Chapter 165: Common Sense |
The Sorceress had been wandering around checking on people’s progress from the start, so Xavier should have been expecting her to appear near them too. He just hadn’t thought he would be unfortunate enough for her to walk up during his turn to cast.
But who was he kidding? Luck was never on his side.
Performing under pressure was thankfully drilled into students from their first year at the Institute. A mage who froze up when something went wrong was no mage at all. If a monster swerved around the frontline fighter to barrel toward him instead, and his first instinct was to shut down or fumble whatever spellcircle he was working on, his career would be a short one.
So though he swallowed nervously and an extra layer of sweat formed on his back despite the Northern Kingdom’s brisk air, his concentration didn’t break as the world’s most powerful mage stopped a few feet away to silently judge him.
Tatiana had nailed invocation on her third attempt and was already refining her methods. Saffra had succeeded on number four, much to the irritation of Isabella, who had gotten it the try after. This marked Xavier’s sixth cast, and honestly, he would consider it a solid win if he pulled it off still, regardless that he would be finishing last. The bar in this group was unreasonably high.
Alas, once again, the universe refused to cut him any slack. Though better than his previous attempts, and how he believed he’d drawn the runes clear enough, the spell begged to differ. And his opinion didn’t matter much next to the essence of magic.
The gathered mana in the diagram wobbled, then collapsed and began mutating. The chaotic flare lasted for only a blink before it disappeared, arcane energy smoothing out and dissipating into the atmosphere.
The spectating demon hadn’t so much as flicked her wrist. Even now, Xavier didn’t know whether it had been her or the Headmaster who had acted. Maybe one of them had established a spell that ate all failed magic without direct intervention. He’d never seen nor heard of something like that, but he’d also never attended a lesson overseen by the Headmaster himself. Much less the Sorceress.
“Nearly there,” the archmage said, which was some sort of consolation. He didn’t get the impression she was prone to hollow reassurances.
“Too much deviation on the resonance vibration cluster,” she elaborated, “but other than that, the spell will hold soon.” She pointed her staff, and an illusion appeared with the template inscribed onto the air. “In case you don’t understand what I mean, it’s this section that needs work.”
He studiously listened as the woman spoke, the experience feeling surreal. He was getting personal feedback from the Sorceress, however brief those explanations might be. A week ago, the idea would have made him laugh.
Once finished, she asked if he understood, and he hurried to say yes. Even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have admitted it. He had no intention of occupying a second more of the Sorceress’s attention than strictly necessary.
She nodded, then faced the others in his group. “And how are things going with you three?”
“I got it, but it’s sloppy,” Saffra said. “And I still have to see how it works against a voidling. Just because it activated doesn’t mean it’s good.”
“I’ll be bringing some out for that purpose shortly,” Vivisari said.
Xavier paled at the thought. From the beginning, her bringing the classroom to the rift between worlds had implied that she would let them attack voidbeasts directly, but the prospect of firing off a spell against one of those monsters unsettled him more than the idea of any regular hunting expedition. No matter if a dozen competent mages would be ready to respond, and if the beasts would be restrained.
He was a bit surprised Saffra could talk so casually about it. Maybe he was just fainthearted.
Isabella at least seemed to have tensed at the notion too. But she had special reasons to be nervous around voidbeasts. Apparently, she’d been thrown into their home dimension by her own father and a mad ritualist.
“And you?” Vivisari asked the noble.
“She got it the try after me,” Saffra answered smugly on Isabella’s behalf, as always taking any opportunity to compete. Xavier honestly found it nostalgic.
Isabella managed to elbow Saffra in a way that looked discreet despite being done in plain sight. “That is correct, but as she said, what matters is proficiency, not merely reaching invocation. Final results are to be decided.”
Xavier thought the Sorceress’s permanently stoic expression might have shifted a fraction toward amusement, but it was hard to tell. She faced Tatiana last, whose usual nonchalance had faded. His sister was pretty sociable and often immune to lofty reputations after having worked with the Guardian Sage, but evidently some people could still make her anxious.
“The same goes for me, Lady Vivisari,” she said, dipping her head.
“That’s good. It seems like most people are picking it up faster than I assumed. I was getting a lot of blank looks during the lecture, so I feared it wouldn’t go smoothly.”
