I was changing the material, though. It wasn’t iron, it was flesh. It was flesh, I was sure of it. As the iron melted, it changed in my mind’s eye. It swirled around my body, mixing with the ruby energies that still flowed. It lost its dark color and became lighter in my mind. This wasn’t the iron ball I’d purchased from a blacksmith, it was a phoenix trapped inside of an iron ball. There was a phoenix made of iron, and I’d freed it. The dark slag that flowed around me became even lighter, almost white hot now. It swirled back into form, the shape of a bird in front of me, and I frowned in consternation. This was persuasion, not my will being exercised on the world. A phoenix would be given new form when it was reborn. It would be in an egg. A ball. The ruby I supplied was enough to forge the bird a new egg, and that was all. The bird curled up and was surrounded by a shell. Because of its experiences, it was, of course, surrounded by an iron egg. But the phoenix inside was the one taking the energies and sharing them with the egg, it wasn’t the iron ball that was accepting the flame.

Right? Stupid Laws. I opened my eyes. The rooms was dark with one exception: the rapidly cooling ball of molten iron that rested on the ground in front of me. Against the darkness, I could see the silhouette of the nonexistent bird that remained inside of it. I sighed and wiped the sweat from my brow. It was done. Exhausted, I cleaned up the circle and deposited the now-cool iron ball into my satchel for tomorrow. Then I went to bed.

In the morning, I woke up and got dressed. Rather than my clothes from the night before, I perused what Siegfried had deposited into my closet. The clothes were all exceptional, finely made but very practical. There was also a set of leather armor, which I donned with admittedly some difficulty. Eventually, though, it came back to me. I wrapped a cloak around my body and walked towards the school with no idea of where I was going. Not checking where my class was was definitely an oversight. Had Merlin just assumed I’d know? I made my way into the central building and grabbed a random student walking by.

“Hey, kid. Do you know where Practical Applications of Magic is?” I asked, putting on my best teacher face. The kid looked at me, wide-eyed, and nodded.

“Yes, sir, I’m on my way there now!” He told me, and I gave him a nice smile.

“Excellent answer, lad, we’ll walk together,” I said, falling in step behind him as he led the way to our classroom. It was quite the trek, and I timed it on the pocket watch I’d purchased the day before. Nine minutes to walk from the central building, which had appeared to just be common areas and a small general library, to a tower closer to my apartment. I felt foolish for walking past it. We went up the stairs to room 903, on the ninth floor, and I grabbed the boy, whose name was Thomas, to keep him from entering the room, which had the door closed.

“One moment, Thomas. You go on ahead. I believe Merlin will be attending this class,” I told the student, but he looked at me uncertainly.

“Uh, Professor? There’s a note on the door,” He said tentatively. I stepped close and read the note.

Class will be in the East Park today as you meet your new professor - Merlin

“Fuck,” I swore before I thought about Thomas. I turned to him, and his face was red.

“Thomas, do you know where the East Park is?” I asked. He nodded, and I gestured for him to lead the way, and he dutifully marched past me. I checked the time again. If Merlin’s forecast the previous day was accurate, we only had 7 minutes to get there. It took that amount of time for us to walk up those godforsaken stairs. I sighed and continued after Thomas.

The boy was intelligent and seemed nice enough. He was a second circle mage, recently escalated, and expressed a desire to become a dueling mage. A glance at him told me that he would literally never succeed in said desire, which was unfortunate for me as his teacher. I asked him which spells he knew, and he rattled off a list. I prepared to make a mental note of them, but he stopped after three.

“You know three spells?” I clarified.

“Yes,” Thomas said, as though it were normal.

“I see. So the only spells you can cast at any given time are Shield, Flame Wisps, and Flame Lance?”

He nodded. What the fuck? A spellcaster’s greatest strength lay in versatility. With just three spells, these kids would literally never be prepared for anything even slightly outside their comfort zone.

