The next few days ended up being rather gruelling, but nice. Luster and I began settling into a rhythm, with her sleeping at the end of my graciously granted guest bed at the Sherr residence, and waking me whenever she needed a bathroom break halfway through the night. The night air tended to be a tad much for her, so she was always pretty cuddly during the break and ended up sleeping on my chest, but she was less so during the day, where she tended towards high activity and a lot of running around. I got to see flashes of it before lunch, but my training with Ionos started then, and it was definitely one of my toughest experiences.

  “You will be drilling night and day, back and forth, on this, until I am certain you understand what a unit of mana really is.” He had told me before we started, and he showed me a small, violet ball of pulsating light. A mana wisp, he called it. Something that all wizards start with creating, including myself. The struggle to understand how to feel the mana pulsing in my body, flowing as a different heartbeat, and then to draw it out slowly, through one’s palm, wasn’t necessarily difficult, but it required a lot of concentration and a good amount of my energy, leaving me feeling drained through the first few attempts. I ended up needing a good amount of rest after drawing, let alone moving, even a couple, but I did usually get at least one notification that my MP bar had increased in size by the end of the day.

  Once we had gotten past that, things got more esoteric for learning the actual Message spell - lots of visualization, calculation, and figuring out how to use mental muscles I didn’t know existed. Through it all, Ionos was absolutely uncompromising. I can’t say I met all of his expectations, but I worked hard enough to make sure he didn’t have much to complain about.

  Despite Ionos insisting I not do farming in the afternoon, I did point out it didn’t drain my MP, and that it was a lot easier right now - a lot of what I was doing at the moment was just keeping the soil clear of weeds and watering, while Adam and Mary were doing most of the actual sowing. While I might’ve mentioned my exp increasing as a passable excuse, it didn’t have to do with just that… honestly, it hardly had to do with that at all.

  I just wanted to pay the Sherr household back for taking such good care of me, and it didn’t feel right as the assigned farmhand to not do a good job farming. I might not have had any pride in this hero business I kept being pushed towards, but I cared a lot about the Sherr Farm, and I wanted to make sure I worked hard to show just how much I appreciated the kindness I’d been shown.

  The evenings were usually a bit kinder - Ionos mostly just taught me some history of magic and lore early on, before heading home, and I was left to lounge and relax my tired legs. In just a day or two, it felt like I’d never been in a fight at all, as my body knit itself back together almost like it hadn’t happened.

  Maybe it was the hero juice, or those stamina bonuses - I was too busy being focused on what Ionos was teaching me. I also spent a lot of time training and generally being with Luster - while it was important that she learned the rules and boundaries, it was a lot more passive of an affair, and she got the general idea pretty quickly. I was informed a couple times not to share my food, but there is a certain level of cute eyes that Luster was using, and I couldn’t help myself at times.

  Eventually, I got one particular blip, mid-session:

  [you have earned a trait: Arcane Efficiency, level 1!]

  [gained 5% Spell mastery!]

  [gained 5 mana efficiency!]

  [Gained the ability to master arcane cantrips]

  [you have gained arcane spell capacity of first level!]

  [You have maxed your levels in arcane efficiency!]

  “Ionos! I got the Arcane Efficiency trait!” I spoke up, as he turned to me, scratching his beard for a few seconds as he processed this. “Says I can master arcane cantrips and I have… arcane spell capacity of… first level. And spell mastery! And mana efficiency!

  “I see. You have obtained more power even in this from your class.” The wizard replied, scratching his beard.

  “Yeah… though it says I’ve already maxed the trait. I guess this is as wizardly as I can get.” I admit with a wince. I suppose a lot of people in the world here don’t do magic at all, but being capped at level one really reinforced the fact that even as Ionos’s apprentice, I was a druid, not a wizard.

  Ionos seemed unbothered by this fact, though, immediately pulling out what looked like… scrabble letters?. “Now we can focus on your messaging training for the next day, before…”

  “...Before?” I asked.

  Ionos simply waved me off. “...Before we’ll have to do something else, lad. As I fear I’ve said too much already, I will tell you to square your affairs before tomorrow. There will be some changes around the kingdom in response to recent events.”

  “Changes?”

  “I’d do well to forget I said anything on that, lad. In any case, let’s focus on your messaging skill.” Ionos replied with a frown, before slamming his cane into the ground hard enough to make me jump. “After all, you’re still only scratching at the basics of the spell.”

  I gave a sigh of relief, as I let the mana wisp burn away in my hand. “So… what are mana wisps, really?” I eventually asked. “You’ve let me utilize them before, and I know they’re a part of messaging cantrips, but are they just… half of a spell?”

