Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

“I… understand.” I sucked a breath in through my teeth. “But I still don’t know if I’m going to be able to make myself do it.”

“Keep your attunement for at least a few hours each day, then. See how it feels. It’s not as effective for building your mana as larger expenditures would be, but it’s mild exercise, and you’ll begin to feel the side effects gradually. And for you, any progress would be better than none.”

I felt myself nodding slowly at her rebuke. “I’ll try. But you mentioned that the gauntlet I made was already Carnelian-level… doesn’t that mean that I can make Carnelian-level enchantments as it is?”

“Not all Carnelian enchantments have equal complexity. The difference between an E-ranked Carnelian Mage and an A-ranked Carnelian Mage is about a three times difference in power. I would rate your enchantment at the bottom of the Carnelian scale, and it took you considerable effort — and a major mishap — to complete it.” She paused, looking thoughtful.

“I will find some practical enchantments that you can use to practice your Mind Magic, and then sell at a profit. I will sell them for you, putting my own integrity at risk, for a portion of the item’s cost. Once you are close to Carnelian-ranked yourself, I will teach you a broader variety of things to build.”

I nodded. “I suppose that’s the best I could ask for. Thank you, Professor.”

She rubbed at her temples, walking back to slump in her seat. “Get that sword out of my sight, Corin. I will expect to see you here again next Wyddsday and each subsequent Wyddsday at ten o’clock. Until further notice, weekends will exist only in your fondest memories.”

They say the mark of a true swordsman is a cut so swift you never feel the wound until you begin to fall.

No weekends? The professor taking an undisclosed portion of the profits on items she taught me to make?

It was only after exiting Professor Vellum’s office that I realized how thoroughly I’d been outplayed.

I headed to the dining hall next. I desperately needed food; the test had taken a lot out of me. I planned to bring something back to my room for Sera as a token of gratitude, but I found her already there, seated with most of my team.

Only Jin was missing, presumably off doing mysterious Jin things.

“Hey!” Patrick practically bolted out of his seat when he saw me. “You’re okay!”

I nodded. “Yeah, let me grab some food and I’ll join you.”

I picked out more than I’d probably end up eating, then sat down across from Sera. She looked a bit better now. Presumably, she’d managed to get a couple more hours of sleep after I left.

Patrick prodded my arm. “Are you feeling up to moving around? Shouldn’t you still be in bed?”

I smiled at his concern. “I’m fine, really. I think I just needed to sleep it off. Vellum’s lecture hurt more than the ice, believe me.” I shook my head at the memory, wincing.

“Ooh, I’ll bet.” He popped a carrot into his mouth, munching loudly.

I glimpsed across the table toward Marissa. She was looking down at her food very deliberately. It seemed she wasn’t comfortable being friendly with us yet. That was fine. We’d get there.

I turned to Sera. “How’d your team do?”

She made a hushing gesture with a finger. “Can’t talk about it here. Oh, you were out when they mentioned all that. No talking about the test in mixed company. You can talk to the team, but that’s it. No one else. Not even teachers.”

“Seriously? That’s absurd.” I made a face.

“They’re going to ask us if we told anyone outside the team about the test when we go to the next one, and again after that periodically. Under truth spells, of course. Anyone fails? Out of the school.” She waggled her fingers.

“Seems a little extreme,” I said, blinking.

“It works, I suppose.” She shrugged one shoulder with disinterest.

I nodded. “Let’s finish this food up and go talk elsewhere, then?”

Sera nodded. “Sounds like a good plan.”

Cramming four people into my tiny dorm room was, however, less of a good plan.

Sera and I ended up sitting on the bed. Marissa got the chair. Patrick lounged comfortably against a wall.

Jin still wasn’t with us, but knowing him, I’d be shocked if he didn’t have some kind of way of listening in on things in my room.

That thought was simultaneously comforting and terrifying.

“Okay,” I turned to Sera. “Let’s talk.”

She nudged me. “How’d your team do?”

I folded my arms. “I’m pretty sure my team ‘died’.”

Sera snickered. “Seems like that’s the idea,” she told me. “You’re just supposed to get as far as you can. We lasted longer than you did, but not by much. We’ve got another group test in ten weeks, and I suspect it’ll be the same test to see if we’ve improved.”

That made sense. There was way too much going on in those rooms to get them right on a first try. I still had no idea what the deal with the box in the first room was, and that rotating statue…

I grimaced as I remembered it turning toward me.

Yeah, that one was definitely designed to beat us on the first try. The pulses of the fire were made to show us a pattern, and then they broke the pattern deliberately.

“Any idea how we scored?”

“The team shares a score. We got a sixty three. Average was fifty, highest was eighty seven.” She sounded satisfied. “Not bad for our first team activity.”

I scratched my chin absently as I absorbed that. “What’s the cutoff for failing out?” I wondered.

“It was thirty for this test. And it sounds like about ten percent of the teams fell below that. The passing threshold for the next test is seventy five.”

I blew out a slow breath. If I failed and got expelled, I could be stuck with going straight into military service. Then I’d have to wait several years before I could take another shot at the tower.

That was unacceptable. “Seventy-five seems like a pretty high bar just to pass.”

Sera shrugged. “Yeah, but it makes sense if you think about it. These tests are designed to see if we’re ready for going in a Climber’s Gate. That’s much more dangerous than our Judgments were. If we can’t pass a simple test like this, we’re not ready. Honestly, I think there should be mandatory tests like this before anyone is allowed to take their Judgement.”

I strongly agreed with her on that point. I also thought we did better with this group than I would have with any other team members, so I was pleased by how far we’d made it.

We’d just have to prepare better for the next one to make sure we passed.

“Okay,” I said, “good. If you think we’re going to go back in the same rooms, we should probably go over the specifics of our rooms. Anyone got paper?”

The only blank paper I had on hand was a magic talking book, and I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of using that for discussing a test. Fortunately, Patrick had some paper in his backpack.

“Let’s draw out what we found in each of the rooms.” No one disagreed with me.

We spent the next few minutes drawing our maps, then I explained what we’d encountered in the two we’d seen. Some of it was new to Patrick, since I’d been the only one who’d made it into that flame statue room. Patrick filled in things that I didn’t know in exchange.

“Jin used some kind of identification magic on the box,” he told us. “All he got out of it is that the box is keyed to open when the right item is pressed on a certain spot. There’s definitely something inside it, too.”

“There was a key in our room we didn’t find any use for,” Sera explained. “It’s possible we’re supposed to switch members across rooms to get it to your room. There were some places on our side we didn’t get to, though.”