I would have prefered to spend time teaching Marissa so she could have an easier time on her tests, but that wasn’t possible. After school had begun, we spent less time in my home. I would still make the most out of the short span she was at my home though.

“Can we go back to spellcasting practice? This is booooring! Boooring I say!” Marissa protested as we studied together Language.

Finding fun in mathematics was easy, or easier than Language at least. It was a tedious task, but it had an application in magic, this didn’t.

“Do you really want to, though?” I doubted it was in her interest to study more, even if it was magic.

“No. I want to play!” Marissa quickly revealed her agenda.

“Can do.” I assured.

“Really?” She looked at me with suspicion.

“Sure. I don’t want you to overexert and get bored.” I explained. “Do you want to go to the park?”

“Yes!” She jumped away from her seat as if she were expecting it.

The park was far enough that it raised the question if it was right to let two toddlers walk alone, but in a decade, I haven’t heard of a single piece of news about a crime in our sector. Which was weird considering we weren’t a high-income neighborhood. I suppose ellari were well-mannered and civil by nature.

We weren’t the only children alone in the park, I could see some playing around in the grass, no parents or tutors in sight. Maybe it was a case of lack of paternal empathy? No, it didn’t look like it. Overconfidence? Mayhap.

“Come on, follow me!” She cried for my attention, then she hastened her pace.

That increase in velocity was abnormal, she clearly had casted a spell. I spellcasted Slow Fall to try matching her speed, but she was still faster than me. Did she cast two spells? I was faster than her in a magicless race, so that seemed like the only possible solution.

“Catch me if you can!” She taunted, strides of grass between us.

Upon further investigation, I found out she had spellcasted Rush and Slow Fall. The first gave her a boost on her movement speed, and the latter worked like my own Slow Fall, making her body lighter, ergo giving her more speed.

One couldn’t underestimate the boost of Rush as we should technically be on a same level, yet the distance between us grew larger and larger. Why did I even expect to outrun an aeromancer?

Marissa also noticed the absurd disparity of abilities and proceed to stop. Not without making it spectacular, thought. She jumped up in the air, did a backflip, and then landed safely on the canopy of a tree. Excuse me, what?

She rested on a branch while I arrived at her location. “How… did you… do that?” I asked between breaths. We did a serious exercise in such short span of time.

“Doing it?” She responded sarcastically.

Once I recovered my breath, I climbed the tree and sat next to her. “Ha, ha. Very funny.” I considered myself also proficient in the arts of sarcasm.

“Well, Slow Fall helped at that.” She explained.

“Huh, that actually makes sense.” I said scratching my decently long ears.

Slow Fall not only made the user lighter as to reduce the falling speed, but the air version also helped in air control. The arcane Slow Fall probably would have done more harm than good in such scenario. I still didn’t know if it was force or acceleration manipulation. Not that it was a great difference. But unlike the air variant, my Slow Fall made you stagnant in the air, proving difficult any other movement besides falling when airborne. Using it as a way to reduce weight proved a far better option than its original use.

“I should learn spells from other elements.” I commented aloud.

“Why?” She asked gazing at the horizon, a sea of pink and violet mostly. “Shouldn’t you focus on your affinity?”

“You said it yourself. Focus.” I would like to use my soul affinity, but I really didn’t like the concept of messing with my own essence. And besides, father wouldn’t buy me a spellbook about it. “I think we shouldn’t abandon other elements just because we don’t have affinities. They can be useful in their own way.”

“But spellcasting my own elements is difficult even with my affinity… I don’t wanna cast spells I have no affinity.” She groaned in laziness.

“Well, if you like, we could learn spell from each other’s affinities. I will learn air spells, and you learn arcane ones.”

“Hmmm…” Marissa carefully thought about it, not entirely convinced.

We stood there, silent, for a time. Resting our backs and arms in the spring-like trunk, feeling the mild breeze in our hair and faces. Petals fell on the ground, whether they were pink, violet, and occasionally blue. Marissa’s hair faltered with the wind, while mine was simply nudged.

Perhaps I should let it grow.

Finally, when I had found an excuse to rekindle the embers of the conversation, I directed to her.

“You could learn Mana Pond and practice even when I’m not there.” While it wasn’t the best argument by far, it did tip the balance a bit.

“But do I want to practice? That is the question.” Marissa joked, or so I thought.

