I shuffled up and took one, then sat back down at my seat and sent ether into the device. It sucked my ether in greedily, and then just… held it, not glowing at all.

  I frowned and shifted, trying to stretch the ether long and thin, but quickly stopped as that lit the device in yellow shades. I frowned and sensed deeper, then realized what exactly was going on.

  My ether had filled the orb up entirely… and exactly. It filled it to the very limits, and didn’t compress at all, or thin at all. It was entirely uniform. I shifted the ether and tried to open a hole inside the ether itself, while keeping the ether static through the whole pool, like when I flowed ether into lines and shapes for spellcraft, but in reverse. Slowly but surely, the pathway I was focusing on lit up in green. I shifted and lit a second, and then a third, but that was where I started having trouble.

  Then my eyes narrowed. I knew this pattern. These holes, they opened at the same points where I had to apply pressure with Xander’s massage, and ran through to the other side, while looping in such a manner as to emerge in the opposite area while still covering roughly a ninth of the ether pool.

  I started working on Xander’s massage, and within moments, a fourth, fifth, and then sixth tube lit up. The seventh was slower, as I hadn’t been practicing quite as much with the massage as I had been when it had been our task, but I managed to get it.

  I was pulled out of my focus when I heard professor Silverbark clapping again, and glanced up. With my seven lit tubes, I had rushed ahead of everyone else in the class, even Wesley, who only had two lit. Yushin had one, while Kybar and the rest of the class hadn’t managed to get any green yet.

  “Well done lad,” the professor said. “Let me guess, you’re a transmutation focused mage? Transmutation spells are so precise and finicky that their mages tend to make excellent fine controllers.”

  “No, but I do know my fair share of transmutation magic,” I said. “But it was.”

  I stopped when the professor twitched the wand tied to his belt and I heard his voice echo in my mind.

  “Let them figure it out on their own,” the telepathic voice told me. “But good job indeed! You should be more than ready to use it on your own pool now, if you wish.”

  I nodded, just barely, as to not make it obvious, then reached within. I formed the tubes within my ether pool, then began to practice the massage at the same time. As the ether rushed in from Etherius, it rushed through the tubes I’d created and flowed far easier, vastly increasing the rate at which my ether restored itself. The excess flowed over my pool, expanding it ever so slightly as it rushed back into Etherius. It wasn’t much, but it was a little bit.

  I tried to split my focus then, working on keeping the ether running through me while practicing, then paused. I rushed through Summers’ inversion, then began practicing the combination of the massage and path.

  Sure enough, the recovery effect was also bolstered. I wasn’t able to match the fifteen seconds that Wesley had shown off at the start of class, but within five minutes, I was able to perform an inversion again.

  I wasn’t able to stop myself from grinning as I left the class, and Yushin looked at me like I was mad. Still, she didn’t ask for the secret of how I’d done it. Honestly, if she had asked, I would have told her, but I wasn’t about to try and force my information on her.

  We had just sat down together when Wesley sat down on the stool next to us, staring at me.

  “How?” he asked. “Now I’ve seen you cast some sort of… supercharged spell… and reach the perfunctory competence level with this technique so quickly.”

  My good mood faded a bit and I looked at him, annoyed. At least he hadn’t tried to pin me to a wall this time.

  “Well, how about this? I’ll tell you the answer to those if you explain how you got so good at the others so quickly.”

  Wesley’s jaw worked for a moment, then he nodded.

  “Fine. Tell me how you supercharged the spell first.”

  “I ran dragonfire through it,” I said.

  Wesley’s entire body seemed to sag in relief at that, and I recalled his scorn about how a mage shouldn’t need to worry about a psychic. He was probably something of a mage supremacist, then, much like my family were dragon supremacists.

  How annoying… and useful. If I could pass any weirdness off on my bloodline, he could stop hounding me.

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  “I practiced nonstop, and I do mean that,” he finally said. “But my practice was helped somewhat by my self-improvement affinity. The primary spell I can cast with it helps me refine the things I did right while also learning from my mistakes at any given task. It’s not much, but every time I cast it, I get a little better. Combine that with the fact that I only need to sleep about half an hour to an hour every day, and I spent all night practicing…”

  “How do you sleep an hour?” Yushin asked sharply. “That’s unusually short for even an energy drawing stage cultivator, let alone a mage.”

  “Well, half-elves only need about four hours,” I commented. “That’s not half an hour to an hour, but it’s something.”

  Wesley seemed to debate with himself for a moment, then sighed.

  “I improved my sleep. It was the first thing I did. It’s hit a wall, though.”

  I stared at him, suddenly very jealous of his affinity. He could improve his sleep, his spellcraft skills, and his ether manipulation? It might not be direct combat utility, but I’d swap affinities with him in a second.

  “Now it’s your turn,” Wesley said, jabbing a finger at me. “How did you get so fast?”

