Like all things in life, it was the things Vin was dreading that seemed to rush up on him in no time at all. Before he knew it, he was standing in the meadow he'd picked out, facing two of his three potential students. Ronald and Wanda must have run into each other on the way out here, as they showed up at the same time. Ronald appeared eager and excited, while Wanda looked pensive and curious.

Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of Landon.

"Good morning!" Vin said, nodding to them once they finally got close. "Thank you both for being on time."

"As if we'd miss our first day of magic lessons!" Ronald laughed, slapping his hands on his large belly. "Though aren't there supposed to be three of us?"

"Our third member… is going to be absent today," Vin said, deciding to leave it at that. "Thankfully, we're probably not going to be doing anything too wild today anyway. I figured it would be best spent getting to know one another a little better. Then I'll cover some of the basics that I was taught by my own instructors, and we can wrap up with getting you guys started on learning your second spell. Sound good?"

He received an enthusiastic 'yes!' from Ronald and a nod from Wanda, which was about as much as he expected from the cautious woman.

"In that case, let's take a seat," he said, silently casting Stone Furniture and summoning three chairs out of the ground. As he expected, Ronald actually jumped and began clapping his hands together as he laughed, and Wanda actually raised her brow, looking mildly impressed at the casual display of magic. Once they were all sitting, Vin decided to get started.

The only problem was he didn't have the slightest idea how to do so.

Vin had dropped out of high school pretty early on in his education. He'd never really done anything like team sports, or any sort of clubs, or anything involving comradery for that matter. He was aware there were things like ice breakers people would use to get to know one another, but he didn't actually know what any of them were. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Wanda seemed to pick up on this, as she smirked and spoke up.

"We could go around and share a few things about ourselves," she offered dryly. "You know… name, class, stuff like that."

"That sounds like a good idea!" Vin said, hurriedly grabbing onto the lifeline she was tossing him. "However, let's add a bit more. Name, class, what wave you're a part of, and why you want to learn magic in the first place. I suppose I'll start.

"I'm Vin, also known as The Roamer, by a few over-imaginative members of our town. I'm a Magical Explorer, and a member of the first wave. I love exploring new things, and when I got my first taste of magic, I couldn't stop thinking about how amazing it was and how I wanted to dive deeper into it and learn all the secrets that it held."

Deciding that was probably more than enough, he nodded toward Ronald, who was practically bouncing in his chair in excitement.

"I'm Ronald, a Crafter with a food specialization. I was a pastry chef back on Earth, and my little shop was famous for me trying new and crazy things in my recipes. I'm a member of the second wave, and I've been in love with the idea of magical food ever since I was a little kid. When I first arrived on Edregon and saw magic was an attribute and that mine was zero, I was shocked! Since then, I've made sure to put one of my three bonus attribute points into magic with each level I've gained, despite the fact that it didn't really seem to do anything. Imagine my surprise when Spur pulled me aside one day and asked if I wanted to put those points to good use!"

"Kinda dumb of you to potentially waste your points like that," Wanda drawled, earning a chuckle from Ronald.

"Perhaps, yet here we are!"

"Fair enough," she said, a slight smile creeping up onto her face. "I suppose I don't have any room to talk, seeing as my story is rather similar. I'm Wanda, a Fisherman, also with the second wave. I was a professional fisherman back on Earth and made a living attending competitions around the world. When Sender X beamed that message into my brain, I couldn't think of anything other than what kinds of fish I might be able to catch in a brand-new world. Ever since arriving on Edregon, I've dropped a point or two into magic with each level up in the hopes it would reveal magical fish for me to try and catch. Didn't really get any luck in that area yet, but at least it drew Spur's attention."

"Have you tried fishing in the lake fragment to the north of us?" Vin asked, wondering what exactly the life of a professional fisherman looked like. The north-western fragment was Lumel's fragment, and he really hoped her people wouldn't take offense to someone fishing in it.

"Not yet. I don't like working with others, and I'm not strong enough to make the trek across our fragment on my own."

"Well, I appreciate you choosing to work with us, at the very least," Vin said, getting an enthusiastic nod of agreement from Ronald. "As you've both said, Spur's goal was to go around and find people close to their first prestige and who actually bothered to put a decent number of points into magic, despite it not really doing much on its own. Out of all the Earthers, you three were the best ones to fit that criteria."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

He wasn't actually one hundred percent certain what criteria Spur had in mind when he sent these three his way, but Vin was pretty certain it was something along those lines.

"For starters, let's get the obvious out of the way. You've both managed to figure out how to utilize your mana and learned Sense Earth from Sakis' training aid, right?"

He got two nods, so he continued.

"Alright. What have you two been told about magic so far?"

"To snag the Spellcraft and Meditation skills," Wanda answered. "Other than that, not much."

