The variations listed in the book were not in the same category as these simple, or starter exercises. Although Xvim, Ilsa, and the book itself referred to them as ‘variations’, Zorian realized they were more like ‘upgrades’, or perhaps ‘advanced versions’. He hadn’t realized it at the time, but the pen spinning exercise — which was the very first variation outlined in the book, albeit under a fancier name — was a whole other category of difficulty from simply levitating the pen above his palm. Not only did he have to maintain the levitation effect on the pen, he also had to shape an additional effect to make the pen spin. The variation was supposed to teach mages how to multitask, by making them maintain two effects at once.
Though Xvim would have disagreed, Zorian considered his pen spinning exercise mastered, and the guidelines in the book seemed to agree with him. As such, he started poring over the other 4 variations of the levitation exercise, trying to figure out which one was the easiest. He quickly realized they were not only arranged in an ascending order of difficulty, but that mastering the later variations probably requires mastering the preceding ones first.
Vertical levitation required him to make an object stick to his palm with attractive force, position his palm vertically and then make the object separate from his palm without falling down. The sticking part was easy, and something Zorian could already do, but making the object float off the palm without falling required that he balances the attractive force binding the object to his palm and the repelling force that made it separate from it. Without the ability to multitask he acquired from the pen spinning exercise, it probably would have taken forever to master this one.
Next was fixed position levitation, which required an ability to maintain the levitated object’s position in space despite disruptions and changes in initial conditions. In other words, he had to be able to move his hand up and down, left and right, while keeping the levitated object static in space. It required the ability to balance attractive and repelling force he presumably acquired from the vertical levitation exercise, but this time he had to continually adjust the balance in response to changes.
And so on. Seeing how there was only one correct order in which these exercises could be learned, Zorian started practicing vertical levitation. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t accomplish much in this particular restart.
The summer festival was approaching.
Chapter 009
Cheaters
«Majara,» intoned Zorian, finishing the spell with the word he wanted the spell to search for. He felt the spell reach out around him, scanning the books in the surrounding shelves for any mention of the word in question, and poured some more mana into the spell to expand its radius. His efforts to overcharge the spell almost unraveled it, forcing him to spend several seconds stabilizing the spell boundary, but in the end the mana flow snapped into its proper place and the spell finished its task as planned. Seven golden threads flickered into existence, seemingly growing out of his chest and connecting him to various books in this particular section of the library.
Zorian smiled. The spell was one of the book divinations Ibery had taught him, one that sought out books containing a specified word or string of words. It was a somewhat fragile spell, failing if the number of positive matches exceeded a certain number — the exact number depending on the caster’s skill. It was mostly used to search for quotes or really exotic terms.
Exotic terms like, say, the dead language of Majara. Zenomir hadn’t been kidding when he had told Zorian that he wouldn’t be able to find any books about it — there were no books specifically about the Majara language, and very few books even mentioned it. Up until now, he had only found 13 other books that contained the word, and most of them only in the form of a throwaway comment or two. It was possible that the knowledge he sought existed somewhere in the library, only in a format that was invisible to the divinations he was using — Ibery had only taught him the very basics of ‘library magic’, as she called it, so his searches were painfully crude in the grand scheme of things — but if that was the case, there was little he could do about it.
He glanced down at the threads growing out of his chest and waved his hand through them, watching it pass through them without effect. He never got tired of doing that. Well, he probably would, in time, but the novelty hadn’t worn off yet. The threads were an illusion, existing only in the privacy of his own mind. Every divination spell needed a medium through which it could present information to the caster, since it was impossible for human minds to process the raw output of a divination spell. A self-imposed illusion like the threads he was currently looking at was actually fairly advanced as divination mediums go, or so Ibery had claimed when he had tried to tell her he got the spell working within 30 minutes of being shown how to do it. He had a distinct impression she thought he was lying. He didn’t really understand what was supposed to be so difficult about it, to be honest — the threads were a purely mental construct that didn’t even require much in the way of shaping skills… just visualization. It seemed pretty simple to him. Natural even.
He shook his head and followed after one of the golden threads till he reached a book it was attached to. It was a huge, intimidating, 400-page book about the history of Miasina, and Zorian had absolutely no intention of poring over it until he reached the tiny part that actually interested him, so he cast another divination Ibery had taught him. This one highlighted every mention of the chosen word (in this case ‘Majara’) in shining green, so he simply flipped through the book till he caught a flash of green.
«Zorian? What are you doing here?»
Zorian immediately snapped the book shut and stuffed it back on the shelf. While he wasn’t doing anything forbidden, he really didn’t want to explain to Ibery what Majara was, and why he was searching the library for any mention of it.
The retort he planned to use died on his lips when he finally turned to get a good look on his visitor. Ibery was a mess. Her eyes and nose were red, as if she had been crying recently, and there was an ugly purple splotch covering her right cheek and neck. It didn’t look like a bruise, not exactly, more like…
Oh hell no.
«Ibery…» he started hesitantly. «You wouldn’t happen to go into the same class as my brother, would you?»
She flinched back and looked away. He sighed heavily. Just great.
«How did you know?» she asked after a second of silence.
«Brother dearest came to me earlier today,» said Zorian. «Said he pushed a girl into a purple creeper patch and wanted me to make ‘an anti-rash potion’. I wasn’t in the mood so I kind of blew him off.»
That was a lie, actually. He had discovered, during the last three reverts, that Fortov was either unable or unwilling to track him down if he failed to return to his room after class. That was actually the main reason why he spent the entire day in the library instead of inside his room. Still, due to his rather unique situation he knew what would have happened had he been present.
«Oh,» she said quietly. «That…. That’s alright.»
«No,» disagreed Zorian. «No, it’s not. If I had known he was talking about you, I would have helped him out. Well… helped you out. He can go die in a fire as far as I’m concerned.» He paused for a moment, considering things. «You know, there is no reason why I can’t do it now. I’ll just have to stop by my room to pick up the ingredients and—»