The class made their way to the arena, where they were told to expect Rozoic. As the class made their way across the campus and noticed this time, they didn’t have a trailing peanut gallery, having no trailing students behind them if anything felt off. They had gotten so used to having to deal with onlookers that their absence made them feel uncomfortable.
Arriving in the arena itself, they found it was abandoned, all except for a single figure reclining in of the seats with his hat pulled down over his eyes. Approaching Hadean, the class were unsure of how to proceed.
“Do we wake him?” Daisy asked.
“Might be rude,” Kline added.
“OI, WAKE UP!” Tasha shouted as she kicked his boot. Startling in his seat Hadean sat upright and looked at the class and then at a pocket watch.
“Is the lesson over already?”
“No, Mr Hadean, we just arrived,” Maxwell replied.
“Oh… last lesson ran late?” the class just nodded.
“He put us through an illusionary dungeon,” Tasha explained.
“Oh, those can be nasty. Did he set a swarm of illusionary bugs to crawl all over you?” the class shook their heads, shuddering at the scenario.
“Gods… don't tell me he had you… He didn’t have you eat slugs and the like?” the class again shook their heads.
“What kind of illusionary dungeon doesn’t traumatise you?”
“Well, we had to solve puzzles and learn tricks,” Daisy explained.
“Wow… maybe my scolding actually got him to go too easy on you kids.”
“Scolding?” Bea repeated.
“Oh yeah, seeing how he was driving you kids, I had a word with Alex to tell him off for being a bully. I didn’t think he’d let up and go so soft on you, though. Real teaching requires balance.”
“So the dungeon we did was easy?”
“Sure sounds like it. Real illusionary dungeons cause a sensory overload, leave you unable to distinguish reality from the fake and drive you insane.”
“The way you describe it, Mr Hadean, we had a cakewalk?” Daisy asked to which he nodded.
“Do let me know if he is being a bully. I’ll set the little brat straight,” Hadean added, slapping the back of his hand into his palm.
“So if you kids just got here, Rozoic must be eagerly…” Hadean trailed off as he looked around the arena. “Where is that woman?”
Looking around the empty arena, he exhaled a deep exhausted sigh. It is a single road from the inn we are staying in. How could she… No, I should’ve assumed she would get lost; sorry, one moment, kids.”
Hadean rose from his seat, approached the centre of the arena grounds, and began changing a spell the class couldn’t quite hear; when he finished, a fireball shot into the sky and exploded into a large ball of green flame.
“Mr Hadean, what was that for?” Maxwell asked.
“It is to signal Rozoic where she needs to go. She should be here soon, see,” Hadean gestured through a break in the arena wall that looked out over the city on the plateaus below them. Beyond the city's outer walls, they could see the clouds begin to swirl into a vortex.
“Mr Hadean, what is that?”
“That is Rosy, she may get lost, but she is blindingly fast when she wants to be. Swift as the wind, you may say,” Hadean said with a light snort at his own joke.
Looking out at the growing vortex in the farmland far beyond the outer walls, they could even see other students who had been walking around looking out at the strange phenomena. Soon the vortex grew larger and darker till it was as if a full-on tornado had taken root.
As quickly as it descended, the vortex rose back into the clouds as if it were merely an illusion. The class were half inclined to believe they were still under an illusion from Alex. Looking up at the clouds above, they began warping in shape as the vortex that had previously been vertical was now horizontal.
The new vortex cut through the clouds above the city, racing towards the arena within. The class could even hear panicked screams as it raced across the sky far above. The vortex vanished similar to how it had in the distance, only this time, the clouds continued rushing forwards around a sphere of condensed clouds.
“And they complain I’m an attention hog,” Hadean muttered, looking up at the mass that began spinning and descending. In an explosion of wind and dust, the class had to shield their eyes only for when it cleared. They could make out a figure crouched in the middle.
The figure rose and rushed over to Hadean. Standing before the imposing fire mage was a petite woman who was glaring daggers at him as she held a finger to his chest.
“Haddy, why are you so bad at giving directions? I’m late to my first real lesson because of you!” Rozoic shouted.
“Rosy, you are just bad with following directions. I told you to go out of the inn and follow the main road up the plateaus to the school gates.”
“Stop lying. I followed the main road, and the only thing I found was a farm with a lot of well-armed farmers telling me to get off the private land.”
“Rosy, you went out of the city?” Hadean asked with an exhausted look.
“It is because of those bad directions.”
