By the end of next week, I was able to hold a connection for an entire 10 seconds, well above the minimum requirement. This extended connection allowed me more time to explore the relationship formed between me and the spirit, which was nice. The wind spirits that I summoned felt both faint and clear at the same time, like that friend who’s always calm but still commanding.

I spent my second day off working on magic, much to the dismay of Arnav, who wanted to explore the city some more.

The day we got back, Mr. Donnel called us to attention right after class started.

“Has everyone mastered keeping a stable connection between yourself and the spirit of your affinity?”

“Yes!” Said the entire class.

“Good! Now we're going to move onto forming connections with other types of spirits. Now listen carefully: for each elemental affinity, there are another two elements that you can achieve partial mastery in.

Wind users can achieve partial mastery in fire and water;

water users with wind and earth;

earth users with water and fire;

fire users with wind and earth.” (Author’s note: I formatted it this way to make it easier to read. Mr. Donnel said all of this normally.)

He paused, giving us a moment to process what he had said.

“Alright, get to it!”

As was normal by now, the students all dispersed throughout the open area where class was held. We also stayed with our partners. I don’t remember why, or who started the trend, but by now it was an established thing and nobody wanted to break it. Mason started with fire magic, so I decided to go with fire as well. Maybe I could get it faster than Mason this time!

“Agnis- fire summon!” I chanted, trying to achieve the same feeling as I had gotten with wind spirits. Nothing happened. I signed inwardly, realizing that this task probably wouldn't be an easy one.

Luckily for me, it did not take a whole week. Still, it took 3 days, which is no short period of time. I had really started to get pissed at chanting summon all the time.

However, it did feel gratifying when a small flame appeared midway though the 3rd day of trying. Of course, Mason had already moved onto water at this point. It felt like he was always going to be ahead of me.

By the fourth day, I had already gotten to the 5-second mark. Fire spirits felt different from wind spirits- while wind spirits felt calm and collected, fire spirits felt like they were always ready to start an argument. The best way to describe the feeling would be calling it hyperactive.

Water spirits, which I mastered at the beginning of the next week, turned out to be unique in their own way. They felt more solid than wind and fire spirits. They were smooth and gentle, but radiated power.

Overall, it was a very exciting period of time for me.

“How’d you guys do with connecting with other spirits?” I asked Arnav and Chris at dinner.

“I just finished connecting with wind, and Chris is a day ahead of me.” Arnav said.

“Wow, nice!” I congratulated them. Obviously I couldn’t just tell them that I had mastered fire, but Arnav was nice enough to entertain me.

“And how far did you get?” He asked me.

“I finished with water today.” I said, glad for the opportunity to show off.

“Wow, and this is your second one, right? That’s amazing!” Chris said.

“Thanks.”

“When did you finish?” Arnav asked Mason. The fact that he already assumed that Mason had mastered both said something about how special Mason was.

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“A few days ago.” he told us, without any sign of gloating.

“He’s at 10 seconds by now.” I added on.

“That’s amazing!” Remarked Chris and Arnav.

The conversation then shifted to other topics, but at the end of class Arnav dropped this:

“Also, I heard from a senior student that we should be moving on to actual spells next week!” He said enthusiastically.

“That's great- looking forward to it!” I answered before leaving.

For the next week, I trained hard with both fire and water to deepen my connection with both spirit types. This was all in anticipation for learning my first real spell. But I should’ve known that nothing good ever comes easy.

“Pay attention!” Shouted Mrs. Genia.

Over the past few weeks, the students of class 1D had accepted that nothing of importance was actually taught in magic theory. Everything that Mrs. Genia had taught so far hadn’t connected with practical magic at all, which is what the students in the class really cared about. Plus, all you had to do to catch up on missed material was pool what you had actually learned from class with your friend group. The class was too scared of Mrs. Genia to completely lose order, but these circumstances had led to all the students being in an absent-minded stupor.

Mrs. Genia shouting brought the class back from that stupor. We listened up, since it seemed like she was about to say something important.

“I’m sure that up till now, none of you have taken what I’ve had to say very seriously. Don’t try to deny it, it happens every year. As your teacher, I’ll give you a warning now- not listening to my lessons from now on will significantly hinder your progress in magic.”

From their facial expressions, I could tell that around three-quarters of the class had taken her words seriously. One fourth had already dozed off again.

“Now, the spell you’ll be practicing for the next week is barrier. It’s the most simplistic defensive spell in existence, so I advise all of you to learn it.”

She then went into a long lecture about barrier, including but not limited to the history of the spell, the benefits and drawbacks, and the mana drain of the spell. You could find exactly everything she said in a regular grimoire, so I won’t bore you with the details. In summary, barrier created a barrier, or shield if you prefer, of spirits that you could use to block most spells. Though any type of spirit worked, we were advised to use earth for the best results. Wind magic users like me had to use water as a substitute. Barrier was good in that it created a simple way to block most spells, but bad in that the unused parts of the barrier were completely useless, meaning that the mana drain was higher than preferable.

Over the two hours that Mrs. Genia spoke, I noticed that another quarter of the class had droned off. I couldn’t really blame them, as my own attention span was being stretched to the very limits.

“I trust you all listened to Mrs. Genia’s lecture on barrier?” Mr. Donnel asked the class, smiling.

Though the entire class grunted in affirmation, I think he knew that most of us were lying. Nonetheless, he continued.

“Well, then let’s get to it! The spell trigger is catur. I will now demonstrate: evais catur!”

The results of the spell were surprising. I thought the barrier would be much larger, but what had actually appeared was a floating plate of stone, around the size of a small shield.

“I want all of you to work until you can get the result I’ve just achieved. After you achieve that, make sure I know about it, then work on increasing the power of the spell.”

That day, practical magic class would teach me that Mrs. Genia had indeed been serious about the importance of theory, and also made me extremely grateful for paying attention during her lecture. The kids who had listened to her, including me, were able to see results almost immediately. The kids who hadn’t were left to figure out barrier by themselves, to varying degrees of success.

Learning barrier was a pretty novel experience, with a couple of surprises. First was how quickly I was able to get it.

“Deva catur- barrier!” Immediately, a little shield of water appeared. Sure, it wasn’t nearly as large as what Mr. Donnel had gotten, but it was a start.

The second surprise was the feeling of my mana depleting. At this level it was barely noticeable, but I could definitely feel the water spirits taking my mana away. By the time I had mastered the spell, I would’ve guessed that my mana was around a tenth of the way out.

When I approached Mr. Donnel to tell him about my progress as he had asked us to, there was a group of 4 around him. When I joined in, he started speaking.

“Okay, listen up. Since the five of you have achieved basic mastery over barrier, it’s time to try increasing the amount of mana you put into the spell. As you’ve been casting magic, you should’ve felt the spirits taking mana away from you. Try to feel that stream of magic leaving you and going into the spirit, and increase the power of the stream. Everyone learns this at different rates, so just keep trying, okay?”

Mr. Donnel was definitely right about the different rates. Mason was able to see results immediately, and there was a noticeable increase in his shield the second he got back to practicing. I tried my best not to be discouraged, but it would take me a while to fully figure it out.