Ryuji could tell that the captain of the town watch was hesitant to ask him about something so he thought about what might hold the captain back. Then it hit him, they need to be paid for their efforts or they aren’t going to want to do this. Ryuji spoke to the captain with an understanding tone. “You have to keep in mind that most of the people that would like to learn are poor and some will begin to teach others. I wouldn’t suggest charging them more than a small copper each to learn and don’t be surprised if the demand is small at first. The demand for swimming lessons should increase after a few successes and then it will likely taper off after a bit especially once it gets colder.”
The captain seemed surprised that Ryuji had so perfectly guessed his concerns but Ryuji wasn’t done there. “Then there may be those that want to learn but just can’t seem to scrape together a copper to their name. If your men have somebody like that, perhaps one who always comes around but never will approach them, approach them first. If money turns out to be their problem, then bring them to see me. Oh yeah, I’m staying at the Sleeping Tree Inn but if I decide to go elsewhere, I will let you know where to contact me.”
“If I’m going to be gone for a while, I’ll entrust you with a small gold coin and you can pay your men their fee out of it. Just be sure that the money is going to those that teach swimming lessons to the people. I think that once it’s known that the guard can teach you to swim that there will always be people wanting lessons from now on. you might have to keep a list of people who want them in the future so you can give the lessons all at once.”
Ryuji went on to explain the basic principles of CPR and told the captain that he would teach the guard how to perform that for no charge in the near future. When he called it CPR the captain looked confused and so Ryuji thought about it and told him it meant chest press revival. The captain seemed overwhelmed with joy at the prospect of being able to save lives. He told Ryuji that the river claimed about a dozen townsfolk every year in spite of the stairs, the rails, and the catch poles being placed nearby. All of those seemed to be the work of one old count who was in the guard. Unfortunately, it seemed his interest in helping people avoid dying in the river only came after his own daughter drowned.
Ryuji got dressed, simply putting the bathing cloak on over his clothes, and ran to the magic shop. He was expecting to be late but it turned out that the old man had only just woken up. He looked at his new apprentice like some kind of exotic undersea creature when he said he had been awake for over a candlespan, which Ryuji almost called an hour again. Seems the old dwarf really wasn’t a morning person so he told Ryuji to just let himself in in the mornings and study. He then gave him a copy of the key to his shop before they went to start on a hearty breakfast of ham and rolls. They topped the rolls with some strange animal paste that turned out to be almost like a jelly, with a flavor somewhat citrussy like the way yuzu smells.
After that, it was a hard day of learning the intricacies of magic. The day's lesson started with the basic principles of caster magic. Ryuji learned that the way a caster casts his spells is to dip the tip of a finger into a powder or solution and then infuse magic into that fingertip.
That simple action sets the whole process in motion. By infusing the powder or solution on one’s fingertip with your magic it turns it into a sort of magic ink. With this pseudo ink, the caster is able to draw figures and writing directly in the air in front of them. The caster simply needs to push a bit more magic out to make the finger in question draw and stopping the flow stops the drawing.
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That process seems simple enough but the old dwarf told him that there were those that simply never mastered the control of their magic necessary to be able to draw the figures in the first place. He told Ryuji that he would be practicing that for a while until he had mastered that concept. Also the amount of total mana that a person had set the time limit that a wizard had to draw all of the things needed in order to cast a spell. If you only had a small reserve of mana then you wouldn’t have the time needed to draw a very complex spell out and you wouldn’t be able to advance very far as a wizard.
Dorn began getting things together for Ryuji to practice controlling the flow of his magic. While he was doing that, he explained that spells were cast by drawing a magic circle in the air. There were several parts that made up a magic circle. First and most obvious, was the circle. Magic theory said that the circle with its unbroken edge with no corners was the barrier that contained all the magic of a spell and channeled it inward to the center.
The next part was a geometric figure to be drawn inside the circle and all of its corners had to touch the edge of the circle but not go outside it. For this part, being at least mildly artistic was essential. Many would-be wizards failed when it came to an inability to draw a decently straight circle or the failure to draw the figure inside of the bounds of the circle. Ryuji breathed a mental sigh of relief because geometry and art were some of his favorite courses in school.
Next came the symbols. There were certain symbols that represented the magic elements. One or more of those would be used in the center of the geometric figure and the very center of the circle. These symbols were the focus of the spell and all of the spell's power would be focused through those symbols and thus through those elements. The other symbols would then be drawn on the lines of the geometric figure inside the circle. This last detail differed from summoner magic in that a summoner had to draw their symbols on the curving edge of the casting circle not the flat lines of the geometric pattern inside it.
The writing besides the symbols in the center were descriptions of how the spell was to function. In that way, it was a bit like programming a computer. You had to set ideas and bounds for the function of the spell in the form of script, drawn inside the circle.
There was one exception to this inside the circle rule. At the points where the geometric figure touched the edge of the circle, one glyph could be inscribed per point. These glyphs or symbols were broad control ideas and set the course for everything that would be drawn on the lines near it. Ryuji figured it would be kind of like indexing tabs in a notebook or file cabinet. The symbol was there to draw all the attention for that particular subject to that area. Again caster magic differed from summoner magic because the outside symbols in summoner magic were to tie together two subjects divided by the corners of the geometric patter in the circle.
That was where the lesson on magic theory ended for the time as Dorn set the prepared materials in front of him. It was just a bowl of ground-up stone powder, made from one of the least expensive kinds of stone, and a damp cloth rag. Dorn told him that for practicing magic control, he could simply dip his finger in water but the results would be a little harder to see in the air in front of him until he got the hang of infusing enough magic into it. He said that once you got the flow of magic right the whole thing would glow a uniform color and brightness. Until then it would be too dim to see with water or air and fire was too dangerous to mess with like that.
The obvious choice was earth and for the practice, with earth, he could simply have stuck a finger in dirt. The old guy told him that he could easily have gone outside and scooped up a bowl of dirt to practice with but he wanted to demonstrate the process of making the reagents that a wizard uses and it gave him longer to explain anyway. That was fine with Ryuji, he was really having fun!