“Rosy, you were born and raised here. Hell, you went to school in this academy. How can you get lost in your own hometown?” Rozoic began to sputter at the point Hadean had made before she crossed her arms defiantly.
“I did; it was some of the best years of my life going here with Cyano. But It’s been years since I was last here. The city is entirely different than it was when I was a little girl. So it’s still your fault!”
The class decided to remain silent and not mention the city's layout had not been altered for centuries. Having had her fill of lecturing Hadean for his sin of expecting her to understand basic directions, Rozoic turned to the class.
“Hiya guys, sorry I’m a little late. My name is Rozoic. But feel free to call me Rosy!” she said with a friendly wave to the class. “You may know me as Rozoic the Tornado,” she hastily added when the class did not react to her name.
“Personally, though, I prefer the nickname my clan has given me,” she added with a grin looking at Hadean to provide the name.
“I guess I have to. This ladies and gentlemen, is the magnificent Rozoic the One Woman Orchestra!” Hadean announced as Rozoic jumped about, flashing her arms in weird ways, only to stop and glare at Hadean.
“Haddy, you said you would do pyrotechnics when I did my big showy introduction?!” Rozoic asked, looking annoyed.
“I did, but I thought it would be funnier if you made an absolute prat of yourself in front of them,” Hadean replied with a smirk.
“Grrr… Anyways!” Rozoic said, quickly shifting gears to focus back on the class. “I am a true master of all things wind magic. I know this may be hard to believe, but I can conjure tornados,” she added with a conspiratorial tone of voice. “I am as free as the wind with how I use it. I have walked the depths of the oceans.”
“Only because she wandered off during a beach break,” Hadean added.
“I have met the merfolk of the sunken continent.”
“And been promptly banished because she tried to coat their capital in a bubble of air.”
“I, with my mighty wind magic, have even walked through the depths of the dragon nest mountain range.”
“Only because she got lost when we were travelling north to the Jormungand River Isle from the octogram,” Hadean added.
“Err… isn’t the isle north of the mountain range?” Maxwell asked.
“Indeed it is Maxwell, we were all told to head to the central northern tip of Envy’s territory, and she went south and had to fight elder dragons for invading their territory.”
“How does she function?” Bea asked, looking at the annoyed-looking mage.
“Oh, she is a true genius. I dare say she is nearly as smart as Lord Sloth. The only thing broken in her noggin is her sense of direction,” Hadean explained.
“Between you and me, though, she is the best navigational tool you could ask for,” Hadean added in a whisper to the class.
“How so?” Daisy asked.
“Whatever direction she wants to go, you go the opposite. If she thinks it's the wrong way, it almost always is the right way. It is how our clan found a lost temple.”
“Hello, can I start my lesson for real now?” Rozoic asked to which the class nodded while Hadfean retreated back to his seat.
“Now, class, what do you know about wind magic?”
“Is goes whoosh?” Tasha offered.
“It can do that,” Rozoic said with a nod as a small gust of wind blew into Tasha, blowing her hair all over the place.
“You can silent cast Miss Rosy?” Daisy asked.
“I can but not for the same reason Haddy over there can,” Rozoic explained. The class turned to look at Hadean, who recognising their prompting, explained.
“I can silent cast as I practised to the point I could perceive the flow of mana for nearly all of my fire spells and recreated that. Rosy here, though, is half-nymph. So she was already half a wind spirit, so she could silent cast wind spells from birth.” Hadean’s explanations turned the class. If what he was saying was true, Rozoic was technically a semi-divine being.
“See, he explained it. He gained his silent casting through lots of practice. While for me, it is by my very nature. However, I have never rested on my laurels. I have practised and worked really hard to perfect my skills. Just being a natural does not make you a master.”
“So, Miss Rosy, what will you be teaching us today?” Kline asked.
“Oh, I’m not a miss. I’m happily married,” Rozoic answered, ignoring the question.
“Who are you married to?” Daisy asked, only to hear Hadean cough loudly. The class all turned to look at Hadean, who had removed his glove and was showing a ring on his ring finger.
“You married her?” Maxwell asked, looking between the bewitching albeit messy beauty that Rozoic was and the almost beggar appearance of Hadean.
“Our soul wavelengths are opposite each other. So we are perfect matches. The same thing that Alex and Elissa have.”
“Soul wavelengths?” Gunter repeated.
“Yeah, every soul has its own little wavelength. It’s what makes them all unique. Some souls, though, can have opposite wavelengths that cancel each other out. These are what people call soulmates. When two souls combine and create true peace.”
“Me and Haddy are one such couple.”