  Yushin frowned, then covered her ears, apparently wanting to reach this conclusion on her own.

  “It’s the reverse of spellcraft, and it’s aligned with the massage,” I said. “I cleared out the area where the path was, instead of filling it, then activated the massage.”

  Wesley frowned at me.

  “I realized that the moment I picked up the device. But how did you do it?”

  “I… don’t follow?”

  “How did you get that level of shaping skill so fast?”

  “I didn’t,” I snapped. “I practiced endlessly with lifeberry, and for over a year, water to wine was my best source of income. They’re complex spells, far more than any obliteration or even most summoning spells.”

  Wesley glared at me, then snatched up his tray and walked away. Yushin uncovered her ears right as I rolled my eyes.

  “I take it he did not like your answer?” she asked.

  “Apparently not,” I said. “But what kind of cheating is that affinity? Self improvement? That’s utter nonsense. No wonder he’s a mage supremacist.”

  “He should practice life enforcement,” Yushin said begrudgingly. “But I admit to some jealousy. I do not think I would want to trade mine, but I would consider it.”

  Yushin and I grumbled about the absolute absurdity of that was a self-improvement affinity while we finished up lunch, then headed onto class.

  Instead of professor Alydia today, professor Emir was standing there. I waved to him and smiled.

  “Hello professor!” I called, and he nodded to me, then to Yushin.

  I plopped down onto the grass next to Salem and Jackson, while we waited for the rest of the class to get there. Once everyone was there, professor Emir coughed to gather everyone’s attention.

  “I know I guided some of you through last class, and have taught some of you in my ethics or obliteration magic courses, but for those of you who don’t know me, I am professor Emir Blackflame, second chair of the obliteration school of magic. Today, we’re going to be doing something a little bit new. Do you know what the most common cause of death for a mage is?”

  “The Creep?” I guessed.

  “Opposing the gods?” Jackson threw out.

  “Arrogance,” Yushin said.

  “Other mages,” Salem said sadly.

  “Demons,” one of the second years suggested.

  Others threw out their own guesses, and Emir let everyone go before speaking.

  “There is truth in all of those, but truthfully? Nobody knows. There’s no one clear danger. If there was, then there would be no need for this course to exist, because we could just train you against it. But if you want me to put my money on it? I’d say arrogance and other people.”

  “People? Not mages?” Jackson asked.

  “Plenty of powerful non-mages out there,” Emir said with a shrug. “But there’s a reason that this hold, as well as most other places that have high levels of ambient ether, have strong customs of dueling. Because when powerful people clash, it can be incredibly destructive, even when they’re doing the equivalent of a friendly spar.”

  Emir raised his hand and a staff appeared in it. It was made of blackened, almost burnt looking metal, with an orb of glowing magma in his hand. In his other hand, a thin wand made of dark wood with a red ether crystal tip appeared.

  His eyes began to blaze, turning back and red, and his feet lifted off the ground. The grass began to rustle and tear as he floated upwards. Black fire began to leak from the tip of his wand, and he started to chant words of power. More and more black fire leaked out, dripping onto the grass.

  His power smelled like raw destruction. Not like the rot demon, who smelled of decay. No, this smelled of destruction itself, in a way I couldn’t explain, while also being tinged with the smokey, spicy scent of fire.

  I bolted to my feet, tensing and preparing to flee.

  “Which is why, students, today is going to be an entirely different sort of lesson!” Emir called. His voice echoed strangely, as if he was speaking through a metal tube while also being strangely far away. “Your goal for the rest of class is simple: survive.”

  I ran. The objective was to survive, not to beat him, after all.

  Within moments I smelled his black fire descending on me. I let out a gulp and opened my mouth. Absorbing the fire of a spell was a lot harder and less efficient than absorbing the power of another flame bloodline, but it was possible. To my surprise, the power scoured through the spiritual connection that I’d created with the ritual, and more power flowed in than I’d expected.

  Emir’s power was dense and rich. Not quite as dense as my own, but close enough that it was a little bit startling. I burned the power and poured on the speed, clearing the top of the nearby tree with a single leap. I bounced from tree to tree, running through unfamiliar forest paths.

  Behind me, I heard Jackson bellowing out words of power, and some of the other students doing the same. I ignored them and kept running.

  Once I was confident that I’d lost Emir’s flames, I dropped to the ground and began muttering out a spell as I ran towards a more familiar part of the forest, towards where the faerie castle was.

  There!

  I spotted it and rushed through my spell, flicking out gestures.

  Then a swarm of arcane missiles pounded into the ground in front of me.

  Emir floated down from the sky ahead of me, wind whipping around him as he held his staff and wand out. They no longer glowed with his powerful affinity, but rather dripped with an inky blackness I assumed to be the natural color of his ether pool.

  “Game over, Emrys.”

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