  “They are the core of spells.” Ionos would reply, “that is, arcane spells. Where a natural power typically radiates outwards and takes from the world around, arcane spells are more concise.”

  “...Sorry, could you…?” I murmured, unsure on what Ionos was talking about.

  “...Hmm.” Ionos mumbled, tapping the end of his long nose with a finger as he seemed to be taking a breath. When he next spoke, it was softer than his usual trainer’s intonation, a very gentle teaching voice pleasant enough to fall asleep to.

  “An Arcane spell has two components. The first is the wisp - it is fire and warmth. This heat feeds into the spell’s construction. Depending on what spell you’re creating, it might be a hot forge that allows the blacksmith to shape metal, or the warm stove that allows a chef to create a delicious meal. The spell construct - for instance, the shape you build in your mind for the Message spell - is simple enough, but you need to both fill it with flame and make sure that your construct directs it well. The wisp is the heat that fuels your creation, so it may dance as you intend it to. This is why countering a spell - albeit inefficiently - often comes down to simply snuffing out the heat at its core.”

  “...How are natural powers different? Wait, those aren’t druid spells you’re talking about, right? I’m not confused? I just kinda assumed they were the same, but I could be wrong.”

  Ionos gave a nod. “Correct. The magical council eventually chose not to call them spells because they do not follow arcane principles. While the reclassification was subjective, and based on principles that seemed to spontaneously spring up as our understanding grew, I confess that I was not particularly bothered when outvoted on the matter.”

  “Oh, so it was recent?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Oh, my, no. About two hundred and eighty years ago, by my count.” Ionos replied, squinting as he tried to remember. “...Maybe two hundred and eighty five. Why, I still had brown in my beard, back then!”

  I gave a nervous chuckle at that. “Right… I forgot, you’re an Elf! We had stories of people like elves where I came from, but nothing real.”

  “Indeed. Even here, we’re often a rarity among humans. Dwarves are common to some degree everywhere, sharkmen enjoy the eastern provinces, The greenskins are a plague not allowed within civilized territory, but Elves have stuck mostly to our own enclaves, high above the world in places untouched by the kingdoms of man. Usually, when we leave, it’s for wanderlust - to learn more about the world, before returning. Those who stay either find themselves enjoying the world too much to come back, and are asked politely not to return, or are seeking out hidden knowledge among the kingdoms of men. That… is how I ended up Archwizard of the Leofric Commonwealth, some four hundred years ago.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Do elves dislike human society?” I asked with a frown. I heard there was a lot of environmental problems in my original history… maybe it was the same here, and that annoyed the Elves?

  “Not in the way many think. We dislike impermanency, of the irreverent ways that places, people, and even history is often treated by those with lives so much shorter than our own. Things that might grieve an elven family dearly to forget or pave over are commonly lost in mere years by humanity. And, of course, making friends that often die before we can hardly get to know them…”

  Ionos puffed on his pipe with a smile. “I know Chloe Sherr well. I also knew Chloe’s grandmother, and her grandfather before that. It will break my heart almost as much as it will Adam’s, when she finally passes, and time advances all too quickly. And, of course, Adam’s swift death soon after will be as yet another weight upon my soul.”

  “...Oh. That… sounds horrible.” I frowned, furrowing my brow at the thought. My sympathy grew as I started to get an idea of all the lives this old man has met and left behind.

  “So do most of my kin feel, so they do not bother with the affairs of mortals.” Ionos replied. “But I have learned that to avoid such companionship, simply because you may lose it one day, is no way to live one’s life. There is such beauty in the developing races such as humanity, and fear pushes many of my kind to live in places, in ways where they can avoid for a time the inevitability of change… while missing the beauty of transformation.”

  Ionos’s whiskers wiggled again as he took a long puff of his pipe, blowing a smoke ring. Neither of us spoke until it at last faded. “Chloe Sherr will one day pass away, and I will have memories alone to remember her by… but I’m sure her granddaughter will grow up to be an excellent woman, and just as worthy of knowing and remembering.” He replied with a soft smile.

  I hadn’t seen the age in the lines of his face the way I had in that moment. Turning to Ionos, I realized this wasn’t just an old man - he was an old Elf. His lines were the lines of an old growth tree, every streak and crease the impact of a decade. How much of his life had he still yet to talk about? How many stories?...Would I have a place among them, one day?

