The First Archmage

“There’s the little enigma,” the worker behind the counter at the Guild says as I approach. “What can I help you with today?”

“Do you know of anyone who can help me advance a spell?” I ask. “I’m at Level 9 of Magic Bolt, and want to advance it. I also want to learn another spell or two.”

The worker gives me directions to the local magic school, and Warren and I make our way there. He gets a lot of dirty looks from the adepts and staff of the school, but we ignore them as we make our way to the instructor I was told to find.

Her classroom is fairly large, and the stone walls are enchanted against wayward spells. Twenty wooden desks sit at the front of the room, neatly lined up in front of her massive desk, and she’s sitting on her desk, reading papers. Classes are out for the day, and there are no students at the desks themselves.

“Hello,” she looks at us. “A fair-haired and a fae, I’d say you’re Gavin and Warren, yes?”

“Indeed,” I respond. “Are you Professor Temp?”

“I am,” she nods. “How may I help you?”

“I got Magic Bolt to Level 9 earlier,” I say. “And it took me a lot longer to get there from 8 than it did to increase it to any other Level. I’ve got a feeling that it’ll be tough for me to get it up to Level 10, and was hoping for some advice on that. I’d also like to learn a few new spells, too.”

“Only you would think that was hard,” Warren says. “Everyone else would say that was easy. You have an unfair advantage.”

“You’re just jealous,” I tell him, then look at the witch. “Would you be willing to assist me?”

“Sure,” she slides off her desk, snapping her fingers. A target appears at the far end of the open space side of the classroom. “Hit that with your Magic Bolt.”

I summon a Magic Bolt and fire it at the target, completely destroying it.

“Quite strong,” she says. “Even for an Adventurer. Of course, it being Level 9 will explain that. Level 10 will make it even more powerful, and your cast time will be reduces by a lot, though it does appear you spend little or no time actually casting, simply calling out its name and firing it.

“My recommendation,” she says. “Would be to try to cast it without the incant. For a low-Tier spell like this, that’s just the name. Simply form the runes in your mind and draw on your Mana, then cast it. Also, attempt to control how much Mana you put into the Magic Bolt. Those two, together, should enable you to reach Level 10.”

“No surprise at how quickly I’m expecting it?” I ask.

“Of course not,” she says. “You’re the Wizard, Gavin. You’re strong, and you gain power fast. It’s only natural you’d expect to gain Level 10 so quickly. Try it, but be mindful of your Mana. Even with your absurd regeneration, you aren’t at full, probably from the Dungeon trip you did a little while ago.”

How does she know that?

I walk over to the training side of the room and practice summoning Magic Bolt without words. It only takes me a few tries before I can summon it without incanting, and after that, I work on adjusting the Mana in it. After burning up the fifty Mana I’d restored since leaving the Dungeon, a message appears.

Magic Bolt is now Level 10!

Magic Bolt is now Mastered!

For Mastering a Tier I Skill, you have been awarded 10 Class Experience to all relevant Classes!

Is the System trying out a new mastery message?

+0 INT!

It’s nice.

+0 CHA!

Professor Temp calls me over when I say I’ve mastered it, and then shows me three sheets of paper, one saying “Magic”, one “Fire”, and one “Light”.

“Normally,” she says. “Magicians spend more than a month on a Tier I spell, and up to a year on a Tier II spell, if they practice regularly. I don’t think you’ll have that issue, though – my sister said you’re quite adept as learning new spells, and learned three in a day.”

“Your sister?” I ask, then look her up and down, and an image of Natalie forms in my mind – she was the only person I ever saw with straight here. “Natalie?”

“Indeed,” she smiles. “She talked to me the same night you learned those spells. You’re quite impressive. She got your adorability down as well.”

“Thanks,” I smile at her. “I’m working on getting Cuteness Level 10 right now.”

Cuteness is now Level 7!

“Of course you are!” She laughs. “As you can see, I’m not showing you spells with these papers, but schools of them. The first one, Magic, encompasses anything that’s simply made of magic, such as your Magic Bolt, Magic Missile, and Magic Shield.

