Xopil peered over at his bed. There was a cat, wolf, leopard, fox and bunny each curled up and contentedly snoring away. It is nice how they don't shed... that would make sleeping a nightmare.
"You just thought something rude didn't you?" Felicyta's ears twitched as one of her eyes opened.
"Nah, you're imagining it." Xopil waved his hand dismissively. "As long as you're up though, maybe you can help me understand this spacial magic."
The foxgirl tilted her head as she pretended to consider it.
"I'll scratch you some more..." Xopil sighed as he was forced into bribery.
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"I can see why you've been confused, this tome barely scratches the surface," Felicyta craned her neck, as she emphasised the word.
"Are you sure this isn't a disadvantage?" Xopil asked, while obliging her blatant request.
"..." Felicyta fell into thought as she tried to find the best way to describe it. "Not really... it feels pretty natural to seek the attention of an alpha male, even if he happens to be a skunk."
Xopil was instantly sorry he asked. "Ok, so back to spacial magic then..."
"It has uses in many applications. Binding, compressing, expanding and to a degree exploding, and there's still plenty more, including a lesser form of telekinesis where you could bind an object and move it around. This is much more costly and inefficient compared to actual telekinesis though." Felicyta explained, and then added, "But, from what you told us earlier, you're quite the master of this type of magic so you knowing absolutely nothing about it is a bit worrisome. The level of mastery you described combined with your lack of knowledge... well suffice to say I'm afraid to be on the same planet as you..."
Xopil took a moment to absorb what she said. Taking his silence as a cue to continue, she did so, "And the fact that you can control time... well, forget being on the same planet, there's nowhere that's safe when you combine these two magics. Even masters of time magic don't attempt actively to do what you do when you're asleep... and still you wonder why each of us seek and try to monopolize your attention. Forgetting animal nature for a minute, it's astounding you don't have all the women in the world flocking to you."
"Yeah, I could do without that headache thanks." Xopil retorted, "So please don't jinx me."
"...I'll not deny it. Your request and concern are invalid. As we've already exhausted ourselves trying." Felicyta laughed lightly, "Your passive resistance is quite something and should be praised, considering you didn't even know."
"Excuse me?" Xopil was stunned.
"Yeah, we've tried everything we have at our disposal. Suffice it to say, we're very grateful that you willingly want to pet, scratch and cuddle with us, since we couldn't force you to if you didn't want to."
"Mind or thought control magic?" Xopil asked.
"There's no such thing, although illusions can be considered the next best thing, especially when overlapped with certain jinxes and curses." Felicyta replied, "Unfortunately for us, you've proved quite immune to our attempts, and even at the risk of self-boasting, we're not exactly push-overs..."
"That's good to know." Xopil fell silent after that, and simply digested all that information.
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"Fely, you can use a bit of every elemental magic right?" Xopil asked, to which Felicyta nodded, "I'm a bit of a dabbler, as such I'm not as good with them as the others are. You may want to ask Caly for proper instruction on fire, Winter for earth, Beda for water and Lexi for air.
"Can you teach me the basics of fire tonight?" Xopil asked, then thought, She has no idea but she's already set to be the strongest of all of them.
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"He's been at that for quite a while hasn't he?" Calypso asked, as they watched Xopil.
"Since long before the sun came up. He's been messing with that spacial magic of his, then he switched to practicing with fire." Winter replied.
"It hasn't been that long but still, the flames are starting to appear to be majestic so there's been at least some progress." Beda added.
"Forgive me for playing with fire, but it is one of the easier magics to learn." Xopil replied to the trio.
"That's only true to a degree..." Lexi added as she sat down next to the others. "Most people can only perfect one school of magic in a lifetime."
"Caly, let me see your fire magic." Xopil paused in his practice. Calypso waved her tail in an arc sending tiny sparks of fire into the air around her. These sparks quickly grew larger combining into a single flame with a large yellow core and a smaller area of blue surrounding it. The size of the flame and intensity of the heat made a mockery of Xopil's efforts till now. Caly waved her tail once more and the flame dispersed harmlessly, with one last flicker of desperation before it faded entirely.
"Pretty as usual Caly," Winter praised.
"Is that the best you can do?" Xopil asked seriously as he approached them. He pinched his fingers together, with a snap of his fingers and a twist of his wrist, he held a tiny flame as it danced on his palm. The flame itself was only an inch tall. The core of the flame was a tiny pitch black dot, while the area around the dot was a deep purple. "Theatrics aside... I'll let this flame speak for itself."
The four of them dazed as they looked at the flame. They felt no heat from it, at the same time they could sense a deep well of destructive force there in that innocent looking flame.
"H-how?" Caly swallowed hard as she peered at the midnight flame in front of her eyes.
"If you keep the mindset that you can always improve, and keep training with that in mind, you'll come to realise that even this flame can be made better. Ah, and... this isn't just fire magic, there's also spacial magic at play in there controlling the heat... since the heat from this flame at this distance... well, I don't want to scare you."
"Two magic types?" The girls' eyes glossed over as Xopil dispersed the flame.
"What?" Xopil backed away and asked when he noticed the intense gazes he was receiving, "You never considered augmenting magic with magic? ...This goes back to believing there's always room for improvement... and that little flame wasn't all that great either."
"When I can weave air, fire, water, earth, space and time magic together... I could hold a supernova in the palm of my hand... not that I actually could contain such a destructive force as soon as I could make it, but that goes back to improvement. On that note, a supernova would only be the beginning... but I'm not even close to that yet." Xopil stopped talking and only then he realized his audience was fainted on the ground. "I wonder which point knocked them unconscious...probably weaving the six magic types together?"
Xopil wrapped the girls in a spacial bubble and carried them all with him as he returned back to the inn.
Not too far away, a fox with glossed eyes was walking along mumbling, "What's a supernova? And that little flame could be made better? Just what could I do if I weaved my five elements together?"
"My advice is to start small so you don't hurt yourself," Xopil's voice interrupted her mutterings and caused her to jump in surprise. "But, I'm glad you see your potential now. Thinking that mastery of magic should be done one at a time is flawed. Starting tomorrow, I'd like to ask you to teach the others the basics of spacial magic... but I have no doubt that after what they just saw they'll be asking on their own."
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As Xopil had predicted, Felicyta had four requests to learn spacial magic. Xopil suggested they learn all the elements prior to jumping into spacial magic, since one magic in particular will make that process easier. Now school was in session and the girls were all taking turns teaching and learning the four elements together. Xopil was also paying close attention. Only after they all had a grasp of the basics of all the elements, and they were able to manifest the basics into physical phenomena did they move on to their ultimate goal of learning spacial magic.
"Don't just jump into mixing magic together... make sure you have a solid grasp of the magic first." Xopil warned a little too late, as Calypso caused a bit of an explosion by haphazardly mixing fire and air together. Xopil laughed lightly as the others looked on, "As ever, the curious cat..."