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“Wouldn’t two souls of the same wavelength be better?” Gunter asked, glancing at Bea.
“No, they would amplify each other and create chaos. A perfect example is Yuu and Alex. Those two are scary how they can feed into each other's chaos.”
The class couldn’t help but agree with that statement; from what they had seen, the pair seemed to revel in each other's mischief.
“Hell, me and Sloth began a correspondence after he took in Alex, and he once said that counterintuitively despite the chaos they bring, they have reduced the total chaos that could’ve been in the world because of their friendship.”
“Why is that?” Daisy asked.
“They focus so much of their mischief on each other. From what I understand, Sloth has spoken with the Norns and the Fates and their equivalents in other pantheons, and they all say that they and concentrating their mischief on each other is actually helping a peaceful world for some reason.”
“Dammit, I lost track of what I was saying; you asked me what I was going to teach, right?” Rozoic asked with a snap of her fingers.
“Ok, class, well, I have spent my years of life chasing down knowledge even at the cost of my body parts,” Rozoic explained as she lifted a trouser leg showing an artificer limb. “So trust me when I say I know stuff.”
The class nodded, acknowledging this but couldn’t help but see Rozoic as another factor in how Alex became who he was. Hadean being the core of his mind for research and showmanship, and Rozoic being the core of his dogged pursuit of new information.
“I will teach you ways to use wind magic you have never even considered.”
“So, class, what is the most powerful ritual cast you guys know?” Rozoic asked; the class began to get lost in thought as they spoke amongst themselves before finally coming to a conclusion.
“The earthquake ritual,” Maxwell answered on behalf of the class.
“Perfect, why don’t we go ahead and-” Rozoic paused as Hadean loudly coughed, interrupting her line of thought. “On second thought probably best to not do it in a population centre. But what is the time it would take to complete that ritual and create an earthquake with one person performing it?” The class paused once again, pondering the question while doing the mental maths to work out the answer.
“About twelve hours,” Daisy finally answered, working out the answer first.
“Exactly; as we all know, the greater the number of mages performing the ritual, the shorter the time will become. Get enough mages working together in perfect unison; you can cast that ritual in less than five minutes. So we got two hours if a mage is alone, but five minutes if you get enough mages chanting the ritual spell in unison.”
The class were now curious about where she was going with this line of thought, as from what they had seen, she seemed a bit flighty.
“Ok next question, how are sounds created?”
“Well, you move your mouth and tongue and sounds-” Tasha began before being cut off by Rozoic.
“Do trees have mouths?”
“Well, Ents do have-” Daisy replied before Rozoic cut her off as well.
“Inanimate objects make sounds without mouths is my point. What if I told you sound was made because air buzzed?”
“I’d say prove it,” Maxwell replied.
“Perfect response. I like you,” Rozoic said, giving a wink to Maxwell for his response. “I shall prove it,” she added, holding out her hand as a ball of dust and vapour began to form into a small cloud inside a bubble about the size of an apple.
“This is Pocket Cloud, a spell of my own design. It follows the same principles as how real clouds form, all contained in an easy package,” Rozoic explained, gesturing to the sky above. “But for my purposes, it will serve as my demonstration.”
Stepping close to the small cloud, she waved her hands over it, and the cloud began visibly vibrating. The dust and vapour began to look like the waves of the sea but in parallel to each other. As the vibrating began to increase, the class started to hear a buzzing noise emanate from within.
“So you can make a buzzing noise?” Maxwell asked, looking unimpressed.
“Yes, a simple buzzing, but what would happen if I altered the pitch of this wave and that little wave there and soon,” she explained, poking and prodding the waves within the Pocket Cloud. As she did this, the buzzing noise began to warp and slowly became a more familiar sound.
“Did that small cloud just say hello?” Tasha asked, walking around the cloud to examine it in wonder.
“It did. I made it buzz the same way it would with the noise being made by someone like you guys. Get the vibration right; you can even recreate voices,” Rozoic said, holding her arms out as if to embrace their praise.
“Ahem!!” she added, looking at Hadean, who sighed and snapped his fingers as a little sparkler-like flame shined behind her back.
“With this trick, you can recreate every sound in your imagination, from a baby’s cry to a dragon's roar.” As if to demonstrate, she warped the waves within the small cloud, and its noise became like a baby crying only to warp and change into a near-deafening dragons roar.
“So it’s like the illusion spell phantom sound?” Bea asked as she walked under the small cloud examining it herself. Rozoic, at this comparison, seemed more annoyed.
