Chapter 36: Practical Elemental Enchanting
Professor Eortrax Nullsah, Throne of Enchanting, looked even larger than his portrait. He would have been a head taller than most tall men, so he towered over Suria even from a distance. Worse than that, his body was an engorged trunk of muscle, all of it displayed by his relative lack of clothing. Suria had never seen anyone who looked less like a mage to her.
In person, she could tell that his skin was a shade of crimson that she only saw from Endelyth, and his eyes were an unnaturally bright gold. Even though he looked like a brute, she could feel mana radiating off him like waves of heat. Suria shuffled away and found a seat that was partially shielded by one of the stone walls of the arena.
"Okay, off with you!" Eortrax tossed aside the student he had been holding like they were a ragdoll. "No attacks during class - you gotta let me talk. Anyone have a problem with that?"
No one had a problem with that.
"Alright then. We have to start off with a question: what is enchanting?"
The class was again silent.
"It's not a trick question!" Eortrax bellowed. "I'm not asking you to contemplate the mysteries of the universe here! Enchanting just means putting mana in something. Not throwing it into the world like Evocation, not turning it into something else like Conjuring. It's the reinforcement that makes it enchanting."
That was more theoretical than Suria had expected, given the professor's demeanor, and she started to think she might not have made a terrible mistake. Some of the other students looked bored or impatient, but she leaned forward slightly and waited for him to continue.
"Fools don't expect enchanters to be brawlers, but you see why they're fools now, right? If a warrior is willing to enchant their sword, why wouldn't they be willing to enchant their body? What's the difference?"
"Flesh isn't steel," someone called out.
"It isn't!" Eortrax thrust a finger at them almost like an attack. "But steel isn't iron or bronze, and flesh isn't bone, and... what do you know, one type of thing isn't the same as another type of thing! That's what makes enchantment special, in my opinion: the magic is only half the equation. You need to know what you're working with, really understand it.
"So that's what we're going to do here. I know some of you want to study muscular enchanting, and we'll definitely do that! But the important part is to work with what you have and find the right elements for you. That can mean literal arcane elements, for those of you who want to enchant your weapons. It can mean figuring out the element of your soul. It can mean a lot of things... are you ready?"
Many in the class roared out approvingly and Suria flinched, not having expected so much noise to come from behind her. She couldn't join in their raucous enthusiasm, but the class was sounding more interesting to her now. Perhaps Wynchard hadn't led her astray.
"Will you teach us your mithril shirt?" someone called, and many others joined in, some demanding a demonstration.
"Alright, alright, let's get that out of the way." Eortrax rolled his eyes, but he looked more pleased than anything. "Who's the biggest, baddest one of you? Someone with a good spell, so there won't be anyone else piping up."
After a little arguing, a surprisingly burly woman brushed past Suria on her way to the sands. She wore some kind of armor underneath her school robes, but what impressed Suria more was that she had two ranked seals on the collar. Whoever she was, she was at least ten years older than most students and had the scars to prove a long career.
When she got onto the sands beside the professor, the woman drew a sword and positioned it in front of her. As she gripped the hilt, Suria realized that it had a glyph built into it, a complex one based on what little she'd been able to see. The sword lit up with emerald flames that colored the sands all around them.
"Not bad!" Eortrax pretended to clap. "Sure you don't want to use a practice sword?"
"Afraid?" the woman asked. "Your trick doesn't work with real steel?"
"Suit yourself!" Eortrax put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest.
The woman didn't hesitate - she swept forward and struck directly at the professor's bare chest. Suria was almost blinded by the impact as the sword broke into several pieces. Everyone in the stands gasped or cheered while Suria just stared.
That didn't make any sense: even if Eortrax had enchanted his skin to be harder than steel, the weapon would have just bounced off or at worst dented. Even if the blade had a flaw, it should have snapped at the weakest point, not into several pieces. It was simply impossible for the force of the impact to have shattered the steel, so there must have been an additional force from his defense, and she had no idea what that could be. Eortrax looked untouched, while the woman irritably picked up the broken pieces of her sword.
"Let's get a few things straight," Eortrax said over the crowds. "There's a technique called the mithril shirt that reinforces the body, and yes, it comes from Endelyth. But you shouldn't think your defenses will be like mine, not even if you train for a hundred years. My bloodline contains a magic of its own, something that makes the mithril shirt far more powerful."
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
"Is that how you killed the Butcher of Karn?" someone asked from the back.
"We have a fan!" Eortrax grinned as he thrust out his hand again. "I'd love to tell you the tale of that great battle, but this isn't the time. No, Eortrax Nullsah is not the sort of teacher you can distract with tales. We've had enough distractions - it's time to work!"
Eortrax pulled a sack from his belt and reached inside, then scooped out a clay sphere that looked much too large to have been contained within. He began hurling orbs out into the class with a remarkable lack of caution and Suria instinctively pulled her satchel in front of herself as a defense. The orb that came her direction just rolled to her feet, however, and didn't fly at her head like with some students.
