Magic School

by Phoenix Grey

  This is something that should have come with the spell, he thought dryly, feeling like an idiot.

  It was bad enough that he was making the horse bow so he could mount it. The few students sitting in the grass in front of the school looked at him with raised eyebrows, clearly either judging him or amused by his struggling.

  After the second attempt and failure, Azure realized that this was going to take some practice. Submitting to looking completely inept, he decided to make the mare lie down instead, easily crawling onto her back that way.

  Holding on while she struggled to stand under his weight, Azure feared that he might fall off. Finally, both rider and horse were upright. The mare swished her tail, catching a fly that had buzzed too close. Azure glanced back to look, and a second later, the ground rushed to meet him. It happened so quickly that he barely had time to process what was going on. With all of the time wasted from trying to mount the horse, his spell had worn off.

  There was no warning, just a sudden nothingness. He hit the dirt hard, summoning muffled giggles from his peers. Not funny, he thought, noticing a small dip in his Health bar. His tailbone ached.

  Pulling himself to his feet and dusting his pants off, Azure sighed. “Let’s try this again.”

  He took a deep breath and cast Summon Mount one more time. The same horse appeared before him, and Azure briefly wondered if he would ever be able to summon a different one. Perhaps she was his soul familiar horse. He'd have to remember to ask Mareike about that later. Or maybe he wouldn't bother. Was it really that important?

  There was no time to think about it. If there was one thing Azure had learned from the last summon, it was that every minute mattered. Wasting no more time, he commanded the mare to lie down so that he could crawl onto her back. Then he headed in the direction of the Crypt of the Mystic King.

  Getting used to riding was a bit awkward, especially when he had to be so mindful of the time. Knowing that he should probably take things slow while he got the hang of it, Azure spent the first ten minutes at a walk. The bouncing sensation was unfamiliar to him, as was the strain of having his thighs spread over the horses back. For the most part though, riding the horse wasn't unpleasant. At a walk, Azure surmised that she was only slightly faster than he was on foot.

  Recasting Summon Mount from the mare's back, he instantly felt her renew. No particles flew from his fingers to reform her. She was already solid. But he could sense some of his energy going inside of her. It was a subtle feeling, one he probably wouldn't even notice with time.

  Trotting was a bit more uncomfortable, and Azure found himself holding on tighter as he rose a few centimeters from the horse's back with her quicker footfalls. It was difficult finding his center of balance. The faster she went, the less steady he felt. This was definitely a speedier way to travel, about double the pace she'd been going at a walk. Still, he knew that the mare could run, and he'd eventually have to swallow his fears and learn how to master the gallop.

  On his next summon, Azure brought the mare up to a cantor. Now he was feeling really unsteady, clutching onto her mane for dear life. With every stride, Azure rose from her back, his body swaying as he struggled to keep atop her. A few times, he forced her to slow down for fear of falling off. It took him the full ten minutes to get the hang of it.

  The last and final step was the gallop. When all four hooves left the floor, Azure quickly ended up on the ground. He hit the dirt with an oomph, his Health bar suffering an immediate 10 point loss. The mare instantly stopped and curved back to retrieve her rider, a soft huff passing through her lips as if she were laughing at him.

  Azure groaned as he pulled himself to his feet, flexing his wrist. He has tried to catch himself when he fell. Big mistake. The joint radiated pain, but it didn't seem to be broken.

  “Well, that was no fun,” he said with a sigh before crawling back onto the mare's back.

  Having lost track of time from the fall, he decided to take the rest of the ten minutes at a walk, recasting Summon Mount a bit too early. But better safe than sorry. Azure was getting too acquainted with falling for his taste.

  His second attempt at the gallop had him almost plummeting to the ground again. As soon as he felt that familiar panic, he backed off to a cantor. For the next ten minutes, he tried several different things from leaning forward while the horse galloped to holding on tighter with his thighs. Combining the two seemed to give him the best results. It took three more summons before he finally had it down.

  While the speed was great, he couldn't re-summon without slowing to a walk. Azure wondered briefly if he should invest in a saddle, but he wasn't sure how long it would take to put it on the horse. That could waste precious minutes. It was probably better to just continue riding as is. Whenever he finished this quest, he would need to practice mounting the horse while it was standing. Forcing her to lie down just made him look like an idiot.

  Having not accounted for the time it would take to get used to riding, Azure was already under 100 Mana points. He would have to refuel with Blue Mushrooms before returning to Squall's End. That wasn't particularly a concern right now, though. Looking at his map, he should be able to make it the rest of the way in good time without plowing through the rest of his Mana.

  After the ninth time using Summon Mount, Azure decided to give his horse a name. The way she swished her tail whenever a fly approached her backside while they were at a walk made him think of a flyswatter. She also tended to flick her ears a bit, so he decided to call her Flicker. The mare whinnied in response to the name, and it was settled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE REALM – Day 83

  Leveling up enchanting seemed to be going a whole lot faster than leveling up land magic had. On his very next renewal of the summon, Azure was rewarded with a notification.

