Chapter 134 - 135
As he had promised, Mr. Albeck taught Alistar the basic earth-shifting spell that he’d asked about before they had retreated to the woodland clearing, a simple bit of magic that only took him about an hour to get the hang of. Following this, he was taught a few subtle variations that allowed him to move different sorts of minerals by essentially condensing small amounts of them in order to free up volume. Although he didn’t quite get the hang of this, he had promised Zech and Jaden that he would spar with them today and so decided to resume practicing in his room whenever it was that he eventually retired for the night.
A short while after the lesson as he and his teacher made their way back to the manor house, Alistar stopped to ask about something that had been tugging at his attention since earlier in the afternoon. "Mr. Albeck? Earlier when you were reviewing my ice magics, you looked a bit displeased. Would you mind telling me why?"
Adjusting his robes to better keep out the cold, the magus also stopped walking and turned to look at Alistar with the same frown from before. "That...I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something, Alistar. I’ve been teaching you magic for quite some time now, and I can’t help but notice that you’re a bit too eager to jump into learning battle magics. I know the prospect of using such spells must be very alluring, but there’s an order to things. It’s standard practice that you focus on learning basic, non-lethal magics for the first several years of your education, and only after your second Name Day is it acceptable to begin teaching you the more dangerous and volatile spells that many adult mages tend to work with. Normally one must be a full-fledged mage to study such things, but at the very least they should reach adulthood beforehand."
After my Name Day?
Alistar didn’t have the leisure of waiting for so long. If he was to have any chance of actually rescuing Kaila, then at the very least he would have to be as capable as a mid-tier arcanite. From what he’d read, ordinary arcanites were more useful in battle than full-fledged magi, for they had similar capabilities in the realm of the arcane while the arcanites also had training in swordsmanship.
"Can’t I learn earlier?"
"There’s no rush, lad. You’re only thirteen, with many years ahead of you. I might not be an arcanite, but I do know some battle magics and I will teach them to you once you’re old enough. You just have to be patient."
Alistar directed his gaze toward the snow-covered ground, realizing that he would have no choice but to rely on Haussen Scuff’s grimoire to teach himself the things that he desired to learn. This meant that he would have to venture away from the manor house far more often so as to study such dangerous techniques outside of the range of his teacher’s detections.
"I...I’ll be patient. As you’ve said, I have plenty of time."