“That was truly impressive, Edrie,” Monica said as she sat at the side of the table before me. “I still can’t get my head around how you did that dispelling back there.”
“I’m with her,” Adrian added as he picked some salad from the bowl. “Ya’ annulated the teacher’s spells with your gaze. Like a magic-eater.” The last part was intoned as a whisper, giving it a mysterious aura.
We were currently at one of many cafeterias laid around the campus. Spell Cryptography class had ended about half an hour ago and we took our time looking for a good place to eat. The second class also lasted two hours as the previous one.
“Ignoring the comparison with the mystical creature, I’m used to such activities.” I took a bite of the cherry tomato on my salad. “Marissa can tell you all about it.”
“Ooh, I hate you.” She told me at my side as she reminisced all those times she was incapable of conjuring against me. “He would always cancel any cantrip or two-star spell that I threw at him. He always would say ‘mana weaver stuff’ when I tried to ask him about it.”
“I take pride in my status as a mana weaver.” I boasted. “I consider that manipulating mana is the true essence of an arcanist, unlike those who just use it as a basic combat element.”
“Sorry for having a ‘basic combat element’.” Marissa mocked me.
“At least Wind is better than Fire in terms of utility,” I added. “Fire only works for burning things, at maximum, to prevent things to be burnt.”
“Nyeh.” She grunted at my statement.
“Nyeeh.” I replied back.
“Nyeh!” She now said half-shouting.
Our grunt exchange was interrupted by a giggle coming from Monica. “What gives?” I asked.
“Sorry, sorry.” She excused herself. “You two looked like the perfect comedic duo for a moment.”
“Don’t know what you are talking about.” Marissa played dumb as she pouted.
“Either way, where were we?” I said to rerail the conversation to its origins. “Arcanists have an advantage wielding mana, so I like to use that better rather than learning offensive and defensive spells.”
“Until which star can you dispel with ease?” Monica asked after having taken a sip from her gazpacho.
“It depends greatly on the situation,” I explained. “Body reinforcement spells that work at a lower mana consumption are far easier to undo than your average mana-loaded projectile. I can dispel four-star spells of the former, while the latter I would have difficulties at three-stars.”
“You forgot to add a certain spell there.” Marissa said with a hint of venom at her words.
“Mana-absorbing spells can also help. Thanks for reminding me, Marissa.” I replied to her with a smile. “Mana Vacuum only takes on cantrips instantly, while Mana Void can do the same with some four-star spells. Keyword: some.” I reiterated.
“It’s so annoying having half of your arsenal nullified just because of one spell.” Marissa told with a sigh.
It’s official, sighing was contagious. At least for prolongated exposure.
“How does that spell work?” Adrian, who had been enjoying his food peacefully, asked.
“It’s a magical construct that absorbs mana, and four-star spells have little mana relative to the absorption rate,” I explained to him. “It also affects the caster, but I'm able to deflect a part of the manaflows to keep my defensive spells up while inside the area of effect.”
“That seems quite strong to me.” He added to then take a spoonful of his fruit salad.
“And it is.” Marissa gave me a bad look.
“You can’t be mad at me about it. All arcanists use it.” I told, taking advantage of the turn of speech I stuffed my mouth with salad.
“All arcanists CAN use it, there’s a difference.” Marissa made the effort of emphasizing one word instead of straight-up shouting, but I just shrugged as I chew my salad. “I’ve literally haven’t seen any other arcanist abuse any of these mana properties.”
“Did the teacher’s Magic Chip present any difficulty?” Monica said to rerail the conversation to a more productive matter.
I rose my finger to indicate that she waited one moment, then I chugged down all the salad.
“If I had to compare them, Marissa’s cantrip was the easiest, but that was what the whole lecture was about. How an ultra-optimized spell is so much easier to dispel than others.” I stopped to take a sip of water. “Then the unmodified spell, but it still was instantaneous to dispel. The harder was Innit’s cantrip, its difficulty was tenfold of the standard Magic Chip. Yet nothing out of my capabilities.”
