Something Else

With a flick of her wand, Coldheart fires a snowball at the ground a few meters away from herself. “When your name is called, stand there and try to break through my defenses with your strongest spell. As long as you don’t hit your classmates, anything goes.”

I turn to Lucas. “But there’s like fifty of us. Won’t she run out of mana? Why not use the crystal thingy from before? What if she gets hurt?”

“Zero chance,” he replies. “The professors proctoring these exams are some of the top summoners in the kingdom. No examinee has ever broken through their defenses. They probably want to see who already has the stomach for fighting other summoners. Besides, the proctors have so much mana that any one of them could take on hundreds of us without running dry.”

Coldheart calls the first student, who nervously shuffles into position before holding out his wand and taking a deep breath.

A fireball grows in front of his wand as he chants. “Spark by spark. Gather. Kindle. Compound. Bathe mine wand in thy warmth as thou burn ever brighter. Take form as a great sphere of flame, burning until thy duty has been fulfilled.” The fireball settles, roughly the size of a melon. “Fly forth with great force and strike mine enemy true. Let them know the wrath of thy blazing fury—Lesser Fireball!”

Coldheart counters. “Water Wall.”

Fwoosh—Pfft!

The fireball bursts forth from his wand, but is effortlessly extinguished by a small wall of water she puts hardly any effort into erecting.

She pulls out her notebook to write something, and mutters, “Mediocre,” before calling the next student.

I tug on Lucas’s sleeve and whisper. “Why was he reciting poetry before casting his spell?”

“Wha—It wasn’t poetry, he was—Wait… have you never seen—Wait a minute, you gotta be kidding me, you’re so small. You’re a warrior? You fight with martial aura?”

Understanding almost nothing he’d just said besides the rude remark about my height, I pout.

He sighs. “As you know, warriors gather mana, mix it with their own, and increase their physical capabilities by circulating it throughout their body—so the challenge for you guys is efficiently maintaining that throughout a fight. Well, for us mages, we instead channel that mixed mana out through our wands, mold its composition, and expel it in bursts. For us, the challenge comes from the complexity of that spellcrafting process.

“We have to adjust the mana’s elemental affinity, properties, shape, duration, trajectory, and firing speed—generally in that order—before either executing the spell or while layering it with even more spells to execute a combined spell. That’s why we use incantations—to help guide us through and get a feeling for each spell. Then, as we get that feeling down to memory, we’re able to gradually shorten the incantation. Some mages even have little tricks to master spells faster, like rhyming or incorporating movements.”

“So that’s why Vincent says his spell names out loud. I thought he was just trying to sound cool.”

“Okay, well first of all, it is cool. Second of all, you don’t need to worry—they don’t expect students to be capable of using both magic and martial aura. You can just skip the next two exams and do the last two. The only student anybody would expect to excel at both is—”

“Arthur Stonefield.” Coldheart calls.

“Ooh, I wonder what kind of magic he’ll use?” I ask.

Arthur calmly walks into position and… just stands there?

Coldheart growls, “Well are you gonna attack or—”

“Flashburst!” Arthur’s arm shoots out.

“Flashfreeze!” Coldheart counters in a scramble.

KAKOO-SHHH!

Arthur fires off a large explosion from his sword, but Coldheart launches a blast of freezing cold air that encases it in ice. However—

KAKOO-SHHH!

It cascades into a second explosion, breaking free of the icy prison. Yet this one gets farther before Coldheart’s spell manages to contain—

KAK-ISHHHHHHHHH!

The spell cascades one last time, and while the next explosion is again captured, it makes it much farther—stopping mere inches away from Coldheart’s face. The aftermath stands between them like a giant ice sculpture.

Coldheart steps back. “Such talent at such a young age, truly incredible.” She slams her arm down onto the ice, shattering it into dust before flashing a rare smile. “I hope I’m fortunate enough to teach you at some point during your attendance here.”

Arthur bows his head. “Thank you, Professor. You’re too kind.” He returns to the line.

She’s not wrong. That really was brilliant. Not only did he cast such a complex spell, he even caught her off guard. He used his sword too instead of a wand. I didn’t know there were weapons built for channeling magic.

Lucas shakes his head. “Man, how do you even follow that without looking like a clown? Whoever’s next sure is screwed—”

“Littleroot!” Coldheart immediately goes back to scowling.

Lucas pivots. “Uh, I mean—good luck!”

