Hector's class ended up with no other incident worthy of notice. As Riwall suspected, item casting was useless for him. Thanks to Friday's help, he could cast any spell without having to divert his attention to it.
However, he and Friday came up with dozens of situational spells that could help his friends in battle once they noticed how the duo seemed to enjoy mixing their own spells with some of Hector's items ones.
Before dismissing the kids, Hector lent them more than 200 books of different subjects, from stories told by the dwarves from the Yelling Mountain Range, to books on the anatomy of humanoid races and some creatures that inhabited the Azure Forest and the Yelling Hills.
It took the trio a few trips to carry them all to Riwall's room, they even used some earth magic to make improvised carts to help.
-----------------------------------------------------
During his next crafting classes, Riwall was afraid of repeating the process of transcending a skill limit like he did with the
He followed his crafting masters' instructions to the letter but felt like there was not much else they could teach him. Theodas and Hobbs were the first to notice it, so they just talked to Eleanor and graduated him early, which happened around one week after the three learned about the fourth step. It's not like they saw Riwall at their own level, only that he was at a point where he would only develop further by making his own mistakes and learning things without someone's interference.
Theodas would be returning to the manor, as he did not have much else to do around the barracks now, but Hobbs would stay to continue tutoring Gregory.
Surprisingly, the two-meter-tall elf got very emotional when saying his goodbyes, he even cried while telling Riwall he was the best apprentice he had ever had the pleasure of tutoring. He was demanding and loved to come up with nicknames to mock Riwall's height, but was fair and would often give counsels in things like estimating stuff's prices, finding suppliers and on how to understand a client's often abstract and confusing demands.
Theodas promised to give Riwall a present before he left for his journey to the dwarven lands, but for now, he gave his former apprentice authorization to use the forge as if it was his own. He even instructed the staff from the barracks to provide any materials the boy requested, as long as Theoda's finances could afford them, of course.
Hobbs allowed Riwall to access the woodworking room whenever he wanted to as well. The old man would only go to the barracks to give lessons to Greg, so Riwall would have almost all day to work alone.
Although he could make progress on enchanting without anyone's help, having Lila around speed things up by quite a margin. She would notice his mistakes and wrong misconceptions about enchanting right away, teaching him some ingenious solutions that often left even Friday baffled.
Even so, Riwall wanted to try a few enchantment combinations on his own. Lila had already shown him how there were enchantments to create sub-spaces that worked like inventories. Unfortunately, differently from the ones found in games, these would drain a lot of mana to store or retrieve the stored items and took quite some time to be activated. This mana requirement made them useful only for transporting smaller objects, while the time necessary for the storing and retrieving functions made it unusable during fights.
----------------------------------------
Hector's class on Light and Dark advanced concepts brought even more complexity to magic in general. The names Light and Dark were misleading but had been used for so long that they stuck, much like the name "the fourth step".
According to the elf, it was possible to give 'intent' to your mana even before starting to cast a spell. With practice and enough time, a mage could imbue his mana with positive or negative intentions regarding life, which would have a catalyzing or inhibiting effect on the spell cast.
For example, if Riwall imbued his mana with altruistic and benevolent intentions and cast a fireball spell intending to harm others, his "light" mana would be in conflict with his "dark" intent, significantly reducing the strength of the spell. However, should he try healing someone while his mana was in a "light" state, his spell would be multiple times stronger than usual.
"If this is all Light and Dark concepts do, then why did you prevent us from learning it before?" He asked Hector at the time.
"The act of imbuing your mana with Light or Dark concepts have some major side effects. If you keep your mana attuned to one of those for long enough, it starts changing your own mana core, turning what was supposed to be a situational boost to a limiting factor. The way I taught you during these years helped you develop your mana cores unaffected."
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
[We are lucky you decided to not try your hand on Light/Dark spells like I suggested, some books mentioned the possibility of changing your mana, but as they were not focused on teaching it, there was no mention to these side effects.]
Friday argued with Riwall on multiple occasions about trying to apply these advanced concepts on their own. Still, the latter was adamant about following Hector's instructions.
After letting the kids understand the repercussions of tainting their mana cores, he continued.
"Most people with the potential to become mages are already familiar with the existence of these two concepts by the time they are 10-year-old, so they starting tainting their mana cores to speed up their progress, oblivious to the consequences to their futures."
"Excuse me master, but we have been casting spells with the intent of destroying dummies for a while now, how did it not influence our mana?"
"The act of imbuing one's mana with Light and Dark concepts is not something that can be compared to providing a spell with intent. None of you has spent a single day meditating about making your own mana more harmful or beneficial to others, so they are still in a somewhat neutral condition."
"Is it possible to reverse the changes?"
"No. Unfortunately, the changes are permanent. As commoners, it was highly unlikely you had ever learned about the fourth step or light and dark mana, so we focused on strengthing your foundations before introducing these things to you." For some reason, Hector felt the need to justify their teaching choices at every opportunity since the kids learned about the fourth step.