“Thomas… is three spells common for your rank, do you think?” I asked, wincing at the ignorance that the question revealed. I mean, what the fuck though, seriously. Three spells? And what the fuck was Magnus on? The dude had known like 30. I even thought he was a bit dense to have so many, but was he a prodigy? Or perhaps as they escalated in circles, they were able to learn more? This was a problem I rectified.

“Um… I think so?” Thomas said tentatively. For a wannabe duelist, the kid sure was shy.

“I think I’m about… average,” He followed up as though it were the worst adjective in the world. In my opinion, it was.

“That’s quite alright. I’d like to see your spells at some point and offer some guidance on new ones to learn. A mage’s greatest strength is versatility, you understand? You’ll need at least 10 spells before you advance to the next circle,” I explained to him. From the look on his face, you’d have thought I’d asked him to kill god.

“T-Ten?!” He exclaimed, and I nodded sagely. There was no way that, in 10,000 years, humans had evolved to have no memory or whatever. It was more likely that these kids just had no discipline, no mental fortitude, and no drive. That would change under my tutelage.

“Yes. Don’t worry, I’ll guide you to your goal. I think you should pay extra attention to this class, okay? You’ll understand what I mean. You have no variability in your repertoire. What if you face someone who specializes in water magic?” I pressed him, and he frowned. After a moment or two, he opened his mouth to respond. I held up a hand.

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“I want you to think about it for another sixty seconds,” I told him, and he closed his mouth. Wonderful.

After sixty seconds, I looked at him. He opened his mouth.

“I’d burn the fire hot enough to evaporate the water,” He said confidently. I fought the urge to facepalm.

“Thomas, do you know how to increase the heat of your flames already?” I asked. He frowned.

“No, I don’t,” He said as though this were a complex problem he couldn’t solve. “Pump more mana into it?” He asked. I shook my head.

“Yes, technically that would work. But it’s dependent on your spell formation. Adjusting the mana in the spell would work, but it’d be kind of like using a giant fire pit for a cooking pot. Yes, technically you only need to fill it up partially to get the desired use out of it, but it’s a complete waste of space! And inversely, you will never match a pyre with a cooking fire, no matter how much wood you add to it. It simply can’t hold that much!” I explained, and he kept frowning.

“So I have to learn new spells for every heat?” He questioned, and I shook my head again.

“No. You need to understand how your spells work better. Then you can modify them,” I said, and his eyes widened.

“You can do that?!” He gushed, and it was my turn to frown. Was that particularly impressive? You could literally just look at the spell formation and figure out how they worked. After thinking through it, though, it made sense. My knowledge had only come after examining hundreds of spell formations. If Thomas and the other students only had access to three or four, they likely wouldn’t notice the changes that occurred in spell formations as each one looked incredibly different. It would be hard to know what changed what.

“I can, to a degree, and I can teach you some of what I know,” I said. Thomas was pleased, and we chatted amiably on the way to East Field.

Soon enough, we arrived late to the class and I approached Merlin, who looked at me with an odd gaze.

“Professor! Excellent to see you. Did you have some trouble making your way here?” He asked.

“Just a bit,” I chuckled, and his eyes narrowed.

“Hopefully you won’t have further troubles. Are you prepared for class?” He asked, his former joviality returning for the last question, which I nodded to. I looked around, but saw no sign of the troll. Had Merlin forgotten it?

“The troll?” I prompted, and Merlin snapped his fingers. Another purple portal opened in the air maybe a hundred feet away. A large cage dropped out of it and slammed into the dirt. This whole area was really just one big open meadow with some bleachers off to a side, presumably for classes to watch a lecture or performance or something. Here, my students would be watching me get mauled by a troll. Potentially. There were nine students in total. Just nine? Fuck. I mean I guess I could deal with it. But nine?! I was hoping I’d have, like, 500. With 500 students, I could practically guarantee that some of them would be outstanding. If I had 30 outstanding students, I could definitely get one of them to godhood. Here? I’d have a 1/10 shot, MAYBE. That wasn’t even taking into account the other problem. I could see said problems clearly in the bleachers. The golden hair and perfectly muscled frame at, what, 19 years of age? I guess that was technically close to his prime, but I’d known hundreds of gawky, lanky, spindly 19 year olds throughout my life that would disagree. Arthur. I looked right next to him and saw a beautiful girl with a violet combat suit on. Morgan, presumably. On the other side of the problematic princeling was a girl with auburn hair and a shapely figure. Gwen. I sighed. What a pain.

