Zoryana had made when he had met her. I guess it wasn’t a cultural thing.
Retta scoffed. “Important is subjective, powerful yes.”
“And he wanted you here because you were the leader of a group of people that didn’t like what he was doing?”
Henrietta nodded.
“Blink twice if you’re a captive.”
Henrietta blinked twice then laughed. “It’s not that bad, I’m not a prisoner at least. I just can’t leave. Madley likes to keep an eye on his enemies.”
“Sounds pretty stressful.”
“You get used to it.”
The space remained awkwardly silent as Danny continued to create and dispel his magic shields. Retta sighed and sat down on the floor. “This is pretty crazy Danny.”
“What is?”
She gestured at his shield. “The basic spells aren’t used very often. They’re incredibly mana-inefficient, so they’re often used only as a last resort. Yet here you are, playing around with them like it’s nothing.”
Danny didn’t know what to say to that and awkwardly paused his playing around. Henrietta then looked up at him. “Do you think you could try and control your mana projectile spell a bit better now?”
“And not blow the building up? I could give it a try.”
Danny had worked out that he didn’t have to channel his mana from every part of his body, in fact, that had been the problem. If he instead only channelled mana from a smaller part of his body, like a hand or finger, he could far more easily control the amount of mana going into a spell. It was all coming to him more on gut feel than anything else.
Henrietta prepared by summoning the thickest shield she could, before placing it in front of the plated wall, just in case. Danny then channelled the spell, purposefully channelling it from just one finger. He allowed what felt like a small amount of mana to form into a ball in front of him. A glowing marble of orange mana appeared.
“Oh, that seems far more manageable,” Retta commented.
Danny then directed the projectile forward, forgetting to channel the mana for the second part of the spell through his finger. His mana surged forward and the projectile shot out faster than a bullet. It instantly pierced through Retta’s shield and bore a small hole through the plate on the wall. Danny winced and turned to look at Retta as a familiar siren began to blare.