Progress:

Journeyman Tier 1

Task List:

1. Discover the truth behind the Captain of the Order of War Magic (Complete)

2. Rend the sky with lightning! Burn the forests with flame! Summon the ocean depths with your will! Become a war mage candidate!

3. Feels good being alive, doesn’t it? You should keep it that way. Learn Mana Manipulation Advanced Technique and fake a spell model

4. Hey, you finally improved! Don’t get lazy…it’s bad for your health. Learn Mana Ball Technique

5. There be treasure! Polish those spelunking skills and explore the undercity

6. Friends don’t let friends become sorcerers. Train another pure mage to mana tier 3. Oh, and choose wisely or you’ll die

7. Just had to play with fire, didn’t you? Hope the priest you befriended was beautiful and rich and stupid. Write “I will not touch priests” 500 times.

Zeek laughed as he read the last task. The book hadn’t lost its sense of humor. Perhaps it was even a bit mad at him? He wouldn’t complain; he knew it saved him during the opening ceremony. Penny, who was sitting on her bed, stared at him with concerned eyes.

“Are you alright? You were staring at your lap ignoring me,” she asked.

“Sorry, had a funny thought. What were you saying?”

“I was asking you what happened when I passed out,” she replied.

“Short answer is you unlocked your mana, then our friends showed up.” Zeek noticed Penny run a hand through her hair as she stared at the floor. She’d been quiet since the archmages dropped them off at the academy. It was nearly morning now, and neither of them had slept.

“Are you ok? We haven’t had a chance to talk about last night.”

“I don’t know. I need time to think about it all.,” she said quietly.

“Well, it’s the first week of classes. I don’t think much will happen just yet. Why don’t you let the school know you unlocked your mana and we’ll spend the weekend at Turgi’s place?” he suggested. She nodded, lying back on her mattress. Zeek bid her goodnight and returned to his room. It was time to make up with the Book of Spite.

A few hours later, he managed to finish his writing task in time for his morning class: Affinities and Magic in Numera. He and Penny walked side –by side towards the classroom building. She had sunken eyes and her face was pale . Zeek wasn’t looking much better, but he couldn’t keep a smile off his face. There was just so much to learn from the book with the new techniques, he was itching to get free time.

As soon as he wrote the last line in the book’s new empty page titled ‘Punishments’ that morning, the book started flipping rapidly, revealing all the new techniques. Basically, they allowed him to use mana outside his body. He’d only had enough time to take a glance before Penny knocked on his door.

The murmurs of other new students broke him from his thoughts as he took a seat in the back. It was a lecture hall for around fifty people, with tiered seating and long desks separated by aisles. Tall windows in the back let natural light stream down towards the podium at the front, illuminating a large chalkboard filled with errant streaks of white on the wall behind.

The students barely filled half the open seats, perhaps twenty or thirty in total. Zeek didn’t recognize any of them. The only identifier was the quality of their robes and the symbols on their chests. Most wore the worn fabric issued by the academy. Frayed hems and wooden icons over their breasts made it clear who was—and wasn’t—from nobility. Fortunately, Penny and he had high-quality robes courtesy of Sirius. The commoner mages avoided looking at them; they all sat alone, spaced unevenly throughout the hall. A few of the nobles knew each other and clusters of two or three whispered together while waiting for the lesson to begin.

The professor entered soon after, wearing the telltale rust-colored fine robe and golden symbol. Her hair was long and black, cascading down her shoulders in large curls, the style most ladies wore in Lem. Zeek thought he recognized her from the library, but he hadn’t spoken to her before.

The first class was just a read of the syllabus and overview of the semester. Surprisingly, the woman managed to make it uncomfortable for most of the students. She outright ignored questions from anyone dressed in commoner robes and referred to the nobles with their house names. She was the first atypical noble Zeek had met, other than the lover boys who stalked Sirius.