“How would you like to begin, Professor?” Merlin asked me, stepping away and gesturing for me to walk closer to the students, “I will defer to you from here on. This is your class to teach.”

I stepped forward in front of the bleachers as Thomas sat down on the bleachers alone. The students were fairly spread out, actually, with the only group being Arthur and his cronies. I clapped my hands, and conversation ceased quickly. That was good.

“Greetings, students!” I called out. It would be the perfect time to cast a sound amplification spell, if I could. Obviously, I couldn’t, so it wouldn’t be prudent to make too big of a deal about the quiet of my voice.

“Welcome to Practical Applications of Magic. I’m your new professor, My-Magnus Blackwood,” I introduced myself, stumbling over the name as it was the first time I’d used it since arriving. The students didn’t bat an eye as the consonants were the same.

“Who can start me off with telling me the greatest strength of a mage?” I asked, and the students looked at me blankly. I sighed. I opened my mouth to respond when Morgan’s hand shot up in the air. I quirked an eyebrow at her.

“You don’t need to raise your hand. Morgan, is it? You can just say the answer,” I told her. She blushed.

“The greatest strength of the mage is the raw power they can command,” She said confidently, “it surpasses the greatest warriors in any army.” Oh brother.

I shook my head.

“A reasonable answer, but one with some flaws. First off, a warrior and a mage of similar ranking are also of similar strength. They simply have different specializations. In a straight fight, the warrior’s ability to do damage will always eclipse a spellcaster’s. So why do people think that casters are so powerful, like Morgan said? The answer is versatility. A warrior runs forward and hits things. A mage can control the battlefield, hinder their opponent, relocate themself, and enable allies to fight more effectively. All of that is without even blasting an opponent with fire,” I explained, and I saw several students frown.

“Now, that leads me to another problem. How many of you know more than five spells?” I asked, and only Morgan raised her hand.

“How many do you know?” I asked, and she answered.

“Five,” She said.

“I’ll explain why this is a problem in a moment, one that I will be working with you to remedy. What is the greatest partner of versatility, and the resource most crucial to mages’ success?” I asked. The students were quiet now, silenced by Morgan’s incorrect answer. To my surprise, Thomas ended it by opening his mouth.

“Information,” He said. Actually a good answer. Not quite the one I was looking for. Tough break, kid.

“You’re incredibly close, Thomas,” I said, smiling at him with a nod. “Allow me to demonstrate. Merlin, could you put up a barrier? I don’t think it’ll be necessary, but I’d like to offer the troll no alternative but me,” I said, glancing back at my imminent opponent as I spoke.

The troll glared at me through the bars of the cage, saliva dripping from two tusk-like fangs that jutted out from a large mouth. The thing was close to 8 feet tall with scythe-like claws protruding from the end of spindly fingers. It was all lean muscle and viciousness, and it was about to come to kill me.

Merlin obliged, and a wall of power raised up around the troll and me, forming a sort of long room. There were maybe 50 feet between me and the troll. Soon, it would be 0.

“When you’re ready, Merlin. Let it never be said that the troll didn’t have a fair shot due to my excessive control of the situation,” I said.

“Of course, Professor,” Merlin agreed, and the cage suddenly vanished, leaving a momentarily confused troll standing naked in the meadow with me. That confusion vanished just like the cage did within a half second, and it was bounding towards me, claws ripping at the ground.

It was 10 feet away, and I resisted the urge to piss myself. I really hoped this worked.