  Congratulations! The skill: Enchanting has reached Level 2. This skill allows you to bring the elements into you to create something new or change the things around you. Continuing to level up this skill will unlock the ability to learn more spells of the same magic type.

  By the time Azure reached his destination, his Mana was almost completely drained. The journey had taken nearly two hours thanks to all the time spent learning how to ride Flicker. Now that Azure knew what he was doing, the trip back shouldn't be as long. Regardless, even at two hours, it was tons of time saved compared to walking on foot. Azure felt that Summon Mount was the most useful magic he currently had in his arsenal, and he couldn't wait to get his hands on the other summons he had seen on the list of enchanting spells.

  His target for this quest was a moving dot on his map about a quarter of a mile away from the Crypt of the Mystic King. As Azure approached his destination, the forest closed in around him, causing him to dismount and leave his horse behind. Thankfully, the distance to reach Twahallul was comparatively small. When the forest gave way to a small glade, he found...well, Azure wasn't sure what he had found.

  For a moment, he mistook it for a dwarf, but the body was far too wide. The creature had been pulling tubers from the ground, and it spotted Azure at around the same time as he spotted it. Clad in armor, the manlike mound of muscle stood about as tall as a dwarf. It had a thick brow and a bald head which came to a slight point at the top. Two tusks protruded from its jaw and were slanted inward. Thinking it might be Twahallul, Azure activated Analyze.

  Level 13 Cheoksum Thug.

  “Hello,” Azure apprehensively said in greeting.

  If the word ‘thug’ in the name wasn’t a dead giveaway that the creature was hostile, the fact that it immediately stopped what it was doing and drew the two-handed sword strapped to its back would have done it.

  “I mean you no harm.” Azure held his palms up, but his words fell on deaf ears.

  The thug took wide steps with ever-increasing swiftness, its sword brandished in front of it, ready to fight. Dodging the first swing, Azure reached for his Bergen’s Glaive. For being thick and somewh
at slow, the thug was able to get in one more attack before Azure was finally able to free his sword and prepare to counter.

  This was one of the more human-like creatures he’d seen in The Realm, and the thought of killing it left a bad taste in his mouth. Battling his conscience, Azure stayed on the defense, trying to talk the creature down from its aggressive stance. Apparently, there was a language barrier, because it didn’t seem to understand him at all.

  “Just run!” an unfamiliar female voice called from behind him.

  “What?” Azure turned to look at where the voice was coming from. A rookie mistake.

  The next thing he felt was pain in his side as the thug took advantage of his distraction.

  Level 13 Cheoksum Thug delivers 65 damage.

  Azure hissed in pain and returned his attention to the fight, though he had found the source of the voice before doing so. A dwarven woman had been watching the melee from behind an outcrop of rocks several yards away. Her head just barely reached above one of the smaller boulders.

  Glancing down, Azure saw the sloppy stab that his opponent had made. Blood dripped from a wound just below his ribcage.

  “They’re very slow. He won’t be able to catch you if you run,” the woman said, sounding a bit closer.

  After being stabbed, Azure kind of wanted to kill the thug. It was clear that Twahallul was more in line with his previous way of thinking, though.

  With a sigh, Azure turned from the thug and began running, hoping his wound wouldn’t slow him down. He flanked Twahallul’s side, and they fled through the forest together, heading toward the crypt. While he felt like his speed might be hindered in his injured condition, Twahallul was even slower, her short legs forcing Azure to decrease his pace so that she could keep up. Thankfully, the thug was even slower. Azure probably could have beaten it at a power walk. Within about 50 yards, the thug stopped following them and turned around, quite possibly returning to the same place to finish what it had been doing before.

  Azure slowed his pace and popped open one of his Poor Quality Potions of Minor Healing in the hopes that it would be enough to quickly close the wound. He was surprised that he hadn’t been inflicted with the bleeding status effect, because the injury was definitely deeper than superficial.

  By the time they had stopped, Twahallul was panting by Azure’s side, her hands on her knees as she bent to catch her breath. She looked young for a dwarf, her long auburn hair plaited back away from her face. No armor adorned her body, nor any visible weapons to protect her. It didn’t seem very smart to be out here unarmed, especially with things like the Cheoksum thug roaming about.

  “I don’t know how to break this to you easily, so I’m just going to come out and say it.” No, he definitely wasn’t good at stuff like this. She looked over at him but said nothing, still clearly winded. “I was sent by Hawking’s to deliver a message. Your father has been slain while performing a Bounty quest for The Adventurers Guild. I’m sorry.”

  The next several minutes were spent holding a complete stranger while she fell apart in his arms. Azure’s heart went out to her. It was horrible news--news he still thought he shouldn’t have been tasked with delivering. Twahallul’s sobs were so wrecking that Azure worried they might agro the thug back in their direction, but she was blessedly afforded her moments of shock and grief in peace.

  Once she was had detached from him and recomposed herself, the dwarf thanked Azure for delivering the news. He thought to ask her more about the Cheoksum thug, but now wasn’t the time. He could always research them at the library at Hawking’s if he really wanted to know more. Finding a language book for them, if one even existed, would definitely be on his list of things to do.

