"Why is your test longer than mine?" Benicek whispered to him hastily. "Did I lose a page or something?"
"You didn't," Zorian whispered back. "Nora is just testing me because...I'll tell you later."
Zorian sighed and continued to think about the advanced spell formula question in front of him. As if the original 60-question test wasn’t enough! Thankfully, he had read all twelve of the books she "recommended" in previous reboots, so he wasn't completely stumped when he looked at the piece of paper in front of him.
OK It would be nice to have confirmation that he was actually going somewhere instead of wasting time.
A few minutes later, his calm was broken again by Benicek. It's somewhat annoying when the boy starts pestering him for answers, and despite being Zorian's best friend (or at least closest friend), Zorian finds himself slowly losing interest in the boy as he starts over again and again of patience. It's not fair to Benicek - the fat boy is no worse than usual - but the time loop makes Benicek's antics annoyingly repetitive. He quickly wrote down the answers to a few questions on a piece of paper, then handed it to Benicek and silenced him with a quick glare.
"Okay, time's up," Nora said, everyone putting down their pencils, to a protest from the students. "Except Mr. Kaczynski, who can proceed with the second special test I gave him." "
Everyone's eyes turned to him instantly.
Akoja quickly collected all the tests, lingering near his desk for a moment so she could see what his "special" test was. So he tried his best to block it out and continued solving problems.
The class was over and Nora asked him to stay while the others filed out of the classroom. As the last of his classmates left, she immediately started going over his tests, Zorian watching her reaction intently.
Nora is a very expressive woman. When she finished her first test, he could tell she was pleasantly surprised. Considering this is 100% correct, she should be like this. However, as she began to examine the second test, her face quickly turned to one of shock, then overwhelming joy. Apparently she enjoyed it. Finally, she put the test aside and met his eyes with a sharp gaze that made Zorian flinch. She seemed to radiate energy, for lack of a better word.
"Well..." she began. "I didn't expect this. Do you know why I gave you a second test?"
"Uh, no," Zorian said. "Is it to scare me?"
"Exactly!" Nora exclaimed. "Exactly!"
Zorian blinked, unable to believe she had admitted that to his face.
"The spell formula requires courage! Passion!" Nora continued excitedly. interesting. She waved the second test in front of him, "He's definitely going to give up when we delve into the really hard parts of the subject. You're not going to abandon me at any point."
He felt a little uneasy. Is he signed up for Spell Formula coaching or is he a member of a cult?
"Of course, I don't actually expect you to solve anything correctly," Nora said. "I just wanted to see if you would leave it completely blank. I'm not complaining, far from it! Let's see..."
She returned to her desk and took out a stack of papers from the drawer. She thumbed through them with a frown, clearly dissatisfied with their contents, and finally put them aside with a sigh. After a minute of silence, she glanced at him and shook her head, as if she suddenly remembered that he was still there.
"Tell me, what is the magic formula?" she asked him. "And I don't want to hear a textbook definition. I want to hear your words."
Zorian opened his mouth, considering what to say, then quickly closed it again.
"Come on," Nora encouraged. "Brave, remember? Also, I just wanted to know your opinion. There's no right answer."
ha. There may be no right answer, but Zorian knows from experience that there are always wrong answers. always. But he believes that in this particular case, silence is the wrong answer.
"It's the practice of using geometric shapes and various sigils to modify spells, usually to strengthen a guard or enhance spellcasting abilities," Zorian said.
"Really? How did they do it?" Nora asked, pretending to be curious.
"Uh... they restrict the flow of mana to a predetermined path?" Tried Zorian.
"Yes!" Nora agreed. "They limit, that's exactly what they do! I can't tell you how many mages think they are some kind of inherent amplifier or something. I tell you, it drives me crazy. Of course, the special materials most modern craftsmen use are Inherent amps, but that's another story entirely. Anyway, you know the point behind structured casting, right?"
