7 Apprentice

Elijah was sitting in his office. He circled an object levitating in the middle of the room. He studied it from different angles. It was a feather, mostly white but with a red tip. As he approached, parts of the feather began to smoulder and suddenly burst into flame, casting the room in a beautiful orange light, when he stepped back, the fire went out and the feather seemed unharmed.

"Curious." he spoke quietly to himself as he walked over to his desk to make notes on this new object of interest. An idea struck him, and raised his hand. He was in the process of converting a large amount of mana into fire mana when he heard a knock at the door.

He dispersed his spell and sighed, sitting back on the table.

"Come in."

A young man no more than 21 came through the door. Thomas Alson. Elijah liked this one. He had limited prospects but he was hard working and diligent, took good care of himself. He'd make a respectable Arcanist one day.

"Good Afternoon Thomas, what brings you to my door?"

"Master Elijah." Thomas offered a small bow. "I'm sorry to intrude."

As Thomas entered, a moment passed then the feather burst into flames, causing him to jump backwards.

"Don't worry about that, perfectly harmless." Elijah assured him. He waved a hand and the feather floated further from the door.

"Sir, I have a message to bring to your attention. I was working the administration office today and a young man named Vance Kalliea came by asking for you." Thomas was quick to the point and didn't make Elijah play questions, he just elaborated.

"This young man advised me that he'd met you in the past, but hadn't had a chance to introduce himself properly. He asked me to describe him as a young blind boy who you met in the village of Wethermane. He showed me a coin enchanted with metallic mana of some kind. He demonstrated an ability to sense the mana within and transfer it from the coin into another metal object, in this case, his sword."

It took Elijah a moment to recall, but then he thought back to that poor boy in Wethermane that was looking for a cure for blindness.

He'd actually succeeded? Now this was something Elijah could get excited about.

"You've done well bringing this to me so quickly, Thomas. I won't forget that. Please contact Mr. Kalliea and ask him to meet me here tomorrow at his earliest convenience."

"Yes, Master."

"Oh, and Thomas, one more thing."

"Yes?"

"Tell nobody else for now. Do this for me, and I shall make sure you're handsomely rewarded."

Thomas was a little confused, but he was hardly about to contradict a real Arcanist.

"Of course, Master. You shall have my absolute discretion."

Vance slept in, the road had been tough and the day before had left his nerves a little wracked.

When he eventually came downstairs he quickly discovered that he was the only person other than Penny currently in the nook.

"Good morning Penny. It's quiet in here this morning."

"Usually is, hon. You arrived on an off-day for most people. Typically we have lovely quiet mornings here in the nook. Good thing if you ask me, let's me catch up."

"I like it." Vance pulled himself up onto a stool.

He paid in advance for a few days of meals and lodging and tucked into some breakfast, courtesy of Penny.

"By the way, I see you had some success yesterday, Vance."

He felt something tapping against his arm and he reached out to grab it, it was a folded piece of paper inside of an envelope.

"It seems sometimes even the clever folks at the college sometimes forget the obvious, hmm?" Penny added.

Vance suddenly felt a little nervous, and a little embarrassed.

"Penny, I don't suppose you could..."

"Of course, hon." she took the letter back out of his hands, broke the seal and opened it up, she unfolded the paper and began to read out loud to him.

"Dear Mr. Kalliea,

I have relayed your message to Master Elijah as requested, he wishes to invite you to visit him at the college tomorrow at your earliest convenience. He has requested that you keep this meeting and anything discussed therein to yourself, as the nature of your conversation may relate to internal college matters.

Thomas Alson."

A few seconds passed and Penny added "Don't worry hon, I'll be keeping that to myself. You wouldn't believe the stuff I hear in here all the time, you have an innkeepers word."

She handed the letter over to him and he took it and gave her a little bow.

"Thanks, Penny, I appreciate it."

"Well done, by the way. It seems like you made quite the impression, Mr Kalliea." She said his name in a respectful, definitely mocking voice.

"You'd better get going, it's no good to keep an Arcanist waiting."

"Oh, yeah, you're right, thanks again!" Vance rushed to get up and slammed his knee into the bar. He slowed down shortly thereafter.