Thanks, Lucas. Stunning recovery…

…Wait a minute!

I turn to Lucas. He just gave me the funniest idea. I try to stifle my laughter. “Pfft. Hey. Lucas—watch this.”

He stares at me, confused. “Wait, I thought—”

“Now!” Coldheart shouts.

I take my position and hold out my wand, reciting the first student’s incantation. “Spark my spark. Garner. Dwindle. Pound.”

The other students start giggling as I botch each line. Coldheart scoffs, rolling her eyes.

I continue chanting. “My wand needs a bath so make it warmer and—uh—brighter and stuff. Form a big ball of fire and burn until you’re filled. Fly really hard and, um…make them tell the truth? Let ‘em know you’re angry and burning—Lesser Fireball!”

“Water Wall—hrrk!”

Coldheart collapses to her knees, clutching her stomach after the boulder I launched smashed straight through her tiny wall of water and knocked the wind out of her.

I strike a pose while giggling. “Fooled ya!”

“EHHHHHHHHHHHH?!” My classmates roar in confusion.

As they chatter in pandemonium, I give Lucas a mischievous grin and a thumbs up. Others turn to look at him.

I was trying to make him laugh, but his face screams, “Leave me out of this!”

Oops. I motion an apology, realizing I should be careful not to get him on Coldheart’s bad side too. I check to see if she’s looking, but her back is turned as she stomps toward the old man, complaining. I jog back to the line, then turn to Lucas.

“Guess I’m the first to break through a teacher’s defenses—you think I get some sort of prize?”

Lucas, flabbergasted, interrogates me. “How—how’d you do that?! Did you purposely memorize the wrong incantation?”

“Pfft, I didn’t even know what incantations were until you told me. I don’t use them.”

I fire a small stone at the ground without chanting.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T USE INCANTATIONS?!”

“EHHHHHHHHHHHH?!” My classmates roar in confusion once more.

Lucas covers his mouth. “Oops.”

Most of the students immediately break from the line and crowd around me, bombarding me with questions. Frenzied by all the sudden attention and unable to make out a word they're saying, I try to stay calm and focus on Lucas.

“I j-just never learned them. I can’t be the only one who skips them, right?”

“I mean, yeah, a few top mages skip them, but that’s only for spells way below their skill level—not their primary ones! What noble family do you branch from that they’re teaching you how to skip incantations?!

“I-I’m not from a noble family…”

“How do you have that notebook then?! What commoner owns an infinite grimoire?! They cost more than a house!”

“WHAT?!” I spin around and look at Vincent, who averts my gaze with a guilty look on his face. I’m not sure whether to feel more indebted than ever, or upset that he let me walk around blissfully unaware I was carrying something so dangerously expensive.

Unable to decide, I return my focus to Lucas. “I-I only have it because Vincent gave it to me!”

“How do you even know Vincent?! He’s like one of the top five summoners in the kingdom!”

“WHAT?!” I spin around and look at Vincent, who once again avoids my gaze. Oh man. I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind after this for keeping me in the dark.

I turn to Lucas. “H-he just happened to pass by my village, G-Green Hollow, after I became a summoner. He said I had to come with him.”

“I’ve never even heard of Green Hollow.”

“It’s out in the c-country. Far west.”

“Then who the heck taught you incantationless spellcasting? Were your parents—

I shake my head. “No… they were just herbalists… and they died when I was little.”

Lucas goes quiet, as do the surrounding students.

He apologizes. “Sorry, Nora. I didn’t mean to bring up any bad—”

I smile. “It’s okay. It’s just… when I was little, they used to tell me these fairy tales, and the magic in them always seemed so fun and whimsical. After they died… I spent a lot of time observing monsters. Like, a lot. Thousands of hours. They don’t use surrounding mana like we do. They only use the mana in their cores—but there’s still so much we can learn from them. Like, slimes for instance.”

I summon Pudding and pick him up, presenting him to Lucas. “Slimes are made almost entirely of mana, so if you spend enough time watching them up close, you get a real feel for how mana ebbs and flows through the world.

“Or how about Pebble Golems? After watching them form and launch rocks enough times, I started understanding how they did it. Observing all these monsters, I couldn’t help but think—maybe, just maybe—I could use magic like them, like the mages from the fairy tales. And, eventually, with enough practice, I learned how to imitate their magic. Monsters don’t use incantations… so neither did I.”

“Nora… you really are something else, you know that?”

