Higher Magic

It was a week before Simon managed to cast his second spell in reality, followed swiftly by his third and his fourth. He'd spent every day and every night training in both the dream and the garden. Hethoria's assistance proved invaluable; whilst dreaming, the difficulty of casting spells was comparably negligible. For every day he struggled to even begin to cast a single spell in reality, he would cast it five times in the dream. Despite Sonia's temporary absences in favour of Gideon, the repeated successes and effective analysis slowly built his confidence and his comfort with the fundamentals, allowing him to transfer the skills to reality bit by bit. Of course, it had still taken a week, but a success was a success.

His physical training was proceeding slower. The morning after their first session, Orion had forced his way into his room and ripped him out of bed at sunrise, not allowing him to take anything but his shoes. Undressed and freezing in the morning air, he was forced to run a full lap around the city. While it wasn't large by modern standards, it still took him nearly six hours before he returned back, shivering and unable to walk. Sonia had taken Orion aside after that. For the next six days he had been allowed a shirt. His time did improve by a small margin by the end of the week. The initial six hour journey reduced to five, though he still spent far more of it walking than running.

It was around that time that he had begun training with weaponry again. In the little time after his 'run' and his magic tutoring, Orion would instruct him on the fundamentals, berating him whenever he made the smallest mistake and never offering a single word of praise. 

Similarly, upon Sonia's return to his lessons, he begun working on higher level spells, ones that may actually prove useful.

"Now that you have a grasp for the most basic of spells Simon, it is time to start working on something more complex. We will not be utilising spacial magic until you have further mastered your physical training, but will instead continue to focus on gathering information." 

Sonia stood posed before him, the table they had been using till today moved to the side and discarded for the time being. Her hands were behind her back and her body stiff, and upright.

"First, I must remind you that magic is entirely flexible. As long as your intent lies within the domain you have access to you will be able to achieve it. It is for this reason that magic varies both visually and actively from person to person, shaped by their personality and their intent. We'll return to our initial spell as a basic example. Where one caster may cause the words to appear on the page, you instead had them temporarily ink them on to your hands; while that may have been unintentional, it does serve as a suitable example of the theory. Do you follow so far, Simon?"

"I think so. You're saying that magic can't really be categorised into 'spells' and that similar effects could look and manifest differently dependant on the person."

Sonia nodded then shifted position, beginning to pace back and forth.

"What this means is that there is, frankly, no consistency to be had between spells, and that what I am teaching you simply serves as examples. If you attempted to do something outside of the scope within these spells, it would be entirely possible you would be able to do so."

Sonia stopped, standing directly in front of Simon again, and raising her hand palm upwards in front of her. "Now that the explanation is complete, we will be moving on to our next spell. A basic analysis." Sonia's medallion began to glow scarlet briefly, before puttering out as quickly as it had come, replaced instead by a small book that now lay open in her palm.

"The spell I just cast attempts to obtain the basic information about my target, in this case you. Written here in this book is your name, age, weight, height, family, and so on." She pointed the book toward him so he could read it, not bothering to look herself. Simon's eyes widened, written in the book was a fully accurate list of information regarding him. She hadn't been wrong about a single thing written within.

She snapped the book shut in front of him, the clap of its pages served as its death cry, disappearing as quickly as it had first appeared, not a trace left behind.

"What I just showed you is approximately the most powerful magic a standard priest within our order can achieve. If they wanted, nearly everyone in this cloister could have gathered this information regarding you within the past week."

"Anyone? They've been gossiping about me the entire time I've been here. How many of them would have seen it by now?" Simon found himself deeply uncomfortable at the idea of his privacy being violated like that. While it wasn't as intrusive as Hethoria's mind reading, the fact it was so readily available made it almost worse.

"I doubt you have any reason to worry. I have trained nearly all of these priests myself, they know to value others consent to things like this. Of course, that is irrelevant in battle, but for friends it is invaluable, even if you pique their interest to such a degree."

Sonia returned to her earlier pose, straightening her back and looking directly at him, standing at attention. "Now it's your turn. Attempt to gather information about me. I will offer guidance if you require it, but I believe it is best you discover this yourself. It is necessary you start building your own style of magic."

Simon nodded and begun to control his breathing. He had discovered it made casting significantly easier. Focusing on his breath allowed his mind to hone in, if he were able to divert that focus to the spell he was casting, it would significantly increase his chances of success.

His breath slowed, he begun to envisage what he wanted the magic to do. The idea would need to be more complex than just revealing writing. He focused on Sonia in particular, the idea in his mind shifted step by step. First, it was 'tell me about her', before slowly shifting to a simpler, perhaps more accurate 'analyse her'. Simon kept the idea vague, Gideon had assured him it would make early attempts at spellcasting more effective, and his guidance had yet to prove ineffectual.

The idea ascertained, he began to focus on his breathing once again, the rhythmic process slowly bringing his thoughts a standstill. At the point where he began to feel his mind fade into quiet, he acted. The command to his magic replaced the rhythm in his mind, rising from the depths where it had been submerged. He felt the tug as it did so, the burgeoning magic focusing on his medallion and surging to achieve his request.

It all ended rather anticlimactically. The rush faded as soon as it had come, and was instead replaced by a rectangular object on the floor. Bending down to pick it up, he realised he'd conjured a phone, or at least something similar to one. While it had no buttons to speak of, its shape and screen were near identical to what one might expect, and there written on the screen was the information he was looking for.

In an attempt to respect her privacy as she had his, he held the phone out to Sonia, who looked at the object quizzically. "This is a rather strange object you've conjured, I've never seen anything quite like it. Is this some form of stone tablet?"

Taking the object with some curiosity, she began to read, nodding her head as she did so. 

"You've done well, all of the information is correct, I had expected you to struggle your fir-" Sonia stopped her sentence short, her face unreadable.

"Sir Simon, there is some rather impertinent information written here." There was simmering anger in her voice. "I trust you did not gather this information intentionally?"

Simon blanked, he had no idea what she was talking about, as far as he knew he'd done exactly what she had wanted him to. "I don't really know what you're talking about Sonia. I tried to command the the magic to analyse you and that's about it. Why? What does it say?"

Sonia grew uncharacteristically red, holding the phone close to her. "Until this object disappears, I will be holding on to it Sir Simon, do you understand?" Her voice shook a fraction.

Simon truly was lost. "Sure, I suppose you can do whatever you want with it, it's your information after all. Sorry for whatever I did, I guess?"

"Good, that will be all for today's lesson then. This spell should have pushed you far enough. I will see you tomorrow." Sonia spoke curtly and with absolute finality.

"Wait, but we just started! And I feel completely fine! Seriously, I barely feel tired at all this time, I think we can move on to something even harder!" Simon tried stopping her, but Sonia had already begun to walk away, and by how determinedly she was walking, there would be no stopping her.

Seriously, he wondered, what could have been written in there?