Magic theory was cool and all, but you know what was cooler?

Actual magic.

That was why after a whole week of reading copious amounts of written theory, I decided it was the moment for true spellcraft. Also, the fact that I was bored out of my mind and I feared my eyes were going to fown out of exhaustion.

While the sensible thing would be to learn new four-star arcane spells and get to the fifth tier as fast as possible, I wasn’t a sensible person to begin with.

I had deprived myself of other types of magic, only being able to conjure arcane magic. That was going to end today. Well, maybe not today, but I would end it, nonetheless. I went to the spellbook floor of the library, in hopes of finding out about Soul related magic.

It was easy, though a bit slow, to find a shelf related to Soul magic. Yes, whereas basic magic like Arcane or Force elements had whole wings dedicated to it, and less common elements like Air still had corridors, Soul magic had a lone shelf.

Thanks to the low contents of the shelf (it wasn’t even full) I was able to find the most basic book on the subject. I had no idea about souls, my only interaction with them was in the River of the Damned when I was dead, when I got my elemental affinity measured by Novela’s wand thingy, and the time Alatea healed me with a presumed Soul spell.

I may have had some experience with souls, but in the end, I was only a spectator at most.

“Introduction to Souls and Their Affinity” was the book I ended up picking. My criteria for doing so were that it was the only book that had the word ‘introductory’ or along those lines.

“Soul, together with Time, Space, and Void, are the least charted elements by far. Not only there are few practicians with such affinities, but they also are the most complicated elements to work with without a doubt. Even their counterparts of Mind and Body are far more common and better understood.” This was an excerpt from the introduction of the book.

“Hmm, so I have an affinity with one of the least known elements known. Is that a good or a bad thing?” One could argue that it was bad as the path was unexplored, other people would say it was good because I could lay new foundations. Either way, one thing I was certain about these affinities, they were hard to work with.

Also, if it weren’t because of Slow Fall with its four variations in Arcane, Air, Time, Space, and Void, I would have never known the latter existed at all. Nobody that I knew talked about it, let alone had an affinity with it.

“Souls have always been a mystery, not only to ellari, but every race at that. The only race that has managed any considerable progress is the draconids of the imperium.” The author explained. “While there has been progress along the centuries, not many people risk delving into the depths of one’s soul, regarding their affinity to it. The most common type of Soul practitioners are necromancers and mystics. Both groups of mages are constantly subjected to stereotypes, whether deserved or not and intense scrutiny. But I can affirm they are the most knowledgeable when it comes to the soul. The most populous and wise may be the draconid mystics, in my humble opinion.”

I had never heard of the necromancers, though the uncertain knowledge in my soul said otherwise, I had heard from mystics from father years ago.

One raised the dead and practiced dark arts, the other was a drug addict. In their honor, mystics were known to commune with the dead and be able to slow one’s death. They were also called shamans or witch doctors in other places. But it was true that they used hallucinogens and other questionable substances to make their work.

But, draconid mystics, eh? Those were the dragon people teacher Ashcroft talked about a few seasons ago. The author also said they were the most knowledgeable about souls. Maybe I could talk with them sometime in the future?

Though not in Ferilyn, that was a given. The only ellari bastion in the whole world was predominantly a racist place, I hadn't even seen a foreign species besides the exotic birds at the bazaar.

Why the mystics used those substances was unbeknownst to me, but the book confirmed to me that they weren’t able to do soul magic without them. The author hypothesized that they were mostly sorcerers, and their internal images were strongly linked to such substances. Another more blunt theory was they weren’t real mages and the drugs guided them by sheer luck.

Whatever it was, those people were able to deal with souls better than a normal ellari soul mage would.

“A practice that has become popular between soul mages lately – and rightly so – it’s the act of spiritual meditation.” This part was over a hundred pages from the beginning of the book. Yes, I had spent a good chunk of time reading this already.

“Spiritual meditation, alike common mana meditation, is the process of communing with one’s soul, therefore making it easy to cast with it.” Emphasis on the cast. Soul magic was one of the few types of magic that lost its power if wizardry was applied. It seems instincts were the utmost priority when wielding the soul.

I felt a bit conflicted about having to cast suddenly. Spellcasting had become an activity to make my brain think, not that different from puzzles and such. But it wasn’t the end of the world, versatility was a good thing. Being able to improve casting could be taken as a secondary goal as I learned soul magic.

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As I went deeper and deeper into the book, I realized that soul magic was a complicated subject. And clearly not something you could learn easily from books. While the book itself was long and informative, I only ended up sticking with a few useful pieces of information: how to do spiritual meditation and the dos and don’ts of soul magic.

Soul magic was dangerous, even more so than the constant risk of mana intoxication involving arcane magic. Which was also incredibly dangerous. Now that I thought about it, weren’t both of my affinities absurdly prejudicial to me?

According to the book, it was extremely easy to damage one’s soul, and it was hard to heal it back. Maybe I should talk with Alatea when I have the chance, but the school wouldn’t restart for more than half a season yet.

Thanks to the copious reminders of the peril of this magic, I decided to put fiddling with my soul on the burner until I had an expert to talk about it. I would still try spiritual meditation when I got home as it was described as “commonly harmless” and “easy for those in touch with one’s soul” a.k.a people with high Soul affinity.

