The bishop was not the only one insistent that we pay attention to our lessons. As a result, lady Acacia’s lessons continued apace.

“Let’s work through your spell forms.” Lady Acacia led the class that had grown over her time here. The gender disparity remained in place while my male cousins waited for me to assign my stats before I could unlock their magic. While waiting for that, all my female cousins and I were there. Most of them still towered over me physically, but at least I was at the top of the class with my magic.

“Light.” Lady Acacia called out.

“Phos.” We all replied, holding various balls of different coloured light. You could adapt the colour of the light by adding modifiers. I like blue, Phos – ble, but the others all had their favourites.

“Water.” Came next.

“Nero.” We chimed as we worked through the spells we had learned over the last year. Lady Acacia had insisted on us learning the basics before attempting practical applications, although that had not stopped most of the cousins from pranking their brothers at some point. I was not sure who was the least popular. My sister Aleera for giving them access to magic or me for not being old enough to do the same for them.

“Air.” She rolled through the elements that she had taught us.

“Aeras” We held swirling balls of air. They were not visible to the naked eye but to Sense mana which showed the mana being held in each hand even if the eye could not see it.

“Fire.” They were not the elements as I understood them, but they were called so here.

“Fotia.” Surprisingly no longer my favourite after burning my fingers more than once. The trick was to keep the mana moving upward. Else you ended up with burnt hands. We had practised this one with buckets of water for immediate immersion, but that had not stopped us from requiring the bishop to help heal some of our accidents in learning how to do it.

“Earth.” She moved through her commands rapidly due to the repetition of the spells but still insisted on us working our way through them.

“Gi.” We said in unison, the earth replacing the fire we had held only moments ago. Once we had worked through the conjured elements, it was time to move on to their manipulation.

“Heat.” For this task, we all had wooden balls. Naturally, elves choose the material to work with rather than metal. So I supposed it made sense when you could quickly grow another practice ball even after its destruction.

“Vrasmos.” Again it was necessary to keep the mana expenditure under control or risk harming yourself, especially if you were holding it.

“Freeze.” Helped put things back to where they were originally.

“Pagoma.” But, of course, we continued past that point. Ice spidered along the grains of the wood as the water was forced out through its expansion.

“Compress.”

“Sympier.” There was no noticeable difference that you could see with the wood, but Lady Acacia had promised that should we grow proficient in the skill, it would be possible to transform the wood into weapons and armour stronger than steel. Hence the practice.

“Expand.” Again no obvious difference to our practice balls but a return to their original state. The wooden walls were all the weaker for the mana and effects that had poured through them. It would only be attempted once if we were working out magic for a permanent change.

“Epekeinou.”

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Spellcraft was relatively straightforward once you knew the words and had the mana to cast them. The complication arose once you tried to do more with the basics. Especially once you attempted to start casting at range.

“Throw a Water ball.”

It was simple enough to form a water ball, not much more complicated than creating water, but once you had called it forth, you needed to add a modifier to maintain it once it had left your hand. Otherwise, it would dissipate before it ever hit the target.

“Nero bala voli.”

This is where my mana source helped me stand head and shoulders above the rest. By this point, Lady Acacia was alternating requests, with each cousin asking for a different spell. This is because they were learning all of them but were focusing on separate elements and spells as they specialised, but they also needed the mana to work on all of them.

On the other hand, I was expected to keep casting each spell alongside my cousins. It helped that they could nearly all assign their stats to their newly awakened magic, but most of them had come into their magic later than most nobles, so they did not have a magic-targeted build. As a result, I still had more mana when compared to them, and it regenerated far more rapidly. Lady Acacia continued. To call out the next spell going, I rushed to cast my Spellcraft quickly to keep up.

“Throw air ball. . . Throw fireball. . . Throw earth ball.” She worked down the line asking a different cousin for each spell while I kept going.

I was finally throwing fireballs. However, it did little to the straw targets already soaked with water balls first. They would undoubtedly set alight dry kindling well enough, but straw balls usually took more than a single fireball. They were great, though, for deflecting wild beasts with few willing to brave the flaming missile they would always turn aside. On the other hand, if moving sufficiently quickly, warriors could easily burst through the flames, as Namir had demonstrated against Lady Acacia. Though only once in a demonstration of what was possible, as even he did not like the singed fur or whiskers it left him with. Though he still objected most to the water balls soaking his fur. He would make her pay dearly for her success whenever she successfully targeted him.

This was just the first step to actually having ranged magical weapons. Balls were only one of the most effective weapons. Suitable for playing tag unless you get a direct hit to the throat, eye or temple. Most of the time, they could be shrugged off. Not so with the next set of spells we had learned.

“Air Arrow.”

“Aera velos.”

“Fire Spear”

“Fotia dory.”

Water spike

“Nero akida.”

“Earth dart.”

“Gi velos.”

Each one had an added difficulty for casting, requiring the conjuration and stabilisation of the element and some other form of augmentation in shaping the projectile, such as an air arrow to give it a point and power behind it. The Fire spear also elongated the effect to deliver an entire body's worth of fire to one spot. Water spike manipulated the water temperature, turning it solid for physical damage. Finally, while Earth darts compressed, the Earth formed to create something closer to stone that would not break upon impact but drill deep, especially if you could put a spin on them.

. . .

Among all the academic lessons from Lady Acacia, the martial training from Namir, the theology and ethics from the bishop, the body conditioning from the compass knight, the magical stone carving and building with my mother, the craftsman work with my cousins and my merchant experiments with Aleera it sometimes got a little too much. Stats could work wonders, but I still liked to skip town now and then; my father was the best way to achieve that.

A line from Shakespeare said, "It is a wise father that knows his own child.” He could always tell when I was stressed out too much and offered an alternative to working myself into physical and mental exhaustion. He would scoop me up and take me sailing, passing on my apologies to my tutors and whoever else I should have been working with that day. That or he just wanted to go sailing and needed an appropriate excuse.

I would feel slightly guilty for disappearing for a day, but I always returned refreshed from our trips. The sea washed away my stresses about my progress and future, and I could focus simply on the here and now. Listen to the waves and wind and let them wash my troubles away. They always seemed smaller compared to the vastness of the open ocean.

Our sailing routes only really consisted of the three. The first was to the mana reef and back. The second was to Wester Levante, and the third to Little Wester. You could do all three in a day, but then there was little time for anything other than sailing. So I had pushed to travel a bit further east and see if we couldn’t reach one of the small islands that Mercurio always stopped.

Father was hesitant to sail further afield as it would mean either sailing through the night or being unable to return in a single day. I’m sure my mother’s fears played a part in his decision. When asked about going further west though to explore, the answer was a clear no. The deeper the ocean, the more likely we were to attract trouble.

The trouble that could swallow our boat whole if the tales were to be believed, and he did.

. . .