“Welcome to Fundamental Magecraft,” an elven man who appeared to be in his sixties, with long white hair down past his waist and flowy robes said. “I am professor Silverbark.”

Given elves could live about three times as long as humans, the hair and wrinkles probably meant the man was well over a century old, but despite that, his seal indicated he was only a fifth circle caster and unable to push that limit.

I snorted as I realized that I’d thought of him as only fifth circle. It wasn’t as if fifth circle casters were common. As professor Sandroot had said, they were usually some of the most powerful people around.

Fundamental Magecraft wasn’t as small as the ethics class, but nor was it as large as the auditorium for the core class was. About thirty people were gathered in a room with a chalkboard, and I’d grabbed a table with Yushin and the minotaur from our ethics course. Jackson and Salem must have had the class at a different time, but Wesley was here, dominating an entire table with his sneer.

“Fundamental Magecraft is going to be structured somewhat unusually to classes you may have had at preparatory schools,” professor Silverbark said as he began passing out syllabi. “Our lectures will, by and large, be focused on ensuring that no student with the talent to enter, but not the coin to pay for spells, is left behind.”

I took the syllabus he handed me and glanced over some of the listed lectures. A lot of them were on spells. Some I knew, like shield or arcane missile, but most of them I’d never had the chance to learn, like the general dispel.

But it wasn’t just spells. Ether manipulation, expansion, and regeneration were all listed, as was creation of spellcasting apparatus, which went on for weeks.

“You can see the days we will be spending on working to learn and master a specific spell in there, and if you already know the spell, you may demonstrate that to me the class period before, and you will be given full permission to skip the class and test with full marks,” the professor said, and I felt my respect for him rise a little. “That brings us into scoring. There are no tests or quizzes, merely your midterm, finals, and consistent grading if you learned the spell or technique by the time we move on to the next. What this means is if you cannot figure out a specific part, you will have a chance to try again at the midterms before winter break, or the finals before summer.”

He went on for a while about the details of grading, office hours, and more, before he finally started up the first lesson.

“For those of you who have already undergone the mage dedication ritual, you’re welcome to leave.”

At his words, nearly half of the class stood and left. Wesley scoffed, but stayed where he was, leaving me to wonder if he knew or was just pretending. It took a little bit for everyone to leave, but when the class settled down, professor Silverbark smiled.

“From the blank looks, can I assume most of you have never heard of the mage dedication ritual?”

“It’s a ritual that permanently changes your ether pool,” Wesley said, his lazy drawl cutting through the room. “It makes your ether much more effective at a certain school of magic, but at the cost of making the other schools of magic less effective. The intensity is usually reported as making the chosen school twice as effective, and making others three quarters as effective, though it varies from person to person.”

“Quite right,” professor Silverbark said, nodding along. “Obviously this works well for things like restoration, enhancing it at the cost of all other schools. But what if you choose the null school, universal magic?”

Wesley started to speak, only to be cut off by Silverbark’s raised hand.

“Someone new please,” the old elf said.

“Affinity magic,” Yushin said after a moment. “There are very few universal spells. Weirlight. Wish. Permanency. But affinity magic is usually classed as a universal magic type.”

“Correct!” Silverbark beamed. “For those of you with an especially flexible or powerful affinity, it may be worth choosing to dedicate yourself to universal magic. Fire specialists who also have a fire affinity, for example, can effectively extend their bonuses into other fire related spells by incorporating their affinity. I don’t know if you’ve met Emir Blackflame yet, he’s second chair for the obliteration school of magic, but his highly potent blackflame combines with other fire magic to make him a one man siege weapon.”

I hesitantly raised my hand, then spoke when Silverbark pointed at me.

“Do we have to undergo the ritual and take a dedication?” I asked. “I’m planning on working on two branches of magic, and my affinity… isn’t suited to being dedicated.”

“Oh, a generalist? Well, there is no need to dedicate yourself to a single branch of magic or to your affinity,” professor Silverbark said. “It’s completely possible to reach far without such a dedication. Why, the Erudite doesn’t have such a dedication, instead learning as many spells from as many schools as he can. It’s going to make your life at school more challenging, and I still recommend that you add the ritual to your grimoire, but I won’t force you to undergo it.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I nodded seriously. I might be happy with my affinity magic, but I wasn’t so happy that I was going to make all of my other, more traditional magic worse, just to make my affinity stronger.

Maybe after I got my hands on the magic for conjuration and transmutation, I would be willing to pursue one of those fields to the exclusion of the other.

But for now, I thought it was best to keep my ether pool neutral.

“Why can’t you undergo a dedication for all of the schools of magic and become better at everything?” someone asked, rasing a hand. The minotaur who was sitting with Yushin and I let out a soft puff of laughter.