“That is a considerable increase.” Monica commented.
“The augment on the mana cost of his Magic Chip wasn’t as elevated as its complexity, so that may be one of the ‘balanced’ spells he mentioned at the end of the class.”
Teacher Innit had described balanced spells as the equilibrium between dispelling complexity and mana cost, making it the most balanced spell in a combat scenario, hence the name.
“I understand,” Monica said with a thoughtful connotation. While it was an interesting topic, I didn’t consider it a mind-grinding one as the others did. “What are you going to do now?” Rather than asking me, I felt she was referring to the whole table.
“I was thinking about going to the libra-” I was interrupted by a sudden not-so-friendly nudge from Marissa. “About not going to the library.” I corrected myself.
“I see,” Monica told with a wry smile. “What about you two?” She asked the aeromancers of the group.
“I want to explore the campus.” Marissa enthusiastically expressed. “I have seen some parts, but I want to see them all.”
“I can get behind that.” Adrian confirmed.
“Then campus exploration it is.” I said as I rubbed the part I had been hit at.
Now that I thought about it, this was the first amicable conversation I had with friends. Marissa and I had always been alright with just being the two of us but being part of a wider group didn’t feel bad at all.
We left the cafeteria with renovated energy as we disposed to explore the enormous campus of the biggest and most important academy in all of Ferilyn. The Arcane Sanctum and the dome seemed to watch over us during our exploration trip.
*******
Fourth day of the week, taking advantage of the mid-week holiday I decided to go to the academic library, contrary to Marissa’s wishes. The two days before had been interesting with the addition of new subjects such as Herbalism, Alchemy, and Spellcraft.
The former two I had on the second day, while I had Spellcraft plus Applied Mathematics again on the third.
Herbalism and Alchemy, to no one's surprise, were taught by the same teacher. An old woman, even by ellari standards. If I had to compare those subjects with ones of my faltering soul memory, they would be equivalent to Natural Science and Chemistry, respectively.
I wouldn’t deny the subjects themselves were interesting, but when you lived in a world with magic, you had to do magic. It was true that Herbalism treated with magical plants besides common ones, and that Alchemy used magic processes unavailable to the magicless Chemistry.
Herbalism also enjoyed great popularity amongst the students as our whole nation was basically vegetarian. We were made to study the plants, basically. And yes, we may have eaten some of the plants at Alchemy class because the teacher said they were not only edible but also a delicacy.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
On the other hand, Spellcraft was a lot more interesting. The whole subject was about creating your own spells, and that was the most creative subject I had seen in a long time. Maybe you already guessed it, but the teacher was no other than Henry Innit, who also taught Applied Mathematics and Spell Cryptography.
I understood the logic of having a teacher for multiple subjects, especially when they were so closely related, but it was a bit abusive at this point.
Either way, I liked Spellcraft. Where Applied Mathematics and Spell Cryptography were boring theoretical subjects (to common students, I still took a liking to them thanks to my arcanist background), Spellcraft was the amusing and practical subject where you had a chance to apply everything you knew.
But its intricacies were something for later, now it was library time.
About the academy library: unlike the Open Archives of Ferilyn, this one was more austere, serving strictly as a center of knowledge. The building was two stories high, though its expanse was noteworthy. You couldn’t hope to see the other side of the building from the inside.
I stood still for a moment after crossing the door as the stale smell of paper assaulted my nose.
How lovely.
I also noticed there was some kind of protective barrier on the gateway made out of the air, isolating the interior from the exterior. I showed my student identification card to the librarian at the desk, and he let me pass without any verbal exchange required.
What was my objective amongst such an ocean of knowledge? That was a good question that I hadn’t got to answer until now. My only objective was to go to the academic library, and I had obviated the reason behind why someone would go to such a place in the first place.
To begin with, I took a walk across the library to see what I got in my hands. Skimming through the titles of the hundreds of books I was passing by every minute, there was no difference to be found between this library and the one in the Shal’mar district. Other than this one was free to me, that is.
