“I’m not going to explain everything. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know everything myself. I wasn’t a physicist or anything—just took a couple classes. The gist is that when a lightning bolt strikes, it is energy moving from a concentration of one type of charge to the other. I think the most common is from a negative charge in the clouds to a positive charge on the ground. Not completely sure on that, though.

  The main thing is that what you see as a lightning bolt is energy transferring between the concentration of those charges. So, if you were going to generate your own lightning, you would first begin by gathering a concentration of like-charges. However, do not attempt to do so yet. We’ll get there, but lightning is dangerous stuff, so I’m going to explain the entire process to you before we actually attempt anything.”

  Braden was explaining all this to Julia while sitting in a cross-legged position. He had positioned Julia in the same cross-legged posture—but not the comfortable kind with feet tucked under. Instead, he insisted they sit in a bizarre, uncomfortable way, with their feet resting on top of their legs. He called it the ‘Lotus’ position. She had never heard of a lotus before, and when Braden explained that it was a flower, she became even more confused.

  She thought about asking what a physicist was, but if it was anything like a lotus, she had a feeling it would just further confuse her.

  “Before I continue explaining how to create a bolt, let’s go over a safety measure first. This safety measure is going to be a spell, actually. I call it Faraday’s Cage. It’s named after the guy that created it.

  Remember how I told you to figure out how to do something without magic first? This guy actually did it. A true genius. Fortunately, we can do even more than what he designed with magic. It actually feels like cheating in many ways…”

  At Julia’s impatient look, Braden cleared his throat and continued.

  “Anyway, the Faraday’s Cage spell will make you functionally immune to both lightning and light magic used offensively against you. It’s extremely important because lightning and light both move much faster than any human—even with high stats—can process and react to. Just having the spell active should give you tremendous peace of mind. Also, it will make it much safer to test your own offensive lightning spells.

  Now, first let’s…”

  Julia followed Braden’s instructions, trying to replicate the spell. They were in the woods west of town and about an hour’s walk away. Apparently, there was really no getting around how loud lightning bolts were, so they went far away to avoid raising a ruckus. Trixy was also not present, obviously, so that she didn’t get hit by any stray bolts.

  Julia was close to her twelfth birthday, and she had expressed disappointment with her current repertoire of four spells. Well, technically six, but the other two both came from the summoning ritual, so they weren’t exactly spells she could use frequently.

  Braden had offered to teach a new aspect of magic to her and a spell to go along with it. She could choose whatever she wanted, even. That, of course, made the choice obvious. It didn’t get any cooler than lightning magic.

  After an hour or two of working on the spell, Julia was rewarded with a notification.

  “I got it!” Julia exclaimed.

  “Excellent work! That was quick to pick up such a complicated subject and spell. Well done, truly. Now that the System has added the spell to your status, we can start actually using it.”

  “Actually using it? I was already using it, wasn’t I? I had to be for the System to acknowledge my mastery of it,” Julia said, slightly flummoxed.

  “Yes, you were using the spell. You just weren’t using it at its full potential. The way you were using it would leave some pretty significant vulnerabilities. That’s not your fault. It’s what I was teaching you.

  We need the System to do some heavy-lifting for us here. When the System casts the spell for you, instead of making it cast just like you would manually, focus on ensuring complete and total coverage of your entire body as well as maximum light mitigation.

  You may have noticed the spell has the word ‘cage’ in it. That is not a coincidence. You can’t see it, but it really is like a cage stretched over the surface area of your body. As such, it has gaping holes in between the ‘bars’ of the cage. A lightning bolt or beam of light striking in those gaps would hit you like the cage wasn’t even there.

  If you focus on the things I said when having the System cast the spell for you, it will close those gaps in the cage and also increase the frequency of light it will protect you from. There are still some intense forms of light that could blast through it, but if you were facing an opponent that could summon light powerful enough to make it through the cage, you’d have no chance anyway.