“A ritual spell that confers a permanent ability like this only works once, I’m afraid,” professor Silverbark said. “Take, for example, the fifth circle ritual of mage’s sight, which bestows a permanent version of ethersight onto the caster. Such a thing can only be done one time, it cannot be done over and over again to improve ethersight infinitely.”

“Could you split your ether pool, then form a binding with each one?” the same student asked. “Or even split it into ten parts, then have a pool for each type of magic.”

This time, professor Silverbark hesitated.

“It is… technically… possible,” he said. “But I want to make one thing very, very clear. In all of recorded history, there have only ever been three known people to survive splitting magic within themselves of any sort. One was a life enforcement practitioner, one was a songcaller, and the final was a psychic.”

The professor looked over us slowly, meeting our eyes one at a time.

“Let me repeat that. While records and artifacts from before the age of sundering are rare, we still have consistent records for close to four and a half thousand years – the entire age of sunder and the age of stars up until now. In all of that time, in four. And a half. THOUSAND. Years.”

He took a deep breath and continued.

“Three people have survived splitting their internal magic. You are not the exception. You are not the genius who is going to crack the code and find the way to cheat Magyk’s rules and wisdom. If you try to split your ether pool, you would be better off buying some rope to hang yourself.”

His voice didn’t have even the faintest hint of amusement or joking in his tone.

“I know that every one of you who’s made it here is talented and special. And that deserves to be celebrated. Many of you will reach fifth circle. Even those who don’t will still become powerful enough to serve well in the military, or as the local power of a smaller town. But you are not so special as to do what four and a half thousand years of people cannot.”

There was silence for a moment, then the student who had asked shot his hand into the air.

“Okay, but what if I had an affinity for splitting pools of magic? That would let me do it safely and I cou–”

“Do you?” professor Silverbark asked, sounding a little annoyed, but mostly genuinely curious.

“Well, no, but if I did, or better yet if I found someone who did, then I could become a supermage that was able to double my efficiency with all of my spells.”

He was silent for a second, then added.

“And besides, I don’t think it’s fair to tell us we won’t be the exception, when clearly there are exceptions to the rule. Kind of disingenuous of you, if you ask me.”

The last bit was so unbearably smug that I glared at the student.

“What if you had an affinity for becoming Magyk herself? What if you had an affinity for the entire world? For Etherius itself and its endless planes? What if you had a destiny mark that gave you the power to kill a god with a sneeze? What if you had a bloodline that let you access magic from the age of the wilds?” professor Silverbark asked, clearly annoyed now. “What if, what if, what if. Yes, you can construct wild hypotheticals all day long in order to try and cover every possible situation. But that isn’t the world we live in. General rules exist for a reason. They are general. Every system of rules that has ever been devised by man, beast, god, or demon has had some sort of exception that can be found somewhere. But that does not mean the rule is invalid.”

The student huffed.

“I was just asking questions,” he muttered, and professor Silverback closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten.

“There is the arc–” Wesley started, only for professor Silverbark to shoot him a stern look.

“Don’t,” the professor warned. “Everyone, take some time to look over the syllabus, get some water, whatever you need to do. In ten minutes, I’ll start the lecture.”

I honestly felt for Silverbark, and Yushin glanced over at me.

“Which of these spells do you not know?” she asked. I flipped over the list, scanning and slowly reading them aloud.

“I don’t know identify, sleep, and slowfall from the first circle,” I said. “Got the rest though. From second circle… Arcane seal, find object, and improve quality. Finally for third. Jeez, I don’t know most of these. Etherius locker, flyte, general dispel, create tower, ward rune, or…”

I squinted at the last bit. It said ‘choice of: fireball, aquatic torrent, earth eruption, air expansion, or force pulse’. I assumed that didn’t mean we had to master all of them, only one, so I glanced at Yushin.

“I don’t know any of the offensive spells for third circle, but I’ll probably pick up either the torrent, force pulse, or air expansion,” I said. “Then there’s everything related to the non-spellcraft bits, like tool creation and stuff. What about you? Any you don’t know?”

“I know most of the spells, but I do not know flyte, create tower, or improve quality, nor do I know tool creation. I know you do not seem to be bothered by the library, but if you would like, I could provide you with a copy of some of these, so you do not waste time.”

I bit my lip.

“I don’t need to know all of them,” I said. “I’ll learn them. But I would love to get a headstart on Etherius locker. That’s like your spatial ring, right?”

Yushin nodded.

“I can get you that spell. It is well worth the effort to learn. Besides, we need to sell off the rest of the materials that Alastor received.”

I nodded, having almost forgotten about that.

“Tomorrow?” I asked. “We can check out the town and stuff. I’ll wear a false face and enshroud.”

We agreed, and then settled back to listen to professor Silverbark’s lecture. I couldn’t get my nerves off of the idea of my next class, however.

Because as soon as this class and lunch were over, it would be time for Applied Mage Combat.