Well, I was lying.
My stroll gave me information about the library and its denizens. It was designed as a ruthless utilitarian building, unlike the other library that was overflowing with pointless (yet beautiful and otherworldly) decorations. I had seen some librarians at the desk of the entrance and others guarding the second floor, but it was obvious that they lacked manpower, or at least didn’t have as many as the open library.
And unlike the library at Shal’mar, the academy library was austere in the outmost literal sense. The Open Archives were literally open, with thousands of stained-glass windows revealing to the outside world. Not here. It was dark and stale, only illuminated by dim magical lights which were pleasant to the eyes.
I hadn’t been expecting a lot of traffic in the library considering my previous experiences, but there indeed was. That was already an upgrade from my school back at Thal’mer, where none dare to put a foot at the library. The silence was welcoming, the lighting dim, and the people relaxed. That was all I needed to be honest.
As I ended my half-hour route through the maze of books, an idea struck me.
“I should search for soul-related books.” I whispered to myself.
The Open Archives of Ferilyn were plentiful in a lot of ways, but if it lacked one thing that was content about the soul. It didn’t seem that the scarcity of books about the subject was about the dangers such elements imposed as Void and Time were also present at the library, but because of a lack of research as such. And what better place to find material for research than the library of the greatest academy in the country.
I skidded through the knowledge-bursting corridors in search of the section of the soul. I could’ve asked any of the few librarians present, but I had a whole day before me and I wanted to explore the library while the novelty of it lasted.
And after minutes of fruitless findings across the stagnant waters that were the academic library, I found a treasure trove. Before I had only a handful of books related to the soul, less than a shelf of content. Now... now I had a full corridor of tomes thicker than my arms. This imagery plastered a smile on my face.
Still far lower than the sections dedicated to arcane and force magic, which could and would expand for several wings, but a huge upgrade, nonetheless.
Whilst I had progressed on the arcane, especially on mana-weaving, I had left my Soul affinity behind as I lacked information to stride even further. My only way to access such knowledge was through Alatea, and she kept me in the dark for reasons unbeknownst to me.
That was no longer the case.
I grabbed the first grimoire my eyes landed on and sat myself on the closest table, with no time to waste. As more abundant research on an element was, more spells popped up. With Arcane affinity, I had access to hundreds, even thousands of spells as it was the de facto element for the ellari. With Soul? It was at the tens if I was lucky.
My long violet fingers followed across the rivers of ink as I read through the frameworks of Soul spells. The spellbook, thicker than my own torso, was a recompilation of multiple grimoires. An anthology if you pleased.
From the measly cantrips an amateur must use to look at its own soul, to mind-bending catastrophes that were totally beyond my understanding. Whoever wrote this monstrosity of a book was well-versed on the soul, as it was left anonymously without a sign of the author or even a mention of the books it had copied. It was a behemoth of mystical knowledge.
Studying the soul was a joyful prospect, but then I had a more interesting mystery lying before me. Who wrote this?
…
To no one’s surprise, finding the author of a book that had no signature and only talked about spells, never referring to them in the first person, was unbelievably difficult. There weren’t even personal thoughts and notes which had plagued every grimoire I had ever read. And whilst I would normally find this fortunate, now it was only but disconcerting.
My first step on such an aimless quest was to look at different spellbooks through the soul section at the library. My theory was that if the vast majority of the spells referenced in the authorless book were present on other grimoires, then it wouldn’t be illogical to assume that the writer was a member of the academy, or at the very minimum, came constantly to the library.
This hypothesis was reinforced by the aspect of the book. While not exactly brand new, it was in pristine conditions, which lead me to two possibilities. One, the book was recent. Two, it had been perfectly curated and wasn’t misused by readers.
Both options were as likely as the other as there weren’t many eager readers, to begin with, so I had to employ another way to verify it. I grabbed all the spellbooks I could find near the one I picked up in order to compare their contents.
