Mined Games chapter 26

“Now.” Said the pink and blue haired professor. “As most of you know, but our newcomers don’t, my name is Teresa Persephone. I teach the combat magic class in this Guild, and I’m damned good at it. Now, we were early in the term, and I hadn’t covered much more than the basics, but I plan to do a refresher for our newbies. So. Let’s start with the basics. Define combat magic.”

She pointed at Cecily. “You. New girl. Show me how much you know.”

Cecily had been asked a question like this in our first day of Mana Control, so she was aware that. ‘Magic for combat.’ Wasn’t an acceptable answer. She stopped to think, mulling over the prep material she’d read (Cece was kind of a nerd and liked to study up on everything). “Combat magic is…spells that can have a drastic and immediate effect on the surrounding world?”

Teresa grinned. “Closer than most get. And basically correct. Offensive and defensive spells are both combat magic. The counterpart being civilian magic, slower acting spells used for industrial purposes. What does that tell you about combat magic?” She kept her eyes focused on Cece, clearly expecting her to be the one to answer this time as well.

“That…it’s situational?” Cecily said uncertainly. “A plant growth spell could be used to capture an enemy in battle, or to grow crops on a farm. Even if you’re using the same spell in both cases the first is combat magic and the second is civilian.”

Teresa’s face lit up. “Precisely!” She said cheerfully. “Combat magic and civilian magic are NOT spell categories. They’re APPLICATION categories. Any spell can be a combat spell if used to proper effect in combat. What I teach in this class isn’t magic, it’s MINDSET.” She paused. “Well, and application. The point is, regardless of what mana type you have, you CAN do damage.”

Duval raised a hand, and was called on. “Any type? What about, say, life mana. What’s the combat application of that? Life mages only heal, don’t they?”

That got an eye roll. “Firstly, no. Aside from the ability to grow plants as mentioned earlier, high level life mages gain access to control spells that forcibly hijack a non-sentient being’s body. Which brings us to the main purpose of combat magic outside of war. Who can tell me what a crystal beast is?”

Dalton, who had been unnaturally quiet and subdued during this whole lesson, finally bestirred himself, raising his own hand. “Crystal beasts are animals that have naturally accumulated mana. The accumulation causes them to condense a crystal in the brain. It makes them more intelligent and gives them physical access to mana. Demon casting is supposed to be partially derived from how beasts use mana.”

My blood chilled a bit as he said that, but since he didn’t look at me or have reason to associate me with demons (elves hated them) it seemed he was just being accurate. Teresa certainly seemed pleased by the recitation.

“Well done.” She said warmly. “Yes. Crystal beasts are special in that they naturally condense mana crystals inside them. This is a danger, but also an opportunity. Varying mana types can be extremely rare, and nearly impossible to find in a mine, but beast crystals are sought after for another important reason. Anyone?”

I knew this one, and volunteered, being chosen without a second thought. “Because of spells.” I said confidently. “Beast crystals usually work like the ‘Singulars’ we heard about in mana control class. They form around a specific spell. Studying them is one of the ways to find new magic of different mana types other than study and development by humans.”

A nod of approval. “Indeed.” She turned to the black stone slate behind her, the same kind the other teachers had. “Crystal beasts traditionally only have one type of magic. They also usually channel that directly through the body. Despite these limitations, the massive variety in animals and environments between beasts means that spell effects can vary even within the same species.”

She started scrawling out examples as she talked. “This means.” She emphasized. “That you never know what kind of magic a beast will have. All beasts have the potential to be dangerous. Lower rank means weaker spells, obviously, but a beast can condense a ten lattice crystal in their own rank in rare cases. Such beasts are freakishly dangerous, even able to compete with mages a rank above them.”

“All of this is to say.” She said, stopping her list and turning to look at us sternly. “That you can NEVER take a beast for granted in combat. No matter how small or seemingly inconsequential, they can ALL be dangerous. However, despite that, there are some rules of thumb you can usually count on. Does anyone know one?”

For the first time in this class, Grace raised her hand, surprising everyone including the teacher, who nodded approvingly to the Baron’s daughter. “Size may not be a measure of strength, but it IS a measure of stamina. Smaller beasts mean smaller crystals. Less mana to cast with until they exhaust themselves.”

Teresa hesitated. “USUALLY. Extremely powerful or complex crystals can more densely pack in power. It lets them hold more and go for longer. It is often safe to assume small animals don’t have staying power, so I’ll count that one. Anyone else?”

When no one volunteered, she turned back to the slate and wrote out a few lines. “Two others. First, lethargic or comatose beasts may seem like a good target, but traditionally a deep insensate state means they’re about to tier up. If you see a beast sleeping and it doesn’t wake up when in danger, leave it alone. If it ranks up it WILL kill you.”

