Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

“I’ll start with one of the most controversial: the Guardian. In old times, we didn’t think the Guardian had magical abilities at all, and the name is a legacy of that misconception. At first, we believed it merely passively enhanced the resilience of the Guardian. Thus, the name.”

He fell into a low martial arts pose of some kind, his chalk-hand extended forward. “As years passed, Guardians began to demonstrate seemingly magical abilities through martial arts. We understand these abilities far better now, and they are a way of manipulating mana as surely as hurling a bolt of fire would be for an Elementalist.”

A visible aura appeared around the professor as a swirling field of yellow-orange. Normally, I couldn’t see auras unless my attunement was active, so I assumed he was doing it deliberately.

The professor continued his explanation. “The Guardian accomplishes this by manipulating their shroud, a field of mana that surrounds their body. Normally, the shroud is equally distributed and serves primarily as a defensive field, but it can be focused on a certain part of the body. Either to defend…”

Conway flicked the chalk forward and it ignited in a burst of flame, vanishing a moment thereafter. “…or to strike. A Quartz Guardian will learn to use this to punch, kick, and block more effectively. At higher attunement levels, Guardians learn to extend their shroud to objects, or to push a specific type of mana through their shroud — just as I did a moment ago.”

He stretched, resuming a normal posture, and his aura faded. “Even at advanced levels, Guardians always focus on manipulating their shrouds. Thus, Guardians often learn traditional martial arts forms in addition to the techniques they study to focus their mana.”

That made sense. I was curious if specific motions triggered specific ‘spells’ or if it was more about just focusing their mind. I’d have to ask about that later if it wasn’t addressed directly.

He clasped his hands in front of him. “All attuned develop shrouds once they reach Carnelian status — but no other local attunement can manipulate a shroud to the same degree. There are, however, some foreign attunements, such as the Legionnaire—,” he turned his head, looking distracted. I heard it a second later.

A bell. No, bells — more and more of them, growing louder as the bells nearer to us began to chime.

Some students immediately began to stand. Conway unclasped his hands and held one out to forestall chaos.

“Students,” his voice was projected and clear, “please remain calm. The bells you’re hearing mean that there is an emergency situation within the school. We will be heading to the nearest shelter, which fortunately, is quite close by. First row, please stand and head to the door, then await me outside.”

He had us file out of the room in an orderly way. Once we had joined other evacuating students outside of the classrooms, most of us were deathly silent, but I heard a few whispers.

“Dangerous,” said a few of them.

“Scared,” was among the most popular.

“Monsters,” was the most important.

I got the general idea.

Our school was probably under attack.

Given the fact that both Teft and Orden had shown a proclivity toward testing their students, I considered the possibility that this was just some sort of drill. There had been invasion drills at school when I was younger; that school had been close enough to the Edrian border to warrant them.

I discounted that possibility when I saw the winged figures in the air.

There must have been dozens — no, hundreds of them. They all shared some characteristics: wings, obviously, as well as vicious claws. Beyond that, though, I noted a variety of shapes and sizes of the flyers. Some looked almost humanoid, whereas others looked like giant birds or winged lizards.

Too many to be illusions.

How did they get this far?

There weren’t any wild monsters near the city. That meant these creatures were probably from the spire, which was close by. Spire monsters almost never left home, though. I hadn’t heard of it happening in my lifetime, but there were stories. My father had a few of them. In general, the Soaring Wings took care of any small groups of monsters that somehow managed to follow someone out the tower gates — usually a fleeing climber who had gotten in over their head.

The other cases were cautionary tales.

Stories about vast waves of monsters, or a handful of titanic ones, exiting the tower to dispense the will of the visages.

If the Soaring Wings hadn’t stopped these monsters? That meant there were either too many for the guard to handle… or they’d let the monsters through deliberately, at the behest of a visage.

As I watched the first of the creatures descend from the sky, I pondered if my death would come at the hands of a creature serving the whim of the goddess my family had always revered.

And, as I followed in the line of students toward the nearest shelter, I wondered if I had caused the deaths of others by defying her.

More and more of the creatures began to descend on the school, but fortunately, none of them were near us.

“Mister Ross, lower your cane. Do not attack them. If one gets close, I will handle it,” Conway instructed. The student in question lowered his weapon, looking upset. I kept my hand near the hilt of my sword.

We were in one of the older parts of the university, which meant a lot of gray and brown buildings densely packed together. Presumably, this was before “décor” was invented. From a more practical standpoint, it meant we could easily be boxed in if those flying creatures decided to land on either side of us.

I probably wasn’t the only one who had come to that conclusion — the teacher was striding at a hurried pace. We found another class coming out of a different lecture hall after about a minute of walking, and I noted a familiar face among the crowd.

Patrick didn’t even take the time to make excuses to his class — he just wandered out and took a position next to me.

“Corin, Corin! Look!” He pointed to the sky, as if I could have somehow missed the cluster of monsters that were making the sun work hard to do its job. The students around us looked bemused by his exuberance, but I humored him and gazed skyward.

A hint of a coiled form, slipping quickly back into the clouds. It was hard to tell at a distance, but I was pretty confident that the small fraction of the creature I’d seen was larger than the lecture hall we’d just excited.

“That’s… bad,” I managed.

Patrick nodded sagely. “Yeah, but like, really exciting, right?”

I blinked at him as we continued to walk, passing another class. “I suppose that, in a way, you could call being potentially devoured by the God Serpent exciting .”

“Oh, no way, that’s not the God Serpent . It’s way too small.”

Small? That thing is about the length of a city block!

He was nonplussed by my skeptical thoughts, continuing, “Oh, oh, I think that’s Mizuchi. Yeah, look at the purple tint on the scales on her belly!”

I glanced upward again, and yeah, some of the scales — each of which was about the size of a castle door — did have a lilac hue. Most of the other scales were silvery-white, like the ones I’d seen on the actual God Serpent in the tower. “Okay, I’m looking. What, precisely, is Mizuchi?”

“One of the God Serpent’s daughters,” he explained. “And man, she’s supposed to be vicious . They call her the ‘Hero’s End’, since she, you know…”