Another day, another basic magic theory class. Though, this week was a welcome break in the near-endless discussions on the ins and outs of runes and the elements, as this week the first-years would try their hands at casting a spell for the first time. At least, in my class. I was well aware that some had already practiced casting spells, either due to their privileged upbringing, or eager tries on their own outside of class.

  So it was that I awaited the start of today’s first class with a smile and a bit of excited anticipation. Some might find it odd that an… experienced lady such as I would be excited for something that had long since become mundane for me, however they would fail to see that my excitement is merely a reflection of my own students.

  Some of the already present first-years eyed me warily, probably uncertain how to interpret my unusual excitement. Not that I was ever anything less than enthusiastic when teaching.

  While others were lost in their own excitement. Which was understandable, considering it was the last day of the week, and almost of their peers had already had this lesson. I wasn’t so detached from the student body to think they don’t talk with one another.

  Fluminix had taken her usual spot on my desk, as soon as we’d entered the classroom. Having long since explored every nook and cranny of the classroom, she had become utterly bored and had elected to simply curl up on top of my desk. I was sure that wouldn’t become problematic.

  Once the last of the students had found their seat, I stood up from my desk.

  “Welcome, everyone,” I began. “Today we’re going to be doing something other than discussing the ins and outs of various runes and get started on the, much more exciting, spell formations. I told you at the start that all of you would be casting a spell before the year’s over. Well, that’s what we’ll be starting with today.

  “Some of you have probably already learned some of the basics to spell formations, and with it spell crafting. There is no such thing as a universal spell, as the runes that are used in both spell casting and enchanting are conceptually based. This means that most of the time, the runes used are based on both your understanding of the runes used, hence why we have been studying them for the past weeks, and your understanding of your environment, hence why we here at Paideia teach you more than just spell casting in the first three years.

  “Now then, on to the task at hand for today’s lesson,” I said, as I turned around and approached the blackboard. I picked up a piece of chalk and waited expectantly. “What is it that all spells have?”

  Volpatto, the serious looking foxkin boy, was quick to raise his hand. However, before I could signal for him to answer, someone else spoke up.

  “An element,” Anastazja, a human girl with pink-dyed hair that always came across as unkempt to me, offered out of term.

  “Indeed,” I nodded in agreement, but didn’t write anything on the board yet. “So, for a light spell, we would need?”

  “A light elemental rune,” Volpatto said with a hint of disdain, and not waiting for his turn this time around.

  I nodded again, and I wrote down the appropriate rune in the middle of the board, before I waited expectantly again.

  “So, now that we have the element, what else do we need?”

  “W-well, it needs to, um, be a ball?” Freja managed to stammer out. Was it just me, or was the shy and anxious human girl getting worse over time?

  “So, we want it to have the shape of a ball, correct?” I threw the question back at her and glanced at her for confirmation, before I continued when I saw her nodding. “Okay, that means that the construct,” I wrote down the rune for construct and drew a singular line between it and the elemental rune, “has a shape of a sphere, a ball.” I wrote down the runes for both shape and sphere, connecting shape to construct, and sphere to shape, with a singular line each.

  “Anything else? Something we might be missing?” I asked when I was done.

  “The spell circle,” Aziza, the studious and hard-to-faze dragonkin girl, answered sternly.

  “The spell boundary,” I drew a large circle around the runes, as I gave the girl an agreeing nod, “is essential, as it is the safety barrier of a spell. It ensures that mana doesn’t accidentally leak out of the spell formation, weakening the spell, and potentially spilling out the effects of the spell around it. It doesn’t need to be a circle, but for standardisation’s sake, it has long since become the norm.

  “Anything else?” I asked, only to be met with apprehensive and hesitant looks. “Well then, shall we test it out?”

  I waited just long enough to receive a satisfactory number of confirmations, before I turned around to face them and raise my right hand, with the palm up. The same spell formation that was drawn on the board, manifested about a handspan above my open hand. In the middle of it formed a ball of light, though… it felt off. And it stung my hand, but that had nothing to do with this spell formation in particular.

