Noer Studies

At that moment I can't help but develop a liking for this Teacher. For the rest of the class, I am left alone.

At the end of the class we are all handed textbooks, similar to the one Master Hogan had given me when I was still a Student, but with different content. I now understand why no one bothered to take notes, they were all waiting for this textbook which contains everything we had done today. At the back of the textbook is our timetable. As I look at the textbook, I can't help but wonder where the Laen got the money to print this many textbooks. To the best of my knowledge, they did not collect any tuition fees from anyone.

I check the timetable and see that we have martial arts next. It is in the same dojo I had practiced with Master Shawn during the holiday so I don't have any problems finding the dojo.

In the room, I am surprised to see Master Shawn stretching.

He notices me and I bow slightly and greet him. He nods towards the changing room and tells me to find my locker and change into the clothes in it. I walk into the changing room and turn towards the lockers. I had seen them the first time I came here but always ignored them, this time I move closer to them and notice the name tags at the bottom.

The names are arranged in alphabetical order so it doesn't take me long to find my locker. Then comes the dilemma of how to open them. The lockers have no visible lock or handle, each with a smooth seamless face and a small noer at the right-hand corner.

I look closely at the noer but it is in no way familiar to me. After a moment of deliberation, I form the noer with my Uua and place my hand on the locker, not expecting anything to happen. Surprisingly I feel a strong suction force and find myself in a small grey room. The room is bare except for a small bench in a corner with neatly folded clothes placed on it. There are two doors in the room, one opposite me and one behind me.

Leaving the door behind me, I walk to the door opposite me and open it, behind it is a small neat bathroom. After looking around the room I finally walk to the second door and open it. All of a sudden I find myself back in the locker room which is not empty anymore. I see more than one student touch the lockers and disappear while some have already changed and are using the opportunity to talk.

I go back into the space in the locker and quickly change into the clothes provided before leaving. Before long we are all lined up in front of Master Shawn who is looking over each one of us.

He finally tuts, his expression one of disappointment. "Did any of you even bother to exercise during the holiday? Look at yourselves, all weak and flabby. I am very disappointed." He pauses as he looks us over again. "A hundred push-ups. Begin."

"What!" someone exclaims, as a few others also let out sounds of surprise. I am not too shocked though, once he said he was disappointed I suspected something like this would happen.

He frowns at the sound of their protests. "Is it too much?"

"Yes." someone says and almost everyone agrees with him.

Master Shawn nods. "Okay then, three hundred push-ups. Begin."

They stare at him surprised.

"Is that still too much?" Master Shawn asks again.

This time no one says yes.

"Then begin," he says, his voice getting cold. "Do not think that I will take things easy on you like Master Victor, you are Laens and I expect you all to behave like one. Now begin, and if any of you stops at any point in time you will start over. Idiots. To think that by now you haven't figured out that the stronger you make your body now, the stronger it'll be when you actually add magic."

I waste no time and start doing the push-ups. Unlike the rest of the students, I am sort of used to this sort of exercise, after all, I had trained with Master Shawn for over a month. I do the first hundred push-ups somewhat easily, but after that, it begins to get increasingly harder. I waste no time circulating my Uua to ease the task. A few students shoot me hostile glances, looking at me like I am cheating but I ignore their looks.

During my training with Master Shawn, I realized that he is not averse to using magic to accomplish tasks like this, in fact, he even encourages it, so long as you complete whatever he tells you. One time he told me that while I might think using magic is cheating, it actually isn't as using magic to exercise doesn't stop you from gaining from the exercise, after all it is still your body you are using, using magic just makes it all easier.

After noticing that Master Shawn did not mind me using magic, more than quite a few begin to follow in my footsteps. Some still choose to persevere through it though, I can't imagine why.

I am the first to finish the exercise and Master Shawn nods appreciatively at me, after me Keldin, the genius, also finishes. The rest of the students soon follow. There is one girl who was not using magic that was unable to complete the exercise, stopping at one hundred and sixty-seven, true to his word Master Shawn makes her start over. The second time she uses magic from the start.

"Great," Master Shawn says once we are all done, "now that the warm-up is over, let us begin."

The rest of the lesson is like torture to the other students, but to me, it is a walk in the park as I am already used to Master Shawn's training methods. Surprisingly Keldin also seems to find the exercises a bit easy, I guess there is a reason he is known as a genius.

After the lesson, I make my way back to my locker and head for the shower in it. After a quick shower, I change back to my normal clothes and come out. I check my timetable and find out I have one more class today, Basic Noer Studies, which is starting soon.

They really aren't giving us any time to rest, I think as I shake my head slightly. Thankfully Basic Noer Studies is the last class we have today. I leave the dojo and with a bit of asking around to find the classroom, we are having the class.

I pick a seat near the front of the class and begin to wait. The class begins to fill up and not too long after everyone comes the Teacher comes into the class. It is a woman this time, with black hair packed into a bun at the back of her head. She is holding two thick textbooks which she informs us we will receive at the end of the class. She introduces herself as Master Ava.

She wastes no time in diving into the topic. "First off, what are noers. To put things simply, noers are symbols that enable one to effectively control magic. It is one of the three methods of controlling magic, the other two being the Ancient Aldurian Language and lastly the sheer force of one's will. Of the three, using noers is the best method when harnessing magic because of the ease and safety compared to the other two. The ancient language takes too much time, while the force of one's will leave too much room for error. This year I will attempt to make you understand how noers are formed, learn some basic noers and how to create simple noers of your own."

Just the introduction of the topic is enough to stoke my desire, if I could learn everything she said then learning to use magic will be much easier since I don't have to force myself to learn noers for every spell I cast if I could understand noers I could just create the one I need at that moment.

Following that she went to the board and drew forty-seven different symbols on the board, identifying them as the root of all noers.

"Learning noers is like learning an entirely new language," she tells us, "it has its own rules, syntax and a lot more things you need to take note of, but if you can master it, the number of things you can do with it is practically limitless."

At the end of the class, she looks at us and asks, "Any questions?"