"The smaller the effect of a spell, the more mana-efficient it is. Structured magic creates a spell boundary that forces the effect space down to what a human spellcaster can manage."
Nora said. "Because mages can take their time when formulating a spell, they have much tighter restrictions on mana flow than your typical spell. This means greater potential benefits, but also makes the spell less flexible. Of course, more Tight spell boundaries mean fewer errors, so designing an efficient spell formula is much more difficult than designing an efficient invocation."
Zorian wasn't quite sure why she was telling him this - these were basic theories he'd heard and read a thousand times - but wasn't willing to interrupt. Unfortunately, it looked like he would have to wait to hear what the point of her little question was?
Nora suddenly looked at the clock hanging by the door, and her face turned pale when she realized how much time had passed.
"Sorry, Mr. Kaczynski, I think I got carried away. You'd better go to your next class or I'll get you into trouble." Nora said apologetically. Zorian shrugged - he had planned to skip the next class, but if he told her that, she probably wouldn't be too impressed. "I need a few days to work out the schedule, so I'll let you know the details through Ilsa. It's foreseeable that we will be very happy working together."
He was about to leave when she suddenly spoke again.
"Oh! I almost forgot. Find time to see Ilsa today - she wants to talk to you about something. You owe her a favor in return for her arrangement..."
Why does this sound a little ominous?
. . . . . two. . . .
There was always a sense of rush in the Kooria train station that was either annoying or exhilarating, depending on his current mood. When he got out of the car, it was like a bucket of cold water waking him up from the long lethargic ride, which he welcomed. As he just stood on Platform 6 waiting for the train to arrive, he felt suppressed and unwelcome, and he desperately wished he knew how to suppress it. Especially when the damn train is two hours late!
Finally, finally, the shrill whistle of an incoming train broke his concentration, and Zorian scanned the crowd of people disembarking, looking for his target. Technically, he was supposed to hold up the sign and wait, but he was confident he'd have no problem spotting the man. After all, there won’t be many white-haired teenagers on the platform.
In fact, this request that Ilsa made to him was admittedly a waste of a whole day to help the transfer student carry his luggage and take him around the city... But the good thing is that he would be exempted from today's classes! In addition, this also gave him a reasonable excuse to get close to the transfer student Kyle——
He saw Kyle get out of the car and walked over to help him carry his luggage. He could maneuver the heavy bag with only one arm. The other hand was holding a little girl, who was clinging to Kyle's side like a barnacle, observing everything around her with childlike concentration.
Kyle was surprised when Zorian wordlessly began to help him, but quickly agreed. The little girl next to him was staring at Zorian with undisguised curiosity, and Zorian wanted to know who she was. Is this his sister? Her vivid blue eyes certainly reminded him of Kael, as the Morlock's eyes were the exact same color, but her hair was jet black, and to Zorian she didn't look much like a Morlock. In any case, surely this boy would not take such a young child with him, right? Zorian had been expecting her mother to step out of the train and take the little girl from Kyle's hands, but somehow that never happened.
The last bag stood on the floor and Kyle finally turned to him.
"Thank you," the boy said politely.
"I'm Kyle and I'm having a hard time carrying luggage with one hand. Cana was very clingy today and I couldn't bear to pry her away. I'm afraid this move will be too stressful for her."
"No problem," Zorian said. "After all, Ilsa Zileti sent me here to help you with your luggage and show you around the city."
Kyle gave him a surprised look and clutched the little girl like Zorian was trying to snatch her away.
"No offense intended."
Kyle gave him a confused look before finally coming to some kind of decision.
"You did nothing, Mr. Kaczynski, and it's me who should apologize," Kyle finally said. "Allow me to introduce myself again: I am Kyle Tverinoff and this is my daughter Kana."
Zorian stared at Morlock for a moment, then glanced at his...daughter. Kanna waved at him shyly, she was probably only about three years old, but Kyle wasn't much older than Zorian. This means Kyle was about 13 years old when he was born. hehe. Talk about being a young parent.
