The library was one of the biggest buildings in town. It wasn't not painted but the material was a bright white color, like all of the buildings near the center of the town. The other buildings, if not white, were painted red or blue.
The two huge doors seemed like what I imagine city gates look like. The only way to enter was by climbing a wide stair of twenty steps. With that size, it must be bothersome to open and close these doors, though. They always stayed open at this hour. Inside, it's a very big place, and anyone can enter almost every part.
The only section I couldn't accede was the third floor. There was nothing interesting there, I checked. You need to be an adult to go up there. It's not a problem for me because on the floors below there are plenty of books I have yet to read.
Although it was normal for me to come here almost every day, sometimes I also play with other street boys to pass the time, it just happens that most of the time I like reading.
The library is a quiet place, people often comes only when they need something and not for another reason. They could come to use the training grounds but for that exist better and bigger options elsewhere.
Once inside the library, I moved directly to the left and into a hallway. When I reached it I exhaled in relief.
"Not so fast." Claire's voice greeted me from behind. I thought that she didn't notice me since she was busy at the counter that faces the entrance and I was careful to make no sound.
I turned back with a charming smile.
"Morning Claire."
Claire was a tall, dark-haired, olive-skinned woman. Her eyes light brown in color. She likes to wear black robes while working in the library.
"That smile of yours. Filled with mischief." She shook her head and crossed her arms.
I replied nothing. Sometimes silence is the best answer. A lesson learned after so many experiences in my short life.
"Huh, you also smell awful." She commented.
Part of my charms. I haven't taken a real bath in a couple of days. Truth be told people avoids me more if I am smelly and in consequence, I have fewer problems. Also, I am not that dirty, you need to stand very close to me to get the smell.
"Haven't you already mastered Clean? It has been more than a year since I taught it to you. Why don't you use it regularly? You really are a hopeless case." Claire sighed, exhasperated.
Indeed I have mastered it, it's been a while since I am able to instant-cast it.
"Have you been practicing enough lately?" She asked me.
"Yes, I have, Claire," I replied sheepishly.
"I have heard that your grades in the lessons are still the worst among your class. How do you manage that If you are always reading? Hadn't your teachers hit you enough already? I know you are intelligent but you need to fix your laziness, or else, you will be punished more."
My mood darkened after hearing that. That is not something I like remembering. Claire isn't a bad person. Not at all. She may be the person that most cares for me, but she is a little too strict. As strict as everyone else. Why do they need to be like that?
"Yes, I know."
"Very well, don't cause trouble." She said and went back to her desk.
I wasn't in the mood to read anymore.
I walked directly to the courtyard and to the practice fields. They are used to train in the use of new spells or to train known ones to master them. I had no other choice but to practice more if I wanted to avoid the fate that Claire talked about.
The punishments were varied, but always unpleasant. Since exhausting chores, until very blows with canes or lashes.
The town doesn't care what you do after you complete the Lessons. As long as you remained in the town after their ending, of course. Getting permission to leave the town is a difficult thing, I have heard.
We have neither king nor more settlements in this city-state. We are governed by a council of Elders and one Great Mage. And since the foundation of the city, magic has been fundamental in our development and education. Every child receives the same training in magic— in the form of the Lessons— since they are 3 years old. Doesn't matter if they are rich or not or either if they will join the army or not at finalization. Training mages is difficult and really expensive, but the town spares no expenses on it.
I have been told, that this is something very unusual and that mages are rarer to encounter in the outside world. Warriors outside focus more on training their inner mana rather than their external mana, therefore being considered Spiritual Warriors and not Mages.
I still remember how everything started although it's blurry at the beginning. First, the practice at meditation to reach attunement with the world; once achieved then training to learn to control the inner mana. The oath. Later came learning to form patterns, more training, the beatings, more and more beatings. If you weren't good enough the beatings only got worse. Eventually, when deemed adequate enough I got taught some weak spells.
I arrive at a far corner of the training field— a quarter as big as the library itself— and start practicing as usual.
I train most days of the week before evening to late at night and some days even 12 hours straight. It's not physical training, though it also improves my stamina. I go to the Lessons in the mornings and have a free day each week, like today.