  You might also be wondering what these words I’m saying—like frequency—are. This is a benefit of using the System to cast spells. You don’t really need to worry about those words since it will handle the casting for you.

  I’m generally not in favor of using the System as a crutch for ignorance, but in this specific case, it’s fine. You won’t need to know more about this subject right this second. We can discuss it more later in your studies.

  You can just eat the extra cost to have the System make up for your lack of understanding. Perfectly acceptable in this case—since the System will be guided by your existing spell blueprint—and pretty efficient as well considering how long it would take to teach the physics of electromagnetism, which I myself am not even that well-educated on.”

  “Ok, well…I’ve got my safety spell and I know how to cast it. I think it’s time to shoot some lightning,” Julia declared with anticipation.

  The lessons for creating lightning weren’t much more difficult than the Faraday’s Cage had been. The concepts overlapped significantly. Build up opposing charges, ‘point’ them at each other, and ‘connect’ them with the spell.

  After about another hour of practice, the System pinged her again.

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  Another hour-or-so of spell casting and many scarred trees later, Julia and Braden were headed back through the woods towards town. Julia was satisfied with her progress that day. She now had an actual, offensive spell!

  Sure, Spark could make some sparks that might sting if they got on exposed skin, but it was mostly a spell Braden taught her for its ease of learning. It also had the utility of being able to light a fire if she needed to. Her wind spell…well…it was all in the name. Hard for a spell called ‘Breeze’ to be damaging.

  But now, she could deal some damage! If she needed to, of course. The woods around town were actually pretty safe, generally. They were patrolled regularly by rangers and woodsmen from the town for hunting and timber.

  Actually, some rangers dying in the attack her family suffered was likely the main reason so many in town disliked her presence. True, her family were regular traders in this town and were already on their way to it, but the townsfolk likely saw it more as they led the monsters here in their attempt to flee and got some of the townspeople killed.

  Putting that thought aside, Julia had to get some sleep tonight so she could exercise tomorrow. She had quite a ways to go if she was going to hit Dex 10 by her twelfth birthday.

  It had been almost a year since her work in the quarry, and it hadn’t moved once! Not a single point! She had some new routines that she and Braden had brainstormed together to try, so she needed to get enough rest tonight. Tomorrow was to be a day of work!

  Julia wiped the sweat from her forehead before wiping her hands on her pants. She was on her way home from a rather successful bout of hopping between trees and over stones. This was something she and Braden had come up with to help her Dex out. Incorporating more motion into her otherwise-stationary calisthenics routines.

  As she cleared the treeline and could just make out the palisade in the distance, she heard the sounds of a commotion ahead. She crested the hill in front of her and could see the commotion originated directly in front of her in the valley between the hill she was on top of and the hill leading up to the town.

  There was a gaggle of…kids? Teenagers? They looked to be a little older than she, so teenagers. They were all huddled in a circle around something and making motions and exclamations towards the center of the circle. There were probably ten to fifteen of them. She didn’t specifically count, but it was several.

  Oh, man. They hadn’t noticed her, so maybe she could just sneak around? Her palms started to sweat despite having just wiped them. Braden described her discomfort around the locals as social anxiety. She wasn’t so sure about that. She felt like she could get along well with people who weren’t already looking at her like they were trying to will her out of existence.

  While she was frozen and deliberating what to do, one of the kids looked up and pointed at her. All the kids suddenly looked at her, and one boy (the leader of the group?) stepped forward. She was still a ways away but within shouting distance.

  “Well, if it ain’t the curse herself!” the boy called. He was tall for his age. Blonde hair hung down in his eyes in a way that seemed to bother him by how often he shook it out of his face. He had blue overalls worn over a simple white linen shirt. Overalls were pretty much the hallmark of a woodcutter, so this boy was likely the child of one.

  “Curse? I-I’m s-sorry. I don’t know what y-you mean,” Julia stuttered as she tentatively made her way towards them. There was no getting around it now that they had called out to her. She’d just have to make up a decent excuse to leave quickly.