“The second two,” she continues. “Are elements. I picked the two that are most effective against the undead, since we have a fair amount of undead. Since you seem to plan on training her for awhile, we can take our time exploring each school. After you’ve a few spells in School of Fire and School of Light, we can teach you the School of Holy, and begin to add the Holy modifier to your spells.

“What I want,” she says. “Is for you to have at least four spells in each of those three Schools before we move on to the next. Not just have them, though – have them at Level 10. I want you to have at least one Tier II spell in that category out of those four.

“You will train each spell,” she says. “You will bring them to Level 9, and find the way to cross the threshold into Level 10. Now that you have Mana Manipulation, the Elemental Manipulations will come easily to you. We’ll ignore the fact that you already have three spells from the School of Magic, unless you’d like to learn a Tier II for it now.”

“Fire,” I answer. “To burn away my foes.”

“Very well,” she touches the three sheets, and they each turn into a different fire magic. “The three Tier I spells you’ll be learning from me before we move on to another School are: Candle Flame, Fireball, and Firebolt.

“The first one,” she touches the runes for Candle Flame. “Is the spell used to train people in their first fire spell. The third one is simply the fire version of Magic bolt, which has the added effect of burning whatever it hits. The second one, Fireball, is a ball of fire, and it will explode on impact, and thus is the most advanced of the three spells.”

“Candle Flame for lighting candles,” I say. “Firebolt for piercing thick hides, and Fireball for setting fires. Got it.”

“Of course that’s where your mind goes,” she shakes her head. “Yes, it does help set things on fire.”

“Gavin,” Warren interrupts. “Sorry, ma’am, I just thought about something. Gavin – why aren’t you using the Grimoire to learn spells?”

“The what?” I ask.

“The Grimoire?” He asks. “You told me you found one of them?”

“Oh, right!” I remember, then do my best to keep my face from heating up, my Acting Skill working, though it doesn’t keep me from feeling embarrassed about that. “I forgot.”

“You… forgot?” He asks. “Gavin – you have one of the five Grimoires of Tristan Lightblade – how did you forget you have it!”

“I don’t think about what’s in my ring, okay!” I hold my hands up. “I forgot it was in there! Most of it’s just the Wealth of Jozan, and then I keep my pack and knives in there. It’s not like I go into a lot! I forgot that I had the Grimoire! Plus, in all the time I used it, I never really went into the magical side of it, mostly the alchemical side. There are so many things in it that requires wyvern blood and scales and stuff. So many potions and salves and stuff. I had so much fun harassing the wyverns while getting the components.”

“You… harassed wyverns?” Warren asks.

“You have a Grimoire of Tristan Lightblade?” Professor Temp asks. “Natalie didn’t mention that little detail.”

“Ya,” I pull it out of the ring. “It only has a couple of basic spells – most of them are advanced spells. He lists what he recommends having, in way of INT and Mana, before attempting to learn them.”

“He wasn’t an Adventurer.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I shake my head. “He could get a feel for it, and might as well have been. He also knew about the Wizard Class – he mentions he may have found the way to get it.”

I wonder… if Christopher told him about it, and how to obtain it.

“May I see it?” She asks.

“If you swear you’ll give it back to me,” I answer.

“I’ll give it back to you,” she says, and my lie detection determines she’s telling the truth, so I hand it to her, dismissing the notification. She starts flipping through the Grimoire, muttering to herself. “Gavin, you’re right that many of these spells are beyond you, but I’m guessing that, as you weren’t a magician until you gained access, you didn’t really look at the spells much. Am I correct in this?”

“You are.”

“There are some more basic ones at the back of the Grimoire,” she answers. “And to think that the pages each have multiple things on it, changing based on what you want to view. That’s quite interesting. There’s actually a full page devoted to teaching Magic Bolt, then turning it into an Elemental Bolt and how to shift the runes around for fire, water, stone, air, light, darkness, ice, and energy, as well as how to turn it into a Holy Magic Bolt, and how to add that modifier to each of the Elemental Bolts as well.”

“Seriously?” I ask, and she hands me the Grimoire on the page she opened it to, which is showing the Magic Bolt instructions. “Whoa.”