Xavier perked up at that. He’d been so focused on trying to make sense of the Sorceress’s lesson that he hadn’t been paying attention to how the rest of the class was faring. He wasn’t totally alone in his struggle with theoretical understanding, then.
“I was afraid the concepts were too obscure for me to convey,” she continued. A small sigh escaped her, notable only by contrast with her usual equanimity. “Were my explanations clear, or was I rambling too much? It’s hard to tell.”
Xavier blinked. Is she… second-guessing herself? Not only was he surprised by that in its own right, but by how she was asking them. It implied a familiarity with Saffra, Isabella, or Tatiana. The Sorceress had been famed for her reclusiveness, so he really doubted she would throw that question out to anyone.
Saffra scratched her cheek. “I think you did as good a job as anyone could’ve,” she offered. “It’s just mind-bendy stuff.”
“I don’t disagree,” Tatiana said. “Speaking of, I was wondering, Lady Vivisari: you talked about their nature a bit, but it would help if I had a better idea of what they are. Like, we discuss void energy like it’s actually energy, but is it? And when voidbeasts die, they lose that power. Why?”
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“Good questions, but the truth is that we know very little. I’m not personally involved in the research, so I only know the theories they summarize. Lysander is spearheading the effort.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Tatiana sighed. “It’s just hard to make spells that defend against fire when we don’t have an idea of what that fire is. Knowing it’s hot isn’t enough, not to properly cast spells revolving around it. We need a deeper understanding. How does it spawn? Where does it go on death? If it’s energy like mana, but not mana, then what’s the lifecycle? It has to have one, and that seems like the starting point for making sense of it.”
Xavier was a mage like any other, so he found himself engrossed in his sister’s questions—enough that he forgot his normal reluctance to speak in the Sorceress’s presence. He chimed in, “They eat things, don’t they? So maybe it’s like fat?”
All four girls looked at him, and he felt suddenly stupid. He shifted in place. “Like, we eat food, turn it into fat, and burn it to make energy. Is that what they’re doing? Makes some sort of sense to me.”
His embarrassment grew, at least until the Sorceress’s eyes drifted up and right as she seemingly considered. “That’s an interesting framing of the process,” she mumbled to no one in particular. “Not transmutation or assimilation, but digestion? Breaking down, something closer to a biological process? Can mana be atomized into base components? What would be the result? Do they have a mechanism for that, somehow? I wonder…”
Without a word of goodbye, the Sorceress turned and wandered off toward the group of archmages, obviously lost in thought.
The three girls in his group stared at her, then at him, who was gawking most of all.
Tatiana snickered. “Did my little brother just help save the world?”
The words were so absurd he recovered from his embarrassment and gave her a flat look. “Don’t be ridiculous. That was hardly profound.”
“Maybe,” she admitted, “but it’s not always about being a genius. Sometimes it’s just saying the right thing at the right time.”
“But it was obvious,” he insisted, incredulous. “And there’s no way it’s that simple, anyway.” Voidbeasts were a world-ending threat. There were probably thousands of people working on the problem, all both more powerful and more intelligent than him. The odds that none had compared voidbeasts hunting people to how any other predator would were zero.
“It definitely isn’t,” she said. “But that was clearly the look of a woman who just had an idea. Whether or not it was the insight of a lifetime, you sparked something.”
“I wasn’t really thinking about it like fat, either,” Saffra offered. “I imagined it would be something like mana cores.” She absently tapped on her upper abdomen. “Absorption, I guess? Not converting energy into physical mass. They do get bigger as they get stronger.”
“Us being who we are, I’d bet most mages would assume something closer to mana cores than digestion,” Tatiana said. “It’s not the most common way to frame it.” She interrupted another of Xavier’s protests with a roll of her eyes. “Not that you were the first person to ever come up with the idea, sure, but take a little credit. Doesn’t matter if it’s unique or not, or if it was just an observation that the Sorceress used as a springboard. One way or another, she found it interesting.” She glanced toward the Sorceress, who was now speaking with the archmages.
Maybe. But the observation really was basic, he thought.
Tatiana read his expression and said, “Sometimes simple insights are what stronger mages need. We work together for a reason. Archmage Aeris has mentioned it before—people at the highest ranks of almost anything know so much that they get lost in the weeds easily. They’ll hear hoofbeats and assume a unicorn instead of a horse. Common sense can be their very last approach.”
