Throwing the last of my items in an extra-dimensional pocket watch, I looked up to search for my newly acquired student. “Now, where is he…” my apprentice was currently sprinting through the forest. Clicking my tongue, I warped space to a point right Infront of him, making him stagger through the portal and collide into me, bouncing off.
He groaned and I presented him a toothy smile. “Don’t think you’re getting away from me that easily. Now that I have everything ready it’s time for your punishment.” I could see his fear through his daze. That brought a dark chuckle out of me. “Some people say this is the most boring thing imaginable, the most humiliating place in all the realms, the awkwardness experience known to man, beast or god.” With each word I said his hands started to shake more and his eyes grew wider and wider. I carefully decreased the temperature around us a few degrees and slightly darkened my face in shadow. “You will be going to … school!” As I finished my sentence, I caused thunder to rumble in the distance.
He looked terrified for a moment before my words caught up to him and then looked at me quizzically. I looked back at him and nodded gravely. “You mean a normal school where you learn things?” I nodded back to him. He continued to just stare at me. “What school?”
“I’ve heard good things about Zantha” as I said the school name the boy's gaze grew more intense.
“You mean the Zantha Magic Academy, the school run by the Burning Wisper, the best school on this continent!”
“If that’s what they call him these days.” I could see his eye glimmer with excitement but his posture but reticent.”
“But still, how are you going to enrol me, even high nobles struggle to get in.” I just shrugged.
“He owes me a favour or two.” The flabbergasted expression he wore almost made up for my potion exploding.
Without another word, I pinpointed the tracking spell on my targets soul and divined the area around him. Finding the city, I created a portal a kilometre away from the front gates. Grabbing the boy with one hand I tossed him in before he could protest and followed through. The boy, (I should really find the kids name out), stared in wonder at the surroundings and the large gleaming white walls that brilliantly shined in the suns light, before turning his head back at me with a look of amazement and owe. That look puzzled me for a second, right teleporting is supposed to be difficult to or something.
“Hey kid, what’s your name by way?” I asked
“Tay, Sir, and what may I call you?” I smirked at his nervousness, thinking up a random name.
“You may call me Ruther, Wizened Archwizard of Wizardry, World Savour, Moon Deflowerer, Planet Puncher, Void Smasher, Mr Many Face Masquerader, Sage of Sorcery, Pristine Princes’ Pounder, No Shame Stabber, kick ‘em in thy balls. And I didn’t make up two of those titles, okay fine, one of those titles, but I feel like kick ‘em in thy balls really should be my motto so I’m including it.” I said with a decisive nod.
Tay stared at me for a slightly cross-eyed for a second before shaking his head and staring back out at the city. “So, Tay before we begin our perilous journey and your punishment I have to know, why were those ‘mages.” I put as much disgust as I could into the word. “After you.”.
His back grew stiff and turned his head wildly casting his gaze at the city than at me, before letting a sigh and mumbling, “The princes was in disguise walking in the streets and, well, I was running down the streets, and bumped into her, tripping her over and, hmrgg, my hand lander on, he-r, her breast a-and her skirt went up her legs. I swear Sir it was an accident i-it just happened!” As he spoke, he turned his head and a slight bit of red rode of up his face.
My face broke into a smile as he spoke and by the end of it, I was uproariously laughing. “seriously?” He just nodded. My laughter continued booming out through the surrounding empty grass. “I didn’t know something that cliché actually happened, I heard stories and read it happening in books, but still.” As I spoke, he looked more and more uncomfortable and a realization dawned upon me.
Looking down upon him I took in his entire appearance, he looked a little singed and was covered in scrapes and cuts but even without that he was thin and his clothes - at least what was left of them - were old and ragged. So, he was either from a poor family or an orphan stealing to get by, but by the look in his eyes, he was probably an orphan. Now his family, dead, but who were they. Probably rich or at wealthy as he spoke well and unless his kingdoms taught free magic to their subjects his parents paid for him to get tutoring or taught him themselves. So here we have an orphan boy since probably the last few years who was taught enough about disease to not lay with gutter rats, but not wealthy enough to meet a healthy and clean lady. Ahh, the problems of youth.
Summing up my thoughts took less than a second to outside perceptions. I looked back at Tay. “So, my boy, it’s time to buy you some clothes. You’ll have time to gawk later.” Saying so I started walking to the city. Not looking to see if Tay followed me.
. . .
Purchasing a room at an inn next to the academy was exorbitantly expensive, as least I guessed, not knowing anything about the economy was a bit of a problem. The new clothes plus renting room and board for a fortnight emptied most the coin the mages had. At least what survived the explosion. Also going by my apprentices face it cost a lot. Welp, looks like I need a job and I think I have the perfect idea. I thought with a mischievous smile. Tay seemed to have noticed my smile and looked on with a hint of worry in his eyes.
Wiping the smile off my face I turned back to Tay. “Tomorrow your punishment begins, so before I enrol you, I believe it is time to show me what you know of magic.” Saying so I constructed a portal and pulled us through into an empty patch of grass.
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Not letting Tay over his disorientation, I spoke, “First thing I want you to do is cycle mana through your body.” Really, he should have been constantly cycling his mana. Following my instructions after a second of confusion at the new surroundings, he focused inside himself.
Man, the kid was quiet, no questions, no arguing, he was probably just nervous, I mean getting almost killed and getting saved by a dashing man with godly unimaginable powers and the tongue of an especially witted bard would probably be quite traumatizing, especially for his fragile ego.
“Hmm I see, I see.” My apprentice looked at me with a confident smile, his many flow stalling for a second before slowly moving through his body again, as he tried to listen and cycle at the same time.