  “Regardless, you weren’t trying to ask about my race.” Ionos noted, almost dismissively, as he ran a hand through his beard. “When it comes to a Druid’s... natural powers… Rather than building a fire, you’re building a seed. This allows for the caster to use less innate power, as the core you create forms the basis of what the spell will perform, and draws from some part of the natural world to fill it with the earth’s own mana.”

  “...so I could really ruin a place if I took too much mana?” I asked with worry.

  Ionos blinked, before laughing. “I.. suppose, if one was trying to form a new planet, then you might hamper the world for a moment, yes. It’s very difficult to take too much mana from the world. It produces so much, naturally, and radiates it to all of it’s creations. Your ability to cast spells would certainly be affected by the quality of life in the area, but natural spells do not tend to draw more than what naturally radiates around you in nature. Elementalists follow a similar pattern - drawing off the air, heat, cold, and earth, but in a more… fundamental fashion, drawing off the energies that animate the world.” He adds.

  “...Huh. So Victor’s power and mine are similar.” I noted, screwing my face up in concentration as I reflected on all this.

  “Indeed.” Ionos nodded, “Though the raw elements are far easier to shape, though they require far more magical kindling to get started. It can be made to flow like water in the direction it needs to go, but it does require a core, and direction. Back to Druids… Natural Power - Natural Spells - are limited in scope for how they affect and target the world. Very few druidic abilities can manage the precision or efficiency of other spells, and many spells are limited by the more wild nature of such an emanation. While your power will flow outwards easily, and direct their force with much more strength than similar methods might produce, it is a chaotic affair, often able to backfire if done lightly.”

  I tapped a finger to my chin, reflecting on that as I focused my own power, remembering ‘Summon Plant’, from before as I focused on a nearby patch of grass. The first few times I did this as basic repetition with Ionos, I never really noticed the feeling of what I was doing - I just waved my hands and did it. I… honestly hadn’t cared to pay attention, but curiosity filled me now as I waved my hands again, and…

  I could feel it! Almost like an extension of myself, as I felt the flow of something enter something as real and just as much a piece of me as my own hand, for an instant. That feeling was like a piece of paper filled with energy as ferns grew in the middle of the dirt path between the barn and the house, summoned in seconds…

  “Huh. I didn’t notice as much of a drain that time.” I noted, still feeling tired enough to have to stifle a yawn after the sudden burst of effort, but I felt very able to stay on my feet. I dimly noticed the normal EXP boost as the ferns grew from the road itself, but my face slowly raised in a grin.

  “...that’s actually really cool! Shame I can only do really old plants… imagine if I could grow fields of wheat for the family!” I spoke brightly.

  “Oh, you’d get written up. We have laws against that sort of thing.” Ionos replied. “Not just for the sake of good and honest farmers, but because we lack a way of making sure what someone creates with magic in such a fashion is actually good to eat. The tainted birdseed incident of 1322 predates even my memories, but history speaks volumes on the sheer level of mayhem it caused!” Ionos shuddered, shaking his head with a shiver that reverberated through his whole body.

  I just put up my hands defensively. “Alright, alright, noted. How about that like… dark magic, stuff?”

  Ionos’s body went rigid at that, throwing a glare at me that cut like ice.

  “I say this for your safety - do not ask me that question again. Bad things will happen to those who poke around such things without a proper understanding of magic, and the laws of the land are not any kinder to the curious than they are the malicious when it comes to understanding such powers!”

  I felt very naked at that moment, putting my hands up in a salute of submission. “Sorry, sorry! I just wanted to know how to avoid it, if it is used on me…”

  Ionos gave a great sigh then, a sag in his step, as he ushered me back to training. “I understand. You are very curious on how to defend yourself against it. If the time comes when you are wise enough - and mighty enough - and the need grows truly great - then I will tell you what I know. But only to defend against it! Dark magic corrupts what it touches, and no user can be free of it’s grip once they start down that dark path. Knowledge of it, thus, must be very restrained.”

  I just gave a numb nod. I hadn’t seen Ionos this worked up from any question I had, so I chose not to push this one any further. Odds are good King Cesar was going to have the whole dark magical assassins thing sorted in a week or so anyways, right? He has a whole kingdom's worth of power to track down these guys, after all.

  “We should focus now, however. You’ve learned a little more of magic. Let us now focus on learning this spell.”

  I winced as Ionos began focusing me on the task at hand. It was time for me to get to work, and I was looking forward to learning this spell. Partly to impress Ionos, partly to feel that little bit safer from whatever was lurking in the shadows of this kingdom, and partly…

  But also partly because that meant I wouldn’t have to keep upending my brain on Message training. This magic stuff was a pain in the butt!