Melody of Mana

In the time before the dance, my lessons really started to get interesting. Combat Magic particularly was moving on to a subject I hadn't even known existed yet. The ability to resist harmful magic. This we were told was an imperfect, but highly useful skill for every would-be battlemage.

It was much like hiding your aura, only in reverse. Rather than pulling your own strength out of your surroundings you had to try and flood them with a dense layer of your own power, one that stuck as closely to you as possible. This made you highly visible when you used it but would reduce the effectiveness of offensive magics to a degree.

The word reduce here was key as well. It didn't outright stop you from being hit, it only made the hit from the spell hurt less. It also didn't seem to function against every type of magic. Summoning for example went straight around it, explaining the high propensity of mages to use water in combat rather than fire, it could blow through the resistance with ease. We were also told that much like its sister discipline of hiding our aura, those who used physical type magic could learn it almost instinctively, and to a much higher degree than we were likely to ever produce.

Professor Endel had us working in pairs. We would alternate between casting very weak attack spells and trying to reinforce ourselves against our opponents. I'd been avoiding Troy since my decision not to go with him to the upcoming dance, and had therefore grabbed some boy whose name I didn't know for this exercise. He was currently hitting me with waves of concussive force roughly strong enough to knock me over if I didn't resist. An exercise that was not going particularly well on my part.

I let out an "Oof!" as once again I fell over backwards from the invisible blow.

I laid there on the ground for a bit, thoroughly considering the idea that perhaps this class had been a mistake. I was currently covered in small bruises, mostly from where backside had met floor, and felt downright horrible. That said I could tell that I was slightly improving, being that now I was only being knocked over, and not thrown. I was also able to notice my aura pushing back against the spell a bit now, it was nice of it to finally join in and help.

"You done over there?" The boy called after a few moments.

"Not yet." I brushed myself off and rose from the floor, launching a small, concentrated scream at him as soon as he signified his readiness.

A couple more passes and he asked for a break, turning to me as we sat down and started sipping on a bit of water.

"Nice scream there," he commented. I'd healed his ears twice now, because he wasn't any better at this than I was.

"Thanks, it's not super useful if you really want to hurt people though."

"Yeah, maybe not, but still useful. I'm guessing it's cheap mana-wise too?"

"Middling, why do you ask?"

"Oh... you're just throwing them like it's nothing." He seemed to be examining me as we talked. "What's your aura like when you're not hiding it, or pushing it out like you are now?"

I blinked at him, I was currently just letting it loose. That was something I seldom did, but being as tired as I was it was a bit relaxing. Like getting into your pajamas at the end of the day. Keeping it tamped down a bit was no longer too hard, but it was much more like wearing a slightly uncomfortable bra.

"This is what it looks like when I'm not doing anything to it."

"Oh... I just thought..." He looked a bit embarrassed by the question.

After that our conversation died down just a bit. We were by no means the first pair that took a break, and soon others were joining us. It seemed that some of the class was beginning to run out of mana through the constant casting exercise, something that was not particularly unusual. Most students didn't have a huge amount of mana in the first place, so using it quickly like this was rather more rare.

Our conversation died there. Professor Endel came back up before the class and gave another short refresher on technique, giving general corrections on some of the issues he'd seen while we were practicing. He seemed to be more in favor of actually letting us just experience things rather than trying to lecture too much on what to do, making the whole class rather more like a gym class from my first life.

I was asked to stay after dismissal and happily complied. Several times had Dietrich tried to come and talk to me, which I'd studiously avoided, even resorting to invisibility once. Troy looked like he wanted to talk as he gathered up his things, but upon seeing that I was staying simply smiled and waved before he made his way out.

"So, how go your attempts at learning weather magic?" Professor Endel began, looking at me closely.

"Not particularly well, Professor Magnolia doesn't seem to know much about it personally. He knows it's possible, but not much about how to do it." I'd asked him a few days ago, only to be disappointed that he'd never really studied that particular branch.

"I'm unsurprised. Have you worked on trying to figure it out on your own?"

"Er... not really sir."

"Why not? Did I not tell you that it would be an excellent route?" He looked down at me disapprovingly, like I'd failed some sort of test.

"It has just been a very busy time recently..."

"That will never change. I want you to at least put forth some effort to this though. Your current spell list is simply not going to be enough for you to continue in this class. Learning basic weather control will expand it both rapidly and in a way that will help you. As such, I expect you to begin soon, because if you don't I will have you removed from my course. Am I understood?"

"Yes sir..." I resolved to take action as I tried not to imagine the embarrassment of being removed from any class by the teacher.

"As it is currently winter I've taken the liberty of reserving one of the larger of our rooms for you to practice in three days a week." He handed over a slip of paper detailing the reservation schedule and noting the location.

"I... you didn't have to do that professor."

"No, but I want you to succeed. I seldom have bard students in this class, and even more seldom any with any potential to actually use their magic in interesting ways. So you will not be permitted to keep me from seeing whatever absolute nonsense you manage to come up with when you try. I simply won't have that." Did he seem... giddy? While Professor Endel had a hard undercurrent of harshness almost all the time it looked like he was about to start smiling. Maybe he just really liked seeing people cause mass destruction in innovative ways...

