On an empty piece of land behind the main building, shielded from the dormitories, Millie stood ready to show what she could do. Twenty meters of trampled grass separated her from Nova. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the clearing as a gentle breeze rustled through nearby trees.

Millie shifted her weight from foot to foot, rolling her shoulders like a miniature warrior preparing for battle. Her blonde hair fluttered in the breeze as her eyes narrowed with concentration.

"I can use anything?" she asked, knitting her eyebrows. Her small hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. She seemed at least a little worried she would hurt him.

"Anything at all," Nova replied, standing perfectly still with his hands relaxed at his sides. His white hair caught the sunlight, almost glowing against the backdrop of trees. "If you can make me move, I'll admit defeat."

"Hmh, I'll make you move." Determination hardened her voice as she planted her feet firmly in the grass.

Annelie stood to the side, leaning against a tree trunk with her arms folded across her chest. "I'll make sure he doesn't cheat, Millie. You can start now."

Millie nodded, taking a deep breath that lifted her small shoulders. Faint blue light flickered around her fingers as she started activating her essence. Nova could tell her control had improved since their last lesson. The essence formed into precise runes along her lower arm, glowing against her skin like luminous tattoos.

'Energy input, force, force, force, spin, force, spin, speed, speed, speed… Well, she's got the basics right, but those runes sound exactly like what a child would think to make. It's a clever usage to keep the runes on her arm, though. That way, she can fire many times in a row without needing to focus on the runes again.'

"Don't use all your essence at once, Millie," Nova cautioned, noting the growing intensity of the light. "That spell might not work exactly as you intend."

"I have it under control!" Her voice rang with confidence as the runes brightened to a brilliant blue.

The air crackled with energy as the runes activated. A spinning ball of pure essence shot from Millie's extended arm, leaving a trail of sparkling blue particles as it hurtled toward Nova.

But it didn't last. From the moment it touched air, the ball had started disintegrating as tiny particles were flung to the sides. After just a couple of meters, the spell disintegrated into thin air. If anything reached Nova, it was a faint gust of wind that barely ruffled his hair.

"What?! But it was supposed to fly!" Millie stomped her foot, sending a small cloud of dust rising around her shoe. Frustration colored her cheeks as she glared at the empty space where her spell had failed. Her eyes darted to something only she could see in front of her face. Her mouth dropped open in indignation. "Don't call it baby magic missile!"

Nova smiled, finding the name the system had given the spell to be fitting. "You need some way to keep the essence together if you want to send it over long distances. The spin would have worked well if it were something solid, but since the essence was loose, it just made it split apart."

"...So I need a… solid rune? But that won't work inside my arm." Millie tilted her head, pondering the problem.

"Good thinking! A solid rune would work, but to keep it in your arm, you could also use a shape rune to make it like a long needle, then a sticky rune to keep it together as it flies." Nova made a quick gesture with his fingers, mimicking the structure. "But you need to feed every part of the chain to make it work properly, not just the first part. Think of it as a tree instead of a line."

"...Oh… With branches, but upside down." Millie's eyes lit up with understanding. She wiggled her fingers as if feeling the concept take shape.

"Exactly! Then you can control how much energy each part of the spell should get. Should it spin more? Should it be firmer? Should it fly faster? And that way, it doesn't take any essence from the spell itself, meaning you can control the power more accurately."

Millie stood in silence, staring down at her arm. Tiny beads of sweat formed on her forehead. Blue light began to glow beneath her skin again, brighter than before but more controlled, following precise patterns along her veins. "Like this?"

She pointed at Nova again, and this time a sharp needle of essence fired toward him at great speed. It cut through the air with a high-pitched whine, leaving a faint trail of blue light behind it.

'She learns faster than any student I've had, especially at that age… Incredible.'

Instead of blocking, Nova used a spell of his own. The exact same one, but in reverse. Runes flew outside of his body, stretching toward the missile. Each symbol glowed with a cold blue light that contrasted sharply with Millie's warmer energies.

The first rune slowed down the projectile, catching it in a web of counter-momentum that made its advance sluggish and predictable.

The second countered its spinning, nullifying the rotational energy that had kept it stable.

The third shaped it into a sphere, completely transforming its piercing nature into something harmless and contained.

Stolen story; please report.

And the last one absorbed the essence, drawing the energy into Nova's own reserves and leaving nothing remaining.

The entire process took less than a second, but the air where the spell had been continued to shimmer with residual energy.

"What was that!?" Millie yelled in frustration. Her small fists clenched at her sides as she stared at the empty space where her spell had vanished. Her eyes darted to something only she could see, reading information that made her shoulders slump with disappointment. "Piercing Magic Missile? Still just novice level?"

"You did exactly as I told you, Millie. Great job!" Nova's voice carried genuine pride. The grass around his feet had been blown flat by the exchange of energies, creating a perfect circle of flattened vegetation.

"What did you do to it?" she asked, ignoring the praise. She stared at him with eyes filled with intense focus and curiosity, not the indignance he expected to see. Or at least, not much of it.