In short, they’d have an overview of affinities three times a week for one month, followed by a test. After that they’d do one month on the laws surrounding magic in Numera, then another month on the kingdom’s geography. There would be a winter break for a month, during which time they were all expected to work diligently to unlock their mana. Those who did would then get lessons on learning their first spell, depending on which affinity they were meant for. Those who did not would focus all their efforts on unlocking their mana.

Despite the professor’s obnoxious voice and attitude, Zeek found the affinity choices interesting. Those who wanted to become war mages would learn fire, water, wind, earth, illusion, light, or shadow magic. Craftsmen would choose between enchanting, construction, and farming. Last were support roles which dealt with shadow, healing, or scrivening spells.

Fire for pure attacking magic, water was a cross between attack and defense, and Earth was defense focused. Shadow and Illusion were somewhat similar except shadow had more attack options and movement spells. Light sounded like a version of what the clergy could supposedly do, heal or fire destructive beams. Wind was, well wind but made more deadly with speed and precision. Among those affinities were more minor specializations, like stone, ice, and solar. The professor didn’t explain them further since everyone began by learning a spell from one of the major affinities.

Craftsmen’s choices were straightforward: either make magical items, build stuff, or plant crops. The support roles were more varied. Shadow mages joined intelligence units, healers followed battles, and scriveners worked in government or libraries. Beyond that were other oddities, such as Archi’s cantrip master or the herbalist affinity he’d mentioned to Zeek on the trip to Lem.

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The professor was a scrivener and had the ability to copy texts with a spell, dictate text with another, and seal messages to prevent tampering. This teaching position, she proudly explained, was a reward from the king for slaving over the royal library and ensuring its completeness.

It turned out her entire family were mage-clerks who served in various official positions. Hence her surprisingly deep knowledge of other families and their legacies. Politics went hand in hand with managing sensitive documents.

Zeek asked why they were given so much free time between lessons, and she answered after noticing his robes.

“Name?” She asked.

“Zeek”

“What family do you belong to young mage?” She wondered.

“Does it matter?” He replied, garnering a momentary frown from the lecturer. The murmurs of the noble students gave rise to a smirk on his face; they’d be guessing who he was for weeks. Penny nudged him with her elbow when she noticed his expression.

The professor explained there was a heavy emphasis on unlocking your mana and learning a spell the first year. Which made sense, Zeek thought, given how hard it was for sorcerers to do either of those things. Class ended after two hours of instruction, and the students scattered to work on their assignments. Zeek thought it was a bit cold that nobody spoke to each other, but maybe there’d be a chance some other time.

He and Penny went to the administration office and announced they’d unlocked their mana. Zeek considered hiding it but decided against that, given the stories he’d heard about the school’s methods. If he attacked some faculty member dressed like a bandit or murderer, he'd have a tough time explaining what he’d done.

After a brief dinner, they parted ways to get a full night’s rest. The weekend was a break, and they planned on finding somewhere nice and quiet and secluded to discuss everything. Zeek rubbed his hands together giddily while locking his door. It was time for the fun to begin.

“What should we start with?” he asked the book. The pages flipped to a new section on mana manipulation. The technique built on the basic version he’d learn before, giving advice on how to move mana and circulate his core faster, but it added tips on getting the mana to move outside his body. That involved two parts: first, speeding up the mana flow itself to a point where it was pushed beyond his skin. Once exposed to open air, it would be visible and required more focus to control. If done correctly, he’d get accustomed to faster mana while moving up mana tiers and be able to move mana outside his body as easily as he did inside.

The previous night’s action gave him a head start, and he was able to move his core fast enough to exude mana within an hour. Controlling it was the hard part. He’d learned to make a shockwave come out of his body with the speed, and every time he moved his mana fast enough, a wave of force would shoot out of his hand, foot, or whichever limb he was testing.