  Azure gave his condolences to the grieving dwarf a final time before taking his leave. Making some calculations, he stuffed his maw with as many Blue Mushrooms as it would take to give him enough Mana to get back to Hawking's. By the time he finished choking down the number of fungi required, he was sick of them.

  His estimation was correct. With his new mastery of basic bareback riding, Azure was able to make it to Hawking's in a little over an hour. Flicker seemed to have limitless energy as long as he renewed her within the necessary time. Traveling longer distances should be a breeze for him from now on.

  After scheduling an appointment with Mareike for the next morning, Azure detoured to the library to look for books about the Cheoksum thug. There was still an hour to kill before the school closed for the night, and he was definitely interested in learning the race's language so that he wouldn't end up in a similar situation again. If he could avoid killing humanoid races, he would.

  Cheryl was playing librarian again, the deer-human hybrid still fascinating to him. He gave her a warm smile as he entered the library. How could he not when her ears perked up as soon as she laid eyes on him? Azure hoped he wasn't being impolite, quickly averting his gaze as he strode to start inspecting the shelves.

  To be honest, he wasn't really sure what he was looking for. Many of the books were in languages he didn't understand, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that the school would not be giving away language books for free. The Elvish language book had cost him a small fortune. Considering the exorbitant prices of everything else at Hawking's, it would not surprise him if the book to learn the language of the Cheoksum thug was comparatively expensive.

  After searching on his own for about ten minutes, Azure walked up to the counter. Cheryl turned to him with the grace of a doe interested in a sound, but she said nothing.

  He leaned one arm on the counter. “Hey, Cheryl. I was wondering if you have any books on the Cheoksum. I’m looking for a language book, specifically.”

  “Wait. Please,” she struggled with the words, the endings sounding like a bleat.

  Azure waited as she left her desk, disappearing behind one of the shelves only to re-emerge moments later with a book in her hand. Looking a bit cheap and flimsy, it was small with a moss-green cover.

  She placed it before him but did not take her hand off of it. “One gold.”

  Hesitantly, Azure pulled the coin from his Bag of Holding. This might not be a smart purchase to make right now, especially with rent coming up, but he didn’t want her to think less of him by sending her back because he couldn’t afford the book.

  They made the exchange, and Azure smiled at her in thanks before taking the book over to one of the tables to sit and read it.

  You have received the following item:

  Book: Speaking Cheoksum for Idiots

  Quantity: 1

  Durability: 1/1

  Item Class: Common

  Quality: Average

  Weight: 0.1 kg

  Uses: Language Skills

  He flipped the cover open and began scrolling across the English. What he learned of the Cheoksum was that they were a race of underdeveloped Neanderthals. Some unholy ancient hybrid of man, dwarf, and pig. They were hostile to all other races, mainly due to their lack of understanding.

  Apparently, purchasing the book had been a bit of a waste. Even if Azure knew their language and could speak it fluently, they were most likely to attack him on sight. They lacked the reasoning for negotiation or compromise, and peace wasn't high on their list of priorities.

  Their language was crude and rudimentary, a mix of one-word grunts with a vocabulary that spanned less than one-hundred words. All animals were just 'orra.' All other races besides Cheoksum were simply called 'loraglo,' which meant the same thing as enemy, outsider, and a variety of other unpleasant terms. Genders had no identity, which Azure found odd but also kind of cool.

  Processing this language book seemed more seamless than the ones before. He barely noticed when the English began to transform into something else, perhaps because there were so few words in the Cheoksum language. Whatever the case, he absorbed the book in much the same way that he'd absorb a pamphlet with little to remember. The language came easily unto him without
any strain on his intellect whatsoever.

  When he finally closed the cover, the book quickly began to disintegrate, and a notification appeared.

  Congratulations! You can now understand and speak the language: Cheoksum. The item: Book: Speaking Cheoksum for Idiots has been destroyed.

  Azure returned to the counter to take care of some other business he’d been meaning to attend to for a while.

  “Bestiary?” he asked Cheryl, wondering if it was easier for her to understand him if he used fewer words.

  She flicked one ear, looking confused.

  Trying again, Azure said, “I’m looking for a bestiary. A book with a list of creatures within The Realm and what loot they drop.”

  Understanding donned on her, and she led the way to the bestiary books. Apparently, there were multiple, but Azure was searching particularly for the one that Janine owned. He was delighted to find it wedged between a few thinner books that only covered specific regions of The Realm.

  Book: Mytheanal Seawatcher's Bestiary: A Comprehensive Catalog of all Creatures Within The Realm

  Item Class: Epic

  Quality: Extremely Rare

  Weight: 1.0 kg

  Uses: Contains a list of all known creatures within The Realm and what parts of them are of value.

  Pulling the book from the shelf, he held it up to Cheryl. “I’d like to buy this.”

  She shook her head in an exaggerated gesture, like an animal trying to ward off an annoying fly. “Not for sale.”

  Azure frowned, then though for a moment. “Is there a copy of this for sale in the school store?”