“It is nothing so weak as that illusion. The illusion spell phantom sound implants the sounds in your head. There is no real sound travelling through the air,” Rozoic explained as she stopped all sound from the cloud.
“I still don’t see the purpose of this other than making it a bit more showy version of phantom sound?” Maxwell asked, looking unimpressed.
“Rosy, I think your direction as a teacher is bad as your direction as a person,” Hadean teased, to which she just pouted.
“Ok, you want to see what its uses are?” Rozoic asked, stomping out into the middle of the arena.
“My spell is what is called a loadstar spell,” she explained as she began conjuring more small clouds.
“Loadstar spell?” Daisy repeated, confused at the foreign term.
“It is amongst the highest forms of magic. It is using a spell to facilitate another spell being created. I know you kids probably can’t believe such a thing is possible. Even little Alex probably can’t do such a thing just yet.”
The class were sorely tempted to break the imperial seal just to correct her. But they knew they couldn’t explain he had forged his own easy loadstar spell.
“Typically, loadstar spells are seen to be useless on their own. It is how you use them that can change that. My work here, for instance, has been published and nearly got put under an imperial seal,” Rozoic declared, puffing her chest with pride.
“Rosy Alex has a few imperial seals. They aren’t going to be impressed by something like that now,” Hadean explained as Rozoic started looking dejected at their lack of response.
“Rosy, why don’t you show them what you can do rather than talking out of your ass,” Hadean suggested.
“Haddy!!! I haven’t done fart-based communication in years?!” Rozoic protested. The class were now more than convinced that these two were very much two people who had shaped Alex more than any other.
“I meant shut up and show them what you can do with your clouds!”
“Oh… Ok, so kids, tell me, how long would it take to complete the conjure rainbow ritual alone?” Rozoic asked as she went back to conjuring more clouds.
“Like two hours?” Maxwell answered.
“And say if you have a dozen people all simultaneously taking part?”
“A few minutes then.”
“Now, the problem with phantom sound is as it is a completed spell can’t act as a loadstar spell. So you can’t conjure a dozen voices to chant together.”
“Mrs Rosy, you don’t mean…” Daisy began before trailing off as Rozoic gave a big ear-to-ear grin as she nodded.
“I can use these little bubbles of clouds to recreate multiple voices chanting in harmony to complete a ritual spell. Shall we see?” at her question, the class eagerly nodded.
Stepping back near the class, she took out a wand and tapped it in the air. The sound of wood tapping against wood echoed around the arena from one of the bubbles. Eventually, the clouds in all the bubbles began to vibrate, and the class could hear voices of various ages talking in perfect unison.
Rozoic, for her part, looked like a conductor leading an orchestra with her wand guiding the pitch and voices as it went. Soon the ritual reached its completion, and the class all eagerly looked up only to see nothing happen.
“It didn’t work?” Tasha muttered, looking disappointed.
“Do you kids know why it didn’t work?” Rozoic asked.
“The voices may be able to chant and harmonise, but they will have no mana lacing them,” Kline suggested.
“Exactly,” Rozoic agreed, clapping her hands in a quick please snap. “They were just chanting the spell, but with no mana infusion to the voices, they may as well have been civilians chanting it.”
“And after all that build-up,” Bea grumbled, looking as disappointed as Tasha.
“Now let me show you, kids, how to link your mana to the voices,” Rozoic said with a wink as she approached the clouds.
“Have any of you ever heard of mana thread?” the class all shook their heads no.
“Not surprising it is a rarely used method, especially now artificing has progressed not to need it. But it uses the same principals of moving mana that you already know, but to create a link to an external object,” Rozoic, to help demonstrate this pinched around her neck, and as she drew her hand away, the class could see what looked like glowing spider thread.
“Mana thread is literally just you manifesting your mana outside your body. Back in the olden days, they apparently had to link this to any magical tools to get them to work. I will be using it for my one-woman orchestra,” Rozoic explained as she walked up to each bubble and linked a separate thread to it.
“From the top!” she announced as she once again led the voices from the Pocket Cloud chanting the ritual. Soon enough, the sky above them began to glow, and a rainbow began to form far above them.
“It is also not just voices that these babies can recreate!” Rozoic explained as some of the clouds shifted their shapes within their bubbles, and now the sounds of musical instruments began playing.
All at once, the class could feel their spirits being lifted and their mana rapidly refilling in their manastores. Without noticing, they realised she had been casting a bardic support spell, masterful recovery.
