Boots clicking against the tiles of the common room, Val spared the barest second to greet the scholars that noticed her entrance. She plumped into her corner-shaped desk, a single goal positioned at the top of her priorities.
To piece together the missing bits surrounding the Speartailed Scorpion encounter.
She pressed a palm on each of the transparent dividers bordering her view, dimming the material. A sheen unfurled at the rear of her office chair, promising a high degree of privacy. Not able to risk the chance of Caro peeking over the shoulder during her online scouring, she held off the study for forty-eight hours. Cracking one finger after the next, her laptop flashed on, ready to solve the scorpion's odd death.
As a result, she connected the wire curling around the branch’s desktop to her device, permitting her whatever details allowed outside the Laws of Secrecy. She went ahead and typed a description of the phenomenon of the early week and it sprung forth a flood of incoherent terms.
Aura manipulation, mind geases, the element of command—every sort of topic streamed past her screen, yet none were accurate enough to be the answer. A slew concepts popped up, requiring the reader to be versed in the arcane. I’m the last person to understand any of this. Either way, she forged on, eyes blurring as the definitions spiraled into sentences arduous to simply read.
“Okay…” she cradled her head between her hands. “Let’s focus on what I do know.”
Magic didn’t come forth unsolicited, there needed to be a will in question and a target in sight. Teachers loved the “asking for a cup of water” example to explain the separate, and yet connected parts of the idea.
Whether or not she might be excruciatingly thirsty on the inside, strangers wouldn’t willingly bring a glass in the absence of a request. That’s the will.
Then came the target; who did she ask? Should she have pleaded to the air, people would be hard pressed to act on her words, unsure if it was them she sent the inquiry to.
Val had appealed to a force that day—that half made sense. The trouble came when it was time to clarify what exactly she called out to. The debacle refreshed her earlier days as a trainee, when Magus Kane took the time to explain the misalignment of her will.
“What you control is proportional to your knowledge,”he had elaborated. “It’s a general rule of thumb: you can’t control what you don’t know.”
In her case, it rang resoundingly true.
Regardless of her anguished demands to the Metal Gate, she didn’t receive a response before the revelation of coldsteel’s existence. As soon as she sent a mental probe to the specific sub-element, the difficulties of her faulty casting disappeared.
So, Val ruminated on the inner workings behind the potent word that left her lips, centering in on the notion. More existed beyond the distressful intention of rescuing Caro. Ultimately, it was her father’s vestiges that prompted the shout directed at the chimera. His principles intertwined with her day-to-day conduct, lingering onwards as an echo of his former self. Almost… as if a faint trace of him, his entity.
“That doesn’t help my case,” she groaned, settling her forehead on the cool desk. Her attempt to loosen the ball of questions wound up with a growing headache. At this point, Bo’s derisive comment seemed closer to the answer than the millions of answers generated on her laptop. He, too, is another jigsaw.
Most would rule his position to be on the lower side of the guild, no higher than fifth-class. It was practically obligatory for a Hunter of his rank to put in hours of work in an EC-room, ensuring their invariable spell caches weren't detrimental. Yet, the past five weeks implied the opposite, with even scratches impossible to sight on his armour set.
On any of four, actually.
The tussle with the Lifemonger left the Strikers the most drained they'd been in their entire career. By all means, the squad should’ve come across an ounce of difficulty in the face of the three-starred creature. Passing through its highly erosive barricade, not a single hair strand of theirs seemed out of place.
Soon, she found herself deleting the words on her search bar, and entering the names of her teammates. A little snooping won't kill anyone. Plus, I need the distraction.
Awards, notable acts, rift records—nothing of the type came up. As far as she was concerned, rifts weren't private. A squad as well-oiled and highly-trained as Rick's team, in Val's humble opinion, must've wracked up piles of fame. Or, at the bare minimum, heaps of notoriety after the badge stunt Silann pulled. Curious.
A pulsing sound emanated from her desk's sheen, indicating a desire for entrance. She swiped the rune etched to the counter and her soul signature cleared the request.
The material dissipated into yellow-blue particles, revealing a young scholar. “Master Winsford asks for your presence."
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Sunlight flooded Winsford's office, eliciting a bright smile whenever it caught the corners of Val’s olive face. The steep windows gave a wide display of Atera’s magnificent skyline, an early spring fog obscuring the crowns of the multi-floored structures. She felt her jitters recede as she inhaled, an ever-present smell of a freshly-cracked book scenting.
