Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

She pointed at the second item on the list. “I was thinking something more like that. Or, in between the first item and the second.”

“Oh, to make the spell stronger? Yeah, that actually seems pretty doable. But would just throwing extra mana into a summoning spell actually do anything useful?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Summoned monsters are really good at shaping mana for their own uses. Remember that karvensi I summoned?”

“Sure.” I frowned. “Now that you mention it, he was casting a lot of spells.”

“And spells I couldn’t provide the mana for. I don’t have lightning or fire mana. Summoning spells use transference, air, and gray mana. He got the mana that was left over from the spell after I finished summoning him - and he reshaped it himself. If I’d given him more mana to work with, he could have done more with it.”

Huh. “That reminds me — wasn’t he using some of the same spells you were, but without incantations?”

“Yeah. Using incantations for broad-area spells seem to primarily be a human limitation — monsters shape their magic naturally, so they generally don’t need them.”

That was interesting. Could I figure out a way to set things up for a human to distribute mana across a broad area without incantations like a monster could?

One more research project for the long list.

“Okay, yeah. I think we can make a spell-enhancement item work. In fact, I could probably make something similar for Patrick if I can afford it.”

She frowned when I said Patrick’s name. That was not a good sign.

I continued, “Anyway, do you want me to spend everything you gave me on the one item, or try to save some for additional items?”

“Gimme the strongest thing you can make. We can always make more items later. I’d rather have one really good item that isn’t going to be replaced when you get stronger in a few months.”

I agreed with her logic. “Okay. Do you want something that’s self-recharging or something we have to manually refill?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What’s the advantage of the latter?”

“Half as many runes for me to make, so I don’t have to buy as many crystals. That means I can buy a bigger crystal to give it a larger mana capacity.”

“Got it. Go with that, then.”

“You sure? That means you’ll probably only be able to use it once per test. If even that — recharging something we make with a big crystal is going to be hard .”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’d rather have a strong emergency measure.”

“Okay. What mana type do you want?”

That one took her a minute of consideration. “Gray. As much as I want to say ice, it’d be too hard to recharge, and less generally useful.”

I didn’t quite understand her hesitation. “Wouldn’t gray work for anything?”

She shook her head. “For any summoning spell, yes. But not for my normal offensive ice spells, and I might want to hit something with a really powerful ice storm, rather than call on a summoned monster. I can convert gray mana, of course, but that’s inefficient.”

“Oh, that makes sense. Maybe if this ends up working we can make you an ice one eventually.”

“I’d like that, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. I’m not that rich.”

I grinned. “Not yet. Okay, let’s settle on this one as my next project, but I wanted to discuss some of these other ideas for the future…”

The rest of the conversation was much more pleasant, but I knew that I had a lot more work to do before she was going to truly trust me again.

Professor Meltlake floated, rather than stood, in front of the class when I arrived and took my seat. She was only about four feet above the ground, but it was both noticeable and impressive. She sat on the air like a cushion with no clear gestures or words to maintain the spell.

Given what I recalled of Meltlake’s previous lectures, I suspected the effortless manipulation of mana was a calculated move on her part. While Teft preferred direct confrontations for shock and awe, Meltlake liked to draw us in with little casual uses of magic that brought out our curiosity.

At an otherwise unremarkable moment — one I suspected to be the precise moment an unseen clock ticked to the starting time of our class — Meltlake lifted her head and glanced around the classroom, her lips twisting almost imperceptibly downward.

That muted displeasure was an uncomfortable pressure for me, even though I suspected it was directed at those students who were still sitting down. Or worse, those few that remained absent.

“Students, attention.”

We turned our gaze toward her, conversations silencing in an instant. If we had a military salute, we probably would have given one, but we weren’t quite at that point in our training yet.

If I handled things right, I’d never get to that point. I had no intention of joining the military. Not for traditional service, at least. I couldn’t afford to. I knew it was extremely unlikely that I’d make it to the top of the tower before graduating. Most stories of successful climbers indicated that they took decades to reach the top — and success stories were rare.

I needed to make sure I scored high enough to qualify for becoming a military-sponsored climber when I graduated.

Even if I did rescue Tristan before graduating, I still had no interest in joining the military. Military service had destroyed my great grandfather’s mind. The military had taught my father to “discipline” me into success. I didn’t want to end up like either of them.

“Today, we’ll be discussing Valia’s relationships with the most prominent kingdoms on Kaldyn. We’ll discuss the smaller kingdoms, as well as kingdoms on other continents, in future classes. We’ll begin with our geographic neighbors. Dalenos in the north and Edria to our south.”

The mention of Dalenos made me think about Jin. There were a considerable number of foreign students here, but I’d only seen a handful of others from Dalenos. They were notoriously insular. Not necessarily xenophobic — they didn’t seem to have any problems trading with Valia or with our own students visiting them — but my impression was that they were very patriotic and that most of their citizens weren’t very interested in learning about our culture.

Professor Meltlake turned one hand upward and opened her palm. “If this is Valia…,” a white cloud, roughly triangular in shape, but with deep gaps that presumably represented bodies of water, “Then this would be Dalenos.”

She opened her right hand, and a blue cloud manifested. This one was more rectangular in shape. It formed along the north western angle of Valia’s triangular shape, stretching both further west and north. The rectangle had a large chunk missing from the center, and another on the southern side. The first one represented a big lake with a name I could never remember, and the second presumably signified the Unclaimed Lands — territory infested with vicious beasts that had never been fully settled.

“Dalenos is unique among our nations in that they are directly led and guided by one of the visages — Katashi, the Visage of Justice. While we use the term “kingdom” for simplicity, they are not a kingdom in the traditional sense; their monarch is largely a figurehead. Katashi, and by extension his priesthood, control all legal and military forces in the region. Thus, it is more accurately referred to as a theocracy.”

A student I didn’t recognize stood up to indicate she had a question. Professor Meltlake turned her head. “Yes, Constance?”

“Aren’t we all theocracies, then? I mean, don’t we all follow the same Goddess?” Constance asked, sitting back down.