  I walked over to a random student at the front, still holding it aloft above my hand, and held it out for them to feel, causing Bayar, the stereotypical witch of a human boy, to shiver.

  “That feels… weird,” he commented oh so eloquently. “It feels warm, but also… doesn’t. It’s also weird that it doesn’t shine… Light is supposed to shine, right?”

  I chuckled softly, as I withdrew the ball of light approximation. In all honesty, I kind of did that on purpose. There’s just something… enticing about seeing generation upon generation fall for that.

  “Indeed. Anybody hazard a guess as to why?”

  “It needs heat, duh,” Woolfred, the arrogant nephew of Eweleanor, said without raising his hand or being given leave.

  I refrained from frowning, instead I simply nodded in agreement and returned to the blackboard. The dysfunctional light ball dissipated on my walk back.

  “Heat, as Woolfred so kindly informed us, is indeed something that we need to add,” I could swear I heard him scoff, as I add the rune for temperature to formation written on the board. “Which means temperature. However, temperature needs some frame of reference.” I drew the rune for the fire element next to it and connected it with dual lines. “In this case, heat.” In between temperature rune and the central light element rune, I drew the rune for spell effect. “While temperature is needed to make the light ball feel like a real light ball to all of our senses, it needs to be tied to the spell effect rune. Otherwise, it will just… not work in accordance with the laws of magic.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I turned back around to find a few hands raised, so I nodded towards Daoud, a human enby with an appeal that made them draw the attention of girls and boys (though, I suspect them to be utterly uninterested in them), to indicate that they may ask their questions.

  “Why did you connect that one, the fire and temperature runes, together with two lines?” they asked, to which I smiled pleasingly.

  “The difference between single and double lines could be described as synchronous versus asynchronous execution. The double lines signify that this is a task, a connection, which needs to be completed before all other can be made. Whereas, the single lines can be executed, or ‘read’, at the same time. Does that make sense?”

  They looked satisfied with it enough to simply nod and not ask anything else, though Freja raised her hand also imperceptibly.

  “What, um, happens if you don’t use a double line?” she asked with only slight hesitation upon given leave.

  “The spell will fail to form,” I answered. “Watch.” I formed the present spell formation in a way that it would be visible to all, though with only a single line between temperature and the fire element runes. Upon mentally triggering it, it fizzles out. The mana poured into the spell visibly started to try to leak out of the formation, however it was contained by the circular spell boundary. “Coincidentally, this further demonstrates the necessity of having a spell boundary surrounding your spell formation.”

  I answered a few more clarification questions, before everyone felt confident, or reluctant to ask questions, enough for us to move on.

  “So, what else is needed to make our light ball feel more realistic?” I prompted to steer the lesson back to the matter at hand.

  “Bayar commented that it didn’t shine, didn’t he?” Volpatto said, after I gave him leave. Bayar tilted his head in confusion for a moment, before his eyes widened and his mouth opened in a silent ‘oh’. Apparently, he had already forgotten about it himself. “I concur. For that we need to add the radiant rune to the effect rune and a light rune to the radiant rune, am I correct?”

  I nodded and added said runes to the drawing on the blackboard, with a double line between the light element rune and the radiant runes. “Indeed, anything more?”

  “It’s too… solid? Yeah, too solid for a light ball. When I think of a light ball I think of the sun, you know, and that didn’t look anything like it,” Bjórn, a, well, bearkin boy and clearly a brown bear one, said. “No offence.”

  Obviously, I didn’t take offence, as he was correct. However, I didn’t want it to let him off with just that either, so I turned around to look at him.

  “What would make it look more like the sun, do you think?”

  He hummed in thought for a moment, before he found his answer. “Like, air, I think?”

  I gave him a satisfied nod, before I turned back around and added the form rune to the construct rune. “Indeed. The sun is assumed to have a gaseous form, therefore, if we want this light ball to resemble the sun, we need to add an air element-based form to the construct.” I continued by drawing the air element rune next to the form rune and connecting them with a double line. “It’s starting to shape up nicely, if I do say so myself.”

