Lessons In Chronomancy - Part 4

"Precisely! Not a lot of chronomancy is based around doing damage to your opponent. In our world and any other world in between planes, there exists 'Order' & 'Chaos' - but there also exists time and space.

"Time magic is not about blowing holes in your opponent like destructive spells, fire, lightning et cetera."

"Chronomancy is all about utility in the moment! Learning how to use it properly and it will be more dangerous than a fireblasting psychopath like my old friend Erif Moob..."

Alsian saw that Samuel didn't understand so he just shrugged, "A master of fire wielding Lizardkin... You would think him a dragonkin but nay, just a simple lizardfolk."

"Anyway... Do you think you can stop something from the flow of time?" Alsian asked with a smug grin which left Samuel feel a chill up his spine.

"I will do my best!" He replied.

"Good! Then stop it!" Alsian shouted and threw a dagger at Samuel who panicked and dodged out of the way. Samuel quickly realized what this was.

"Oh you dodged that one huh, I though you said you would do your best... That just looked like failing to me!" Alsian grinned and threw another dagger.

At the impending danger Samuel activated his eyes and pointed a finger at the incoming dagger. He remembered everything he had learnt so far, the flow of time when reversed, slowed down and accelerated forward.

He remembered how it looked when stopped and activated the magic, closing his eyes to shut out anything else. They remained shut for a while.

When he opened them again, the dagger was a mere centimeter away from his finger, covered in a golden shimmer. He had succeeded, but he saw cracks starting to form around it.

"I would reccomend moving out of the way, as you saw previously, you cannot stop a moving targets mobility, only those who are monsterously strong like Tyklion can change their direction and momentum after the spell stops."

Samuel did as instructed and shortly thereafter the barrier disappeared and the dagger continued flying forward until it hit the wall.

"I am impressed, you could hold the stop spell on a moving target for almost six seconds. That is good for a beginner!" Alsian smiled and Samuel finally collapsed.

He finally felt just how much the stop spell had taken from his stamina and magic combined. Where he could replenish his magic the same could not be said for his stamina and mind.

"Is it always this exhausting using that spell?" Samuel asked amid his panting. Before laying down on his back, quite clearly exhausted.

Alsian groaned as he sat down next to him, "Yes it is. It will get better the more times you train it, but please do train it on trivial things... I cannot even begin to tell you how important it is..."

"To not play around with time magic and use it very carefully!" Samuel interrupted and raised a thumb toward the roof. "Yup got it!"

After their momentary rest they left the training hall to get some food. The cafeteria was mostly empty except for a few guards, but they managed to get some nice late night meals. Both were too hungry to bother speaking too much. Samuel found himself chugging down enough chicken stew and bread to last for several days.

When they were finished they left and stood outside in the cold for a moment of silence before Alsian spoke.

"Soon we will go to the city of Ancients, the children of mana clan meetings are not too far off. I will take you there and make sure to protect you, there is a lot of things that you won't understand before you go there. Plenty of marvels to see at that place."

"Just make sure to not do anything stupid, because among children of mana you are stronger than most your age, but you are still only at the mid tier compared to the older ones. Got it?!"

Samuel nodded. "Alright in that case I wish you a good night, you and I won't be having any more training sessions before we travel to the City of Ancients. So you'd better train dilligently on your own!"

Samuel smiled, "Thank you for everything this far!" He exclaimed and gave Alsian a bow as he was walking away into the night.

The day ended with Samuel reaching his house and going to bed, being quite exhausted from all the hours of training he had just been through.

The days once again started passing by, there were several securit measures in place, but after just a few days the students were allowed to continue as normal.

But there were curfews and specific times most students were allowed in certain places. Samuel mostly spent his time going to lectures or training, doing the minimal work needed on his faction.

His little faction of many who clinged to certain popularity, although the leader of the faction didn't have much interest in popularity or anything of the sort.

But he did have one important announcement to make, so during one of the freedays he had told Vuloc to gather everyone for that, when Samuel did arrive he was surprised.

His faction had at least 80 members total, it had really grown over the last few weeks. But what he was going to do was definitely going to thin their numbers by quite a bit.

He walked up to the podium and some were actually surprised to see him because he almost never showed himself not many had gotten a good look at him before.

Vuloc just finished preparing the large group to settle down and stood aside for Samuel who looked at everyone assembled. There were many different faces and even different races gathered here.

"Let me just start of by saying thank you to everyone gathered here... Big speeches aren't really my thing so I will try to keep this as short as possible."

"I don't have any big plans for this faction during this school year, but I do have a plan for it after the college days are behind us, I am going to transform this faction into a small organization!"

"An organization dedicated to finding and destroying Darkor cultists and other evil powers!" Those words made many gasp and look around in confusion. But Samuel could only continue his speech.

"If you came here riding a wave of popularity because it was easy then you came to the wrong place, but you will be allowed to stay until the college is over!"

"After the college is over though then only those of you whom seriously would like to participate into doing some good in this world should stay!"

"All the paperwork is already finished, the organization would be an affiliate of the Rejuan State through my house of Gillfall, thereby also acting as an affiliate of the college!"

"If you have the spirit to fight... because you have all seen the recent days, what has happened to many of our friends and teachers - attacks out in the fields and dangerous monsters roaming!"

The murmurs started going strongly as most people in the room started talking to eachother, even the leaders and Samuels closest allies were chatting slightly with eachother.

The only other person who had known about it all was Vuloc because he had been the one to help with the paperwork. But it seemed like the others at the top were pretty quick to make up their mind.

Several people left the hall, weeding out those who didn't want to participate early was crucial.

"As I said, you have until the end of our college year to consider, and even if you join... You won't be stuck, the door to leave is always open for those who lack the will to fight!"

It was almost like Samuel was questioning their will and strength with those words. It lit a fire under some, while others already agreed. The ones that stayed remained around the number of 60, while some more would fall off during the year.

Over the course of the year it would atract others who had the fighting spirit. "Thank all of you for listening, I hope to be working closely with some of you in the future!" Samuel finished with a deep bow to all the ones still there.

That shocked many and impressed others, by all means most people didn't know Samuels origin, so to them he was a high noble, this noble was now bowing to them to show his respect and gratitude.

The rest of that time were left with answering questions of future planning and how they would proceed forward as an organization after the college.

It was a time consuming large meeting where every person that wanted got to pitch their ideas and make their voices heard. The faction decided upon three big goals.

The first was to have at least two training sessions every week, where everyone got to train together and become stronger.

The second was to take on easier jobs at first to slowly build up the faction treasury over the remainder of the year so they had proper coffers when the college was over.

The third was to learn how to rescue people in need during disasters. Forming teams designated on what kind of skills they had, a team of healers, a team of disaster rescue, and of course combat teams.

A lot of the future training would lead many of them back to the basics, as Bregane had taught Samuel in his early days - the basics can be the difference between life and death.

But most spellcasters wanted to advance fast, so they put most of their training towards the more powerful spells and training. But with a shaky foundation they were subpar at best.

It would be a long journey to get there, having to break a tower to build the foundations strong again. But with enough determination they could easily do it.