"I was told the same," Ronald said. "As well as given a warning not to try messing with runic formations without a teacher present."

"Alright, sounds like you two have the bare basics down at the very least, that saves us a lot of time. First things first. Even if you both have a lot of points in magic, that's only half of what you need. How are your focus attributes?"

"I'm a Fisherman." Wanda snorted, as if that said everything. "Have you seen how we focus? It was my highest attribute when I first arrived on Edregon, and I've kept it that way."

"Mine was also quite high," Ronald admitted. "Hours upon hours of steady piping and crafting minute details without flaw is no easy feat. My spread has been between dexterity, focus, and magic since arriving."

"Well… okay then," Vin said, clearing his throat. So far, it was sounding like each of them were far more prepared to start learning magic than he had been. He had to remind himself that he'd started on his magical journey back when he was a rather low level, whereas both Ronald and Wanda were nearing their first prestige. "The first thing you need to understand is that learning magic manually, via replicating a runic formation within your mana pool, is going to be a lot harder than what you went through with Sakis' training aid. That rock is a magical artifact designed to pull you by the hand through the basics of sensing and manipulating mana. Without it, it would take weeks or months of practice just to get that done."

"So you'll give us a runic formation, and we just need to recreate it?" Wanda asked, leaning back in her chair lazily. "Sounds easy enough."

"You'd think. Are either of you aware of runic backlashes?" Seeing the blank looks on their faces, he continued. "You have to replicate the runic formation flawlessly. Even the slightest difference will result in a runic backlash. At first, while you're working on tier 0 spells, they'll barely do anything. But once you get to tier 2 or 3, they can be deadly. Copying formations isn't just replicating them, either. Technically, that could work, but it would be like writing a lengthy paragraph in English by copying each individual letter without actually knowing what they mean. Possible, but immensely difficult. You're going to want to eventually work on learning what the individual runes actually do and how they fit into one another."

"If these runic backlashes aren't that bad starting out, why don't we just jump into it then?" Wanda asked. "I learn better by doing than any sort of book work."

"I am excited to get started as well." Ronald nodded, looking hopefully at him. "We are ready!"

"Alright, don't say I didn't warn you!" Vin scratched his chin, looking between the two of them. He hadn't actually thought about which of his many tier 0 spells he was going to teach them first. He could give them both the same one, but he had a feeling they'd be more excited working toward a spell at least loosely aligned with their overall goal.

"Ronald, I'm going to give you the runic formation for Sense Fire," he decided. "Seeing as you're all about baking, I have a feeling fire magic is a good place for you to start."

"Yes, that sounds perfect!" Ronald said eagerly.

"Similarly, Wanda, I'm giving you Sense Water. Feels like the best starting point for a magical fisherman."

"No complaints here." She grinned, a fire already burning in her eyes.

"One last word of warning before we get started," he said, catching himself just before he gave them their runic formations. "All magic falls under different affinities. If you learn too many spells from any one affinity, you'll give your own mana that same affinity. It will make those spells more powerful, but make learning other spells much harder. From what I've learned during my travels, pretty much all mages end up picking an affinity or two to align their mana to, but just something I wanted to bring to your attention before we got started."

"So what's the limit?" Wanda asked. "How many spells can we learn before tainting our mana?"

"The rule of thumb is to divide your magic attribute by ten and add one," he explained. "So twenty magic would mean three water spells before you risk gaining a water affinity, for example. Though there are things that change that, such as picking up the Mana Well passive like I did. More mana means it's harder for your overall pool to develop any one affinity."

"I think I would like to keep my mana free from an affinity, at least for now," Ronald said, looking serious for a change as he contemplated what he wanted to accomplish. "Thank you for the warning."

"I'll probably just go for water all the way, so load me up with those water spells," Wanda said with a grin, coming in stark contrast to the Crafter.

"Neither of you will have to worry too much about that just yet," he said, laughing as he raised a finger and focused his mana in the tip. Just as he'd seen countless others do before him, he quickly sketched out the relatively basic runic formations for the two tier 0 spells he'd picked out for them. Curiously, his own mana was almost pure white, which he supposed made sense seeing as his mana was unaligned. "Even low level spells can take a while to learn until you start getting the hang of things. For now, let's just get in some practice together so you can ask any questions that might come up."

"That sounds like a challenge," Wanda said, staring at the runic formation and adjusting her sitting position to prepare for Meditation. "Do we get some sort of prize if we learn the spell before lunch?"

"If you can learn your first unaided spell before lunch, I'll give you your own artifact." Vin laughed, pleased to see how the offer made the two of them even more determined. Each one committed their respective formations to memory as best they could without a passive like Iron Mind to help them, before slipping into Meditation.

The race to see who would become Terra's second mage was officially on.

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