Being a YouTube star among dozens of girls feels good. Not in that direct way, though losing a lot of body mass to an incident certainly helps. And I suppose such things happen among the single police and soldiers. Well, also among the married police people. But only with each other.

My subconcious is getting annoying.

But wizards are excluded. Some treat us as if we were dangerous - we are, so what can I say – others with dislike, as if we weren’t real people – technically I am lacking an important part of metabolism, so am I, technically human? - but very few like just people.

At least I am now getting questions. One or two are even wearing bands made out of the light brown bags the last loot rained down from the sky in. If Ulrike ever learns that I am not telling them that apart from the colour that is the same material my underwear is made of I’ll be in serious trouble.

P: No I cannot train you to be magicians to the same degree that we two are. You will be using external sources of power to do magic. But it is true magic. You can detect events, lift boulders, dig wells or, if you are among the best, even heal the sick.

» My father told me that you were given essences to be better wizards

P: Thomas would you equalize the ambient?

He is good at that ritual.

T: Can you see that I am making element#3 smaller than in your course material’s example? That is because as an essence magician I can feel the ambient to a degree that allows me to right away adjust for that instead of testing with cores and then adjust with subordinate hooks.

Remember that the example is just that. You need to recognise the individual components of the ritual and adjust them to the task and its environment including the ambient.

» So you are more powerful?

T: In quantitative terms, yes. In qualitative terms, no. Your ritual, if you do it well, will have an effect of the same strength. We have the same power, but not the same efficiency.

» But you said that there are exceptions

P: Yes, but they are indirect and related to materials. Allow me to demonstrate. Thomas, thank you for equalizing the ambient.

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I draw a ritual I have learned from my essence ability and place a spool of wire inside it. Carefully I pump my mana into the metal. People are listening. We have this audience.

P: Now you have a piece of magical material. This is the most basic way to make a magical weapon. This ritual is an exception that the power in the metal has come from my pool rather than the ambient.

P: Vanessa, demonstrate to the class how you equalize the ambient.

Our questioner had been talking to her, as my new perception ability seemed outright eager to show me, so that I leave her friend to contemplate our words alone.

P: Now your next question will be whence our power comes. That is easy. Ultimately from monsters, which means that the war against the monster will last the rest of your lives, which will be short if we lose. Directly from this: I pull out a Stone of the Magus and give it to Thomas.

T (whispering): You were considering keeping it.

I nod.

T(still whispering): But you didn’t

Vanesa has done an adequate job.

T: Now we will demonstrate this.

He does an awakening ritual. Ideally we would have used that as training for a student, but you need to forge the iron while it is hot.

The Stone flashes apart in his hand and multi-couloured motes fly around his arm sinking into his flesh. For a moment he stands still, then he walks to our little cabinet for supplies of medium rarity, gets a bag of ground up chalk and pours a simple circle of about 70cm diametre without any other features.

By the power of youth I recall the boundless motility of the immature to do my will.

A shimmering medusa rises from the ground through the cycle that has started to glow in a deep blue, then another and yet another. They cycle in an anticlockwise manner around Thomas. That gets some squeaks from the audience.

--

Lunch is good.

T: How was I.

D: Impressive.Where have they gone now.

T: They are a summons. They are only temporarily in this world and leave again when their time runs out, I dismiss them or the vessel my spell has made made is destroyed.

U: This afternoon?

P: The equalizing ritual. You have seen how important that is. And you two will put in some effort. You will demonstrate an essence ritual this evening.

U: We wanted to talk about that.

T: No, you are going to take it and go onto the road to magic.

He gets up also grabbing my dinner tablet.

T: Let’s do a bit of meditation until class starts again.

--

Dejan is doing the ritual. Slowly, haltingly with copious amounts of double checking and he insists on both of us checking it. We would have checked it anyway and having an audience makes things harder.

P: Different if it hits yourself?

D: No this is not for me.

U: I’ll take it. We have decided that the next generation needs to be protected. Your little speech this morning was having an effect, even if you aimed at someone else entirely.

Does she mean to say? Thomas next to me is also going brighter. Yes, she is shining double.