""If you're worried that I'm going to go around telling all of our classmates that you have a daughter, you don't have to worry - I understand erring on the side of caution. "
Kyle breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it," Zorian said, waving him away. Considering the child's mother was not present, there could be a very tense story there.
"I'll cast a quick spell to move your luggage and we'll be off."
'Floating Disk' spell, a ghostly horizontal circle flickered before them. It's a very useful spell, it's similar to the "shield" spell in mechanics, and it dutifully follows them as they walk out of the train station.
"Interesting," Kyle said. "Is this what an average third grader looks like?"
"Well, no," Zorian said. "I'm actually well above what a third grader should be. My skills aren't unique though..."
Kyle hummed thoughtfully.
"Why do you lack education, anyway?" Zorian asked.
"My education was...unconventional," Kyle said. "I am an unofficial apprentice to a village mage. Someone who is not a member of a guild. Her skills are somewhat specialized, so my proficiency in magic is largely the result of my own efforts. In other words, I'm basically Self-taught.”
After hearing this sentence, my respect increased a bit. Magic is difficult to learn without proper guidance. For a little boy to do it all on his own and get enough grades to get into a 3rd grade class...genius...
"But why should I go to Keoria now?" Kyle guessed. "I got an invitation from the academy and no one stopped me from leaving. My parents died when I was very young and my teacher... she fell ill during the crying period. So did my wife. Kanna was the only person I Save the family."
Zorian flinched. "Oh my god, I didn't mean to—"
Kyle shook his head. "Don't worry, Mr. Kaczynski. If I broke down every time the subject was brought up, I would have to become a hermit and avoid people entirely. It's natural to be curious about these things."
Zorian still felt terrible. He almost thought Kyle got some girl pregnant and later had to take on the responsibility of raising the child. But no, this guy is married and so on. In this day and age, getting married and having children so young is a bit shocking, but not unheard of.
In the silence, he looked at Kyle out of the corner of his eye. The boy looked very delicate, with a pale face, a slim figure and soft facial lines. Coupled with his shoulder-length white hair, he looked quite...feminine. Still, if the boy can keep going after so many have been lost to a horrific disease, he clearly doesn't lack inner strength.
"There's no need to pity me, Mr. Kaczynski," Kyle said, interrupting his thoughts.
"Oh, I don't pity you," said Zorian. "In fact, I think you're very inspiring. You were a single parent and you managed to find the time to teach yourself magic, so much so that world-renowned institutions like Cooria Academy recognized your potential. They gave you a scholarship, Isn’t it?”
Kyle nodded. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to participate.”
"They rarely offer scholarships, you know?" Zorian said. "About five or six a year. It must be amazing that you can capture their attention like that."
"It's mostly my medical expertise," Kyle sighed. "I swore to myself after...well, you found out. I swore to myself that I would become the best therapist of this era and make sure that many tragedies never happen again."
Uh... wow. Zorian didn't know what to say about such a thing.
"To be a little immodest, I've made a lot of progress in this area," Kyle said. "But...well, it's complicated. If you're still interested, we can talk about it later. We're tired from the trip, so let's take a break."
Zorian suddenly noticed that Kana had begun to doze off on Kyle's shoulder. She had been so quiet that he had almost forgotten she existed. If only my little sister could be so docile.
"Sorry," Zorian apologized. "I got carried away. I'll have to give you a tour of the city next time."
They spent the rest of the journey in comfortable silence.
. . . . three. . . . .
"You were absent yesterday."
Zorian gave Akoja an annoyed look. She wasn't going to make him sad about it, was she?
"I know," Akoja said. "I just wanted to know where you were.
He gets a strange feeling from Akoja, like she... cares about him... which reminds him of the conversation he had with Zach before he realized the time loop, and the other boy's reaction to him in the previous reboot Comments on Zorian's behavior.
"I'm doing Ilsa a favor," said Zorian. “Taking our newest transfer students on city tours and more.”