“More practicing equals more spellcasting star tiers.” I looked at her blue eyes. “Imagine spellcasting a big spell like Tornado. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

“Well… You do make good points.” She avoided my gaze, toying with her hair.

“Actually, forget about that. What about Flight? Isn’t air an element specialized in flying? Wouldn’t you like soaring through the skies?”

“Hmm….” Marissa swayed her head from side to side. “And spellcasting arcane spells will help me with my air ones?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“In theory, yes.” I responded. “Practice is practice.”

“But what about you? What cool arcane spells exist?”

I rose my finger, only to lower it down. “I… don’t know? I read that arcanist can bend entire leylines, but that isn’t a spellcast, it’s more like a ritual magic.”

“Well,” she jumped down the tree with the slow grace of the petals around her, “we must find out, musn't we?”

I didn’t respond, I let myself down the canopy, across the tree’s slide-like trunk, Slow Fall still in effect. Well, that could have been more frantic… I should have dispelled it. Then I noticed I could use the spell for another matter.

I started running towards home.

“Hey! That’s cheating!” Marissa shouted.

“Not if you don’t get caught!” I counterattacked as I renovated the Slow Fall spell, just in case.

***

The weekend had arrived with minimal trouble. The last two days were identical to the sixth day of the week. Miss Salore would give us exercises from first and second year while she lectured the rest of the class. I couldn’t help Marissa midclass, but I helped her in everything I could at the playground or after school.

While the tests became easier and easier after I deciphered how their structure was proposed, Marissa hated skipping Arts and Craft because of our exercises. She had all the right in the world to be mad about it, it was the only class where children could relax and be creative. Normally Physical Education would take that spot, but we didn’t have it.

I mean, we the students did, but we as Marissa and I didn’t. The first PE class we had was the sixth day, and guess what, that was the day we started with our probation. Marissa couldn’t be mad about not doing PE because she hadn’t experience it before.

Kind of sad if you think about it.

The aeromancer and the arcanist (me) were now practicing exchanged spells in the balcony. I really loved this place. Great views, soothing gusts of wind, and a big empty space to do whatever you wanted. I don’t know when my parents bought the house, but the balcony alone made it worth it.

“I don’t understand!” Marissa metaphorically rolled on the ground.

“Imagine if we used wizardry.” I quipped.

Marissa was practicing Mana Pond, while I was trying the air version of Slow Fall. I suggested we used sorcery instead of wizardry as it was more instinctual, even if we used it as a frame for the first tries only.

“Good thing about common casting is that you don’t have to think!” I added. “Just waste your mana pool until you make progress. Mana Pond will help you.” I pointed at my levitating magical construct.

“Not fair! You have it easier.” She pouted without stopping her manaflows.

“I mean, it was your suggestion that I learned both Slow Falls to make the ‘Slower Faller’”.

“I misspoke once! Let it slide!” Somehow, Marissa’s pouting achieved a new level of poutiness. “You know I meant Slower Fall.”

“Oh, I do know. It’s just funny.” I commented between giggles.

“Stop!” She hastily casted a Magic Chip.

“Ouch!” It hit me right in the arm. The shock was mild enough to not cause a pain after the initial reaction. Thank the Lady of the River that the spell power could be toned down. I wouldn’t have liked getting struck by an air gun bullet anywhere on my body. I rubbed where I had been hit before talking again. “Watch out, you psycho!”

“Who do you call psycho?” Marissa shot ANOTHER Magic Chip.

I had predicted that outcome, though. A hurried Mana Vacuum was spellcasted before me. The magical construct sucked off the mana from the low energy projectile.

Marissa stood there, watching at the mana-absorbing ball and me, back and forth. She couldn’t understand what had happened. “Huh?”

Her boiling rage transformed into curiosity; her gaze stuck on the Mana Vacuum spell floating over the white wooden table. Marissa snapped out of a trance as the mana black hole collapsed, not by Hawking Radiation though.

Sigh… Again really? More incomprehensible knowledge?

Where was I? The spell collapse, true. The Mana Vacuum collapsed because of its unstable structure. I had hurried the spellcasting, making the minute long casting time in seconds by bypassing the safety measure that the spell included in its code. Basically, reducing its lifespan greatly as I didn’t know how to modify a spell without complications, let alone in the fly.

“What happened?” She asked as the last motes of light from the construct disappeared.