After a minute of having random thoughts about my schedule, I refocused on my training. However, I have done it so many times that before realizing I was already done with the first repetition and also out of mana. Sitting on the ground and putting my arms in a comfortable position between my legs, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
I quickly started meditating, sensing my mana pool and my mana regenerating and slowly filling it up. Taking manual control of the process, I started to siphon the mana from the environment quicker than naturally done by my body until my mana pool was full again. Even when your mana pool is full, the mana continues to be drawn into you, but it dissipates away, and only a tiny amount remains.
Little by little that tiny amount increases the maximum capacity of the mana pool. Meditating and increasing the speed at which you draw in mana makes the mana pool grow in size faster than if left alone. Different people have different regeneration speeds.
Faster means more talented, among the many things higher talent entails a few are: less time spent meditating and more mastering spells; faster growth of mana pool; and bigger maximum mana pool in the long run.
I myself am in the low end of talent.
While meditating reaching attunement can also be done. Doing so allows oneself to sense your whole body by even the tiniest detail, not just the mana pool. If driven to a high enough mastery, attunement permits you to sense the environment around you too.
Being in attunement is relaxing and reinvigorating. I can feel my exhaustion fade away with each passing second. I could be doing this all day but I need to practice all my spells. Becoming familiar enough to them so that I could cast them as easily as breathing.
While waiting for my mana to recover I think about the patterns too.
First, mana is a form of energy that permeates the world around us. It has the strange capability of imitating matter and even laws of the world if forced into certain shapes. Once the mana is shaped into another form it changes into what is known as magic or magical effect.
Patterns are these certain shapes that trigger the transformation of mana into magic.
And there are several ways to manipulate patterns into shaping mana.
Casting spells is one way of doing that, but even then, casting can be done in similar but different enough ways. I know chant casting, chantless casting, and instant casting. And also the combination of chantless and chant casting: half-chanting. But for now, I will explain a little more about the patterns and their relations to spells.
Take the spell Clean, for example. A spell with an easy set of patterns. Every spell has patterns that determine the nature, the process, and the result of the magic. Clean is a spell that removes every foreign thing on the skin and transforms it into a mist that disperses into the ground. It has the side effect of removing odors. From what Claire told me when teaching it to me, that side effect wasn't expected to be there when it was created but the spell is popular because of it.
This spell starts with a set of patterns to detect the body and to not aim the magic against it. A standard pattern in almost every spell. Useful, but it won't prevent you from burning yourself with the flames of your own fireball, just that you won't be the primary target of the projectile.
The second set of patterns is the way of channeling the spell. From my own understanding, this is to determine the part of the body from where the spell will be launched if it's a spell that needs to be launched, of course. Normally, that is from the hands because it's the most instinctive place but in the case of the Clean spell, it's channeled from the entire body in equals parts, which is concerning the last set of patterns.
The penultimate set determines what the mana will do and the actual actions of the magic. What Clean does is making the magic detect everything small and foreign on the body. Some patterns remove all of the detected stuff and the next one sends it to the ground.
The last set of patterns indicates the time of activation of the spell, which in this example is: immediately after coming out of the body.
The combination of all the patterns is the matrix of the spell, and once you use mana to form the matrix and activate it, the mana in the spell matrix transforms into something else and the magic effect is made.
Except in rare circumstances, mana or spell matrixes that leave your body are almost immediately reabsorbed by the environmental mana. To avoid this is necessary to activate the spell before it leaves your body, as magic is far more resistant than untransformed mana. Still, almost always, magical effects also fade away eventually, differing from spell to spell.
Some spells require certain patterns that can only be activated by certain magic affinities of the mage. Worth noting is that Clean is an affinity-less spell, meaning that it has no such requirement but is also not boosted by any affinity.
The first round of my early training was with the spell Boulder. It consists of launching a hard rock at some target from the hand. I repeated the spell with slight variations in the mana invested until my mana was exhausted.
Next in my regimen is the spell Flame. Basically, it transforms the mana into a yet of fire, fired with lacking speed but whose real propose is to extend flames everywhere it can reach. A pyromaniac skill almost useless unless you want to cause damage in a city or building. You can use it to make a campfire instead of using a more deadly Mini Fireball, though.
There is no danger in using it here. The training camp is enchanted every day to make it magic resistant, to say nothing of the strength of my spells.
