Chapter 20: Ranks, the Planes and Everything
“Once you become rank one mages, you will be able to perform magic spells,” Marcus said, beginning his lecture, “but in order to do so, you will have to take control of the ambient mana around you and shape it. Each spell has a structure, a spell boundary made out of logos that defines what it is, and therefore what it does.”
To help them visualize this, Marcus waved his hand in front of him and cast a basic light spell. He deliberately held back his logos core and spirit, casting the spell in the crudest, most basic way possible. He was long past casting spells by drawing upon the thin ambient mana that currently surrounded him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do it this way if he wanted to.
A complicated diagram made out of glowing sigils materialized in the air for a moment, visible streams of energy converging on it from every corner of the room, until it suddenly flashed and condensed into a fist-sized ball of light.
It bobbed up and down in the air for a moment and then, guided by Marcus’s mental command, zipped around the room a few times, startling his students.
“Your abilities to sense, gather and manipulate mana – commonly referred to as your shaping skills – are absolutely crucial at this level,” Marcus said. “You will have to learn basic gestures and chants, but that is honestly the easy part. It’s just a matter of memorization and repetition. The hard part will be developing said shaping skills. The better they are the more ambient mana you will be able to draw in. Better shaping skills also means you’ll be able to construct more complicated spell boundaries and therefore cast more powerful and versatile spells.”
“I heard that rank one mages are entirely dependent on their environment to cast spells,” Regulus commented. “And that they aren’t allowed to leave the academy without escort from a genuine mage.”
“It’s true. Rank one mages have no mana of their own, and must gather ambient mana from the land around them to cast anything,” Marcus said. Back in the Great Sea Academy, a student interrupting a lecture like Regulus had done would be met with harsh sanctions, but those lectures were given to many students at once and maintaining discipline was hard. Marcus was in charge of a much smaller group and didn’t mind if they interrupted him to ask questions. At least they were paying attention. “In most academies, they are called apprentices, and are not considered real mages. However, even when you move past this level, you shouldn’t look down on these ‘apprentices’ as defenseless. A spell cast by a rank one mage is just as good as the one cast by a rank two mage.”
His students seemed dubious at his statement.
“Teacher, everyone knows that mages of higher rank are better at everything than those beneath them,” Diocles told him.