19 - Blink

An initial murmur rumbled through the class. Someone whispered, “So fast.”
Was it?
Was it too fast?
Were they impressed, or did she need to turn down the speed to appear less abnormal?
It was hard to tell how unusual this was from Professor Valeria’s expression. After the initial eye flare, it rested back into its placidity, even as she commented, “Very good. Since you’re so quick, we’ll move on to the second spell. [Lightbeam].”
Ari knew that one, too. It was like the first, but with added Massa and a tiny Calor chain tacked on at the end of the Massa ring. The Calor was what gave the beam its force, however minor it was.
It was a Tier 4, but it looked similar enough to the spell she’d already made that she wished she could just shift around the essences and make additions rather than remaking the whole spell.
As a matter of fact, why couldn’t she?
She frowned as her mind drifted. That would save her so much essence. It was essentially what the Phasewalkers did, except hers would be on a much smaller scale.
Elric had said he couldn’t teach her that.
Could she learn it on her own?
“Arielle?” Professor Valeria called. “Did you hear me?”
“Yes.” She terminated her first spell and said, “[Lightbeam].”
This time, she slowed the essences, holding them back with her cores so they wouldn’t immediately rush into shape.
The spell took three seconds to come together rather than its usual fraction of a second.
The students were still impressed.
“Wow,” someone said.
“You’re good,” another concurred, and Ari blushed, pleased. This was good.
Impressing people was one of the core tenets for getting them to want to befriend you.
“Yes,” Professor Valeria said. “You are quite talented. But if you thought I would let you get by with only your core-dominant spells, you’re sadly mistaken. I believe in only allowing my students to progress when they have a balanced core.” She ran a scanning glance across the class. “As Ascendants, it’s easy to get complacent and only focus on what you are already good at. But we must be adept at even our weaknesses. So, Arielle, the next thing you’re going to do is a [Blink] spell.”
Oh no.
She didn’t know that one.
That must have been one of the spells she didn’t get to.
“It’s good you don’t know it,” Professor Valeria said, reading the hesitation in Ari’s expression. “Because we now get to test your rapid calculation skills. I will give you a minute to figure it out. It’s an instant speed spell so I assume you know the core essences?”
She nodded. Vacu and Calor most probably. Maybe Massa for stability. It had to be at least a Tier 3 spell, but it couldn’t be too complex a pattern, and likely only one or two stages.
But Ari thought about possible double bonds that might be involved and had a moment of panic.
What if she got it wrong?
She hated getting things wrong in class. Hated it.
Just thinking about it made her feel itchy with discomfort.
“Can you demonstrate for me, please?” she asked.
Professor Valeria seemed puzzled. “You want a demonstration, rather than using the time to calculate?”
She bit her lip and nodded. This felt like cheating. It was cheating. Ari did not often like to cheat, but if it was between cheating and failing…
“I just need to understand exactly how the spell works,” she said. “I’ve never seen it done before, so I’m not sure.”
“You’ve never seen a [Blink] Spell?” Her eyebrows lowered. “Did you grow up under a rock?”
“No. I grew up in a stilt house in Fenway Basin.”
Professor Valeria’s eyes widened. “You’re a Mossborne.”
She nodded. She thought it would be obvious from the name, but perhaps there was another group of people who called themselves things like Blacksoil.
“How is she here if she’s a Mossborne?” one of the other students asked.
Ari’s eyes strayed to the ceiling, but she jerked them back down. “I was adopted by Mossbornes. I don’t know my real parents.”
“Oh, I see,” Professor Valeria. “In that case, I apologize for my earlier rock comment, and I can indeed show you the spell, although it will deduct some seconds from your final time.” She took her wand out of her robe pocket, and waved it in the air. “[Blink].”
Ari focused on the shape.
There was a Vacu swirl for reduction of something, and the swirl was thick enough that it essentially resembled a black hole. Did that mean void?
Perhaps.
Calor for speed. Massa for stability. She also added a tiny Luxa-Massa interwoven circle at both ends, likely for targeting both the beginning position and the ending position of the spell.