"And what about nobles? Do their families also hide these concepts from them? What about adventurers?" This time, it was Greg who asked.
"Nobles are... a special case. Their priorities are entirely different, as soon as they are born, their life is already planned. If the family wants one to be a healer, he will be taught on how to change his mana to "Light" as soon as possible, the same holds true for "Dark" mana and combat or leading roles. Adventurers, however, are usually of commoner ascendency and learned magic on their own, they often end up attuned to one of these two concepts by necessity while ignorant to the consequences."
{That means we start off weaker than nobles and adventurers, as they can cast spells powered by light and dark mana very early, but once we catch up, we can be more versatile than them.}
[Just like Edward and Eleanor always said. Adaptability beats specialization.]
{Do you trust yourself to change my mana attunement? Hector is making this seem very complicated. But if kids end up changing their mana by merely knowing about these concepts, I don't think it's tough.}
[I did some experiments now, and it is not that hard to accomplish. Your mana is also very flexible, so it takes any shape we want it too.]
They moved over to the training court and started to try some exercises Hector showed them. When it was time for casting spells powered up by Light and Dark mana, he told Riwall to cast a dark powered fire spell and destroy a dummy.
Half expecting the differences to be subtle, Riwall did as instructed and almost fainted when the spell manifested in the world. He thought he had toned down the spell by a notch by fueling it with just a speck of mana, but a very dense ball of dark flames left his palm and hit the dummy to a colossal explosion that engulfed the whole court in the dark flames and almost hurt his friends. Hector's fast reaction in casting a water shield around them is what saved their lives.
There was an eerie feeling lingering in the room, and the three spectators were glaring daggers at Riwall. Anna's gaze particularly sent shivers down his spine.
{What the hell were you thinking when imbuing my mana with dark intentions?!} He was quick to blame Friday, she had complete agency over what purpose to feed his mana to attune it to the dark spectrum.
She was flustered by the results and embarrassed of her oversight. She knew she had miscalculated something by quite a margin.
[I did an experiment and pushed into your mana the stories written by holocaust survivors and tried to exacerbate the feelings of hate and helplessness they felt.]
{You fucking pushed nazi stuff to my mana?!}
[Technically, I pushed nazi hating stuff, which we can both agree is better. But I'm curious about the differences that would arise if your mana got pumped with nazi rubbish.] Riwall felt how she was legitimately enthralled by the prospect of testing these things, which pissed him off even more.
Hector felt how the spell got powered by the bare minimum amount of mana, which meant the boy was genuinely trying to prevent any incidents like what just happened. He knew that the culprit of the bizarre phenomenon had to be how strongly attuned to dark Riwall's mana got.
"I don't know how you managed to push so much dark intentions to your mana, but refrain from doing it to such extremes from now on. Otherwise, your mana core will turn completely dark in no more than a week."
With Friday here, Riwall was in no danger of having his true mana core affected. Even his fake one was safe. He had no reason to share this bit of trivia with Hector though.
After apologizing a few times to everyone, they forgave him, and the lessons continued. The only but was that Anna only forgave him after making him promise to forge a couple of what she referred to as "super-duper strong and sharp daggers" for her.
The next thing they had to do was attune their mana to the light spectrum. As explosive results were highly unlikely to happen, Riwall gave permission for Friday to do her best.
Riwall was instructed to cast the same fireball spell, he wanted them to see with their own eyes the changes that would happen.
The fire this time was a stark contrast to the previous one. The flames burned with a white, almost holy, light, forcing everyone around to squint their eyes. When it hit the other dummy and exploded, the four had to cover their eyes, such was the intensity of the light produced.
The court was now comfortably warm and evoked a feeling of coziness. Once Riwall opened his eyes, he saw the dummy in a pristine state and emitting a faint white glow. All the burn marks and scratches disappeared from it.
"What you are seeing kids, is the result of light mana of in one of its purest forms. Usually, light mana would only reduce the power of offensive spells like the fireball, but if pushed to the extremes, you get a completely different result. As much as I pride myself in the magical studies field, I never had the opportunity to study the effects of what scholars refer to as Hallowed or Doom mana. So I don't know how to explain what just happened."
{Great, new jargons to further make a mess of how I thought magic worked.} Riwall felt like every step forward in his study of magic only brought more questions to the table.
"I had a suspicion after seeing how powerful the dark fireball's blast was, but now I'm sure of it. As with everything I taught you three about magic if you push it to the extremes, the rules change. Riwall, from now on, please refrain from pushing your mana to such extreme."
Riwall just nodded, and the lessons proceeded without further incidents.
Meanwhile, Friday was focused on trying to identify the unknown presence she briefly sensed when both spells were cast. Not wanting to disrupt Riwall's concentration and bring unnecessary worries, she hid this fact from him.