'...Teaching her too much could be dangerous. She's like a sponge, eagerly absorbing every piece of knowledge she can get her hands on. But she's four years old. Usually way too young to learn of lethal spells like this…'

"It's called spell-dissolving, taking a spell and breaking it down step by step to counter an attack." Nova traced a pattern in the air with one finger, demonstrating the principle. "It lets me absorb the essence of the attack, but the breaking down forces me to spend some of my own. So while you spent your essence to attack me, I spent your essence to defend myself."

"...So if a spell is too easy to understand, you can just do that to stop my attacks?" Millie's brow furrowed as she processed this information.

"Yes. But it's nearly impossible with many attacks at once, or with attacks that change trajectory. Only relatively simple spells can be dissolved like this."

"...Can you show me how you would do it? That same spell?"

"Sure! I can show you many variations if you want."

"Yes! All of them!" Millie's hands went up in the air as her eyes shone with excitement.

Nova and Annelie both chuckled. Annelie's laughter drew Nova's attention, reminding him that there was another student present. He turned to face her, noting her relaxed posture against the tree trunk.

"You can learn as well, you know. You've learned most of the runes by now, right?" Nova asked, folding his arms.

Annelie went quiet, biting her lips. Her usual confidence was long gone whenever magic was the subject, but luckily, she was still eager to learn. "I… I could probably do the same as she did."

"Yeah, go ahead. Fire at me when you're ready." Nova stepped back, giving her some space. "But don't use more power than you can handle. Millie had a good level of force."

Annelie sighed, then she pushed off from the tree she was leaning against. She put her left hand on her right arm, staring at it as she started forming the runes. "Input, rotation–no, shape, stick, rotation, speed," she muttered. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she traced the patterns. The air around her arm shimmered as blue runes formed, glowing against her skin like luminous tattoos.

Nova watched with interest, noticing how she created branches off each primary rune. The essence inputs connected exactly as Millie had done, forming a complex network of energy pathways.

Without looking up from her arm, she asked, "Do you have any rules for how much essence to use for the missile itself compared to what you use for shaping and firing it?"

"It depends on the spell. It could be anything from twenty percent to eighty percent for either. But for this, I think forty to the missile is good."

"Okay." She extended her arm toward Nova, mirroring Millie's earlier position. The runes on her arm pulsed with increasing intensity, casting blue reflections across her face. "Are you ready?"

"Of course." Nova couldn't help but smile. He was so many centuries ahead of them both when it came to magic that the mere notion of him getting hurt by these spells was comical. He would have to be asleep.

Annelie activated her spell, but unlike Millie's rushed execution, she approached it methodically. Her face tightened with concentration as she deliberately worked through each stage of the casting. The spin rune in particular took a while to finish.

Then it fired. It was thin as a needle, long as a javelin, spinning so fast it created an eerie whistling sound that bordered on ultrasonic. The projectile moved considerably faster than Millie's attempt, leaving a faint blue streak through the air as it closed the distance to Nova.

'Hah, that's more like ninety-five percent of power into shaping it. Competitive, are we, Annelie? But you made a mistake.'

Nova stood perfectly still, making no attempt to defend himself. The needle-like projectile struck him squarely in the chest, punching through his body soundlessly before emerging from his back. A small puff of fabric and dust marked its exit point.

"Nova!" Millie screamed, covering her mouth in horror. Her eyes went wide with shock, and she stumbled backward, nearly tripping over a root.

Annelie gasped, but then she sighed, quickly realizing he wasn't in any danger. Still, her arm shook lightly as she lowered it.

Nova simply smiled. He rolled his shoulders casually, as if being impaled was nothing more than a mild inconvenience.

"That's what happens when you put too much effort into the shaping," he explained. His voice was calm and instructive despite having just been skewered. "The point of the spell is for the essence inside to burst as it hits its target, inflicting significant damage."

"But Nova, your chest!" Millie yelled, pointing at him with a shaking finger.

Nova pulled his shirt to the side, revealing unblemished skin where the tiny mark had already vanished completely. Not even a scar remained to show he'd been hit.

"You spent a ton of essence on attacking someone with a needle," he explained, letting his shirt fall back into place. "That's why we don't use more than eighty percent on either part of a spell."

"But what about the missile?" Millie asked, looking behind him with confusion clouding her face. She pointed past him toward the open field. "Won't it continue after you?"

"No, I stopped it behind my back like I did with yours, Millie." Nova turned slightly to show the empty air behind him. "And the barrier around the academy would have stopped it either way."

Annelie looked in front of her, staring at an invisible screen. Her shoulders slumped visibly. "That's also adept rank? I thought I did well…"

Nova studied Annelie's downcast expression, not quite sure what approach to take with her. He didn't want to sound patronizing, but thinking she would be bothered by it might also be a mistake. "...Don't be discouraged. You did a great job with the runes and the methodical activation. You just lacked some knowledge."

"...Sure. Let's go with that." Annelie crossed her arms. The defeat in her voice barely masked her determination to learn. "Now let's see your superior version."

"With pleasure." Nova's lips curved into a slight smile.

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