She pointed to the second line. “Secondly, not all beasts are hostile. Aside from tamers, if you find a beast with a compatible mana type it’s possible to bond with it. Ironically, having a rarer mana type makes this easier, as the beast will have less humans to choose from. In order to do so, however, you must defeat the beast in combat, or find it as a baby. Beast bonding is a complicated process involving the exchange of mana, but can have amazing benefits. This isn’t the class for that though, so I’ll leave it there.”

That sounded…promising. Not that I thought I’d find a spatial beast lying around to bond with, but if I did, I’d have a method to utilize my high tolerance without worrying about being noticed for it. Beasts used their bodies to cast, and while humans usually used foci, I was pretty sure some low level beast spells could be channeled through the body.

Even if I got one that couldn’t (for most people), no one would be able to call me on it, because the highly variable nature of beast crystals meant it might just be a unique spell. I made a mental note to look into finding a spatial beast to bond with at SOME point if I could. I felt a poke in my side and looked up to see Cece glaring, having noticed me becoming distracted.

I shot her a wry smile and refocused on the teacher, who was going into detail about commonly used combat spell categories. Probably a bad idea to piss off a teacher that overlooked inter-student stabbing, especially when I was in a class with at least one person I knew hated me for the circumstances of my birth.

Focusing back on the teacher, I was able to follow the lesson easily enough based on what she’d written on the slate. “Now, while any spell can be a combat spell, traditionally we separate combat spells into five categories. Offense, defense, mobility, restoration, and control. The first three are self-explanatory, or course, while the fourth is obviously healing and stamina enhancement spells, and the last is any sort of spell that restrains enemies.”

Duval raised a hand again. “Excuse me, but you mentioned enhancements, like stamina enhancements, wouldn’t enhancement be it’s own category? Since you can enhance far more about a person than just their stamina.”

“No.” She said bluntly. “Because those enhancements fall into the other categories. Make someone stronger? Offense. Make someone faster? Mobility. Make someone more durable? Defense. The five listed categories are absurdly broad, and that’s by design. They aren’t really hard and fast rules, more of a convenient method to sort spells.”

She scrawled something on the slate. “In fact, the majority of high level spells don’t fall into just one of the categories. Things like steel body spells for metal mana users. Those are defensive AND offensive.” To me, that implied the whole ‘application is what makes something combat magic’ concept, might be a bit of an oversimplification for beginners, but since I WAS a beginner it didn’t really matter right now.

I was half expecting to actually deal with some crystal beasts, maybe see one in person, based on what this class was supposed to be about, but it seemed like that was probably for later. This first lesson was just an insanely thorough breakdown of combat magic and how it functioned, and I couldn’t say it wasn’t informative.

Teresa was an excellent teacher. Engaging and enthusiastic, involving the class in every step to keep us invested in the lesson. Honestly, all of the guild’s teachers so far had been fantastic. Experts in their fields with a wealth of knowledge and experience to share. I had learned more in a week or two here than I would have from years scouring the library or buying black market magic books.

Sadly, all good things must end, and the class let out after only an hour. I tried to catch Annika to see if she wanted to come train with Cece and I sometime, but she was gone with everyone else as soon as class ended, leaving only me and my red-headed friend.

Asking Cecily to wait for a minute, I walked up to the front of the class. “Excuse me, Professor Persephone?” She was busy reading…something, but I wanted to thank her for what she did earlier.

A single dark brow raised as she shifted her attention to me. “Hm? Oh, Rourke. What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to say thank you.” I paused, not wanting to ruin plausible deniability for her. “For making us feel welcome in your class even though we showed up late. It was a fascinating lesson.”

She smiled at me warmly. “Every student should feel welcome in my class. Though perhaps not TOO welcome. I suppose I should be thanking you for helping me drive that particular lesson home.” She winked at me so fast I almost missed it. “In any case, I have another class soon, so you should move along. I look forward to seeing how you do in the practical lessons.”

With a grin, I nodded, knowing she understood what I was thanking her for and headed back to meet Cece. Sadly my friend needed to check in with one of our other teachers about a previous lesson, so after a few minutes discussing the lesson I said my goodbyes and headed off to my room, figuring I would take a nap or something and then maybe go train.

As I pushed my door open, I noted how dark it was. Combat classes ran late, and while it wasn’t night by any means, my room was on the east side of the building, so this late in the day it was heavily in shadow. The curtains certainly didn’t help, and I considered opening them before remembering I was planning to nap anyway.

I walked over and dropped into bed…and froze. Someone was IN this bed with me. Someone large, and not moving. I spent a precious few seconds triggering Blink, not even noticing a burn from not having a focus, which was nice to confirm. I ran to the window and yanked open the drapes, but when I saw my bed I yanked them closed again, scared someone would see. After all, I was going to have a hard time explaining why Terrence Halford’s corpse was lying on top of my blankets.