When they returned Raia instantly went to the palace's library, which was inside the palace and had two entrances, one for the royal family, the knights, and whoever was inside and the other for outside visitors, to ask the custodian for his help, while the others returned to their duties and the queen went to talk to the head maid to ask her if she was ok with one of her maids becoming Raia personal maid.
"Carius are you busy?" asked Raia to the custodian, "No Raia what do you need?" replied Carius, "Some help with my research," said Raia waiting for him to ask what it was about, "About what Raia?" said Carius, catching on to the fact that she wanted him to ask, and that meant that it was something exciting for her and, if she was excited than it meant that it was truly exciting, "About how to bypass my blindness, and learn magic anyway" Carius was really shocked now, she was trying to find a way to surpass her limits and learn magic, even if she had the worst possible limit.
"Ok now I'm interested, first tell me your spirit and attribute so that we can concentrate on your particular case, if you tell me your magic points too we should be able to formulate a plan even more specified for you," said the custodian, "My spirit is the griffin I have the water attribute and I have 24000 magic points" replied Raia shocking Carius another time, she had achieved a new record of magic points.
"Congratulations Raia you have achieved a new record," said Carius, "And it will be useless if I don't find a way to learn magic," said Raia, sad that a gift like this was given to someone like her, who, as of now didn't have a way to properly use it, "We will find a way together Raia, you will be able to learn magic even if I have to close the library for research purposes for years to even give you a chance, we will do it Raia believe in me," Raia was shocked at what Carius just said, he was willing to close the library to help her, but she was not willing to let him loose his only income to let him help her, "Don't worry about closing the library I already asked the queen to lend me a maid, she will also be the one to come with me at the academy in 5 years, so you will help me when you can and the rest of the time it will be only me and my maid. so don't worry about it," Carius was really touched and happy that she thought about him, even when she knew that he would have left clients to themselves to read for her as he had already done, it made him feel useful for someone again after he left the military because of an injury.
Then they heard the doors of the library open, and they were those of the palace, from there a young voice came and said, "Hi I'm Selena the maid assigned to Miss Raia, is she here?".
While Raia was in the library Queen Laura went to the head maid's office and she knocked, "Mara can I come in?" asked the queen, "Absolutely Your Majesty," she hastily replied, the queen entered and Mara bowed, she was an old and strict woman, "Mara I need your help," the queen said, "Yes your majesty, what you may need from me," replied the head maid, "I need a suggestion, I am searching for a maid to lend to Raia as her personal maid so that she could help her with her research and at the academy in the future, and I was thinking of lending her that young maid that's just arrived what do you think about it?" said the queen, "If you mean Selena your majesty I think that it would be a good idea, it would be a really good experience for her, being a personal maid will help her grow quicker, she also just came out of the academy with good theorical grades, so she will be able to help Raia even if she does not truly understand what she is asked to read.
"The queen was relieved that the head maid thought about the same reasons that gave her the idea of asking for that particular maid, so she said, "Do you perhaps know where she might be at this particular moment Mara?" the queen asked, Mara looked at the chores book, a book where is written the chore list of every maid for the day, and she replied "she should be with Tina in the throne room but I wouldn't recommend going there they should be returning in a bit we should wait for them," said Mara, and so she and the queen waited.
About ten minutes after their conversation the door opened and Tina, a plain young woman who looked in her mid-twenties she had brown eyes and hair, entered while she was doing so she was giving some pointers to Selena, who was the youngest maid in the entire palace she was fresh out of school she was quite good academically but less magically still being from humble origins she was happy to have the opportunity to work at the palace she had red hair and green eyes.
"Selena you have to be less stiff when you are working ok, no one will come to bother you while you are cleaning ok?" asked Tina, "Yes Tina thanks for the help," said Selena while she entered herself, when she did she noticed someone on the sofa next to the head maid desk, and when she noticed who was on the sofa she instantly bowed and said, "Good morning your majesty" at that Tina snapped her head in the direction that Selena was looking to and had the same reaction.
"Don't worry both of you I came here to ask for help no need to be so polite," the queen said while getting up, "Selena we need to talk to you, Tina could you please wait outside," said Mara, scaring the poor girl that did a horrible job at hiding it earning herself a reassuring smile from both Mara and the queen.
After Tina exited Mara started saying, "We wanted to talk to you about your job Selena, " now she was starting to really get scared, she thought she had done something wrong and was going to get fired but what said the queen right after rose a lot of question marks in her head.
"Would you like to become someone's personal maid?" "I am not experienced enough to be offered this job, so why are you asking for me Your Majesty to become a personal maid? I would love to accept your offer, but I don't think I am good enough for the job, " Selena said, "Then accept it, you will hear the reasons once you do cause... this is kinda secretive if you didn't notice Selena, " said Mara.
"I wholeheartedly accept!" Selena said, accepting the offer "Good now for the details our queen will explain being that she is the one who asked for you, and because I also don't know them" Mara said.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"The reason I asked for you is my niece, she needs help, and she asked me to assign her a personal maid that in 5 years will also follow her at school. There are two reasons she asked now: the first one being that she wants to get to know her maid before the academy, but this doesn't explain why assign her one this early.
The second one is the real reason, she needs someone who will help her with her research, since she is blind she needs someone who can read for her but that could be done by the custodian when he is free, the problem resides in the research itself, she wants to find a way to learn magic even if she is blind, this will take a lot of time so the more she can use the better."
