23 Chapter XII: Battle magic and the breath of Kyne

A/n: I have shortened the initial period for the college from two years to one, the limitation to three schools felt like it would be too annoying if I left it there for too long.

I have also made the chat-group thing from the first chapter sound a lot more ambiguous, after reading some comments and thinking for a bit, the chat-group idea will either be heavily modified, or completely replaced. What I can guarantee is that there will be world-hopping 100%

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We spent most of the next morning trolling each other with the illusion spells we learned, that is until the Master Wizard heard of this and basically dragged us all to our destruction lesson, the four of us that experienced Faralda's "training" earlier knew we were fucked.

Our little group of victims started brainstorming a way to escape from our dire fate, but unfortunately by the time anyone had any kind of good idea we were already in front of the tower.

We marched inside, as if awaiting our funeral, the remaining three students blissfully unaware of what awaited us, knowing that they would join us gave me a bit of petty satisfaction honestly.

The inside of the tower looked rather simple, not less opulent than the other towers, just a lot more robust. The aura on the other hand felt like a raging thunderstorm somehow combined with an inferno.

The classroom lacked any chairs, and was instead equipped with practice targets, obviously enchanted to high hell.

Faralda was already inside waiting for us, she nodded to Mirabelle who soon left, and then turned to us "Good you are all here, I am glad that some light exercise wasn't enough to stop you"

'I know she is fucking with us, but I really want to kick her shit in'

"I will explain everything quickly so we can get to the practical section of the lesson." Aaand there is the sadistic smile.

"Destruction is the magical discipline of using unstable elements to cause damage, it is in it's application the simplest of all the magical schools, you point at something, channel and boom! problem solved." She scoffs "At least that is what idiots believe, destruction is an art like all the other schools of magic. While the base application is in fact rather simple, using destruction magic efficiently during combat, which is it's main purpose, is something that must be honed like any blade."

"Learning destruction spells is by far the easiest among all schools, but learning to cast them in a respectable timeframe while not wasting Magicka under the pressure of combat is by far the most difficult. Being a master of destruction doesn't mean being a scholar of magic, but being akin to a swordmaster in the magical sense."

Nodding to herself, like she just crossed something of a list, she turns to us and her aura changes to the one I remember "Now let's see if I can make respectable war mages out of you"

Surprisingly she didn't go for the torture routine this time, well to some of us it was torture, but I train my Magicka daily so repeatedly expending almost all of it while trying to channel my spells as efficiently as possible was already routine, and that is exactly what she had us do, for three hours.

I could hear some grumbling about no fireballs from Tiberius, but he quickly regretted it as he received the full attention of our teacher for a whole twenty minutes for that remark. I will remember you my friend.

Everyone else chose to keep any complaints to themselves after she used the non-magical side of her destruction skill to make the poor imperial almost cry, dude will be avoiding mirrors for some time.

During the lesson I did manage to solve a problem that has been bothering me for some time. When I asked Faralda about my lack of progress with ice magic she explained it rather easily.

"What you are having an issue with is that you have been casting mostly out of instinct until this point" At my raised eyebrow she continues "There is an issue that is known to plague some talented mages, they tend to cast spells using feelings or instincts, while this is not a bad thing for the spells you have an affinity with, attempting to cast a spell if the opposite affinity will have very poor, if any, results. What you need to do is cast the ice spells mechanically, without any influence except pure mental instructions."

It is true I have been trying to 'feel the ice' while casting, simply cutting off my usual habits in casting felt very counter-intuitive and took me almost the entire lesson, but by the end of it I did manage to let loose a weak, but steady frostbite spell.

Everyone who knew of my problem congratulated me, even our sadist of a teacher seemed satisfied, and I left the class a happy mer.

[Destruction-apprentice: +Frostbite]

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After the class we all took a break to grab something to eat, even if I did persevere through the whole thing it was still exhausting. Marwyn looked almost dead, Tiberius was dead inside, and the rest of us were differing levels of tired.

I left some time later to do my usual daily grind. This time I tried focusing on my familiar bond while using fire or restoration spells, it did make things a bit more efficient, but nothing too world breaking for now.

The evening I spent on the walkway on the college's walls, meditating on the words of power.

I knew that learning even the simplest of shouts would take time, I am not a Nord, and I am certainly not the dragonborn. Thankfully my family is known to have some affinity for 'music' which in this universe usually means tonal magic, something that the thu'um falls into, so I still held out hope even with my lack of progress.

After some time getting nowhere in my meditation I decided to stop wasting time on 'TIID' and try going for something I understood on a more instinctual level, Faralda did say I did things mostly by feeling so this might be worth a try.

I breathed in and out slowly, getting more relaxed and started meditating on the meaning of fire, how it felt and what it represented, I went through all the metaphors I ever heard about it, simply letting them float through my mind, while at the same time I focused on the feeling the aura of fire gave me.

It took me some time until I took one final breath and spoke, somehow knowing that shouting at my level was a very bad idea.

"YOL"

The air around me shimmered and heated up, a small but potent flame leaving my mouth.

I immediately felt myself get exhausted and my breathing grew heavy, but I proved to myself that I could do it even if the effort that I had to invest would be immense.

Realizing that I could barely move, I sat down on a nearby chair and started dozing off while looking at the sea of ghosts, Scorch sitting down on my lap to warm me up.

Thankfully the college wards stop any harsh winds or the cold air from getting in, otherwise I would be spending the next month in a sick bed.

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