After half an hour of meditating, I am ready to go again. Time to start. First I think of the matrix of Flame but I cast it without a chant. It's like pushing the mana from the beginning of a labyrinth until the end of it; with the labyrinth being the matrix that I already know. According to the complexity of the matrix, the time of this process increases. It's possible to push faster the mana thus forming it faster but doing this may decrease the power of the spell.
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The activation of the spell is just one centimeter away from the fingers of my hand since the farther the activation of the spell once it leaves your body the weaker it becomes. Your mana dissipates very fast while it isn't transformed into a form of magic once outside.
After less than three seconds a basic spell like this is easily cast and I raise my outstretched arm and hand.
"Flame" I whisper in a voice that didn't sound like a whisper at all.
My voice sounded clear through everywhere in the training ground. The magic attack shot out to the ground five meters ahead of me and flames started to expand upon impact. The flames stopped expanding after they reached one meter in diameter.
It seems like a little thing, but the resistance of the training grounds diminished the attack effectiveness. These are magic flames but they are mostly to ignite other stuff so the fire can keep going as long as there is combustible to burn even after the mana powering the spell is spent.
I repeat the spell without waiting for the fire to go out, aiming slightly to the right. This time I don't Speak at the time of firing and compare the results for the thousandth time in my life.
The speed of launching was the same as the previous try. But the similitudes ends there. The flames are noticeable slower to expand, around 15 percent slower. And the flames stopped expanding before reaching a meter of diameter.
Next, I outstretch my arm again. I insta-cast the spell and immediately after, the spell is launched.
The speed is the same. The flames have a little over half the speed of expansion of the first and the expanding limit is also the same.
Same conclusions of always.
The first method, half-chanting is the strongest of the three.
The second method was just chantless casting alone, it had less power than the first but was completely silent.
The third method, instant casting, had even less power than the second but the casting time was the shortest, well, basically inexistent.
I used the same amount of mana in each casting of the spell.
It's possible to use more mana in a spell than necessary but if you use too much as to break the matrix of the spell or not enough mana to power it, the spell will result in backlash and the result can be pretty dangerous. One can't guess the result of a backlash, they vary every time. Almost always is painful, though.
There are a lot of methods of casting magic. I just know four of them and truth to be told they are similar to each other.
Chanting. Half-Chanting. Chantless Casting. Instant Casting.
Chanting is the method that I left out of my training a moment ago. it's the strongest method I know but it's also the slower. It consists of Speaking.
To Speak you need to use Words of Power. Which is one way to manipulate patterns, except you use sound to move your mana instead of your consciousness. To use these words you need to infuse your voice with mana, thus creating a Word of Power with every word you say. It's difficult to use them at first but it becomes easier with practice. It's also an extremely dangerous thing to do if you don't exactly know what you are doing.
The Words control your mana and form spells on their own, forming the patterns automatically. Originally they were used to cast spells only in the ancient language but has been long since proved that you can use random words and still successfully cast a spell, except it is like a hundred times as dangerous. The Words of Power depends more on your concentration and the mental image of what you want to accomplish than what you are really saying. The rate of backfire when doing so is so frighteningly high that no one does it, though.
Chanted spells aren't made in the ancient language. It's the ancient language that was created from the Words of Power. Claire has been teaching it to me for two years now. It's a dead tongue but necessary to know for any mage worth their salt, or so she says.
Half-Chanting is almost the same as the Chantless method. When Chantless casting you push or slide the mana to form the patterns and when Half-Chanting you just Speak a Word or the words that represent the spell in your mind before activating the spell. In my case, that word is the name of the spell itself, just like I did a while ago.
The fourth method is called Instant-Casting.
It consists of filling the pattern with mana in an instant, without pushing or sliding the mana into a pattern. It sounds easier than it is. It's extremely difficult, and when one is capable of doing it in the blink of an eye, we consider the spell mastered.
Inta-casting is like throwing to the air fifty normal nails so when they fall to the ground they form the shape of a wolf. Or like resolving fifty mathematical operations at the same time. The more complex the matrix of the spell the more difficult to insta-cast it.
Also, it isn't possible to add a Word, as when half-chanting, when instant casting. I have tried but there isn't enough time to do it, it's instantaneous after all.
Half-chanting and insta-casting are my preferred methods of using magic.
