Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

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.

His pondering was cut off when Ilsa threw the book on the table where it hit the wood with a deafening boom. She smirked at his surprise and gestured him to pay attention.

«Like I said, there is no manual for this,» she said. «And I never tried something so foolish, either. So keep in mind that this is all pure speculation on my part, alright?»