My skin erupts in bloody sores…

I am happy to wake up at 5:23 under those circumstances. Am I developing PTSD? Is this a side effect of starting to meditate? Well, let’s see whether meditation helps with falling asleep again.

No, it does not. At least not if you have a tricorder’s incorporeal voice - yes this thing has a voice mode - guide your through it. Well, let’s be honest. I am to teach 44 girls and one very pleased Dejan today during the morning alone while Thomas is shopping for a suit to wear at the upcoming wedding. It’ll be my turn in the afternoon. We’ve thrown a coin.

Further navel gazing has told me how advancement of attributes works. We need more awakening stones. And eventually I need to use all my abilities. I hesitate to let anybody know about those relevant for escaping.

So I compromise by training my most complex ability. I hit a hard problem with that during all my earlier experiments. My servant has to be mobile. Rules of magic. Reason unknown. But I do not know how to walk. Don’t get me wrong, I can walk, but I don’t really know how I do it well enough to write instructions. The alternative would be a ritual with a quintessence of the foot or swiftness or something related. I don’t have those. But I do know how to control an aircraft in three dimensions.

I take my creations out of my inventory. It is basically a paper airplane on steroids with a few control surfaces and a push propeller I stick on the tail. Apparently I could use rituals to imbue metal parts with mana, but my conjured stuff would also work, albeit crumble to nothing if it gets too far away from me for too long, like anything I conjure with [Equip the Army].

I head for the classroom. If this works, why not use it for a demonstration of what magic can do?

I pour my ritual circle from salt. I do it with very little need to correct. I put the conjured object and my instructive piece of paper into the center of the circle.

What my mind has planned, my hand formed, my mana filled and my pen taught, my will now set in motion. I call upon thee, finely wrought servant, do my bidding!

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The thing has an aura. It is faint, but it is definite.

I take it in my hand, „circle around the lamp in the ceiling, 50 cm below the ceiling, in a circle with 3 meters diameter at a speed of 2 meters per second“, set up a supply of mana and throw it. It works!

This is worth admiring for a few minutes. Now, how do I stop this?

--

Raisins in a bowl of oats with milk and some sugar. It is worth killing for. In fact, I killed for far less. And, no, I do not regret it. Or does tonight’s nightmare mean that I do? I don’t care.

P: I’ve created something artificial with an aura.

I pull out my little servant.

T: Fascinating.

His eyebrows don’t move. Disappointing.

D: Sensei, ready for teaching?

P: No, therefore I have decided to go full shock and awe.

D: You’ll shoot one of them to encourage the others?

P: Am I allowed to?

U: People! This is not funny.

T: It is.

U: Men!

She must never get an Eye essence.

P: I was wondering whether we can use our students to influence people, namely their parents, in government.

U: Probably, but what relevations do you have to offer? They are not going to be impressed by your views on transatlantic trade policy. It needs to be substantial and new.

P: There are indeeed a few simple rituals you need a full set of essences to do.

U: That has potential

--

They are feeling a mixture of boredom, annoyance and insecurity ready to turn into aggression. A few feel fear. There is a chance I will lose them by what I am about to do.

I push through the double doors at a brisk pace and walk to the front of the hall.

Then I go to 175% hulk mode. The 200% mode would have been forced to stoop. The hulk form has no issues talking louder than normal people:

I am your first teacher. I am also a full essence magician. You are here to learn a small part of that power, the part that can be powered with the little trickle of magic in the world without essences. We will begin with you learning the component parts of the simplest ritual …