But I had yet to give up on practicing new magic, so Time magic was next.

****

In the end, I was too tired when I arrived home, so I hadn’t had time to practice spiritual meditation. I told myself I would do it today, but I knew myself too well to know it wasn’t true. Learning how to manage time might be a more practical skill than whatever I was doing. Stopping reading long books in one sitting may help with that. Perhaps.

Today I decided to learn the basics of the Time element. I wasn’t burned by my constant reading, yet. Similar to the half-empty shelf on soul magic, the time magic section was composed of a pair of shelves. Pathetic compared to the rest of the elements, but a whole lot better than the soul one.

Instead of repeating the same procedure as yesterday’s when I looked for a read, this time I asked a librarian for help as the Time section was next to an information desk.

“Hello, could I ask you a question?” I asked the man manning the post. (That was definitively a sentence, eh.)

“Sure, young one. What would you like to know?” He replied with professional politeness.

“I wanted to read about time magic, but I don’t know which book to start with.”

“Aren’t you a curious one? I recommend you read about other elements, Time can be a pretty difficult one.” He politely told me to ‘screw off’.

“I have a notable Time affinity, but I had no one to teach me about it. So, I want to learn about it.” I explained to him. “I don’t care how difficult it may be, or even if I abandon it at mid-path, but I want to know the basics at least.”

“Oh, I see. If you have an affinity, it’s alright.” The librarian bowed down. “Pardon me. Some people, normally enthusiastic youngsters come to try the legendary elements without even having an affinity. Once again, I excuse myself for my impoliteness.”

“It’s fine, you don’t need to bow to me.” I shook my hands to incite him to stand upright. “I just want to know where I could find the book I need.”

“That’s a request I can fulfill. Follow me, please.”

But legendary affinity, huh? I’ve never heard anyone mention Time affinity as ‘legendary’ or anything like that. Are there other legendary affinities? By the way the librarian mentioned it I suppose the answer is yes.

I followed the man and he guided me where I was before. With a quick glance, he had enough information about what I was looking for. The librarian picked a book with a green leather cover.

“Here you go.” He handed it to me. “This book should explain the foundation of time magic in a rather resumed way.”

“Have you read it?” I was curious if the librarians had actually read what they were guarding.

“This one? No, I have not.” Implying he may have read some of the other time magic ones. “But we have a minimum of one book per element to serve as an introduction to those who want to become more attuned with it. While they don’t have a standardized title, they are from the same collection.”

“Thank you for your help.” I did a slight bow.

“No worries.” He replied. “It is always a reward seeing young people wanting to understand the complex ways of magic.”

With that, the librarian said goodbye and returned to his desk. I sat at the nearest table and opened the book from the beginning.

As usual, the book had a rather basic introduction, expected because of its nature. It talked about the difficulty and rarity of time magic, but unlike soul magic, it presented a new point.

“The Time element may be the most difficult to manage. Its natural instability makes every conjure exceedingly more complex than one may believe. That is the motif because time magic has an elevated learning curve compared to the other elements. Time Flow, the most basic spell of the affinity, has been classified as four-star. Although some scholars consider it a five-star one. This dissonance has been accredited to the fact that most time mages are of high affinity or superior.”

This paragraph alone contained more information than the soul introductory book did in a hundred pages. But what was highlighted the most was that the simplest spell of Time affinity was a damned four-star. I still had difficulties with four-star spells when using my superb affinity, how would I spellcast one with a mediocre-medium one?

I think I got carried away too much. As my father said, it was only possible to upgrade an affinity by two steps, so medium-high for me. Exactly the minimum stated by the book. And considering affinity grew with time and by practicing the element in question, this didn’t seem like a good investment.

So, yeah. I gave up.

I hated I had to do so, even when I was ready to do it. But it was a fool’s errand trying to pursue an impossibility when I had certainty with the arcane and improbability with my soul. It wasn’t a difficult choice as when I had read around half the book my brain began smoking from the complex themes and theories it was presenting. I may have the psyche of an adult, but my physical brain was still one of a child.

I left the time magic introductory book back on the shelf with a sour taste in my mouth. Deciding that it would be good to take a breather, I went to the library’s garden.

“Argh…” I sighed deeply, not even the colorful flora could soothe the void that this news had left in my heart.

Maybe in the future, I would give time magic another chance, I saw a spell called Haste that looked pretty juicy. But for the time being… I sighed again at my own choice of words. For the time being, I would focus on other magic under my current capabilities.

What have I learned these days? That soul magic is dangerous and I should have a mentor before I did anything extreme, that time magic is impossible to do currently (or at least substantially difficult), and I should still focus on arcane magic.

I still had around nine weeks to toy around with the Arcane element, and considering my obscene affinity, I should aim for high four-star spells before the holidays end. The five-star mark sounded better but too idealistic for my liking. I rather set more realistic milestones, but I wouldn’t deny the possibility of doing so.

Tomorrow I would continue with my arcane studies. Today, though? I stood up and left the garden, taking advantage of my newfound free time I wanted to start practicing spiritual meditation.