Ari thought that was likely to ensure that she only got as far as a specific distance.
Four essences. A Tier 4.
Professor Valeria flashed forward by three meters, nearly touching the doorway. She maintained her stiff-backed posture, the wind resistance never blowing back her robes or even a single strand of hair.
It was a little unnatural, and Ari thought maybe the added Luxa-Massa hanging off wasn’t just for distance but for stability as well. Professor Valeria wanted to be in the same position at the beginning of the journey as she was at the end.
Without wasting time, Ari began to scribble the spell form on her scroll as Professor Valeria spun.
“Blink is a very interesting spell, in that, it gives you some flexibility. There are multiple ways to get to the same result, but it usually takes students one or two tries to get it right. I will allow for that in this case, and if you would like a hint, I can–”
“Done.” Ari had wasted some time pretending to think before she drew the spell form. She said the spell and waved her wand, forming the exact shape.
Without warning, it jolted her forward.
Massa kept her stable with perfect posture, everything in place as she came to a screeching stop.
She found herself standing next to the professor near the doorway.
Professor Valeria’s jaw had dropped.
Ari blinked at her as she brushed her hair back. “Did I do something wrong?”
The professor glanced at Arielle’s miniscroll, then back at Arielle. Without a word, she took the mini-scroll from her hand. She frowned at it, her eyes scanning the document as though searching for an error.
“This spell script…” she glanced up. “Have you seen it before?”
“Perhaps,” Ari responded woodenly. “Maybe in a spell book.”
“This isn’t in any spell book.” Her eyes raked the page again, picking it apart. “Your time was too fast. You only had to think about it for ten seconds. You completed the script and the spell within fourteen seconds. That’s an incredible preparation speed, highly unusual for an apprentice who was raised in Fenway. Which leads me to believe that you already knew the spell and you were feigning ignorance.”
Ari wasn’t confident in her lying skills, so she simply remained silent.
“When did you learn to use magic?” Valeria asked.
Not knowing how to answer, she shrugged.

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“That’s not an answer, Ms. Blacksoil.”
“My essence affinity was discovered a few days ago.”
“A few days? It’s impossible to develop such casting speed and control in just a few days. Were you doing any guided meditation before that?”
She nodded.
“I see. That makes sense then. Who was your tutor?”
Ari really didn’t want to answer. Professor Valeria wasn’t letting it go, so she shook her head.
“Again, not an answer, Ms. Blacksoil.”
“No one,” she finally said.
The Professor paused and eyed her owlishly. “You had no tutor.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since I was young. I didn’t know what I was doing at the time was guided meditation. I just did it for fun.”
“Fun?” That seemed to confuse her even more. “You find guided meditation fun?”
“Yes.”
“There must not be much else to do in Fenway,” a student commented, making someone giggle.
Ari didn’t respond.
“How about spellwork?” Professor Valeria said. “How long have you been doing that on your own?”
“Not that long,” she said. “Most of my training was yesterday.”
That seemed to stump her again. She glanced at the scroll, then back at Arielle, and didn’t know what to say.
“Come see me after your last class,” she concluded and gestured for Ari to return to her seat.
Ari didn’t hesitate.
The class had gone quiet. As she walked by, people stared at her and whispered.
It wasn’t quite the effect she wanted. She’d wanted them to surround her with accolades and smiles and tell her they wanted to eat meals with her.
Now they were staring at her, some with barely shielded animosity.
“Show off,” someone said.
Well. Elric had warned her.
“There are two types of people. Those who will be threatened by your skill and those who will be impressed. There’s nothing you can do about the first group because they will dislike you anyway, even if you try to downplay your skills. But those who respect you might seek to form a coalition with you, and they will reach out a hand in brotherhood.”
Arielle attempted to find that second group now.
She tried to look for any friendly faces. She met Lyra’s gaze and offered a smile.
Lyra didn’t smile back.
