Our first lesson with Irene gave us a lot to think about. We decided to discuss our options during dinner in the mess hall. I chose fried chicken wings with fried potatoes. Interestingly, the meal was mostly picked by men.

“Why aren’t more women going for the chicken?” I asked my friends.

“You eat them with your hands and get dirty. A lot of nobles don’t like that. They think it’s not ladylike.” Cassie explained.

“The alternative is not bad.” Helena said. She had chosen the rice with chicken and a creamy mushroom sauce. All of my friends went for the mushrooms. I shuddered. Mushrooms.

“Do you think we should do a joint spell with all four of us?” Cassie wondered, as we sat down. “I am sure we could create something amazing!”

“Could be rather hard. It’s probably easier if we do it in pairs. Doing something with all four of us would be fun though.” I admitted.

“Could we create an undead with fire, water, earth and death?” Helena wondered. “Imagine the possibilities! We could have a fire breathing vampiric undead!”

“I am not sure if you can combine four affinities. Actually, how many affinities can people have? Or monsters?” I wondered. It had never come up in any class.

“I have never heard of a limit.” Skadi said.

“Let me guess, you have a book about someone with all six affinities?” I teased.

“Maybe…” Skadi replied.

“You know, most famous people have one or two affinities. It is curious.” Helena said.

“That you know of.” Cassie added. “They could always hide something.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Are there magic types that combine three elements? I know that blood magic requires water and earth. Or water and air allows you to use electrified water. Could you have electrified blood?” I wondered.

“I am not sure.” Skadi admitted. “But changing blood makes it lose some of its properties.”

“What about frozen blood then?” I asked.

“I have asked my teacher about that. Freezing blood makes it closer to normal ice and you lose some of the blood benefits. A blood shield is less resilient than a frozen blood shield, but if a creature touches the liquid blood you can use that to attack. You could try to infect it. Or you could pull on a wound. Never touch an enemy's blood shield if you are bleeding yourself.” Skadi explained. “Also, freezing comes from the water affinity, which is part of blood. So it is likely even more compatible than adding an element.”

“We are getting a bit sidetracked here. I was hoping we could do something explosive for our group project!” Cassie suggested.

“You want to do alchemy?” I asked.

“No, we can do a spell! Spells explode too.” She clarified.

“Do you have a more specific idea?” I inquired.

“What if we stuff necrotic water into a rock sphere, heat it up and have it explode!” Cassie suggested with a grin.

Skadi looked thoughtful. “Hm. I am not sure about all the parts but if you explode rock you would launch shards everywhere. It could be a way to get more power out of rock darts. I don’t see how water or death would help much.”

“If you heat up the water in there, it would trigger an explosion.” Helena added. “But the death part would be useless.”

I considered that. “Would it not be easier to just detonate it with fire magic alone?”

“But the death magic and water might leave a death fog behind!” Cassie said.

“Shouldn’t the explosion take care of the enemies anyway?” Skadi asked. “But it could work with just fire and earth. I am sure there are a lot of existing spells for that too.”

“If you want to work together, I can team up with Helena.” I suggested. “Working in pairs will be easier. We can create a bigger joint casting once we have more experience.”

“I would be ok with that.” Helena said. “Should we do another undead? We could do another draugr. Maybe we can make an even better one!”

“We could do that. I am sure there are ways to improve our technique. We would need more corpses though.” I said.

“You could ask Irene. If the school wanted us to do extra work they might as well provide the resources.” Skadi suggested.

“I am not sure if they will see it that way…” I responded.

“Does not hurt to ask.” Cassie said.

Suddenly, the bones from my chicken wings started to levitate. I looked at Nyx. She was on her armadillo, inside a box that had four castle-like towers. The bones floated towards her waiting mouth.

Cassie giggled.

I looked at Nyx. “You can have those, but don’t take any from other people.” I was slightly worried she would try to get bones from other students.

“So her punishment for the pen is over?” Helena asked.

“She did not get any treats this morning for her levitation exercise. Hopefully, I made my point. Now we will see if she behaves.”

Maybe I imagined it but I saw a slight nod. Then Nyx disappeared into her box and we heard a crunching sound.