My apprentice's cycling was, well, “I have seen worse, but the man was half blown up and had a rather large hole in his soul.” His mana flowed stutteringly and unevenly, not even reaching some parts of his body. He even had some knots. As I finished speaking, the smile fell from his face harder than a boulder and the mana flowing through his body come to a holt.
“But my tutor said I was good at cycling!” He said with a straight back and a bit of defiance in his eyes. There’s the spunk I was expecting!
“If your tutor said that, he was a two-brain celled mongrel and you shouldn’t listen to idiots unless you want to mess with them!” He quickly tucked in his head.
“I’m sorry Sir! I meant no offence, please forgive me.” Shaking my head, I continued.
“Whatever, we’ll fix it later, but for now we're not done with testing.” Saying so I conjured up 5 mud golems. “Next is a fireball, everyone likes a good fireball, show me what you got.” Tay looked at the golems, concentrated for a good 5 seconds as mana slowly moved to his outstretched hands and lazily coalesed into a fireball around the size of my fist that shot towards one of the golems. It subsequently puffed into smoke on contact leaving only a small, deformed patch of mud in its wake. Letting out a sigh I looked at the falling sun, it was going to be a long day.
. . .
“Okay, well, I am speechless. That was bad, and I don’t mean bad as in can’t cast a fireball, I mean bad as in how you have not killed yourself yet?” Tay looked down with a slight blush spreading across his face. “But worry not youngling, that is what I am here for, I will turn you into a proper mage yet! But first, you must learn how to cycle mana without giving me a brain aneurism.” Tay looked up at me with a questioning look and I let out a long sigh. “I guess I’ll add medicine to the course too.”
“As your tutor seemed to be an absolute tool, we’ll go over the purpose of cycling mana. First, as I’m sure you know, every time you cast a spell mana comes to the part of the body you are trying to expel it from. In this case, the faster and steadier your mana cycling, the faster the spell is made and the more stable it is, however that is only the first use of cycling. The other use, and why you should be constantly cycling, is that it is healthy and will improve your constitution, strength and a dozen other things. This works by a bunch of medical gibberish you will not understand so for now just trust me. You have probably seen an active effect of this when you flood a part of your body with mana to reach a certain effect.” Waiting for his nod I continued.
“That is the active version of this effect, but if you just cycle passively is will not use any mana and give an all-around positive boost to every part of you. In fact, I have seen warriors who only focus on cycling, getting better and better at it, to the point that most enemies don’t even see them before they are dead. Now you are a long way from that, but even if you don’t passively cycle, which you definitely should, practising will still do good for you spell work. Which I am sure your tutor told you.” I gave a light glare to my student, and he had the grace to wince.
Everyone hated cycling, it was super boring requiring your full concentration, at least at the beginnings, and was painful if you really tried to push forward and break your boundaries.
Done with my spiel I brought up and exact replica of my apprentices, muscle, organs, skeletal system, and mana lines. Outlining them in different colours.
“This is you, and as you can see you have a lot of problems with your mana channels,” I say, manifesting arrows pointing out all the uneven flows, knots, and narrow pathways. Tay looked slightly flabbergasted at the perfect 3D rendition of himself, but I just ignored him and continued. “This will all requires fixing; this can be done in two ways. One is by slowly cycling to clear your pathways and create an even flow, and the other is, less elegant shall we say.
Now, if you practised it would take around 2 years to create an even mana system, but I can’t be bothered waiting that long.” At this point he was looking a bit nervous, but I just kept a straight face. “This process may hurt a tinsy bit but remember this all could have been avoided if you just practised.” I gave him toothy smile, and his face drained away. It was always humorous reminding students of the fun of practising and hard work.
While my apprentice was writhing on the ground in pain from getting flooded with mana, I was bored. Carefully moving my mana through his body as to not cause any harm, while slowly whittling away at the knots, was super boring and tedious. A mistake could permanently maim him, but I was so practised at this I could do it in my sleep, so while I was torturing the lad I looked around.
This used to be one of my old training grounds, but now it was overgrown. The field was a large garden, keyword being was. I used it for meditation and a peaceful space. The walls were still in perfect condition from the immense defence wards on them, but the grassy field was a mess. The landscape used to be perfectly maintained by automatons, but they long ago went into disrepair. The garden was once filled with rare herbs of peace, recuperation and strengthening, but time had killed or mutated them into something else.
With a fit of nostalgia, I walked over to one of the automatons, levitating its mossy frame and cleaned it with a pulse of magic. Ahh, there was the problem, the mana collector got damaged, that always happened unless you had proper maintenance, or were good enough to work around it, which obviously old me was not, or I was just too lazy, or I hired someone to do it for me, or I stole it. It could really be one of a thousand things; I don’t really remember. Fixing the mana collector was easy enough and another minute of clean up, most of which was spent figuring out how the overcomplicated thing worked (it always sucked when people didn’t add comments) and the thing was back up and running. Slowly going about its objective of cleaning the place up. Fixing the other two machines didn’t take long, and only one was destroyed beyond repair. Its pocket dimension had collapsed, exploding the thing into a million pieces spread across the entire garden.
By the time I was done fixing the machines, Tay was passed out and I stopped flooding him with mana, too much and it could scar his channels, so I let him rest. Peeking at the wall construction I fixed and repaired everything, improving a few things here and there. Including the turrets which had seen no small amount of action.
Now, the sun was setting, and I could do a few things. Either explore the city and get an idea of the current civilization, read some minds, steal some money, do some law enforcement or I could sit here and relax. Yea, that sounds good. Teleporting Tay back to his room, I lay back and closed my eyes. Meditating and removing any lingering annoyance of my potion being destroyed, that thing really was a pain in the arse to make.