“Do you know what the Mana Vacuum spell is?” I rhetorically asked her.

“Yes, of course.” Marissa responded somewhat offended, we had read the grimoire together multiple times after all. “That’s the one that absorbs mana.”

“Then why do you ask?” The girl tilted her head, her long hair following it down. “You literally answered your own question.”

“What?” Marissa expressed instinctually. Then only a few seconds were needed for her to reach the answer. “Mana Vacuum can suck mana out of spells?”

The revelation clearly shocked her.

“Mana is mana, why shouldn’t the vacuum do it?” I quipped at her with a smile. “They don’t call us, the arcanists, the weavers of mana for nothing.”

“Isn’t that really unfair?” By this time, Marissa had forgot about practicing, the cancelling of the spell was the only thing on her head.

“Not really, though.” I conjured Mana Vacuum once more. I had this one in the stove for a time now, this construct was stable unlike the previous. Still, it wasn’t the real deal as it was also rushed. “It can only absorb so much mana per second and has limited capacity. I can absorb spells like Magic Chip and Mage Light because they have low mana consumption and capacity.”

“Then why even use it? There are defensive spells in the spellbook.”

“You make a good point.” I affirmed. “But Mana Vacuum is the first of many arcane mana-absorbing spells. In a fast-paced situation, simple defensive spells are more useful. But if I have spellcasted Mana Vacuum with anticipation, I now have a free maintenance defensive spell.”

“Can you absorb Slow Fall? It doesn’t cost a lot of mana.” Marissa suggested, interested in the testing.

“Maybe? I think spellcasting complexity affects the absorption rate.” I explained her my theory. “But I haven’t actually proven it, so let’s try.”

Marissa promptly spellcasted Slow Fall spell, small currents of winds surrounding her body. I moved the magical construct next to her as to cover her whole body in its area of effect. We stood silent for a few seconds.

“I don’t feel anything.” Marissa commented.

“Not even half a minute has passed, Marissa.” I sighed. “Let me see if the spell works or if it’s a fluke.”

I instantly casted a Magic Chip, not even bothering with its wizard counterpart. The moment the projectile’s tip touched Mana Vacuum’s sphere of influence, it dissipated.

“It works for Magic Chip, though.” Even if we saw the same, Marissa didn’t notice what I did.

“Huh? Let me try once more.” This time I spellcasted Magic Chip but with addition of needless complexity to an already extremely simple spell.

Like before, the cantrip disappeared when it collided with the magical construct. But if one looked closely, the spellcasted projectile vanished when its whole body entered the area of effect, contrary to the casted one which did it at the exact contact with the spell’s edge.

“Did you notice?” I asked Marissa, who stood still trying to get her Slow Fall absorbed.

“Notice what? Didn’t you just cast the same spell twice?” As I feared, she hadn’t acknowledged the change in the tempo.

“I casted the first, spellcasted the second.” I corrected her. “And the second had an ever-so-slightly increased absorption time.”

“And?” She asked still unable to see what I meant.

“And this means spell complexity has an effect of the absorbing rate.” Hmmm… “Isn’t this the perfect sorcerer counter?”

“Perhaps if it could absorb a simple spell like Slow F- Ahh!” Marissa shouted out of nowhere, as she fell butt-first on the floor.

“What happened?” I asked alarmedly.

“Slow Fall effect is gone!” She responded happily, standing up and tiptoeing.

“It took about three minutes, but it finally did.” I sighed. “Not very useful to be honest.”

“Three minutes, to dissipate a three-star spell.” She giggled, still jumping on the spot. “Will you be able to do it in twelve minutes with a twelve-star spell?”

“I really, really doubt that. Every star increase followed an increase of an order of magnitude. A four-star spell would probably take thirty minutes, let alone a twelve-one.” I explained to her, which deflated her.

“Killjoy.” She pouted angrily, turning her face as to avoid my sight.

“Hey, at least your mental maths were fast.” I gave merit where she deserved it.

But let’s theorize about what she said…

Even if I were trying to absorb a twelve-star spell with my current Mana Vacuum and considering the last three tiers were a thousand times more complicated than the previous one. This meant that between three and twelve stars, there was an increase of ten to the power of fifteen. If a three-star spell took three minutes to absorb, a twelve-star one would take six billion two-hundred fifty million ellari years to complete…

Yeah, I don’t have that much time. Is the planet where are we living this old?