The first time it happened, the wave slammed his bed against the wall, making a loud thump. He jumped into his bed and pulled the covers over himself, listening to his rapidly beating heart while waiting for someone to come running at the sound. Fortunately, bumps in the night weren’t very concerning to an academy that regularly tried to scare its students to death. So he got back to practice.

He’d managed to coat his hand in a thin layer of mana when he noticed the moon was nearing its peak. He ignored the time, fascinated with his glowing hand. Pure mana, it turned out, became visible when exposed to open air. It looked like his hand was wet with aquamarine-colored moisture glowing dimly across his skin.

As he felt his eyes drooping, he lay in bed and read over the other two techniques. Both required him to finish learning mana manipulation first. The mana ball was a basic shape he could form once he had control over his mana. He could throw it or force it to shoot from his hand with a thought. Pure mana, he learned, was sometimes called force magic. An enemy hit by the ball would feel like they’d been struck by a large rock.

As with his other techniques, the book hinted this would build to other things. Mana therapy was a bit more complicated:

Mana Therapy Technique: Used to heal damage or atrophy in mana channels.

Zeek put his hands behind his head. The use of this technique was obvious. It was designed to help with sorcerers. It gave him the ability to massage their mana channels and revert atrophy or damage caused by disuse. There were clear limitations outlined in the book—he couldn’t fix the archmages since their mana tier was higher than his. Either he had to reach their level or they had to learn to slow their cores down. Both possibilities were remote, but he suspected Penny would need this as well.

The scene of her bursting with mana was fresh in his memory. It was violent; unnatural even. He recalled working through the early tiers a few weeks prior. It was uncomfortable at first, like his limbs weren’t big enough to fit his mana. If she forced herself to unlock by flooding her whole body with mana, there had to be damage.

But this realization raised questions. Why would the academy adopt such a method if it caused damage? Why would the royals or the clergy support it? Anyone with his knowledge would see how limiting that would be for growth. Was that the purpose? Or were these methods lost to time? If so, what was the book? Where did it come from?

These racing thoughts weren’t enough to hold back two days of stress. He fell asleep with the book open against his chest. And with exhaustion came old dreams.

Zeek was lying on a cold floor. The smells were musty and smoky and metallic, like he was sitting in a forge. He tried to move but his legs and arms wouldn’t obey. His eyes blinked quickly, wicking away moisture without granting vision.

Darkness held him closely while sounds muffled by stone walls whispered in the distance. Metal hitting metal, the spit of a crackling flame, the moans of a person he couldn’t see. He knew this was a nightmare, the same one he’d had as a child. But knowing it was a dream wasn’t the same as having control over it. His terror grew as he began to recall the sequence of events.

He'd find himself trapped in this dark room, chaos ravaging whatever existed outside. No matter what he did, he would sit here, until…footsteps. He heard them. Tap…tap…tap.

Slow, methodical, deliberate steps. The sound of something inspecting each nook, for what he could not tell. A noise out of place among the cacophany of destruction beyond the shadows. As the steps moved closer, he felt himself shaking. Then the feeling came.

Images flitted through the void as if he were falling through a pitch-black room. Paintings floated around him, the streaks of paint writhing as their subjects screamed, begged, fled, and died. Each designed to create violent emotion.

Black oil swirled on one canvas, evoking the hopelessness of a fading pulse. White and blue danced among the next, as Zeek felt the touch of fire so hot it made boiling skin feel cold. Red dripped over the frame as another showed the maw of a feral creature as it clamped down on thrashing prey and drank warm blood. Dark browns outlined the soil-covered face of a cripple pleading with a descending sword. The mix of yellow, green, and grey drew a crowd whose faces warped in anger and twisted in disgust, spitting vitriol at a man dangling from worn rope.

The wave of power evoked primal fear, as if existence itself sought to kill him. He wanted to stand and run but nothing would respond to his will. No one would come to rescue him. He was detained, forced to patiently await his executioner.

Then he heard a cracking whip and woke.