The following day, I was sitting in professor Caeruleum’s class. The professor had pulled out the benches and chalkboard again, but the mats were still on the other side of the room, with the training devices set out for us to use later in the lesson.

  “The second circle spells for abjuration are a major step up in difficulty, but also in required finesse, even for third circle or beyond casters such as yourselves,” professor Caeruleum began as they walked through the desks. “As such, I can’t expect you to master three spells in two weeks, not like I did with the first circle spells. We’re going to be spending the remainder of the semester on a few spells.”

  A stick of chalk began to rise into the air and write the names of the spells out in the air.

  “We’re beginning with two simpler spells: shielded vitality and suppress enchantments. Don’t be fooled – even though these are simpler spells, they’re still complicated. We’ll be spending the next month on those two alone. The remainder of the semester will be spent on the next two spells, though: planar protection and energy barrier.”

  “The spells can’t be that hard,” a tall half-giant rumbled. “I learned your other spells in a single day. It will only take me a week to master the rest.”

  Professor Caeruleum whirled around and studied us students, smiling ever so slightly.

  “Is that so? Let’s take it from the top, then. Planar protection. Does anyone know the spell? Why would we learn it? We’re not a summoning course, after all. And what makes it so complicated, when compared to something like a shield spell? How about energy barrier?”

  There was a bit of shuffling and mumbling in the class, and I tentatively raised a hand. They nodded to me, and I threw out my best guess.

  “I don’t know the spell, so this is speculation, but if I was going to guess… Can it defend against bloodline magic? Not every bloodline is extraplanar, of course, but almost all extraplanar beings stronger than mice have developed a bloodline. As for energy barrier, I’m guessing that it protects from all sorts of energy attacks produced by spells or other powers, like fire?”

  “A reasonable guess, and partially correct. It can indeed protect you from bloodline magic, physical attacks, and mental assault from beings that are from another plane. But therein lies the difficulty. I’ll get to energy barrier in a moment…”

  They flicked their fingers and the chalk rose into the air, then began drawing out a spell array. It was complex for a second circle spell, almost as much as one of the transmutation spells I’d learned, and…

  I squinted. It wasn’t as flexible as something like affinity magic, of course. That was built to be unique and adaptable for each person, but this still had a component that could change. It slightly reminded me of my water to wine spell. Depending on the type, quality, rarity, and amount of metal that I mixed with the spellcasting when I cast the spell, I could get wildly varying qualities and types of wine.

  It wasn’t entirely the same, and just from a diagram I couldn’t make out what sort of components it would need to adapt, if indeed it did.

  “This is planar protection,” they said. “As you can see, it’s complicated. But what makes it more complex is that you need to specify what realm you want protection from, and the greater specificity you can provide, the more it works. If you merely want protection from every other plane in Etherius that isn’t the one we are currently on? It will do next to nothing. Specifying something like the elemental planes affords a small amount of protection. Narrowing to, say, the elemental planes of flame, grants a reasonable amount of protection. That’s where most uses of this spell fall in. But if you happen to know that you want protection from the realm of Haraq, the four winged phoenix, then you can get a great deal of protection.”

  As the professor spoke, the whiteboard shifted and changed. Parts of the spell were erased and replaced with new symbols – ones that I didn’t recognize too well, but that looked somewhat like the ones that I used in my summoning spells. Summon stone, in particular, seemed to have a great deal of crossover.

  I supposed that did make sense. If they were showing protection from various elemental planes, then it would naturally need to adapt to fit the elemental planes, which meant that the spell array would have a lot in common.

  “Energy barrier works similarly,” professor Caeruleum continued. “The more specific you can tune the energy that it needs to protect from, the more effective it is. Stopping everything is useless. Stopping fire, in all of its forms, works. Stopping something like spellcrafted fire, blackfire, natural flame, soulfire, dragonfire, or another specific variant works better yet. And stopping the spellcrafted fire of a fireball spell works best of all.”

  Again, as they talked, their chalk made changes and alterations to the spell diagram, and their voice grew more intense and focused.

  “Spellcraft is about more than just forming a shape out of ether and saying the right words. Taking that sort of vapid, banal, hackneyed approach is not going to get you very far. It will get you through basic spells, and indeed, that is as far as many go. But if you want to become a graduate of the Citadel of Ether, you need to understand more.”

  They turned, fishing their amulet from their neckline, and suddenly they were layered in a bubble of blue ether. The professor’s blue was more of a navy, compared to my own cobalt, but each barrier was so thin that I could still see them inside.

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  “This barrier, for example, would allow me to stroll through a burning building, but will not protect me from even the slightest amount of magical flame.”

  It flickered, vanishing and reappearing.

  “This would let me wade through the breath of a young dragon, but the same burning building would kill me.”

  It vanished, and then they shrugged.

  “Of course, power is still a factor. Even the most precisely tuned shield won’t stop all magic. This is a second circle spell, it’s not going to stop a meteor crush spell from the Erudite. But it also lays the foundation. There is a seventh circle spell that renders you immune to energy, and it works similarly. Only, instead of the effectiveness of the barrier changing, it’s the cost to the ether pool, as it’s a channeled spell.”