  That got me a several obligatory chuckles and a few mutterings about me guiding them towards what I wanted. Which was entirely correct, of course.

  “Now, there are still a few things missing,” I continued without posing any questions to the class this time. “Well, for all of you that is. As beginner mages, and/or knights, you won’t have the ability to cast your spell formations will-nilly. So, it is imperative that we add a range to it.”

  I drew the rune for range next to the central rune, followed by the runes for origin and distance. Both of which I connect to the range rune by a singular line, before I drew the specific points-of-reference runes next to them and connected them to their respective runes with singular lines.

  “Let’s keep it simple and set the origin point at the centre of the spell formation, for now, and the light ball as appearing two hand lengths above it. While the point of origin is the centre of the spell formation by default, I believe it is good practice to start off with clarifying it as it makes it harder to forget it when you start to alter the point of origin to somewhere else.

  “As for the distance, it is always measured in archaic units of length, like measurements of various parts of your body. This means that they will always be in reference to you. Remember that. The spell formations you use are always based upon your own perception.

  “Finally, we’re still missing an essential part, that I’ve been covering with my own perception earlier. Namely, the size of our light ball. Let’s go with a hand width, shall we?”

  The question was wholly rhetorical, as I didn’t wait for an answer before I added the rune for size next to the construct rune and the rune for a hand’s width measurement to it.

  “Now, for my personal finishing touch,” I said as I linked the temperature, form and radiant runes together, utterly destroying the division and structure of the spell formation. “And there we have it: Morgana’s cozy light ball spell. Quite a mouthful, isn’t it?”

  It earned me another round of obligatory chuckles, though it mainly served to bring down the confusion. I did, after all, just teach them that spell formations have distinct sections, before connecting some of these sections to one another.

  “Um, Morgana, why did you… connect those together? Wouldn’t that break the spell?” Ishara, the animal attracting human girl that’s easily startled by animals, asked, to which I turn around to face the class and smirk.

  “They will not. There are other ways to achieve the intended effect, but I prefer to do it this way. As for the effect? Well, how about we try it out, shall we?” I asked as my gaze turned to Bayar again, which made him gulp nervously.

  He still nodded in assent though, so I formed the spell formation above my upheld palm again as I approached him. I triggered the spell right as I reach him, holding my hand low to his table. The spell still stung my hand, but other than that…

  “…It’s like a fireplace,” he commented with his mouth falling open. “It’s warm, but it’s like there’s a breeze or something.”

  I grinned proudly, as I stepped away and made some on-the-fly changes to the spell, so the glow fell over all of the students. Fluminix let out a soft, complaining squeak, but I ignored her, dubious she was even annoyed in the first place.

  Whilst my students luxated in the spell’s glow, I walk back to my place behind my desk and sit down. As soon as I sit, I drop the spell and the normal slight chill of being inside a stone building at the start of winter returns to the classroom.

  “Why does it do that to your hand?” Bayar asked, after I noticed his raised hand.

  I smiled a bit forcefully, though I doubted it would be noticeable by anyone who wasn’t intimately familiar with me. “It has to do with the nature of one’s soul. Light and darkness are elements that primarily affect the soul, as opposed to the others that primarily affect the physical world. Light is, obviously, harmful to those with a soul of darkness, and vice versa. Though, and I can’t stress this enough, they aren’t indicators of inherent good or evil, merely the element it is constructed of.

  “Now, I’ll hand each of you a sheet of paper with this very spell on for you to practice on your own. I highly recommend all of you practice casting it, as the light ball spell is, arguably, the most widely used spell there is. Even knights need a light in the darkness from time to time, and torches are so… cumbersome.

  “Also, making, or choosing, your own light ball spell is considered to be an extra credit assignment for the end of the year exams. I strongly encourage you to think up your own version, as it will almost always be easier to cast.”

  I magically made some of the sheets of paper stacked on my desk float over to each and every student, before I sat back to let them experiment for the remainder of the class.

  Mecanimus' . It has been the inspiration for Morgana and Fluminix, as well as the ritual to become a lich.