"Why me though?" asked Selena, "Because of your grades, and because of the fact that you just came out of school so more or less you remember what you just studied," added Mara, giving her a realistic reason as of why they selected her instead of someone else.
"Is there anything else that I should know of your majesty?" Selena asked, "One thing, do not tell her mother, or anyone else for that matter, this should stay a secret till you go to the academy with her, or for the maximum amount of time possible.
And please keep Raia from doing anything stupid, she has a habit of hyper-focusing on things and forgetting even to eat or to sleep, she has already done it believe me.
"After that the conversation ended and they all parted ways everyone returning to their duties, the queen went to her husband to spend some quality time with him, and the head maid returned to her desk and continued preparing the next week's chores distribution, and Selena went to the library to encounter her new Miss.
"Yes I'm here," said Raia, inviting the maid with her hand.
"Hello Miss Raia, I am Selena your personal maid, hello Mr Carius.
I came here because I was told that you requested me, Miss Raia, it seems you needed help with your research, am I correct so far?" "Yes Selena, and please be comfortable with me, you are older than me and I want as close as a relationship as possible, at least in private, so please call me Raia Selena."
"If I am not rude then, I will talk more comfortably Raia, I would like to know more about the research in itself and what you know about magic and why you can't learn it, and as a side note I am turning 17 in a few months, I am not that old," said Selena in a joking manner, "I'm sorry Selena, my mother told me not to trust others by the sound of their voice cause they could sound young but be a lot older," apologized Raia, "You definitely don't have to apologize, I was joking so don't worry," replied Selena, "As for the first question, I don't know anything about magic or why I can't learn it, my family never talked about it hoping that I would never had the need to ask."
"Ok, so... we need to start from the basics, magic is something that was donated to us by the four great spirits, which are: the dragon, the griffin, the golem, and the angel. Each one of them now represents a role in a hunter party, the dragon represents the damage dealer, the griffin represents the scout, the golem represents the tank and the angel represents the support. These roles were decided based on some perks that each spirit provides you when you are in spirit form."
"What is the spirit form?" "The spirit form is a special power that everyone has and can use, it costs a 1000 magic points per hour to use, and apart from sensing every form or object containing your element in a radius that depends on your magic points amount, the maximum is ten Tai, (One Tai is about one meter), for magic point so in your case a maximum of 240000 Tai, that for reference is the dimensions of about half of the territory humans currently control, it gives every mage a special power depending on the spirit you have, this power is called spirit magic, and it strains your brain a lot, to the point of passing out if you are not careful, so the more you use them, the more tired you become.
The golem makes you deploy a shield that grows with you, the stronger you get the stronger your magic gets, same thing with the other's spirit magics, the dragon gets you a breath attack," "What is a breath attack?" "Don't worry about it, you'll see when the time is right. And please, wait till the end of the explanation to ask more questions, then I will answer all of them ok?" "Ok, I'll wait."
"Continuing the Angel makes your magic AOE, and your spirit the griffin gives you the ability to detect any form of magic in the same radius as your element detection. As for the elements, there exist five elements four of them are natural elements: water, fire, earth, and wind, that are obtainable by the golem, the dragon, and the griffin spirit. The last is the holy element, which is exclusive of the angel spirit. There exist two types of magic, elemental magic and physical magic.
Elemental magic itself is divided into two, natural elements and holy elements. The different types of magic have different ways to be used. The natural elements have creation magic, meaning that you can create a certain amount of that element to use. There are ten tiers of creation magic, the weakest being tier 1 which creates two cubic Tai of your element, and the strongest being tier 10 which can create 1024 cubic Tai. Just know that the amount of water, if we take you as an example, doubles every time you go up one tier. That is not the same for the cost of the magic, that just add 100 magic points every time you go up one tier, starting from 100 at tier 1 and going up to 1000 for tier 10. As a side note, the higher your magic tier the less water you need to use to create a solid shape, for example, if you create an arrow at tier 1, you would need about a third of a cubic Tai to make it solid and sharp enough to pierce metal; at tier 10 you need a thirtieth of a cubic Tai to make the same arrow. Also, every element has its higher version: ice for water, metal for earth, thunder for wind, and lava for fire; you unlock these higher elements by becoming a master, so by reaching tier five.
Instead, for the holy element you have two different magics, the first costs 100 magic points and lasts an hour. You can achieve different effects based on what you want to use it on; it is a buff magic, and that means that it can empower a specific characteristic, for example, speed, reaction time, or anything of that sort. It can also be used on enemies to weaken them, in this case, the tier determines, how much you empower, or weaken someone: 10% at tier 1, 100% at tier 10 all the debuff are halved. The second magic is healing, and is divided into 4 tiers: light injuries, like small cuts, bruises, and that sort of thing, serious injuries, like a broken bone, limb reattachment, which is pretty self-explanatory, and last, life-threatening injuries. The first one cost 10 magic points, the second 100, the third 500, the last 1000.
Then there is physical magic, physical magic is divided into four different magics: speed magic, strength magic, durability magic, which also increases your stamina, and last reaction time magic. This magic allows you to boost that particular ability, by a certain percentage depending on the tier, the first gives you a 10% boost while at tier ten it gives you a 100% boost. Also physical magic has a special gimmick, once you've mastered a tier you no longer need to use mana to activate it, and instead, you can engrave it into your body and use it passively.
These are the basic explanations, we will go into more detail once we need to, or once we find those explanations in the books that we are going to read.