  “I see,” the half-giant said, stroking his beard. I felt a flash of jealousy. He looked younger than me, but he had a whole beard. “So, the difficulty is not in reaching the appropriate level of ether shaping skill or memorization, but in learning to quickly apply new principles to the same spell?”

  Professor Caeruleum waved their hand, and the spell was wiped from the board. Their chalk rose into the air, and began writing out spells.

  “Exactly,” they agreed. “But that’s why we are going to begin with shielded vitality and suppress enchantments. These spells are roughly the same level of complexity.”

  Indeed, they were. Not as bad as the lifeberry or water to wine spells, but still more complicated than I’d expected, especially when compared to shield or arcane armor. I nodded confidently, then glanced around the class. About half of them were shifting in their chairs, looking a bit green at the gills, and I realized that they thought the spell was complicated enough to be scary.

  Why?

  It clicked a moment later. Obliteration magic was simple and fast, especially when compared to more complex magic like transmutation. Arcane missile was one of the easiest first circle spells I knew.

  Most people looking to become battle mages would take some combination of the courses on obliteration magic, battle magic, body empowerment spellcraft, the magic of weaponry, applied mage combat, or the very course I was in right now.

  How many of these people were used to the simple geometric shapes of obliteration magic? That seemed so… limiting.

  “For those of you who already have the relevant level of ether shaping skill, congratulations, these two will not be too terrible,” professor Caeruleum said. “For those of you who do not, don’t worry. There is a reason that these four spells will take up the majority of the semester.”

  They gave the students who were eyeing the spells with apprehension a gentle and kind smile.

  “When I was in my first year at Primings – a now defunct mage academy where I began – I was nowhere near the level of skill needed to cast any of these. Now I am the youngest professor of abjuration magic in any of the Erudite Academies. Don’t fear, alright. Let’s begin with a brief overview of these two spells, and we can move to the mats and get started.”

  They turned to the shield vitality spell. Funnily enough, that was actually a more complex and unusual spell for me than any of the ones that they’d shown off so far, including the two modular abjuration spells.

  “Shield vitality,” they began. “If you have studied life enforcement, then you know that the body is made up of physical matter, but also a… life force. Some call it a part of the soul, élan vital, or many other things. It is a strange and mysterious power that those practitioners cultivate. So long as this life force is still within the body, then restoration magic, alchemy, and other methods to restore the flesh can still hold. Once it has passed on, though, the body is no more.”

  “Does this spell protect that power from leaving this world?” one of the students asked.

  “It helps,” professor Caeruleum said. “This is only a second circle spell, but it does help. It ties the energy to the body with etheric bindings, allowing a person to survive for a bit longer than they should without such a spell. It’s commonly taught as a part of restoration magic courses for this reason, even though the spell is technically of the abjuration school, not the restoration school.”

  “How much of a defense does it provide?” I asked, raising my hand into the air.

  “Such things are hard to quantify, in part due to the Magyk uncertainty principle, but you should not rely overmuch on it. I have personally seen a soldier with the spell cast on them manage to return to a defensive wall from the wastes after having a demon’s claw in their stomach for the entire trip back… but they were also especially tough and strong.”

  I nodded my thanks, and the professor answered a few more questions about the spell. A few people asked about the specific parts of it, and they just shrugged.

  “I can tell you that, yes, this part of the spell is responsible for locating the vital essence inside, this part creates a barrier over it, this part creates a binding… but I suggest it is better to feel it. To understand what it’s doing and why, rather than attempting to point at the spots.”

  There were a few more questions after that, and when they’d finally calmed down, professor Caeruleum turned to the final spell, suppress enchantments. This one shared several bits in common with the rite of centered mind that Salem and I had retrieved from the library, but it was clearly a more normal spell, as opposed to a ritual.

  “This is likely the best low circle, fairly broad, and cheap, mental defense spell. It can’t stop mental attacks or the like, but it can suppress most magic that ensnares the mind with false emotions, like fear spells, a poltergeist’s rage-inducing aura, or a concubi’s charms.”

  “Concubi?” someone asked, confused.

  “The species name for succubi and incubi,” professor Caeruluem said. “Not all succubi are women, nor are all incubi men. The prefixes refer to the method they use to attract their prey.”

  They waved their hand dismissively.

  “Regardless. This can suppress a variety of mental effects, though it can’t outright block them. The more powerful the effect you must suppress, the more ether it will drain, and some are powerful enough to simply shatter this spell. But it’s still worth learning.”

  There was a round of questions about this spell as well, then professor Caeruleum started going through the motions of casting each spell, as well as the incantations for both of them. Once they’d gone through it several times each, they had us head to the mats and begin practicing.

  “The training crystals are tuned to have artificial vitality and minds,” they explained. “It means that if you mess up, you won’t accidentally inject ether into your brain or life force.”

  I paled slightly, and the professor noticed, because they shook their head.

  “Oh, no, it wouldn’t kill you. Far from it. It’s difficult to actively destroy or injure either one, especially without a directed attack. The mind is easier than the life force, but still, it isn’t the kind of thing you can do by accident. If you injected a flow of ether into your life or mind, it would hurt, but do no long term damage.”

  I relaxed, then reached out for the current of abjuration affinity magic that I knew professor Caruleum had cast over the class for practice. Once I had a firm grasp of it, I started trying to cast the spells.

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