Everyone else seemed to know what the spheres were, so Suria had to watch them to figure out the exercise. She saw that most of the students were marking glyphs into the soft clay, and when she looked, she saw that the sphere actually had a number of circles inscribed on it. Based on the others, it seemed like there was one elemental inscription per circle. Some of the others were already making their spheres light up with coronas of elements, so she had to hasten to catch up.
Suria filled three of the circles with glyphs for fire, water, and force, which wasn't nearly all of them. She wished that she had spent more time practicing with Elemental Inscriptions in the New Age, because there had been so many other options she hadn't mastered. Trying to take this class as a new student, before her experiences in the loop, would have been humiliating.
As things were, Suria could endure the bellowing and try to figure out the exercise. When she pushed her mana into the fire glyph, she was surprised how difficult it was, like her mana was being forced through... well, clay, she supposed.
According to one of the introductory textbooks, clay was a viable material for glyphs, so there must be something special about this clay that served a training function. Looking around the class, Suria saw that some of the students were struggling to make any elements appear, and it wasn't solely because of inadequate glyphs. Eortrax roamed the class, thundering advice at individual students, and Suria hastened to figure everything out before he could get to her.
If she focused, Suria could push through the clay and make fire light up around the sphere. She wasn't able to activate another element and didn't see anyone else doing that, just switching between elements. Assuming that the exercise was something like that, Suria shifted through all three elemental inscriptions she had, getting a little better at it with practice.
"You look like you're doin' fine!"
Suria jumped when Eortrax suddenly appeared behind her - how could a man that large be stealthy? Part of her wanted to just accept the compliment and hope that he would ignore her, but Suria told herself firmly that she was here to learn. This professor seemed like he would appreciate bluntness, so...
"I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing," Suria told him. "Why are we doing this?"
"Hah!" Eortrax bent down to one knee, which just put him at eye level for her. "Guess we take some things for granted. This is a training tool used by some warriors, and now that I look at you, I'm guessing you're not much of a fighter?"
"No, not really."
"You should start! Even mages like you need some muscles on their bones!" Eortrax grabbed the orb from her, palming it in a single hand. "You were actually pushing mana through this really easily. Your runic capacity is... seven, I'd guess?"
Suria could only nod, strangely more intimidated than she had been by any of the combat displays. She didn't have any full glyphs visible and the sphere only required simple runic squares, so how had he guessed her capacity exactly?
"Funny thing," Eortrax continued, "you have better control of your mana than most people starting out like you are."
"I'm a healer," Suria managed to say, though her throat felt dry.
"Good! Healers are tougher than anybody gives them credit for. Anyway, the point is, this exercise is actually too easy for you, so you're missing the point. Usually, combat mages struggle until they find an element that feels right for them, and that's the one that gets through easiest. Slow down and really feel how the mana flows."
Nodding, Suria accepted the clay orb back from him, intending to return to the exercise. Eortrax remained kneeling beside her, which was downright nerve-wracking, and she somehow managed to summon fire again. She frowned and switched to force, trying to feel the difference in how the clay resisted her.
"I'm not sure I can feel the difference," she admitted.
"If you ask me, you haven't found your element," Eortrax said. "Your assignment for next class is to master more elemental inscriptions. A lot more. Whatever seems good to you."
"Is it a guarantee that everyone has an element? I was told to come here by someone who specializes in fire, but I don't know..."
"No guarantees in life! The most common reason someone has a dedicated element is because they have some kind of magical bloodline, like mine!" Eortrax chuckled strangely. "But it's also common for mages to be equally good at many kinds of magic."
"Then what am I supposed to do?" Suria asked, a little more plaintively than she'd hoped.
"Stop thinking about it like you have some destined element waiting for you. There isn't going to be a voice from the heavens declaring that you found the right one. Focus on the practical: do you enjoy the element in normal life? How does it control? Does it make sense for your tactical goals? Do you just plain like it? Sometimes that's all there is to it. If something feels right to you, don't wait for someone else's approval, just use it."
With that, Eortrax patted her on the shoulder like he was trying to hammer her into the sands and lurched to his feet. He wandered off, bellowing at other students, and Suria had to admit that he'd been surprisingly helpful in a short amount of time. Whether or not he got his power from some special bloodline, he was actually a better teacher than many.
What on earth was happening, that Suria had a better teaching experience with this ear-shattering barbarian than a civil woman who assigned books?
She set herself to the exercise again, enjoying it more now that she knew the underlying logic. The resistance did remind her of her crossed rune exercise a little and she thought she had seen clay spheres like this in some of the stores, so maybe it could be useful in the future.
For the exercise itself, however, the three elements she knew didn't feel right. Fire was simply convenient, force felt like a mere tool, and she had never taken to water spells. She took some comfort in thinking that there was an element out there for her, not because she was specially aligned to it, but just because it would suit her.
Meanwhile, the arena around her was growing increasingly rowdy. Some students were playing some sort of game that used their clay spheres as projectiles, a few had accidentally blown them up, and others had stopped the exercise and were just sparring with one another. Even among those focusing on their elements, the group looked like wild-eyed maniacs to her.
Suria could only shake her head. All of this had been going on across campus while she stayed in her room and read. Every time she thought she was beginning to understand Darkmoon University...