Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

“Uh, you’re welcome. Thanks. Hope you like it.”

She released me a moment later, to my great relief.

Patrick looked at me expectantly.

I strongly considered pretending I didn’t get him anything, but it was too much effort. “And, of course, I saved the best for last.”

I tossed Patrick the ring, a House Cadence symbol on it.

Signet rings weren’t common in Valia. Gloves usually served the purpose of marking a noble house here. Rings were more common up in Dalenos, where they tended to be more traditional.

If we’d been down in Edria, I’m pretty sure my gesture would have been considered a proposal for marriage.

Heh.

Anyway, the ring itself wasn’t a big deal like giving him a glove would be, but it was still a symbol of the house, which made it a good gift.

And, it was metal set with a gem, which made it great for enchanting.

“Nice!” He slipped it on his pointer finger immediately. Fortunately, it looked like a good fit. I’d assumed correctly that he’d wear a ring about the same size as I did. “What’s it do?”

“It’s similar to what I made Sera and Marissa. It enhances your spells, but more like Marissa’s. It puts a bit of extra mana into every spell, rather than using it all at once like Sera’s. Also, it only works for lightning. Apparently, gray mana works for enhancing lightning, but it wouldn’t help other elemental spells.”

Patrick grinned wide. “Lightning’s the best, anyway.”

“Excellent. So, now that I’m bankrupt, let’s get to the actual planning session.”

We spent the next couple hours talking strategy and going over everyone’s new capabilities. We’d all been talking pretty frequently over the last ten weeks, so nothing was particularly surprising.

Sera still had access to the creatures she’d bound during the Survival Match, but she didn’t have enough mana to summon the wyvern. That was fine, as far as I was concerned. The ogre and karvensi were more than good enough. The karvensi had been considerably weaker than the wyvern in terms of raw power, but its intelligence and flexibility had made it just as effective, if not more so.

Patrick had been training with Meltlake constantly, but he’d shown a stronger affinity for lightning than her traditional fire spells. Fortunately, Meltlake was still capable of teaching those, and he’d picked up a couple noteworthy spells — a lightning storm that would periodically rain bolts on enemies, a weapon electrification spell, and a chain lightning spell that would jump between enemy targets.

Marissa had spent the vast majority of her time developing her shroud. When I briefly turned my attunement on, I was shocked by the intensity of it. Her shroud was already vastly stronger than the phoenix sigils I’d made us, and she seemed to be maintaining it without any effort. I wondered just how much damage it could deflect and what else she could do with it.

Jin assured us he’d gotten better at “everything” and left it at that.

It was the end of the night when I showed them what I’d made for myself — a saber with gray and transference enchantments layered across the surface to increase the striking power. It was a poor substitute for the Selys-Lyann, but at least I had a weapon I was allowed to use. I’d considered a dueling cane, but I didn’t need one. A saber was a better close-range weapon and I had the gauntlet to handle ranged attacks.

I wished I’d had more time to make some items focused on utility — detecting traps, increased mobility, teleportation, unlocking boxes and doors — but I’d pushed myself to the brink of exhaustion just trying to get these last few items ready in time.

That had also prevented me from making any items that were specifically intended for the test rooms we’d already seen. My priority was making sure the items that I made would be flexible enough to work in multiple tests, as well as the actual Serpent Spire.

Fortunately, now that I was capable of churning out roughly two or three magical items per week, I was confident I’d be much better prepared for our third test.

Assuming we didn’t fail out of the school during this one, of course.

And, with that rather sobering thought in mind, I made my way back to my room to sleep.

We didn’t have a second-year student to prep us for the test this time.

We had Professor Orden.

She was wearing a tailored black suit as usual, but she had her hair up in a bun today. Some sort of special occasion, maybe? She usually kept it down.

“Ah, some of my favorite students. Make sure to entertain me.”

The group exchanged worried glances.

The preparation room was the same. I glanced at the three exit doors with my attunement on. Two of them glowed with purple auras. Presumably the effect that would teleport us into the testing area.

“Same rules as last time,” Orden explained, leaning on a long dueling cane. “Any questions?”

Sera shook her head. “No, professor. I believe we’re clear.”

“Great. Who’s sitting out with me?”

We’d agreed on our plan the night before, but I still felt a little nervous.

Marissa spoke. “I’m starting outside.”

Orden raised an eyebrow. “Really? You’re leaving your Guardian behind?” The teacher shook her head incredulously. “Well, whatever. Your funeral. Head to your doors, kids.”

I nodded, heading to the same door I’d taken last time. Patrick was with me — he’d be our muscle. Jin and Sera headed for the other door.

“Good luck,” Sera offered to us.

“Same,” I replied.

Professor Orden walked over to each group and handed a member of each team a return bell. “Don’t forget these.”

We accepted our return bells. I tucked mine away in my bag, turning toward the entrance door.

“Aaaaand…begin!”

I turned the door handle, swung the door wide—

—and appeared on a pedestal in the midst of a chamber filled with water.

Oh, resh.

We’re in the wrong room.

We’d talked about several different ways the test could go the previous night.

The test could have been identical to last time — same rooms, same configuration, same tricks.

We considered the possibility of a completely different test, too.

Or that the tests might outwardly look the same, but have subtle changes to trip us up.

We’d spent hours discussing ways to prepare for those more complex scenarios.

We’d never planned for the very simple idea of them swapping the entrance doors.

If we’d pre-planned for this scenario, it’d be trivial to just use the bells to switch rooms. But we don’t have any way to coordinate that now.

I really should have made an item to send messages.

I took a deep breath, scanning the room. It was bigger than the other chamber — but not by much. I could see several pedestals that were within jumping range, just as the others had described.

I could see the swirling of something moving within the water, too.

As much as the disruption was terrifying, the consistency with what the others had described to us was a comfort.

We hadn’t explicitly prepared for this, but we had shared information.

We knew what we were up against, and we could probably handle it.

But we did have a better solution.

I took the bell out of the bag. “Swapping for Mara. She’s been in here before.”

Patrick nodded. “Sorry if you’re bored out there.”

I shook my head. “No problem. Don’t get killed.”

I rang the return bell.

Sitting in the waiting room wasn’t exactly an epic adventure, but I felt like we’d taken the smart route, even if I didn’t get to contribute as much personally. Sometimes the success of the team was more important than my personal excitement.