I have been told chanting is the most common method of casting magic outside of the town. Out there those capable of chantless casting are the elite. Instant casting is a casting method unique to us. For that and taking into account that all our population is capable of casting spells to some degree, we are known in the outside world as the City of Mages.
I continued to shot Flame until I ran out of mana.
I am eight years old and can barely cast Flame eight times in a row. It's pitiful when compared to my classmates, even the worst of them in this spell, apart from me of course, can do it about 12 times in a row. The growth speed of my mana pool is way slower than everyone else. Affinities are also to blame to some extent.
Reaching attunement once more I start the process again.
Some of my classmates are unable to cast the spell Flame entirely, but that is because they don't have the affinity necessary to mold mana into magic fire. I have several affinities. However, I also know that my affinity in every one of them, except for one, is low. It means that the power of my spells is weak and their mana cost is high.
Summoning Magic is the only branch of magic spells in which I don't have either a low or non-existent affinity. I have a high affinity for summoning, so I am not a lost cause in the path of the mage.
Once the people of the town complete the Lessons, and if they don't feel like keep going down the path of magic or that they don't feel strong enough for it, they choose to become professionals in their trade or they search for something else.
I don't know how to do another thing and I don't want to know either so joining the army of the town or the guards are my best options once I finish the Lessons, but that is a problem for the future, in long seven years.
I continued practicing my spells. I know a variety of spells that cast different magic effects. Since spells that transform mana into fire or air, to spells that move objects from place to place. Even one that can harden my skin by a bit. They are kind of weak, even if it weren't me casting them but that is what I have available.
The spell Earth Lance is my favored attack and the one that I am most accustomed to other than the summoning one.
This spell launches hardened earth in the shape of a javelin that has a sharp protuberance at one end, like a spear not used to cut but to pierce. The spell is devised to be a one-use attack due that is meant to automatically launch and pierce whatever has in front of it. It also often breaks at the shaft part upon impact.
"Summon Spirit"
I half-chant cast the spell, with the boost of the Words of Power, as I like to do. My mana rapidly falls by five-sixths. From the point in space which I mentally chose, a sphere of faint blue light starts generating and growing. Out of my control, the sphere takes form on its own, becoming a three meters long spike-filled snake. The spirit snake floats, which is unusual. It has a ghostly transparent appearance and gives off a faint glow.
I sigh. a result like this yet again.
A striking sight, sure, but it's not how it is supposed to be on many different levels. I should be able to choose the form that the summoned spirit takes, it shouldn't be half-transparent either. It should obey my mental commands but just responds to verbal ones. Floating around must be a special ability of this form in particular; sometimes they have them. Normally I should be able to manipulate the form and to some extent the ability or abilities too.
Summon Spirit is a complex spell, the more mana feed into it, the stronger it becomes. Different from the others I know, this spell has no upper threshold of mana it can manage, where others like the Mini Fireball or Flame break apart at some point, this one just strengthens more.
My teachers believe that the cause of the inconsistencies in my use of the spell is due to barely being able to cast it in the first place, that with more mana the details will fill in by themselves.
Perhaps in part is like that but I also feel that I just lack some sort of control. For now, It doesn't matter either way.
I grabbed the snake from the air and inspected it closely, noting it had no internal organs. It was just the jaws, fangs, skin, and the spikes all over it.
The summon would last for around twelve minutes, as I didn't cast the spell 'properly'. Properly being reciting the whole fifteen seconds long chant using the Words of Power. When I do it like that it lasts fifteen minutes, which is still half of what the spell should be supposed to last. This is a minor problem, though, because the summon's time of life can be lengthened in two ways. The first is to use the second version of the spell that I was given, which makes the spell a sustained one. So, as long as I supply mana to it, the summoned spirit will remain around. The other way is to add more mana to a specific part of the spell matrix when casting it. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages.
While the summon still has time I can order it to fight, use it as a decoy, or whatever I need or find useful. The spirit intelligence is limited, so ordering it something like to scout ahead would be useless. The spell can be my strongest move if used correctly.
I have been told it is the most common of summoning spells but it uses so much mana that I can only cast it once before having to meditate again. And that is by taking into account that supposedly my high affinity with summoning magic makes the spell even easier and stronger to cast than otherwise. How affinity really works, I don't know.
For hours, I kept practicing every spell I know except Summon Spirit. I have cast the spell so many times since I was able to, that I need to make my mastery over the other spells catch up with it.