Roughly 45 minutes later he found his way back to the administration building, it was much harder without Seamus to guide him, but thanks to the directions of a few helpful strangers, he'd made decent time. He reasoned that each time it would be easier as he got a feel for the place.

He made his way inside and before he'd even finished closing the door behind him, he heard a familiar voice.

"Mr Kalliea!" Thomas exclaimed.

"Hi Thomas. It's quiet in here again this morning, don't get a lot of visitors in here?"

"Not really. Most of our activity comes in at the beginning of the year, after that mostly everything is already done and it's just paperwork."

"Sounds fun."

"Such joy you wouldn't believe. If you would follow me please, Mr. Kalliea, I'll take you up to Master Elijah's office."

"Vance is fine, by the way."

Thomas was a considerate soul, he was keeping a close eye on Vance as he made his way through, giving him several warnings well in advance of sets of stairs of areas of elevated flooring. He was concentrating on following, but as far as he could tell he travelled through roughly 4 different hallways and through at least one room filled with other people, though it was difficult to make out what they were up to.

"Right, here we are." Thomas stopped Vance just before a very well made wooden door, just by the feel of it he could tell it was hardwood and even Leon couldn't barge his way through this thing.

"I'll leave you to it, Vance. I will be out here once you're finished to escort you back through the halls once you're finished."

"Thanks Thomas, Sorry for the inconvenience."

"No trouble at all, it's my Job. If by chance I'm not here when you do leave, just give it five minutes and I'll be back. Sometimes other students need a little help finding something."

Vance gave him a little bow, turned around and knocked on the door.

"Come in."

He pushed the door open and stepped inside, carefully closing the door behind him. Suddenly, he was very, very nervous.

Just over 2 years ago, this man was a figure he was terrified to ask a simple question of, now he was somehow in his office, here to ask for much, much more. He settled down his anxious mind and turned to bow into the room.

"Thankyou for agreeing to see me, Sir Elijah."

"No trouble at all, my boy. Come, have a seat, it's just in front of you, about 8 feet."

Vance thought Elijah sounded a little tired. He was a little older than the last time he saw him, so I suppose that's no real surprise. He followed his instructions and took a seat, putting his hands forward a little he could tell he was sat on the opposite side of a desk to Elijah.

"Thomas tells me you were able to demonstrate an ability to move the mana I placed within the coin into a sword, would you be so kind as to demonstrate this for me now?"

"Yes, sir, of course!"

He hurried to comply, he found that he had a little performance anxiety and it took him two tries, but he succeeded, he did it as slowly as possible which he believed would give Elijah the best chance to see what he was doing.

For Elijah's part, he was silent. Vance couldn't see the fierce focus in Elijah's eyes, but they were trained on him in a way he did not yet understand, the man was observing his internal mana structure, watching the interactions between the external mana sources and his own internal reservoir.

Vance sat there in silence after he had finished, he was tempted to say something, but this seemed more like a "Speak when spoken to" sort of scenario.

"Do you know why I asked Thomas to invite you here so quickly, Vance? It's because what you're doing is first and foremost, extremely impressive. This alone shows me that you have more than enough talent to learn to be an Arcanist. I don't want to oversell you here, but by my estimations, a good one at that."

Vance's mood soared.

"However."

Uh-oh.

"The method you're currently employing is dangerous. You have the sense now, that's great, but it's weak and unfocused. In addition, you're polluting your internal mana stores with metallic mana every time you do that. It's nothing to worry about in small amounts, but if you started trying to perform more complex actions in this manner, you'd do yourself some serious harm."

"What you're currently doing is colloquially referred to as a "Transference". That is, the act of taking mana from one thing and moving it to another location or thing, living or otherwise. It is a method of mana manipulation that is useful in almost every scenario. Right now, you are randomly moving the mana through your body, although I originally shaped this mana in such a way that it would not be easily dismantled, as it travels through you it is leaving tiny trace amounts of itself within your own internal mana reservoirs. You can think of this like friction."

Elijah stopped here for a moment to give Vance a moment to digest this.

First of all, he had internal mana? That was news, why couldn't he feel it? He thought he could sense mana now.

Come to think of it, if everyone had them, why couldn't he feel Elijah's?

As if Elijah already knew what he wanted to ask, he continued.