Since my first scheduled time was that night, and I was fairly sure that Professor Endel was going to be checking if I had used it or not, I found myself going to his reserved room. The room itself was huge, if rather empty. My guess was that it was used for purposes similar to that which I ended up here. Sometimes you just needed a lot of space to work a large bit of magic, or perhaps a place for many people to work together.

There was no time like the present to begin so I tried to think of where to start. Water, wind, and heat tended to begin the forms for any bit of weather type systems as far as I knew and I had at least some basis in those. I decided to start with water first, since it 'should' be the easiest.

I thought that mist would be a good starting point. In the theory mist might be a easy way to begin. It was mostly water, could obstruct vision, and I thought learning it first would probably help with things like cloud formation later on.

My progress was, as always with a new spell, a bit slow. I did make some though, and by the end of the allotted time the room was quite full of thick fog. It really was much like making water, something I knew a good bit about, and I just had to make it into tiny droplets and get it to hang in the air. I was even fairly familiar with things like mist and fog from just my day to day experiences.

At least a simple drying spell could clean up the pea soup before I headed back to the dorms to crash. As I walked I wondered idly if that could be used for some part of weather manipulation too. Sadly I didn't know too much about that kind of thing. I knew that storms were mostly wet, hot air moving upwards then cooling, but as far as serious mechanics went, I really had no clue. Perhaps for something involving lightning? If I figured out that one I was sure Professor Endel would leave me alone, for awhile at least.

The morning of our school dance Kala and I sat around in our most comfy outfits watching the chaos. It was rather like a train wreck, or some natural disaster. Girls and their maids were all hurried to get everything perfect for that morning, each running around like there was a huge rush.

Instead of joining Kala and I simply sat and ate some light breakfast, sipping tea and eating toast as girl after girl went into what looked like a mild panic attack. One even spilled a bit of tea on what I assumed was one of her nicer outfits and had a near breakdown in the dining hall.

"Wow, that looks insane." Kala watched as the girl in near tears was hurried off by her maid to find something else to wear.

"Yup, aren't you glad we skipped it?"

That got me a snort. "So, no plans for going and trying to woo each other with fancy outfits and morning plans?"

"Well, we could do that, or we could just make cookies instead."

"Oh, now that's an idea!"

It was thus that that morning was spent in Kala's room on what was ultimately a rough approximation of gingerbread. It seemed the right time for it and I was feeling rather more festive than usual so we worked together, chatting as we tried to bake on a fireplace that was in no way made for our use.

The ingredients were far higher on spices and sugar than any normal food that could be found. Things like ginger, allspice, and cinnamon were available, if not overly used. What really caused issues though was my insistence of making a basic frosting to decorate them with. The fact that it was almost mostly sugar, and really there just for decoration nearly sent Kala into a lecture on wasting magic. That was until I pushed the spoon covered in the sweet gently to Kala's lips.

"Okay... it can stay," she muttered after tasting what was my best attempt at a Swiss meringue. "Only because you've already made it though..." After that she took said spoon and licked it clean.

Most of the rest of the day was spent getting ready for the ball. Regardless of how little I was really interested in going, we still had to. So I reluctantly split from Kala to go and prep for it. Emma had already prepared my clothes and thought of several different hairstyles she really wanted to try out, so it wasn't like it took too much effort on my part anyway.

Because of the rather more unusual nature of this particular event there was no real order to entry. There was no family that you needed to meet and greet and no strict formalities of who would arrive when. That was excellent so far as I was concerned because it meant that Kala and I arriving a bit late was not of any note. It also kept anyone from asking about our dates for the evening, which was nice.

The room we were using as the venue tonight was absolutely massive. I was unsure what its normal purpose was, but for tonight it had been bedecked with one of the most complex sky illusions I'd ever seen. There were even a few auroras moving here and there across it as a primary source of lighting.

Kala and I both joined in a number of group dances, they weren't particularly romantic, but they were fun to do. About halfway through I saw Dras dancing with the same girl over and over again. Some blonde in his year who was snuggled close to him as she could be.

"Seems like your friend has developed a bit of a tumor," Kala observed, a slight sour note in her voice.

"His business then. Are there drinks? I rather think I'd like one." I hated to admit that I was a bit jealous, and a bit hurt that he hadn't even told me he was with someone, but I was.

Kala just pointed to a small setup on one side of the room and I went to go grab something. Really anything to distract me would do fine. As I approached I saw our dean, who gave me a mischievous smile and a nod, his eye flicking over to where Kala still was.

As I considered throwing some form of spell at the old jerk, Professor Endel came in the doors and bee-lined for him, a small envelope in his hand. As the older man flipped it open and began to read I saw his face fall. He went from his normal self to looking suddenly very, very old. His eyes darkened and fell a bit, and he looked deeply sad.

"You should make an announcement," Professor Endel said, his voice just at the edge of my hearing.

"And ruin a perfectly good party? This may be the last one for a bit and I'll pass. No, set up for an assembly of the students first thing tomorrow morning."