Start With a Bang

Magic Engineering, that was the first class that Vasai and Kaos were taking. While it was a requirement for students of the Kin Class of Magic Engineering, all of the Sen students were able to take it as an optional course to count towards graduation.

Magic Engineering sounded whimsical and fantastic to someone who hadn't experienced it, but the reality was it was incredibly tedious, and not a trade for those who were only half-invested in learning it.

The reason why such an unforgiving class was offered to both Sen and Kin students right at the beginning, was twofold: First, to spark the love of magic engineering in students of the Sen class, and secondly, to weed out those who fantasized about money and grandiose creations of their own design, while never expecting to do much work or experience any danger.

As Kaos and Vasai walked into the large classroom, the first thing they noticed was that the room resembled a workshop more so than a typical classroom. The second thing they noticed was that the class was full of students who were almost all in their first semester.

Looking around the classroom, Kaos and Vasai found two empty seats at one of the work-bench-like tables, and sat down. Vasai immediately started chatting with the other student sitting at the table, and Kaos realized that Vasai had some sort of charm to him. After all, they picked all their classes together, and Kaos hadn't even known him for more than two days! He chuckled to himself thinking that Vasai's wish might be that he is a tolerable extrovert.

The other boy at the table was even shorter than Vasai, and seemed to be far more timid than him too. The student turned a little farther to face Vasai, and Kaos noticed a single, small horn protruding from the left side of his head. Suddenly the student's height made a lot more sense, he must have been an Imp.

Kaos looked around the classroom, and noticed quite a few other students who were Imps. Kaos had seen Imps before, but most of the Imps that were still alive lived in underground cities of mechanical wonder. His fantasies about stone cities, covered in brass pipes, was interrupted by the teacher's arrival.

The professor was a female Imp who wore a black leather apron, covered in metallic scales that looked like bronze. 

"Aprons, goggles, and gloves everyone!" she said, sliding on a pair of black metallic gloves, "It's okay if you don't put it all on, but I forgot once, and I wouldn't advise it!" She held up her left hand, which was missing a pinky finger, and grinned widely before putting her four fingered glove back on.

After everyone had their safety gear on, she continued.

"I'm Min'Kin, your professor of Intro to Magic Engineering. While I was not the one who re-discovered how the Spiderways function, I am responsible for much of their recent construction and expansion through Wirewood."

Kaos suddenly realized that he had a general idea of what magic engineering could do, but as far as practical applications went, he had no idea how it was even remotely done. He felt almost as 'in over his head' as he did in the arena.

"You're going to be doing things in groups of whoever is at your table" Min'Kin continued, "Today we're going to learn how to make mistakes that blow stuff up, so you will have a good idea of what not to do when we get to the more complicated stuff!"

The more the professor talked, the more Kaos realized that it was definitely true that imps were a rather chaotic people group. He really didn't mind the chaotic attitude though, as long as a professor cared enough about the subject, it wouldn't be a boring class.

"Rune carving is the foundation of magic engineering" Min'Kin said, whipping a wand-like metal stick from her side and using it to scribble on a large stone behind her. "This is a water repelling rune" she said, pointing to the lopsided circle, filled with loopy lines and circles which looked to be made without rhyme or reason.

"As many of you already know, this rune is really bad." she said, picking up a metal bottle of water.

Kaos watched in amazement as she dumped the water onto the large, wheel-like stone. In certain places, the water seemed to float as if an invisible field kept it at bay. In other places though, the water fell through the invisible field, and landed directly on the stone.

"As long as your rune works for what you are doing, it is fine, for example maybe I was fine with that amount of water getting through, it doesn't matter, there will always be small errors and minor improvements you can make. But what separates a good magic engineer from a great magic engineer is knowing when it's good enough."

She set the bottle of water down, and took out the magic rune-writing device again, scribbling another rune onto the stone.

"You can combine as many runes as you want if you have enough skill to do it." She said, drawing a circle with many points on the outside, and connecting it in several places to the previous circle.

She picked up another bottle of water and flung it from a distance this time. Flames jetted up from the stone and consumed the water that hit the field, still leaving some water to drip onto the stone through the invisible field.

"I said I could combine as many runes as I wanted if I had the skill, but these runes don't look very skillfully done, do they?" she asked, looking around the classroom. Kaos saw a few of the imp students shake their heads as if they had already seen their fair share of runes.

"If you know, don't spoil it for the other students, let's see what happens if I put another one on. Actually, I'll use something smaller so I don't have to replace the stone again."

Some of the students who had shaken their heads at the previous question scooted their chairs back a little bit and began whispering to their neighbors.

Kaos looked to his left, and noticed the student next to Vasai was grinning in anticipation, which seemed contrary to his initial timid interactions with Vasai.

The professor eventually found a small piece of wood about the size of a book, and began scribbling on it at what seemed like an impossible speed to even move your hand. In a few seconds, she had drawn at least five of the haphazardly drawn circles.

A high pitched whining sound began emitting from the piece of wood, but the professor kept going. For just another second or two, the professor drew circles, and then in one quick motion flung the piece of wood across the classroom and out a window on the side.

An echoing "BOOM!" shook the windows of the classroom, accompanied by a brief flash of green light.

Almost all the students including Kaos and Vasai jumped out of their seats in surprise from both the sheer volume of the noise, and the suddenness of the entire demonstration.

"That's always a fun way to start the semester!" Min'Kin laughed, motioning for the students to sit back down. "Don't worry about that too much, my magic is a lot stronger than yours, and there's no way that you would be able to carve that many failed runes that quickly, so the worst that you can probably do the first semester is getting a scar or two."

"If I could weaponize this, maybe I could use it to get into the Dek class!" Kaos thought to himself. Although, he realized that if it were that easy, then other people would have done it by now. Either way, it gave him a ray of hope he hadn't expected to see this early in the semester.