“Chances are,” she says. “Tristan Lightblade intentionally put only a couple of weaker spells, then many powerful spells. Doing that would deter people from trying to go farther, especially if the spells only got more and more difficult. Then, toward but not at the end, he listed easier spells to learn. Since it defaults to the spell pages, most wouldn’t even know about the other stuff. You seemed to have figured out about those, and were more interested in them, it seems, so I’m not surprised you didn’t catch that.

“Now,” she says. “I’m not going to ask you to give me the book, and nor will I try to take it from you, but I will say that I don’t want you attempted to learn any spells from it without me supervising you, while you’re here. Even with your bonus to learning Skills and magical Skills, it can still be risky, learning magics. Many magicians have ended their lives to learn a spell that turned out to be far more powerful than they expected. As long as you are staying in this town, do not attempt to learn a spell from the Grimoire without my supervision. Do you understand?”

I’m about to tell her that she can shove it, but stop. Now that I’ve had time to cool off from meeting Kade, I realize just how stupid I was, making the blood oath. Maybe it’s better if I don’t try to learn magics from the Grimoire for now… at least, not without supervision. I seem to be making bad decisions lately.

Ended up gaining a Blood Quest I can’t get out of, then lose 2 LIF for something else, all in about a week. Who knows what would happen if I’d remembered about the Grimoire and tried to learn one of the more advanced spells… which I probably would have attempted to do the first chance I got to practice magic on my own after remembering.

It might not have been LIF that I lost.

“Alright,” I say.

“Good,” she smiles. “Memorize these runes, but don’t try to practice them. We’ll put them into use tomorrow. Once you have mastered each of these, I will teach you the Tier II spell.”

“Thank you,” I send the Grimoire back into my inventory. “You don’t mind if I play with some of the alchemy stuff, do you? I’m actually quite good, and do have the option to take on an Alchemy Class, when I can.”

“Do what you’re comfortable with,” she says. “But make sure you get a high enough Skill before attempting the more advanced things. If you doubt, for even a moment, then don’t do. That’s the rule to follow now. When you’re much more experienced and advanced, you can do what you doubt with alchemy. That’s what I was told, when I looked into starting alchemy.”

“You didn’t?”

“I like magic more,” she shrugs. “So I hear you have an unusual way of expanding your Mana Pool. Instead of actually expanding it, you make your Mana denser. This will be harder to do if you’re spent of Mana when you try it.”

A piece of paper appears in her hands, and she hands it to me.

“Memorize these runes,” she says. “And then will them into being within your Mana Pool. It’s magic, but it doesn’t use Mana – it expands your pool. Stop after gaining a single point of Mana, in any session that you do gain Mana.

“Too much too fast will cause pain, and possibly irreversible damage. There is no risk to this, so long as you’ve memorized the runes, and from what my sister said, you do that quite easily. At most, do this once a day. Most people can spend up to a month before gaining that first point, but I doubt you’ll be waiting that long. If you start to feel any mental effects, stop, even if you have a resistance to it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say.

“Good,” she says. “Now run on back to the inn and get some rest – you’ll be doing the Dungeon and training here tomorrow, so you’ll need it.”

I nod, then Warren and I leave, the four papers she gave me tucked safely into my inventory. When we return to our room at the end, I close my eyes and focus on the runes she gave me for the expansion technique, and visualize them within my Mana Pool. The runes mostly deal with Mana itself, as well as expansion, and their purpose is solely to increase one’s Mana Pool.

Skill Gained!

Taihi Mana Expansion Technique 1/10: One of many Mana Pool Expansion techniques in existence. Mastering this Skill will render it inert and incapable of expanding the Mana Pool further.

That came without any gains to my Mana. I practice it for awhile, and gain no results from it before I can feel it affecting my mind, my mind becoming just a little bit fuzzy.

My Mana hasn’t restored yet, so I don’t bother trying to gain even another point of it with condensing it, since that only works when it’s full.

“Goodnight, Warren,” I say.

“Goodnight,” he looks over at me. “One of the spirits I’ve contracted with told me to teach you the method I use to expand my Spirit Pool, once you’ve got a few more spells under your belt and your Mana Pool is at 300. I think he wants to contract with you as well, but doesn’t want to until you’re stronger as a magician.”

“Okay,” I yawn. “Goodnight.”

I close my eyes, and am asleep instantly.