“With these little clouds of mine, I helped repel the last crusade sent by the Theocracy,” Rozoic explained as the music began to fade.
“You repelled an army with music?” Maxwell asked with a single brow raised with incredulity.
“Repel is a weak word, kids,” Hadean replied. “She used the mindwarp and greater-betrayal spells from the bardic school.”
“But those have limited range?”
“Only because of how many instruments you need. Now imagine Rosy there using her clouds to affect an entire legion of soldiers. Soldiers she drove insane and into fighting one another.”
The class looked at Rozoic with terrified awe. The woman had destroyed an army by playing music with an ability they had initially been somewhat dismissive of.
“Shouldn’t this technique be under an imperial seal?” Daisy asked.
“It almost was, but it doesn’t eliminate the mana costs of the rituals nor the reagents needed to cast the initial loadstar spell. So they deemed it a highly specialised spell system. Amongst the greatest mages of the continent, you can count on one hand how many that can do it on as large a scale as she can,” Hadean explained.
“So you are going to teach us how to recreate Pocket Cloud?” Gunter asked.
“Exactly, I will show you the steps to create it and how to bring forth mana thread. Those of you that do well, I’ll even teach you how to control the weather.”
“So first things first, we need you to create a Pocket Cloud. The chant is AETHER, CALISTO, COMENAI,” Rozoic explained. “Haddy, give them some reagents packets.”
Hadean dutifully obeyed and picked up a box from beneath his seat, opening it to reveal the usual packets of paper containing preprepared amounts of reagents to cast their spells.
“Try to picture a mix of dust and mist swirling around when you cast the spell.”
“Why is that Mrs Rosy?” Tasha asked.
“Because that's really what clouds are made up of. Well, the non-celestial clouds, that is. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried flying through a cloud only to splat against its outside.”
“Will we learn how to fly?” Bea asked, her eyes alight with wonder.
“Maybe, we’ll save that for after you can manipulate the weather.”
The class proceeded to practice the chant they had been given and found it was relatively easy, especially as they had it demonstrated by its creator.
“Magnificient. I’m almost jealous Alex has you all to himself. Well, now you got the easy part out of the way. Channel your voice into it.”
“Why are we doing that?” Maxwell asked.
“You don’t have any understanding of what the buzzing is like. You could try to recreate it blindly, but it’ll be easier if you channel your voices and witness how the little waves look. Then you can recreate your own voice.”
“Did you do this then?”
“Oh, she has travelled all over just to expand her repertoire of sounds. Our house has a building dedicated to the instruments she collects. Hell, the reason she can recreate a dragon's roar is because of her trip to the Dragon’s Nest Mountain Range.”
“Anyways, keep practising till the sound is second nature.”
“So, is the only practical use of this casting rituals alone?” Daisy asked as she channelled her voice into the Pocket Cloud.
“Well, for you kids, yes. But there are far more combat-effective uses for it that I am hesitant to teach kids.”
“You’re hesitant when Hadean there taught us a spell to burn air so quickly it’ll suck it out of people?” Bea asked.
“Oh, no, kids. She is serious. My little trick is child's play compared to how I’ve seen her use that spell. There is a reason she was able to survive the dragons after all,” Hadean explained.
“Wait, so this spell we’re practising, if used in the right way, can kill a dragon? As in the big monsters with high magical resistance?!” Kline exclaimed in utter shock.
“Well, yes,” Rozoic replied with a nod. “If I used it in the right way with one the size of my fingertip, I could shatter all the bones in your body while also rupturing all your internal organs.”
“That… that is terrifying…” Kline replied, looking paler than normal.
“Indeed it is. She learnt her lesson teaching hazardous stuff to kids after Amelia.”
“You mean Mimi and not Alex?” Daisy asked.
“Oh yeah. After she learnt a few tricks from Rosy there, she went from scarily fast to ungodly fast. Add that to her using those attacks we mentioned… let’s just say there's a reason the army scouted her.”
The class continued their practice with the Pocket Clouds till the most they could manage was ghostly wails. Despite this, Rozoic gave them big marks of approval.
“Don’t worry, kids; I’ll tag along with Meso’s lesson when he gets around to it so you can at least learn something.”
“Will he not teach us?” Bea asked.
“He will teach you. Just not magical stuff. He is very secretive about his techniques. What he will teach you is how to make money and con anyone with cash in their pockets.”
“Is he a crook?” Maxwell asked.
“Kids, let me put it this way. That man is so crooked could hide in the shadow of a corkscrew,” Hadean replied.