"Before you continue practicing transference, or any other mana manipulation for that matter, we must first further refine your ability to sense mana. At the moment, you're only able to sense intense concentrations of mana. Think of it like hearing, if you have terrible hearing, you might only hear a loud sound, but if you have fantastic hearing, you might be able to hear things that are much quieter. Allow me to Illustrate."

Suddenly, Vance felt cold, bitterly so. It felt like the tips of his fingers were on the verge of snapping off at the slightest touch. His teeth began to uncontrollably chatter a little and his lips suddenly felt stuck together.

None of this was actually the case, he put his fingers to his lips and they felt ordinary, but the sensation was there.

"I have just created an intense concentration of cold mana. If I'm correct, you can tell?"

Through chattering teeth, Vance nodded and muttered a quiet "Yes, sir."

Elijah began to dial down the amount of mana he was holding in his palm, the ball of frigid ice that he was conjuring there began to shrink down, smaller and smaller. As he did, the sensation Vance was feeling became less and less intense, until he felt absolutely nothing.

"I'm still holding a small amount of cold mana, do you still feel it?"

"No."

"Now you see, yes?"

"Yes, Sir, I think I understand."

"There is mana all around you, all the time. You must hone your sense until you are able to detect the mana in ambient concentrations, as well as in objects, then I want you to locate them via just this your mana sense. You must be able to identify the types of mana you are dealing with. In addition, you must be able to locate and sense your own internal mana reservoirs, they will be crucial to your education."

Vance had found that cold sensation awful, but his excitement had reached new levels, dwarfing his discomfort. He was being taught about magic, by a real Arcanist, and wait...

"Education, Sir? I was under the impression I wouldn't be able to enter the college, there's a written exam and I-"

"Psshh, forget about that. The skills you have shown me already are impressive. I do not expect you to understand why at this stage, but sufficed to say that I would like to train you personally and in secret. This is largely untrodden territory and this is an opportunity for both of us. You will provide for me a subject upon which I will base a new theory for magic tutelage, in return I shall teach you all I know of the Arcane and turn you into an Arcanist worthy of the title."

Vance stood up hastily and bowed deeply, he was very convinced that he nearly smacked his head into the table.

"Thank you, Si- Master Elijah."

"I want you to know it's not going to be easy. You're going to be taking a much harder route than most Arcanists, but I'm confident you can do it, if you have the strength of will."

Vance heard Elijah get up from his chair and make his way over to the door, which he opened and called out.

"Thomas, your escort services will no longer be required for the evening, thank you again for your expedience. Please return to Mr. Kalliea's place of residence and gather his belongings, bring them here. He will be staying in the college for the time being."

Thomas assented and got to work, while Vance was sweating buckets on the other side of the room, desperately trying to stay composed and not jump around the room screaming in joy.

"First things first. Mana sense. You've laid an excellent foundation, now we will simply improve upon what you've already achieved. What you've done is known as "Opening your will". Put simply, you have created a connection between yourself, more specifically, your will or spirit, whatever you prefer, and the world around you. This is the first step for any Arcanist. For most, it allows them to see mana permeating the air around them. They must simply then learn to sense their own internal mana which is quite easy and then they're ready to get started."

"Seeing as you've already done the hard bit, allow me to help you find your own internal mana reservoir, I'm afraid this will be slightly uncomfortable."

Elijah placed a hand on Vance's chest and he suddenly felt a pang of sharp pain that seemed to occur in each of his veins all at the same time. When the pain faded away, he could feel something moving inside him, like a muscle spasm. It was in the lower right side of his abdomen. He placed a hand against it and Elijah reacted.

"Good, that was very fast. Usually it takes eight or nine tries." Vance could hear Elijah scribbling notes.

"What was that? It hurt a little..."

"I sent a pulse through your system to churn up the mana in your body, it's not harmful, don't worry. The purpose is to allow you to identify which area in your body reacts most strongly to a surge of mana, that's your initial mana reservoir. You'll learn more about that later, for now just try and focus on it and see if you can sense it without me having to do that. Much like your will, once you've sensed it once it should be easier each time."

Vance focused inwards, he was ready to hit the floor running with his training. Elijah did not interrupt, he watched attentively.