"Oh." Suddenly, I felt drops of water in my head and interrupted my thoughts to look up. The sky had some dark clouds gathering. It seemed that it would rain soon, maybe it would be a downpour in a while.
After a few seconds of contemplating the clouds, my brain started working again.
"Damn it! It's raining!"
Cursing my stupidity and lack of foreboding I dropped my training and ran all the way to the entrance of the library, from where I could see that in the minute it took me to get there, it had started raining already. Luckily not very hard yet.
Turning my head to see the wall at the counter, I saw the hour in the clock; the only clock I knew— barring my new prize— is on the town. A new feature that was put there a few weeks ago.
It was 10:30 pm, half an hour before the library closed its gates. That meant that in a quarter of an hour someone, probably Claire, would have gone to the courtyard to interrupt my training. The hour also means that I got carried away, again.
I started running through the same path I took to come, noticing the hurried people making their way too; and even some people walking as if nothing was happening. Those had a type of barrier above their heads, protecting them from the rain.
"Horse shit!" Midway to my destination it started raining heavily. Wetting me completely in only a few seconds. The only joy that I had is that those cocky mages with the barriers were likely getting wet too as those spells surely consumed a lot of mana continuously.
While cursing my luck I kept running without stopping, barely slowing down to not slip at some points.
Almost at my destination, I slowed down a bit before turning at the corner to not fall.
"Whoa!"
*Splash*
It was more slippery than I thought.
It was painful. I fell directly on my back. While cursing a little more, I gazed at the sky and noticed that by now it was completely clouded.
It seemed that it would continue to rain for a long while. Good thing that I thought of rushing here since I realized.
"Uff." I got up from the wet floor, now more wet than ever. I hope I don't catch the flu from this all. I still didn't have a spell for that and neither the sheer resistance to just shrug it off
I resumed running again, more carefully this time and after a minute I finally got to my short journey's end.
What welcomed me was an abandoned house. No door and no windows but just the hole for where they should be in there. Weed and shrubs growing in the excuse it had for a yard. It was in a very bad state but was also two stories tall.
This house was on the outskirts of the town. It was a few streets away from the town's Shield. Made of wood as are most of the older houses. Few of them were unoccupied like this one, though.
Although I usually pass the night anywhere this house is my refuge on rainy nights. To say nothing that I have hidden a few things between the wooden planks of this old building.
Stepping inside I went to the wall next to the stairs and lifted one of the said planks from its place, taking a bag that was in the space between the wood. I didn't worry about insects because the bag's material wasn't animal hide neither was it tender.
In the bag were a change of clothes and a single blanket.
Leaving the first floor because there was, literally, nothing more for me in there, I climbed the stairs to the second floor that also had nothing more than a pair of empty rooms. These rooms have windows and doors, though. I entered the closest one to the stairs while still trembling cold and closed the door.
"Another dinnerless night." I sighed, remembering this little side note in my life. Well, staying hungry for a short period of time wasn't that bad once your body got used to it. The first time was horrible, now is just a night more.
"Clean"
I used the spell to free myself from the water and insta-cast a modified version of Flame that I learned from a theory book. It consisted of removing some patterns that the author identified as responsible for "launching" the spell and changing to another to cast the spell from all the body. With other minor modifications.
What this modified spell achieves is to produce a weak and almost imperceptible flame from all my body, heating me little by little. It's not an orthodox heat spell but it does the job just fine and also it didn't start a fire. Good enough for me.
I put the blanket in a corner on the floor and changed my clothes with the ones that I brought with the bag because they were still a little wet. I put my shoes face down at the side so that they could dry more properly.
I wasn't sleepy so I didn't hurry to sleep; nevertheless, I didn't have anything else to do.
Lying down on an edge of my blanket I grabbed the closer edge and spun my body to the other end of it, being careful to not tight it much so I could still move my hands inside. Reaching for the bag with one hand I put it below my head.
I idly thought about getting a new blanket because it was so damn cold tonight!
It was very rare for the nights to be so cold in this town. The Shield supposedly regulated harsh temperatures.
Suddenly feeling drowsy I yawned and embraced my knees while lying sideways to the window.
"Until tomorrow. Maybe it will be a better day." I muttered while being lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the rain hitting the roof, the freezing cold, and the gaze of a moonless sky.