"You're telling me that you have magic but you don't use it to cast spells but summon creatures to do things instead?" The professor was a shock at the beginning, I was not expecting a dog man to be waiting for me to wake up. It did make sense though, I guess that was just my assumption that everyone was human.
I was actually listening when he spoke though so I heard him explain "Well it wasn't always like that, but with the all the creatures with natural abilities in the spiral its more worth to use your energy to call on them to perform instead." That made some sense...
But why are they cards? I can't help but not take it seriously because they were cards... "But why cards?" Again I spoke without thinking, luckily this seemed to be something he was passionate about.
"Ah, yes. The cards. Well, when it first started it was trinkets or gems. Like a shell that was able to store a mermaid's energy so you could call upon it. But of course not all items were the same, and storing them was bothersome as some would destroy others. The cards are relatively recent, designed to store the imprinted energy of almost any creature to call upon later." With a hand movement he produces a blank card, it was completely white except on the back where it was embossed with scales indicating balance.
"But not all cards are created equal, while they might all be able to store the imprinted energy these ones perform better with balance aligned creatures."
"You said imprint, what do you mean by that." To me it was hard not to notice this additional word.
He smiled, well smiled as much as a dog person could smile I guess. "Caught that did you? Well, we don't really summon even though it looks like it. The things we summon aren't real, just an echo of the creature imprinted, its why they vanish shortly after the summoning." I had already sat through the talk about the different schools of magic. It boiled down to different creatures fit into different types, I didn't quite understand it all that much. But I got that it was more for the types of cards one could expect depending on what you chose. And the choice really was any choice, I could choose any one.
The only limitations on what to learn boiled down to learning only a single school at one time. Not that I was learning any right now, just learning about them. I figured out I was going to have to listen to him completely so I listened as he explained each school in detail.
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"But you wont need to worry about the first one to choose right now. You still need to learn how to harness your own energy before you can even think of calling on others." he said matter of factly, right before he pushed me into a room with... children? Well not really, they weren't children but it was obvious I was still older than them. Once a realm was opened that allowed anyone from that world to learn magic and help protect the spiral. From what? No idea I tried to ask but the question was avoided.
It was probably one of those things I would learn with time, or so was hinted. But now it was time to be a student again... Apparently this was the classes first day so me showing up wasn't seen as odd. I still felt nervous as we sat in the relative silence as we all waited for the teacher. When the teacher did arrive she was a human this time so I had no excuse to be distracted.
She didn't seem to be a bad teacher at least when she tapped on a chalk board. Yes, actual chalk. It was rather interesting to watch as a piece of chalk flew across the board leaving a trail. "I am Ms, Jules. Your teacher for magic fundamentals." She stared at the quiet class before seemingly deflating as she sat her hands on the podium in front of her. "Alright, well I guess we can start with names." She pointed and landed on someone in the front row. "You first stand and introduce yourself."
My nervousness bubbled, I always hated this part. People stood introduced themselves getting closer and closer. Interestingly it was first names only for some reason. I decided to go with the flow preparing myself to utter my name.
Alex, Flora, Bough, All in all the names were both uncommon and common. A trait of the worlds they came from? Then it was my turn. I stood I felt like my face was all red from standing too fast so I did my best to convey my name. "I am Paul." Then sat back down like the rest. For a brief moment I wondered if I messed up, but then I heard the person next to me continuing with his own name and I let out a sigh of relief before realizing this admittedly was pointless to worry about it.
I leaned back in my chair, waiting for the rest of the students to state their names. Letting my nervousness leave was a trick I picked up that let me focus on what was actually being taught rather than on what happened. It might be a school but it was magic... So I was keen to learn I noticed that once everyone finished speaking the nervous energy in the air of the room seemed to leave and everyone was leaning forward ready to learn. Seems I wasn't the only one interested in magic and that made me smile a bit, maybe school wouldn't be too bad.