On my first try, I already had a minor degree of success, finding some spells redacted exactly as the original source listed them. Once again, I was confirmed that this book was an anthology even if it didn’t mention it explicitly.
“Hmm... I have an idea.” I held myself from shouting as I had a eureka moment.
After a couple of hours, the table I was reading at was littered with tens of books. I had taken a quill and paper from my satchel, writing off every spell that I had found and also noting if there were repeated spells on multiple grimoires.
The last part was needed as some spells were considered as ‘common domain’, the best example I could think of was the Magic Chip series on Arcane spellbooks. Common domain spells were that way either by their plentiful utility or because they were useful as didactic material.
I wasn’t in the mood to explain how ellari spell copyright rules worked, so let’s leave it like so with such an insufficient explanation. Either way, with this I wanted to check that the mysterious tome included common domain and private spells in equal parts.
This weirded me out as the book began to resemble a scholar's private note diary more than a book, but why go all the way down to bind the book on a leather cover and then leave it in the library without even mentioning yourself on the book?
My task ended four hours later after examining all of the soul spellbooks. Even though there were towers and towers of books on top of the table, it had taken me such a low amount of time as I only needed to skimmer through the books. A quick glance was enough to determine if the framework and the wording were identical.
The results of this task were: two-fifth of the total spells as common domain, another two-fifths as private ones, and the last twenty percent were original spells or of some unknown origin.
Let me make this clear, this tome thicker than my whole torso had a fifth of its spells written by a single person.
Excuse me, what in the utmost holy tarnation?
I was beginning to think during my tiresome endeavor that this was a useless pursuit, but after having such truth revealed, I got my hopes up once again. Not only this was the definitive book for a soul practitioner, but also contained unique takes by its anonymous author.
Sure, maybe a portion of the spells that I designated as original were taken from other spellbooks that weren’t present here. Such is a non-zero possibility. That still meant there were a bunch of original works around.
It also existed the chance that it wasn’t a single author, but a collective. A group that had decided to write their findings for later generations. If that were the case, then it may be even better as a single mage can make errors, but several ones can correct each other's mistakes. But that theory quickly faltered into pieces as the writing was consistent on every single page.
Having an organized list of all types of spells covered by the book was an advantage. I decided to focus myself on the public and original spells for the moment, though I was planning to devour this book during my instance at the academy.
Why not private spells you ask? Well, if the creator of the spell or owner recognized me using the spell, I could get in trouble. But if the nameless author had written his own works in this book without any warning, that meant their original spells were free to use.
Every single one of the spells I knew on the Soul element were common domain, but that didn’t phase me. They were considered didactic material for something, and the only useful spell from soul magic that I had learned currently was Astral Projection.
Undoubtedly a very strong spell as it let the conjurer move themself through walls and also assault other people’s souls as if they were a ghost haunting people. And while it sounded quite spooky, it was mostly harmless. If it weren’t like that, then an adolescent such as I wouldn’t have had access to it.
“I’d like to learn healing spells, though,” I said with a sigh. “The only one I have is from Alatea, and it’s a measly cantrip to soothe the soul. True healing would be appreciated.”
In a world where magically powered healing could ail a body in need of a surgical operation with a cast, it was moronic to not delve into that field given the chance. That was what Alatea did, or I wouldn’t be calling her nurse Decourse.
For a long time, I considered that my soul was ready for heavy casting. Daily spiritual meditation had shifted my mana pool from being mainly physical in nature to an equal split between soul and body.
This not only meant that damage to my body wouldn’t have repercussions on my mana output, as the common mana pool was located in the body and could be damaged as any other organ of the body but also, I had strengthened my soul greatly. Whether it was the mastery over my soulspace or the metaphysical damage that I could deal with it, one couldn’t deny my progress over the last years.
This anonymous book shrouded in mystery would be my way into the world of mysticism, but not without trying to decipher its enigma while I was at it.
And one thing mages loved above everything else was deciphering the unknown.