Ryuji was being put on the spot by Karen. He couldn’t avoid her advances anymore without giving her some kind of reason so he said the first thing that came to mind to keep Karen, and to a lesser degree Teresa, placated. He told them that his studies with the old wizard Dorn were getting harder and he was having a hard time finding enough time to keep up with all his businesses and do his studies. This got him rather incredulous looks from both women. Karen took it for a blatant lie since she had grown up hearing about the old dwarf refusing apprentices since he first moved to town when she was very young. She said that if he didn’t want to tell her that was fine and stormed off to her room.
Teresa confronted him after and told him that he didn’t need to lie to Karen like that because she could tell he liked her a lot but love couldn’t live through too many lies. He then told her that it wasn’t a lie and began drawing a magic circle in the air using some water from a cup abandoned on a nearby table. She was a little surprised that he knew magic but told him that him having magic didn’t change the fact that his story was preposterous. As she was walking back into the kitchen, she threw over her shoulder that everybody knew that old Dorn wouldn’t take any apprentices so he needed to go tell Karen the truth. He was left standing there wishing that he could.
During his studies during the morning, he lost focus easily because his mind kept wandering back to his fight with Karen. He was to the point that he was already practicing full first-level spells. At a point near noon, he almost miswrote the central glyph of an earth spell meant to fling a small clod of rock at a target. The spell was winding up to go out of control when Dorn snapped at him to finish it quick. He made it in time for the spell to shoot at the target harmlessly but Dorn got mad at him for the lapses of attention. Dorn told him to take lunch early and go clear his head before he came back.
Ryuji intended to spend lunch with the cats since he was off early. He also began thinking that perhaps he should look at the market and find a present for Karen too. He began considering what to get for Karen that would make up for the argument that morning. He was thinking of things she might like and wanted to find something good for her because he was worried about losing her.
He found himself getting distracted by a smell again and was really frustrated about it. He was really worried about what to get Karen and there his mind was trying to wander off to sniff out some damn meat skewers. He got so worked up about it that he slammed his fist against the wall of the alley he was in. Then he looked at his fist and found it to be gray and furry and rolled his eyes thinking ‘great, that’s just what I needed right now, to have to deal with more werewolf BS’.
He tried to focus again and this time, realizing what the problem was he was able to direct his thoughts around it. He began to suspect that he might just need to do something to ‘prove’ his story about being the wizard’s apprentice. He still really wanted to get Karen something to apologize for distancing himself from her so he set off again but a sparkle on the ground grabbed his attention.
He looked down at the floor of the alleyway but couldn’t make anything out. He then realized he had no way of looking either because it was too dark under the overhang of the building, especially since it was an overcast day. He thought for a second and realized that he could look if he could form a firelight. He started to dismiss the idea because he had no reagents of any kind to dip his finger into in order to draw the spell. Then it hit him, there were reagents for fire in the air around him.
Ryuji decided that he would give that a try. First, he concentrated on just two elements. He only needed the hydrogen and the oxygen around him to be caught by his magic. He gathered his thoughts and concentrated on feeling his magic and eventually he was able to visualize it. He then concentrated on only grabbing those two gasses out of the air with his magic, forbidding it to attach to anything else. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the tip of his finger looked hazy and hoped that was because of the gases he was after. He then began pushing his mana through it and focused on only using those two gases.
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He was gratified when he found a glowing blue trail in the air following his fingertip in a circle. He was worried that might be the color of air magic but it didn’t seem quite right for that. He had drawn a few air spells but not many. Dorn considered air magic to be mostly useless but relatively harmless to practice with early on. since Ryuji was such a quick study, Dorn didn’t linger on air long and moved on to what he considered useful spells.
The circle completed, Ryuji moved on to the geometric. For a simple firelight spell that could be used to light fires with off the end of a finger, he only needed a simple triangle. He then wrote the all-important center focus glyph, the one for fire. He wrote in the focus point glyphs outside the circle at each point being careful to adjust the one for the component to be gas, not coal and he wasn’t sure if that part would work. He then wrote the quick lines of glyphs on the outside edges of the triangle. He didn’t need many because the spell wasn’t very complex.
With the last of the few glyphs he wrote on the triangle, the spell circle was complete and he could begin pushing in a bit of his mana. This was the very first spell he had ever seen demonstrated aside from the enchantment on the stove at Dorn’s shop. There were a couple differences concerning the glyphs used since he was trying to work with hydrogen and oxygen. He just hoped it would work.
Ryuji then pushed a bit of his mana through the glyph in the center and he was gratified to see the whole circle, which only measured about sixty centimeters across, flared with dazzling blue-white flames before winking out. Instantly Ryuji was left with a similarly bright blue-white flame hovering above his fingertip. It was very obvious that it was using the gasses in the air to burn that bright.
Ryuji was so mesmerized by the flame that he momentarily forgot about the item on the ground he wanted to look at. He also missed the startled exit of the man who had come into the alley thinking to score a quick bit of coin from the elf who had come into the alley. The old drunk was so terrified by what he saw that he swore he would stop drinking.
He had thought he was following an elf and then, in an eye-searing flash of what just had to be magic, it was revealed that he was actually following a beastfolk. The guy still had a nice coin purse and a satchel but in the sudden brilliant light, the thief could now clearly see the sword and dagger at the guy’s hip. Worse, the guy didn’t have any spell stuff on him and somehow still drew a magic circle in front of him where the would-be thief couldn’t see it. He also made what had to be a rather high-level fire spell in almost no time! The thief took the obvious hint and beat a hasty retreat. If anybody could be a wizard and not even have to have all that spell stuff on them, how was a man to make a dishonest living? He couldn’t, that’s how!
Finally, remembering why he had cast the spell, Ryuji moved his hand with the bright light down to the ground and discovered a small scale of some kind. As he looked at it in the bright light he noted its features. The scale was lustrous if a little drab in color. It was a medium brown but looked like it was made of a gemstone. It was blunt and rounded at the bottom edge but the other end was sharp and tipped with a wicked point. He noted that the sharp edge was actually serrated and the whole thing was almost half the size of his hand.
The inside and outside edges were clear since it was slightly concave. On the back, it had a bit of grime growing on it. Apparently, it had been sitting there for some time since it had moss or something growing on it. Ryuji put it against the wall and rubbed it back and forth to clean the back side off. Imagine his surprise when the edge of the scale tipped into the stone and began leaving grooves where the serrations met it! On a whim, Ryuji shoved the tip against the stone expecting the tip to snap off, and was startled yet again when the tip buried itself into the stone instead.
Ryuji had to work the scale back and forth to dislodge it but he had to be careful not to let it slip lest it cut his hand open. It came away with a bit of the stone stuck to it. Ryuji checked and the stone wasn’t soft or brittle, the scale was just that hard. It was now a little cleaner but still dirty. Ryuji didn’t mind. He took out a linen he had with him and sat the soap inside the scale before wrapping them both carefully in the rag and setting his new prize inside his satchel.