«You know why most mind magic is restricted or forbidden?» Kyron asked. It was a rhetorical question, apparently, because Kyron immediately launched into an explanation. «It’s because it’s most commonly used to target civilians and other mostly defenseless targets. Most mind mages are petty criminals that use their powers on the weak-willed, and cannot be called a master of anything, let alone mind magic. It’s rare for mages to encounter mind mages that know how to use their powers properly. Still, even a moderately talented mind mage can easily ruin your life, to say nothing of magical creatures with mind-affecting powers on their disposal. There are methods of dealing with mind magic without resorting to warding spells, but most find it easier to practice mind shield until it’s completely reflexive and they can cast it on a moment’s notice. Or just carry a spell formula for the spell on their person at all times.»
«And these other methods are?» Zorian prodded after he realized Kyron wouldn’t say anything more.
Kyron gave him a nasty smile. «I’m glad you asked, sonny. See, not too long ago, the combat magic class had a much more demanding curriculum, including what was called ‘resistance training’. Basically, the combat magic instructor would repeatedly cast various mind spells at students while they tried to fight off the effects. It was quite effective at making students innately resistant to common mind-affecting spells like sleep, paralyze, and dominate. Unfortunately, there were a lot of complaints from students who reacted particularly badly to it, and after a number of scandals where teachers and student assistants were discovered to have been using the training exercise as an excuse to punish students outside of proper channels, the practice was discontinued. An overreaction in my opinion, but I was overruled.»
Zorian stood in silence for a moment, trying to digest this information. Was that really the best way to deal with mind magic? He got what the idea behind it was — it worked on the same principle that shaping exercises and reflexive magic did, burning the defense procedures into his soul the same way repetitive movements burned certain reactions into muscle memory. It just sounded so… mindless. And probably very painful.
That’s when he noticed Kyron was giving him a very predatorial look.
«How about it, sonny?» Kyron asked. «You think you have what it takes to go through it? I’ve been wanting to revive the practice for some time now, to be honest. I promise I’ll go easy on you.»
He lied. The very first spell he cast on Zorian was the ‘Nightmare Vision’ spell. Whatever the spiders had to say, it better be worth it.
Zorian’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted from his stomach. His whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on him, and suddenly he was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in his mind.
«Good morning, brother!» an annoyingly cheerful voice sounded right on top of him. «Morning, morning, MORNING!»
Zorian took a deep breath and focused on the image of what he wanted to achieve until it was so real he felt he could almost touch it. Billowing streams of mana erupted from his hands, invisible to the naked eye but easily felt by his senses — a mage could always feel his own mana, especially while in the process of shaping it. In little more than a second, everything was ready and he set the effect loose on the little pest lying on top of him.
Nothing happened.
Zorian opened his eyes and let out a long frustrated hiss. This was no structured spell he had been attempting, but pure unstructured magic — specifically, he had been trying to levitate Kirielle off of him by using the basic levitation exercise. He knew such an attempt would be much harder to accomplish than levitating a simple pen over his palm, but nothing?
«That tickled,» Kirielle said. «Were you trying to do something?»
Zorian narrowed his eyes at her. Okay, that? That was a challenge.
«What can I do for you, mister Kazinski?» Ilsa asked. «Normally I’d assume you are here to complain about Xvim, but you haven’t even had a single session with him yet.»
Zorian smiled brightly. That was the one bright spot in this series of short restarts — they always happened before Friday, so he didn’t have to deal with Xvim while they lasted.
«Actually, I’m here to ask for advice on a personal project,» Zorian said. «Do you know a training regimen that will allow me to lift a person telekinetically without casting a structured spell?»
Ilsa blinked in surprise. «As in, using pure shaping skill? Why would you ever have a need for that?»
«I sort of ran out of shaping exercises after mastering everything in Empatin’s ‘Expanded Basics’,» said Zorian. «It seemed like an interesting project.»
«All 15 of them?» Ilsa asked incredulously.
Instead of answering, Zorian decided to demonstrate. He picked up a particularly large and heavy book from Ilsa’s table and made it spin in the air above his palm. Spinning a book like that was actually much harder than spinning a pen, because a book was a lot heavier than a pen and had a tendency to snap open unless a mage used magic to force the covers shut while it was being levitated. That particular trick was something he was taught by Ibery, of all people — she claimed that being able to keep a book shut while levitating it was a must-have for some of the spells she intended to teach him. Unfortunately, it took a couple of weeks for Ibery to warm up to him and decide to teach him seriously, and he didn’t have that in these short restarts.
He made the book glow ominous red after a while. Using pure shaping skills to spin a book in the air while keeping it shut and making it glow with colored light was a pretty impressive showing from a third year, and should be ample evidence of his skills.
Ilsa took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair, obviously impressed.
«Well…» she said. «Your shaping skills certainly aren’t lacking. Still, hovering a person without a spell is… not really something there is a manual on. Nobody does it, as far as I know. If they have a need for on-the-spot levitation, they just carry an appropriate focus on their person at all times. Rings, usually, since they’re small and unobtrusive. I really would recommend you focus on something else if you want to hone your shaping skills further. The number of shaping exercises in existence is virtually endless, and the academy library has quite a collection of them. Stone crumbling and north finding exercises are extremely useful, for instance, but they’re typically not taught to most students due to time constraints.»
«Stone crumbling and north finding?» asked Zorian.
«Stone crumbling consists of placing a pebble on your palm and then causing it to disintegrate into dust. That’s a flawless result, however, and most people are satisfied if they can get it to fall apart into sand-like grains. It’s a useful exercise for those who plan to heavily focus on alteration spells, since the first step when restructuring matter is nearly always to break apart the existing state. North finding is an exercise for diviners, involving the use of a dummy compass to locate magnetic north. Those of sufficient skill don’t even need the compass — they simply feel where the north is at all times.»
«Those do sound useful,» agreed Zorian. «I’ll definitely try to learn those. Still, are you sure you can’t help me with my people levitating problem?»
Ilsa gave him an annoyed look. «You’re still not ready to give up on that? Why are so many talented students so intent on wasting their time on useless pranks?»
Zorian was about to object but then realized she was right. He was essentially trying to prank Kirielle. Ilsa reached out and snatched the book out of the air, causing Zorian to blink in surprise. He was still levitating it? After a second of introspection he realized that yes, he kept the book in the air throughout the entire exchange. He stopped spinning it and it no longer glowed, but apparently levitating an object over his palm was so easy for him now that he barely even registered doing it. Huh.