The metal door creaked open and Master Winsford strolled in, his steps strained and laborious. “Apologies, my meeting ran late.”
“It's no trouble at all, Master,” Val replied, quick to sit. Her green eyes fixed on the aged Auricean, groaning as he lowered himself into his chair. “If you don’t mind my asking, I’m curious as to why I was called.”
“It’s far from anything awful,” he assured. “I merely believe we are putting your high PAST to major waste.”
He unclipped the blue robe cloaking his suit, whisking it on the seat’s back. “I’m placing a limit on your meditation and diving. You’re an initiate under my wing—an enchanter. It’s time we move away from theory and dial up your training.”
Val failed to hide her grimace. “Diving I can understand. Meditation, on the other hand, seems to me like a necessity, rather than a hindrance. I barely have twenty aether strands to my name.“
“I’m afraid additional meditation is not the solution,” he said. “Ever wonder why universities don’t base your applications off the statistics made during the trial?”
“I didn’t even know they had access to those in the first place,” Val answered.
“They have everything right down to the footage,” he added.
She leaned forward. “Does that include audio?”
At the gaping mouth of Blue Cave, Val recalled slipping her mother’s condition to Caro. The details passed were nothing precarious, a simple explanation of Aether Incontinence Syndrome. Nothing they didn’t have already. That didn’t mean that it wouldn’t chip away at her consciousness, at a loss on where else the videos landed.
“Heavens, no.” Winsford chuckled. “Participants tend to find a diverse number of things in the trials. Friends, enemies… partners. Audio is very least that’s edited out prior to reaching institutions.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“What, a few love confessions scare the universities?”
“Less of a scare, more of an annoyance,” he muttered. “Nevertheless, the stats jotted down amid the trials are momentary. They tell nothing besides a mage’s potential and it’s hard to sell yourself based on what you will be in lieu of what you presently are.
He placed a writing utensil on either side of his desk, emphasizing the length across the pair of pens. “There is a four-month gap for application deadlines to discern a mage’s position in Janos, and where they may be in Tricemeber. In the stretch of this grace period, there must be evident growth—that is their determining factor.”
“I feel like that furthers my point, Master.” Val rubbed at her brow. “My ASC has to be higher.”
“Can you legitimately tell me that you can acquire aether strands faster than a privileged Novice consuming one elixir after the next?”
Val bit her lips, her gaze lowering.
“Everyone acclimates AS. Everyone learns spells. Everyone develops theoretical knowledge. Admission boards realize this, and if they’re truly scouting for the best talent, these are the last metrics they’re tracking.”
“These metrics, they make a person,” she countered. “It’s the entire reason I was hesitant to join the trials in the first place. Look. My ASC is glaring. It’s literally the first thing a person uses to feel me out. You’re telling me the Boards of Admission are any different?”
“Here is where many are led astray.” He whipped a pen in her face. “They want to know how you, personally, as a person have grown.”
“Okay, now you’re losing me.” Val’s nose crinkled up. “They want to see my inner growth?”
“Your inner growth and more. Let’s use Miss Hayes, your friend, as a subject.” He raised an eyebrow, as if asking her for her permission to continue.
“Sure.”
“In the Tripartite Trial, she pushes far too deep in battles. Does that detrimental habit remain by the end of Tricemeber? Has she learned to work as a team? Perhaps she’s discovered how to better protect her left side?”
Val blinked at the string of defective habits listed without delay.
“It’s great that she has an astonishingly-high ASC. Absolutely amazing,” he repeated. “However, all things considered, it’s a drop in the pool of talent.”
“Which means my high PAST isn’t going to cut it.”
“It’s not to be missed,” he said, “Only, it needs to be served up with something else.”
“And that’s supposed to be this dialed-up training?”
“More than that,” he replied. “The lessons learned will aid you in aspects you require as a mage. Not to mention that an approvable performance in the competition would look stellar on your application.”
Damn. The Auricean enchanter stacked a bundle of sound points, a few too many to ignore.
“Fine.” She crossed her arms, eyes on the lofty view of the city below. “No meditation.”
His lips hinted upwards. “The goal of these exercises is to enhance your aether control, as that is one of the abilities tested at the competition.”
He snapped and a guitar arrived in his grasp, fresh out of his storage ring. Strings of glassified aether were strung up on the clear fretboard, the textured body made out of cloudy wood. Val's hands involuntarily grasped for the item and she forced her limbs to its side.
He let out a breathy laugh. “Miss Hayes warned me this would happen. Here.”