"Oh," Akoya said, glancing at Kyle. The white-haired boy sat a few rows behind Zorian, silent and indifferent as always. He gave little indication that he knew Zorian was in the classroom, but Zorian could feel Morlock watching him from time to time. "Who is he?"
"Kyle" Zorian replied.
"I didn't mean his name," Akoja huffed, and after a few seconds of silence he realized he wouldn't say anything more.
"Don't know what else to tell you," Zorian shrugged. "He sounds like a good guy to me."
"He seemed a little arrogant," Akoja said. "It also feels girly."
"You are so picky," Zorian said, frowning. "You seem a bit arrogant like this, you know?"
With that she stomped away and gave him a nasty look.
Understanding people is difficult.
. . . . Four. . . . .
Professional seminar? Normally, students are not allowed to enter without special permission from the teacher. Nora motioned him forward, excitement and enthusiasm on her face.
"Ah, you're so quiet!" she complained. "Courage, Zorian, courage!"
"Okay," Zorian agreed half-heartedly.
"We will train you to be a qualified craftsman, you see!" Nora said angrily. "But first, let me summarize the last discussion. I'm a bit long-winded, but what I've been trying to establish is that spell formulas are... supporting magic. Magic affects other magic. By itself, even the most elegant spells The formula is also just a theoretical exercise. You need to actually cast the spells and anchor them to the spell formula before using them."
"A teacher," Zorian said at last.
she said with a smile. "Anyway, I think we should get you started on the beginner's cube."
That should be a perfect cube of gray stone, about 10 centimeters on each side, completely blank, smooth, and they would do things like heat, glow, or float in the air. Basically, each completed cube is a primitive magic item, using a few simple spells and a ton of spell formulas to make a neat little toy. They are standard training tools.
Zorian wanted one as soon as he saw it. Giving a little girl such a blatant magical toy might keep her out of his hair for hours. This will be his secret weapon against her!
Also, a small floating cube would be more challenging for his magic missile practice than the boulders and tree trunks he usually practiced on.
"It's too easy for you," Nora concluded. "No, I have more interesting things for you to do. Here."
She handed him another cube, although this one was indeed covered in the spell formula. Zorian noticed with growing horror that he could not understand it. Hell, many of the parts look like placeholders instead of valid spelling formulas, nothing more than stylized pictograms. wait…
"You may have noticed that I condensed the spell formula a bit," Nora said. "There's just not enough space on the cube to represent it exactly in its original form, and to prevent you from simply copying the entire thing line by line."
"Isn't that the point?" Zorian asked. "Let me work on a working example and see how it's done, yeah?"
"Absolutely. But it's not good to blindly copy spell formulas from one cube to another. I'd have you copy a dozen or so simple ones to get started, but I'm sure you're beyond that. It'll take a lot of time , why not just learn an example directly.”
"Well, I've never encountered those cubes," Zorian said. "But yes, I use the spell formula from time to time. Mainly to create an alarm perimeter around my bed during my second year - I had a very nosy roommate - but also to make some free ones Lights and heating plates.”
If Zorian wanted his alarm spell to last throughout the night, or for his temporary lights to not flash every hour or so, he would have to stabilize the spell boundaries. Spell formulas are the simplest and most reliable method, as long as someone has developed a stable formula for that particular spell and made it available to the public.
"It's not surprising," Nora said. "They are mostly used for theoretical exercises. Not very useful. Most mages don't really care about how the spell formula works - just that they care about which one is applied when."
She took a deep breath and turned her attention back to him with a cheerful smile on her face.
It seems there is not a single sane teacher in this school. Zorian wondered if it was the pressure of teaching that had this effect,
"But I digress," Nora said cheerfully. "I think I should stop wasting time and tell you what I want you to do. Here, let me demonstrate..."
. . . . . five. . . . .