  Julia wished Trixy was with her. Trixy could’ve just made them both invisible at the first sign of voices, and then they could’ve just slipped right on by. Alas, Trixy had run off home ahead of Julia while she was resting.

  “Don’t ya know yer own title? Yer the curse! Ma daddy knows all about ya. Ya led all the monsters here an’ got some a our folk killed. Daddy says all the trouble in the village starts and ends with ya.”

  Julia withered at the words. They almost felt like physical things that were out to harm her. See? It’s not social anxiety to avoid people who talk to her like that, right?

  “D-did you need something from me? If not, I’ll be heading home now,” Julia murmured as she started to slowly sidle away towards home.

  “Need? Well, I guess not. We’ll just go back to punishin’ this here cursed beast,” the boy said nonchalantly. He turned around and directed a kick towards the inside of the circle.

  Cursed beast? What could that be? Julia got up on her tiptoes to see into the circle…

  It was Trixy. Trixy was the “cursed beast” in the middle of the circle of kids. The kids were throwing rocks and kicking towards her whenever her evasive maneuvers brought her close to the circle’s edge.

  Julia could see that she had blood in her fur. It was easy to spot since all but her paws were completely white. Blood was in her neck fur right under her mouth as well as on her back towards her hind legs.

  “What is going on here?” Julia asked quietly.

  The leader(?) turned around and beamed at her.

  “Like I said, we’re punishin’ the cursed beast. Need a teach it who's boss afore it gets big and strong. Let it know that if it’s gon’ live in the town, it’s gon’ play by our rules.”

  “That is my summoned companion. She obeys me absolutely. She’s no danger to the town…but you already know that, don’t you? That’s why you call her the ‘cursed beast,’ which is a reference to me,” Julia said.

  She felt a boiling rage building inside her. Her mind flashed briefly to her new lightning spell…but no, Braden had specifically said not to use that spell on anything or anyone she wasn’t prepared to kill.

  “Obviously, we know that. We wouldn’t a had to punish this beast if it weren’t yers, now would we?” the boy said with a sneer. “Now, how’s about ya—”

  WHAM

  Julia clobbered the idiot in the face with a wicked right hook. She didn’t know a whole lot about fighting, but Braden had included some very short lessons about a sport called ‘boxing’ as a method to increase her Dex. It showed its use today. A well-executed hook, if she were to judge it herself.

  The boy staggered back and flopped down on his butt. He rubbed his cheek where the punch had landed a bewildered look. She hadn’t put her all into the strike, but her Strength was not to be underestimated. Especially against kids around her own age.

  She was prepared for a counterattack, but the boy instead started sniffling, which quickly devolved into a full-on crying fit. Julia was shocked, but before she could devote much attention to her shock, she saw motion in her peripherals.

  She spun around to face the nearest member of the circle, but instead of being attacked like she was expecting, the kids were all running away. Another boy was quickly leading the boy she’d hit away towards the town, having apparently helped him up when her back was turned.

  Julia stared in shock for a second. These little wimps really couldn’t take it nearly as well as they dished it. She was appalled that the lead boy could speak so viciously about abusing others and yet wither completely when the situation reversed.

  Trixy ran over to her and jumped into her arms. Inspecting for injuries, Julia noticed that the blood on Trixy’s neck fur had likely come from her mouth, while the blood on her back was from some kind of nasty scrape. It looked like the skin and fur just…disappeared right there.

  “Oh, Trixy. I’m so sorry. You couldn’t defend yourself because I asked you not to attack anything, right? Let’s change that. From now on, don’t attack anything, but do defend yourself if necessary. I can’t have anything happening to you. I love you so much.”

  Trixy just rubbed her head under Julia’s chin. The ferret was clearly worn out. “Let’s hurry home and have Braden look at you. I’m sure he can do something for those wounds.”

  With those words, Julia turned towards the house and jogged home.