She was swift to snatch the instrument, not caring to throw the leather strap over the shoulder. Trying for a simple strum, her heart broke as it let loose six muted clicks. It was no different than plucking a disconnected electric guitar; no power, no sound.
“Each of these things has tiny, minuscule enchantments.” Winsford squinted, like he was reading the inscriptions from across the desk. Val reexamined the vibrating strings, inspecting the blue matter. I don’t see anything.
He searched through his desk and retrieved a thin book, sliding it across the glowing counter. Lines and lines of numbers greeted her as she cracked it open, a couple of them carrying numerous decimals. “That’s the answer key.”
Val glanced at the wisened enchanter. “An answer key to play… a guitar?”
“It tells you exactly how many aether strands—or parts of it—you’d need to power the sound inscription, enabling the string to emit a note,” he supplied. “In the event you figure out how to play a simple bass line smoothly, you’d be on your way to mastering emission.”
“Emission…” she echoed. “I remember Charles mentioning it once. One of the three primary skills of enchanting, or something along those lines.”
“She's correct, it's the feat of outsourcing energy from within your channel,” he added, spindly fingers aglow. “A vital technique to an enchanter just as it would be to an adventurer. Extremely transferable, might I add.”
Transferable? She stared at the shifting balls of wispy energy dancing atop his fingertips, her thoughts returning to Aeron’s first lesson. To this day, she couldn’t harvest an energy core. There wasn’t sufficient time to leave her room for trial and error because her ASC cut it short in a matter of minutes.
Emission might very well be the key to the problem.
“The next tool I want you to have is a model of a Recognition Rectangle.” He spread his arms wide and a four-by-six metal plate popped into his grasp. It looked like a next-gen mirror, garnering the perfect reflection on its smooth surface. Like gazing at a different dimension.
“There are an untold number of enchantments aligned on its top. Each lights up once the right amount of aether is poured into it. The closer you are,” his hand hovered past the corner, and a geometric line marred the tool’s markless face. “The brighter it glimmers.”
“First, you need to find it.” He let the tool drop, and it hid the entirety of his quartz counter. “This aids in the development of detection. Certain materials aren’t as inclined to allow energy scraped onto them, and enchanters are urged to seek out the easiest entry point.”
“Nothing here tells me how to find it, though.” She dangled the book. “For emission, I have clues, a set of directions. This looks much harder, and I have much less help.”
“I want you to concentrate. Go on, close your eyes.”
Val’s green irises remained on the enchanter, suspicious.
“Go on,” he pushed.
Hesitant for a brief moment more, she shut her eyelids and welcomed the darkness that followed.
“Focus your senses on the Recognition Rectangle.”
Val flipped her mind’s eye inside out, exiting the Metal Gate’s domain and perceiving the metaphysical plane of her environment. Motes of blue essence remained idle in every corner of the room, except for the Recognition Rectangle resided. It wafted out in tiny bouts of flares, scurrying away from the device and slowing to a stop as it edged elsewhere.
“By now, you’ve noticed that there’s aether emanating from it.”
Val opened her eyes, deciding against activating Vague View. Not like she’d be able to make sense of what she’d perceived. A tactic for later, then.
“The lines inscribed on this device are currently releasing energy ever-so-slightly,” Master Winsford supplied. “You need to detect it. Utilize the very same senses that allow you insight onto its aether levels.”
Val blinked. “You want me to trace obscured lines, and then emit a specific amount to keep it glowing on top of that?”
“I never took you for a complainer.”
She winced at the stark slight. “I’m not. Not usually, anyways. I just have my doubts, and if this doesn’t work—if this fails, university is no longer an option.”
“You might not be accepted into any universities if it does work.” He huffed a tired sigh. “What good does worrying do?
Plenty of it. For the last four years, worrying kept Val on her feet. It made sure to verify what she could, and doubt the things that didn’t hold up to her standards. As much as it held her back on numerous instances, it’d saved her life a great deal of times.
That said, was free tutelage a part of those topics to dwell on? Aside from the pause in meditation, the option entailed a string of positives, leaving little more to muse about.
“Nothing.” Letting the guitar ly on the side of the seat, Val froze mid-action. “Wait. Charlee mentioned three vital skills. What’s the third one?”
Master Winsford waved a hand. “It’s a Rookie-level competition—they won’t test for intention. We’ll dabble in that afterwards.”
“Understood,” she nodded. “When do we start training?”
A glimmer of excitement crossed his face. “What better time, is there Valory, than now?”