At that final part, Saffra laughed. The reaction drew odd looks her way, and her cheeks colored in response.
“You’re not very respectful toward your master,” Isabella said, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
“I didn’t even say anything,” Saffra protested.
“You obviously thought it.”
Tatiana seemed a mix of amused and horrified at being so.
Xavier wasn’t confused, because he already had a theory that explained the exchange. The joke, it seemed, was that Tatiana’s last comment had been applied to Saffra’s master, making her laugh.
And given the context, that master would be…
He couldn’t reject the evidence of his eyes and ears anymore. “Saffra, are you—”
The girl had seen him staring. “Yes,” she immediately sighed. “Lady Vivi took me as her apprentice. We met in Prismarche, it’s a long story, and I’d rather not talk about it. Not to be rude or anything.” She grimaced at him in apology.
He gaped at her. He hadn’t expected confirmation—he’d anticipated being laughed at for the most ridiculous question of all time.
It took him a moment to recover. His follow-up came out more as a choke. “That’s… fair. Sorry for prying, I told you I wouldn’t, I’m just—”
Surprised. Dumbfounded, rather. But saying that would be rude. Though he supposed his reaction made his thoughts clear anyway.
Why would the Sorceress take Saffra as her apprentice?!
Was she secretly a prodigy, of such talent that the most powerful mage in the realm had claimed her? Had Saffra hidden her strength during her brief stint in the Institute for some unknown reason?
Or had she unlocked ancient magic in her bloodline after leaving, so potent that the Sorceress herself had taken notice?
Perhaps, even, the beastkin had found the long-missing Hero frozen in a block of everfrost, freed her, and was now being taught in repayment? Was Saffra therefore responsible for the world’s salvation from the void?
He… he wanted to know what was going on!
But she said she doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Sorry,” he repeated, though it was very difficult not to press.
“It’s fine,” she said with a shrug. “Let’s get back to practicing.”
Though he burned with curiosity, they did just that.
Xavier thankfully succeeded on his next attempt, manifesting a shoddy invocation of a void-resistant [Magic Missile]. Being two efforts behind Isabella wasn’t really a condemnation. He was happy enough with the result.
By then, most people had gotten a handle on the spell, and so the Sorceress had started floating out voidlings for them to practice on—or voidbeasts, upon the archmages’ requests. The spectacle served as a rather large distraction, seeing how he was still bringing his own castings up to par.
The session continued for a while, with the Sorceress handing out more complex spell designs to the higher-ranked mages once they’d mastered the modified [Magic Missile]. The stronger ones were adjustments of classics as well, such as a [Fireball] variant.
Xavier, Saffra, and Isabella mostly concerned themselves with [Magic Missile]. Tier-one spell or not, they weren’t seven hundred levels higher, and so getting down the implementation of even an easy spell wouldn’t be the effort of a single morning.
It was a more relaxed opportunity than he’d expected, especially once he’d discovered that Vivisari Vexaria would be leading it. Saffra and Isabella were dedicated to the pursuit of magic, and friendly, which made it easy to settle into a routine with them. And though his curiosity continued to burn, a weight had been taken off his shoulders seeing that however unjust the circumstances leading to Saffra’s expulsion had been, she'd found her footing despite it all.
The Sorceress didn’t have all day to devote to them; he was surprised that she gave them the two or three hours she did, considering the breadth and importance of her responsibilities. Eventually, she cleaned up the remaining voidbeasts and warped the group back to the classroom, an experience that left him as pseudo-nauseous as the first time.
After some parting words thanking them for their attendance—and it was absurd that she was thanking them—she disappeared with a last twist of spatial magic.
Headmaster Lysander strode to the front of the lecture hall. His gray eyes scanned them for a moment before he spoke. “Well done,” he finally said. “Everyone comported themselves well as members of the Thaumaturgical Institute and provided valuable data for both the Sorceress’s and the Institute’s personal research. Your contributions have been noted.”
His eye twitched.
“With that said, the Sorceress was very liberal with her sharing of sensitive information this morning.”
Xavier paused. In retrospect, the woman had answered all questions without hesitation, seemingly to the best of her knowledge.
“So let me elaborate, at length, on which topics are not to be spoken of without prior approval,” the Headmaster dryly continued, “which ones are extremely dangerous to investigate carelessly, and what the consequences of any lapses of judgment might be.” He sighed. “This may take some time.”