As tempted as he was to continue tracing the line of thought, Jeb knew that he needed to sleep more than he needed to think about the connection between Alchemy and Ritual. Jeb looked longingly out the window, only now realizing how often he had taken naps in the fields outside of his Brewery rather than make the trek back to his room in the Dormitory. Sighing a little, he moved back to his room and fell into bed. Glancing over at his lute case, he realized that it had been far too long since he had given his Bound object the attention it deserved.
In the morning, Jeb woke up and took the lute out of its case. It still seemed to glow, which was a relief. However, the strings had all fallen out of tune. Trying his best not to think of that as a metaphor for himself, Jeb tuned the strings and then poured some Mana into the instrument. The lute took the Mana easily, and seemed a little stronger for it.
After just a few minutes of playing, Jeb realized that he had lost a lot of the calluses on his fingers. It almost hurt to play the lute again. Rather than risk injuring himself, he put the lute down and moved to the cafeteria. It was still early enough that the crowd of graduate students were still filing out. Jeb recognized a few of them from his Ritual Magic course, and they exchanged pleasant nods. It was clear that the students leaving the cafeteria were only partially awake, though, so there was no conversation.
After a short breakfast, Jeb made his way back to the Brewery to finish preparing the barrels Catherine had said the Emporium needed. Whatever spark had connected Brewing to Ritual Magic the night before had vanished in the light of the morning. Jeb created his beers and started rolling them down the hallway to the Emporium. He found the empty spots where barrels should go and hefted them up.
Looking around, Jeb noticed that the room was a little dingier than he was happy with. It was nothing terrible, but there were small scuffs on the floor where people had pushed their chairs too aggressively. With a quick glance at his schedule reminding him that he had nothing else scheduled for the day, Jeb spent the rest of the morning straightening the Emporium up. Catherine and Declan came in to set up for their lunch time hours just as he was finishing.
“Good morning Jeb,” Declan said. “What are you doing?”
Jeb shrugged. “I’m just cleaning up a little. There were some scuffs on the floor, and then I noticed that the floor could use some oiling generally, and then-”
He paused, realizing that he was rambling. Taking a deep breath, he restarted, “I didn’t have anything scheduled this morning, so I decided to spend some time on the Emporium.” Looking around, he realized that he had made some major changes to the layout of the space.
“Oh!” he cried out, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disrupt the flow of the space.”
Catherine shook her head, chuckling. “No, Jeb, this is completely fine. Declan and I had been discussing rearranging the space last term.”
The conversation died out then, all three people feeling somewhat awkward about the way that the conversation had proceeded. Each took a place behind the bar, and people started filing in as soon as the bell struck the hours. With all three of them there, it was no real effort to keep up with the steady flow of customers entering and ordering. As the rush slowly faded, the three began to chat amiably with each other.
Jeb spent the rest of his afternoon working in the Stacks. Even though Ritual Magic was his favorite course this term, he still wanted to do well in the rest of the courses he was taking. Thankfully, Dean Aquam had encouraged him to take a relatively easy load for the term. He had also encouraged Jeb to consider how he wanted to develop his Skills. Today that meant that Jeb was going to decide what other First Tier Glyphs he should learn.
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There was, as it turned out, a downside to learning an infinite number of Glyphs. Each Glyph took a tenth of a tenth of a percent of the Experience he should gain multiplied by each Tier Jeb gained. At his current Tier and with as many Glyphs as he knew, it was hardly a drop at all. As he grew stronger, though, the number of Glyphs he knew would start to be a hindrance on his progression. A part of him still rebelled against that, wanting to learn everything. Looking at all the Glyphs he knew already, though, and seeing how rarely he used them, Jeb slowly began to accept that he probably knew enough Glyphs for now. He would learn more as he needed to, but for now he sighed, closing the Book of Common Glyphs and putting it on the pile of books to return.
The next day, he made his way over to Ritual Magic early, noting that he was still among the last to arrive. Everyone in the room was stretching and chatting in a circle, and they made space for Jeb.
“What do you think?” one asked, turning to him.
“In general?” Jeb asked, chuckling slightly.
She chuckled as well. “I would be curious about the answer to that some other time, but I was asking in relation to his question,” she nodded at the man standing to Jeb’s right.
Jeb turned to face him, and he rolled his eyes slightly, smiling. “I was wondering about Dean Aquam’s comment the other day in class. He told us not to push our Mana into that Ritual, but that we would be expected to do so later.”
Jeb nodded.
“How do you think that will work? Most all of us have very focused Mana Signatures which are fundamentally incompatible with others in the course.”
“Why was it not an issue with the dance?” Jeb asked in return.
He frowned and looked off, unable to answer the question. The woman beside him laughed louder.
“I wish I had thought of that response!”
Jeb nodded and began to stretch, trying to follow what the rest of the crowd was doing. His classmate was not done with the conversation, however.
“What are you studying at the Academy?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” Jeb replied. “I’m in the Remedial College right now while I figure out what I want to focus on.”
A new light shone in her eyes. “So you would be Dean Aquam’s new pet project.” She looked him up and down, clearly considering something.
“Pet project?” Jeb asked.
She shrugged, transitioning to another stretch. “Most students who attend the Academy tend to come in knowing what they want to specialize in. Some do not, however. Most Mages who do not wish to specialize are gently encouraged to move to the Adventurer’s Guild. There are some who choose to stay despite that encouragement.”
“I wasn’t encouraged to leave,” Jeb replied hesitantly.
“Hmm,” she hummed. “Regardless, Dean Aquam tends to step in to take care of students who do not leave. I think that you’re the third or fourth since I came to the Academy. I’m glad to see that you’ve kept up the first half of the tradition, at least.”
Seeing Jeb’s look, she continued, “causing chaos and generally making life more interesting. Great job with the Emporium, by the way. I’m glad that you managed to partner with Lionheart. He makes good beers, and I have missed them during my time at the Academy.”
Dean Aquam coughed at that point, and everyone stopped stretching and turned to face him.
“Welcome back to Ritual Magic,” he said. “Today we will be learning our first full class Ritual.”
Seeing hands start to rise, he continued, “some might have noticed that there were no assigned readings for today. In part, this is because I am using this course for my own research. I will not be informing you what this Ritual does before we perform it as a class.”
The hands fell, but other hands raised.
“There is nothing intrinsically dangerous about this Ritual, outside of the standard dangers present in any Magical endeavor.”
The new hands lowered, though some of the class was clearly unhappy to do so.
“Now, then,” Aquam said, mist forming in the middle of the space, “let us learn the Ritual. It requires twelve dancers, but each dancer has the same role. With that in mind, let us form a single line and begin the dance.” He moved to stand behind the figure of mist, and the rest of the class lined up behind him.