“I’ve always believed, for the most part, that this is a terrible system,” Professor Valeria began speaking again, drawing attention back to her. “Introducing someone in the middle of the year not only puts stress on them, but it puts stress on us as instructors to bring the new student up to speed. It’s asinine and wasteful in my opinion, a way for nobles to circumvent the stringent initial admission process and the first severance trials. We hardly get students after the second severance, but even with that, it always felt too much like cheating to me.”
Hearing the ‘c’ word made Ari flinch, especially since Professor Valeria now pinned her with a look.
“However, every now and then we get a student like you, and it makes the tedious and unfair process worth it.”
The Professor continued staring at Ari after she ended her speech, as though expecting a response. Ari didn’t know what to say.
“That’s a compliment,” the Professor pointed out.
“Thank you.”
“Lyra, you should ask your new roommate to help you,” she called, and Ari nodded her agreement. She was completely willing to help Lyra, especially since she knew what the problem was.
However, when she turned to Lyra she noticed the other girl looked on the verge of tears.
She quickly twisted her face the other way, hiding her expression.
Ari paused, instantly horrified. Had she done something? Why was Lyra crying?
She wanted to ask, but she had more tact than to announce that to the class.
She would ask her later.
The rest of the class was spent discussing the different types of extended spells. Spells essentially came in three termination categories. Instantaneous spells meant that termination occurred right after the spell activated, as with [Flashblind] and [Blink]. Timed spells were spells that would stay active for a fixed number of seconds after activation, like [Lightbeam]. Then there were extended spells, which were spells that stayed active for as long as the mage held the shape of the spell, like [Flashlight]. Of the three, the last one was the hardest to craft and cast, as there was usually more complexity added to the structure.
Extended spells could be achieved in two ways: either with the gradual release of the essences (which required a slow combining protocol) or by a recruiting essence protocol, which essentially meant you were pulling and adding more essence to the end of the chain as the spell went on.
Their assignment to be submitted by the next class was to search for and complete two of each type of extended spell.
Ari thoroughly enjoyed the class, which took approximately an hour to complete. A bell rang to suggest the class was over, and she got up to try to go to Lyra immediately.
If she were upset about her failure, she didn’t need to be.
Ari could help her.
“Lyra,” she called, but the other girl didn’t look back.
In fact, she practically ran from her.

---

Professor Valeria sank into her seat after the class was over, drawing in a breath. She hadn’t expected class to go like that.
When she’d seen the starting stats of the new student, she’d been impressed but skeptical.
The fact that, on paper, the girl’s cores were in such perfect balance suggested to Valeria that some interference had taken place. She knew all about the bribery that sometimes happened at these measuring institutions. Nobles paying the mages to boost their child’s score by a little bit, just enough to make it impressive or give them a more favorable lean. Of course, they wouldn’t boost it by too much, or they would get caught, and it would lead to disgrace for not only the child but also for the rest of the clan.
Therefore, she knew that Arielle’s stats were likely not too far below what her stat sheet showed, but the perfect harmony of her cores was a dead giveaway that something had been tampered with.
Which was partly why Valeria had gone that hard on her for her first day. She wanted to test the girl’s true abilities.
[Flashlight] wasn’t an easy spell for beginners to master, thanks to the control and gradual release component. Neither was [Lightbeam], for that matter.
And Valeria truly hadn’t expected her to get the [Blink] spell.
She’d offered it merely as a test to see how creatively Arielle would think. The [Blink] spell could be achieved in one of two ways. Beginners often choose the easiest, Calor 𝞪 + Massa 𝞫 + Vitae 𝞪, targeted at feet, turning it into a simple speed spell. However, Valeria didn’t prefer that version as it caused a lot of tripping and improper balancing.
Rarely, students would add Vacu to eliminate friction. Some braver ones had even attempted to use Vacu to eliminate the distance itself. This was typically done by apprentices who wanted to show off, and they always failed.
However, the most refined way, and the way Valeria always did it, was to combine Calor, Massa, Vacu, and Luxa for targeting an exact distance, eliminating drag and moving as stably as possible through the space.