Essentially, it's a gorgeous lamp based on the simple "Torch" spell. It has three different brightness settings. It conserves mana by not emitting light from either side that's covered by something - for example, the side placed on the floor won't glow, and wrapping it in a blanket will cause it to turn itself off. Each individual side can be opened and closed with two clicks in quick succession. Only specific people can give orders.
He has mixed feelings about Nora's teaching methods. On the one hand, she takes him seriously, which is nice. On the other hand, she seems to think that throwing people into the ocean is a perfectly valid way to teach people to swim, metaphorically speaking.
"Come in." But he liked Nora's teaching style better than Xvim's.
"Zorion please take a seat," Xvim ordered, not even bothering to wait for an answer. Zorian deftly caught the pen thrown to him and quickly let it float away from his palm, spinning slightly in the air. Oh well, let's see what this guy has to say.
"Let it shine," Xvim shouted without hesitation, completely unfazed by Zo
ia
Troubled by techniques.
Zorian wasn't even surprised anymore. The pen immediately sprang back into his hand and burst into a soft, ghostly glow. He cycled through colors without prompting from Xvim, occasionally changing the intensity of the light just to prove he could.
Xvim raised an eyebrow at him. "I didn't say you could stop the levitating pen."
A moment later, the pen spun in the air in front of him, glowing.
Xvim tapped his fingers on the table thoughtfully. is it possible? Did he really make the man stop? The end of the world is coming! Zorian watched expectantly, wondering what the madman would think of next.
"Your necessities...are enough. Almost good, though not quite. You still have some work to do, but I imagine you're at least more resourceful than most unfortunates.
To Zorian's bewilderment, Xvim handed him a strip of cloth. What should he do?
"Well…"
"It's a blindfold," Xvim explains. "You put it over your eyes so you can't see."
"And...why am I blindfolded again?" Zorian asked.
"We will train you to sense mana," Xvim said. "You're going to put on a blindfold, and then I'm going to throw these marbles filled with magic at you."
Zorian looked at the man in disbelief. Did he really hear it right?
"I'll either throw them over your left shoulder, over your right shoulder, or directly over your head. If you get hit by a marble, you lose a point. If you move, You lose a point. Otherwise you gain a point. When you get 10 points or our time runs out, we stop."
Yes, he did hear it right. Many thanks to Ilsa for your help, thank you very much!
. . . . five. . . . .
The next two weeks were busy but routine. He put most of his energy into mastering the spell formula, largely because Nora was so willing to indulge him—the harder he worked in class, the more enthusiastic she became about teaching him. She even suggested that they have extra instruction on Sundays, and he obviously learned a lot, and he doubted he could sustain Nora's teaching for more than a month.
Interestingly, in this particular reboot, he seems to have captured the attention of both teachers and students. Maybe it was the way he impressed Ilsa, maybe it was the way he quietly took on the crazy workload Nora gave him, or maybe it was the kind things Xvim had to say about him to other teachers. Well, probably not the last part, since he's made little progress in mastering Xvim's current "exercises". Maybe some other reboots.
This attention had the unfortunate side effect of destroying any chance he had of becoming friends with Kyle, and frankly, even under normal circumstances, he wasn't sure he could be friends with the boy - Morlock had a daughter Wait for him at home, so he may not want to spend time socializing with friends after class.
However, Akoja is very happy with him. Zorian didn't quite understand why, but she understood.
Then something happened. Suddenly, without warning, a painful feeling hit me and everything went black. He woke up as usual, and his little sister was lying on top of him again, looking proud of herself.
Horrible, something or someone killed him? So fast that he was dead before he knew it. He doubted this because he had done nothing to warrant assassination and he could not think of any force of nature that could kill someone so suddenly and completely. He didn't even feel any pain before he died.
The second possibility is more likely, and more concerning. While Zak was minding his own business and learning spell formulas in West Oria, he was somewhere out in the world, doing extremely dangerous things. Zach is dead. When he did, his soul was dragged back in time to start over...it also dragged Zorian's soul back.
This will connect Zorian soul to Zach.
damn it.