“Agreed. She really is something else.” We slowly turn to see Coldheart standing next to us, arms crossed, seething in anger. “I’ve met my fair share of delinquents, but never one who spread their delinquency to others.” She turns to the other students. “All of you. Get. Back. In. Line.”

Everybody scrambles to obey.

She leans in. “An exemplary summoner succeeds through mastery of mana—not dirty tricks.”

“Vincent says the best summoners outsmart their opponents.” I snap back.

“I’ll show you what a real summoner looks like.” She stomps back to her spot and calls the next student. “Nettle Wolfsbane!”

A chill runs down my spine as the witch timidly shuffles into position. I feel awful for thinking it, but everything about her is haunting.

Her entire face and neck are completely covered in white bandaging, revealing only red eyes carrying an indescribable sadness. She’s the tallest girl I’ve seen today, and has long black unkempt hair hanging all the way down to her waist. Her shoes, gloves, and socks are black. She wears the standard uniform, though like me, she has a belt around her hat to keep it secure. Her wand is carved from bone, and though it has no gem, I get the sense the bone itself has some unique conductive property.

Coldheart addresses her. “Nettle—five this time.”

Nettle briefly hesitates, before mumbling “Yes ma’am,” and repositioning twice as far back as everyone else had during testing.

It’s immediately apparent she’s Coldheart’s apprentice, but I’m astonished—these two couldn’t be more different—how did they end up together?

Coldheart whips her wand, “Glacial Ramparts,” and six evenly spaced walls of ice ascend from the ground, each almost a foot thick. “Do it,” she commands.

Nettle closes her eyes, gently raises her wand, and softly chants: “Freeze.”

A large, vaguely cone-shaped spear of ice over a meter and a half long forms in front of her.

“Revolve.”

A spiraling groove carves itself along the spear and it begins rotating at high speed, letting out a grating, high-pitched whir.

“Ice Magic—”

Her eyes flick open.

“Heartbreaker.”

KRKISHHHHH!

The spear tears through the first four walls in a blink, the recoil so immense that it sends Nettle’s hair and attire flowing behind her, yet she doesn’t even so much as flinch. It punches through the fifth wall before smashing into the front of the sixth, finally losing its momentum and grinding to a halt, lodged deep within the fifth wall.

I turn to Lucas. “That looked even stronger than Arthur’s spell! Who is she? Is she famous too?”

“No, I… I have no idea who she is,” he says, perplexed. “But that spell… that might’ve even been bordering 4th Order magic.”

Coldheart walks by Nettle, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Well done. Take pride in your progress—but do not grow complacent. Continue to stay disciplined in your training.”

“...Yes, ma’am.” Nettle nods.

Coldheart flashes Vincent a cocky grin. His eye twitches as she clears away the aftermath of Nettle’s test. The exams continue, and eventually Lucas gets called.

“Good luck!” I cheer.

“...Thanks.” Lucas carries a hesitant look, and instead of walking to the marked spot, he walks up to Coldheart.

“What are you doing? Get into position.” she snaps.

Lucas leans in to whisper to her, and her expression shifts to one of curiosity.

She points her wand at the ground. “Glacial Dome.” Large walls of ice rise and curve into a dome, hiding both of them from view. A few moments of silence pass, and then there’s a loud burst of noise like nothing I’ve ever heard before, somehow sounding like both birds chirping and a flame igniting.

A few moments later, Coldheart undoes her spell, and the dome dissipates.

“Seems I misjudged you,” she remarks before jotting down more notes. “Now back in line.”

“What happened in there?” I ask as Lucas walks up.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replies sarcastically.

“No fair! Orientation buddies don’t keep secrets!” I shake him but he just ignores me.

I turn away and cross my arms. “Aw, you’re no fun.”

We watch the remaining students take their tests, until finally—

“And with that, the first spellcasting test is concluded,” Coldheart announces. “For the next test, we’d like for you to use a defensive or utility spell for each school of magic you have experience with. Fire. Earth. Wind. Water. Even if it’s something as simple as conjuring a small flame, even if you can’t cast the spell to completion, it’s critical that you still show us so that we know where to start your spellcasting education.”

Lucas leans over. “You don’t have any weird plans for this one too, do you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I reply sarcastically.

“Hm… I thought orientation buddies didn’t keep secrets?”

“Who says I am?” I flash him a knowing smile and wink. “Guess you’ll just have to wait and see!”