That combo, however, elevated the spell to a high Tier 4, almost a Tier 5.
She hadn’t been expecting the new student to easily complete a near Tier 5 spell, one that she’d never done before. Or had she been lying about that?
Valeria would have thought so except that particular variation of [Blink] wasn’t in any textbook. That shape bore Valeria’s own unique signature, and she’d never met anyone else who did it quite like her.
Until now.
The girl’s mind had worked fast, and she must be a crafting genius to figure out that she’d needed that extra Luxa component for improved balancing.
The sheer complexity of the spell should have taken her more than a minute from drafting a script to completion.
It was mind-boggling that she’d instinctively figured it out in ten seconds.
Not to mention her abnormal casting speed, which was even faster than some of the Cohort 3’s.
The technique was fluid too, her spell coming together with no stumbling or weakness.
Just one clean sweep.
Valeria allowed herself a smile.
It seemed they had a potential Archmage on their hands.
They hadn’t had anyone this skilled in forever. Not even Selena, whom Valeria always thought was supremely overrated.
Selena had had well-balanced cores and tons of potential, but she was too impulsive and preferred brute force over refinement and creativity. Not to mention her proclivity for dangerous spells.
She was far too unstable, and worse, she enjoyed being unstable. She would probably hurt herself or someone else one day.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t happen while she was still on campus, or the school might be liable.
No one had heeded Valeria’s warnings about Selena, except maybe Professor Llywyd, who was noticing it a tad too late. The rest of the faculty were all too excited about producing another potential Archmage, which hadn’t happened in nearly a decade since Elric Earthbinder assumed the post.
The quality of students they’d received had dwindled since then and they had put their expectations on Selena, hanging the reputation of the academy on her.
Valeria thought that was a mistake, but she didn’t have a replacement that the academy could be similarly excited about.
That was, until now.
However, her powers came to be; it was undeniable that Arielle Blacksoil was skilled.
With just a little guidance, she would advance quickly and might even reach Master tier by her final year, just like Selena did.
The issue was finding a good enough trainer who could provide enough challenge for a girl who had so easily replicated Valeria’s signature spell.
Typically, that would be the monks or specialized Masters hired by the noble families of such a talent.
However, if the girl were a Mossborne, she likely didn’t have access to those resources.
Valeria did not feel up to the task of training such a person.
She was merely an adept, a Level 123. She hadn’t leveled up as fast as some of the others in her cohort, as she’d been focused on ensuring her cores were well balanced with minimal leanage, though she was technically a Luxa-Massa lean.
What she lacked in level, she more than made up for in knowledge and core harmony, which was why she’d been hired as the youngest professor at Erynwall Academy.
She’d only started at this school thirty years ago, and she was young for a professor, too, which had initially earned her disrespect from students and colleagues until she’d become much stricter.
She was also from a mid-tier clan that had been desperately trying to join the Celestial Assembly for decades, and had been rejected each time because they didn’t have enough powerful associations to do so.
Well, Valeria had now found a powerful association. The Assembly would be more than willing to accept her family if she trained the next Giovanni Li.
Or maybe even better than Giovanni Li.
Maybe she would train the next genius who would ascend into legendary status. Oh to think of it. Valeria’s name would be in history books. She would single-handedly pull her family from obscurity. She would help Arielle Blacksoil hold up the sky.
Was she truly up for it?
She inhaled. Perhaps not, but she was all the girl had for now, and so she would train her until she could find a better trainer who wouldn’t compromise Arielle’s core harmony to push for the fastest levelling.
She needed to prepare a lesson plan and possibly more tests for the girl when she returned, to see if she was truly as good as she seemed.
Arielle’s last class today was probably the combat session, and Valeria needed to be ready after that.
Speaking of which…
A small smile tickled the corner of her lips.
She wondered how Arielle’s skills would translate in combat. She wondered what Professor Graham’s reaction would be to the girl’s casting speed.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that session.