Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

«Oh, so you can already spin the levitated object?» Ilsa said, sounding pleased. «I bet Xvim was very happy with that.» No, not really. «Do you know any other variation?»

«No,» said Zorian. «Don’t tell me learning those is standard procedure?»

«Not like Xvim is teaching them,» Ilsa said. «But yes, most mentors will give students variations of the basic three to improve their shaping skills.»

«And how many of those variations are there?» asked Zorian.

«Oh, thousands,» said Ilsa, confirming Zorian’s suspicions. «But most students only learn 6 or so by the end of their third year. Here.»

She pushed a rather heavy book into his hands, patiently waiting for him to leaf through it. It was apparently a book describing 15 ‘particularly interesting’ variations of the basic three, 5 for each exercise.

«Let me guess: you want me to learn everything inside this book,» Zorian sighed.

«That would be a pretty neat trick,» Ilsa snorted. «Didn’t you hear what I said? Most people learn 6 or less… in a year. You’ll probably be finished with the academy by the time you’ve learned everything inside that book. Assuming you want to, of course — I’m not making you do anything.»

«6 in a year, huh?» asked Zorian carefully, an idea forming in his mind.

«That’s right,» Ilsa confirmed.

«So what if I could master all 15 before this month is done?» asked Zorian.

Ilsa stared at him for a second before bursting into laughter. It took her a few seconds to calm down.

«My, aren’t you the confident one?» Ilsa said, chuckling softly. «If you were really that good, I’d fill out the transfer forms right now, regulations be damned, and take you as my apprentice. I’d never pass up an opportunity to teach such a legend in the making. Not that I think you could do it, mind you.»

Zorian just gave her a wicked smile.

Of course, there was absolutely no chance for Zorian to master all 15 exercises in this particular restart, but that was beside the point. Thanks to the wonder of the time loop, he had far more than a few measly weeks to learn the contents of the book. It was even available in the academy library, so he didn’t have to go to Ilsa in the next restart to acquire it. And who knew, maybe if he learned those he could get Xvim to cut him some slack too. A man could dream.

Besides, the book was actually fairly interesting. Not only did it explain how to perform each variation in great detail, it also explained the reasons for including each particular exercise, as well as providing a background for understanding why the basic three were being taught to students in the first place. Zorian briefly familiarized himself with each of the variations before starting to read earnestly from the start.

Making an object glow, levitating it, or setting it aflame… these were very simple effects, requiring only rudimentary shaping skills. The levitation exercise, for instance, was just repelling force emanating from the mage’s palm. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. There were actually a lot of these simple effects, certainly more than the three they were taught, but these three were deemed a priority. Production of light, heat, or kinetic force were common components of many spells, giving the basic three the sort of general usefulness that most other simple exercises lacked.

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.