Chapter 60

 

When Wraine and I were taking lessons on learning to read and write, the inn where the lessons were held had these same sand tables. It’s basically an ordinary wooden table with four legs but the table has four walls on each side of the table that rise slightly above where a normal table would end. This creates a nice little open square space which can be filled with sand. During our writing lessons, the instructor would hand out sticks we could write in the sand with and erase whenever we wanted without needing to waste our coins on paper and ink. Making them would probably cost a few coins but since they can be reused over and over, it’s not a bad idea to use them for paid writing lessons. 

 

But this time we aren’t using them for writing lessons but for testing our earth affinity instead. Utaz does the same and hands each of us a brown manastone. I wonder if they’re all color coordinated like this? Wraine goes first again and puts his hand in the sand while the other one holds the manastone. After a moment, the sand under his hand shifted slightly before settling back down again. When it’s my turn, nothing happens, again. I hate magic. Fuck magic. 

 

“Alright, same as last time, Wraine has low affinity while Isaac has no affinity.” I can throw a handful of dirt into my enemies’ eyes just fine without magic and I’ll continue to do so, without magic. What, do I really need to cast a spell to toss a stone at someone’s head when I can do it perfectly fine with my own two hands? 

 

The fire element room is a bit more difficult to test because we can’t stick our hands in a fire and just hope for the best. What Utaz does is he hands each of us a red manastone to hold in our left hands before covering our right hands in a sweet smelling, sticky substance. When our hands are covered in the resin, Utaz chants a short spell and lights our hands on fire.

 

My initial instinct was to scream and rush back to the water affinity room but seeing Wraine’s calm demeanor and the smirk on Utaz’s face made me think twice. Huh, even though my right hand’s on fire, it’s not burning at all and it doesn’t even feel all that hot. It’s warm but not painfully so. “Well that’s disappointing. I was expecting a bigger reaction from you when your hand burst into flames. Anyways, that’s the resin from the Salaczia tree and it has a unique property in that it can act as a retardant against flames for a short period of time. You’ll be fine for another 15 minutes but you should finish up this test before then, now concentrate.” 

 

Once again, the flames covering Wraine’s hands danced around wildly as if they were alive but the flames on my hand didn't move at all. “It looks like Wraine has intermediate affinity for fire while Isaac doesn’t have any affinity at all.” It doesn’t matter, none of this matters. If I want to set something on fire, I can do it by myself without magic. 

 

The last element we’re testing is wind and the test we’re doing is almost as elaborate as the fire test. I think I understand why though since testing water and earth affinities seemed like the easiest ones to test and therefore didn’t need anything too complex. For the wind test, Utaz brought out two large glass jars filled with green smoke. When he handed each of us one of the jars, he also handed over a green manastone. 

 

I went ahead and went first this time since I’ve already accepted my fate as a rankless magic plebeian. When I unscrew the jar and put my right hand inside, the smoke slowly drifts out of the jar without anything out of the ordinary happening. Sigh. Alright, I’m not disappointed because I didn’t expect anything in the first place. Wraine does the same when I’m finished and the green smoke billows out of the jar and violently spreads throughout the room, creating a slight breeze that brushes against my face. 

 

“Hmm, now that’s interesting. While Isaac doesn’t have any affinity for wind, Wraine has a high affinity for it. Once you’ve learned a few spells and earnestly started your practice of the arcane arts, you’ll find that your wind spells will be inherently more powerful than any of your other spells. The same goes with fire family spells considering you have an intermediate affinity with fire though not to the same extent for the wind family. 

 

“A personal word of advice from someone who has been with The Institute for most of his life: focus on purchasing spells from the wind family and then the fire family for spell diversity. That will be the most effective and efficient use of your coins. Now, let’s head into the final room to test your affinity with the unconventional elements.” 

 

The last testing room has to be the most unique testing room out of all of them. In the center of the room, there’s a massive wooden totem pole covered with symbols drawn on with black ink. The pole reaches from the floor to the ceiling and has to measure at least 30 feet in height. I can’t read the symbols but Utaz explained our current modern magic system was developed using the language and teachings of a now extinct civilization that incorporated magic into their daily lives. 

 

We still mainly use their language and alphabet when performing magic because it’s still considered the most complete system of magic in the world and if it works well enough, why change it now? Utaz hands Wraine and I two pure manastones and tells us to put our hands on the totem pole and guide the mana into it. Like he mentioned before, mixing our personal mana with the mana from the stones will end up nullifying any spells we attempt to cast but we’re not casting spells. We’re just activating the symbols drawn on the pole to see what unconventional elements we might have affinity with and it doesn’t matter if the mana fizzles out as it only takes a moment to check for our affinities. I go ahead and go first because I just want to get it over with. Surprisingly, all the symbols on the totem pole remain dark except for one. 

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“Well, would you look at that? You have an impressively high affinity with the light element. It’s too bad about your natural capacity, however. For rankless spells from the light family, only Flash comes to mind and it’ll help light up a room for a few seconds but aside from that, it doesn’t have much use.” You know what, I’ve always liked Itia and her church and now I know why. They’re good people, well, aside from Jerome. 

 

When it’s Wraine’s turn, a few symbols like nature, blood, and lightning slightly light up but they’re not significant enough to elicit a response from Utaz and he tells Wraine it’s best to focus on wind and then fire. With that final test, we’re finished with the mages’ guild. Just don’t call it the mages’ guild in front of Utaz or he’ll throw a fit, explaining how they’re not just the adventurers’ guild for mages but a place for learning, exploring, and devoting one’s life to the arcane arts. 

 

Utaz leads us back to the front room and gives us a short tour around the bookshelves showing us where to find the different spell ranks as well as how to search for different families of magic. I think it’s a preference for how the different elements of magic are termed. Olin likes to call them categories while Utaz likes using a warmer word like families. I might prefer saying families more, honestly. 

 

The different books are also priced significantly differently as well. Rankless spells only cost around 1 gold on average depending on their popularity while fledgling spells cost 10 gold on average. Rudimentary spells, the ones one rank higher than fledgling, cost 50 gold on average. 50! Moderate spells, one rank higher than rudimentary spells, cost 250 gold on average. 250! Dear gods. 

 

The last two ranks, proficient and masterful, aren’t even displayed publicly in this store. Utaz says if someone in Midriver ever reaches masterful rank, they’d need to travel to this kingdom’s capital, Everview, and visit The Institute’s headquarters for the Nasaar Kingdom to have access to the masterful rank spells there. But he says whoever does so better be prepared to pay 25,000 gold coins for one masterful rank spell. I nearly fainted when I heard that number. He says that’s why The Institute doesn’t allow masterful rank spells to be kept in any of its smaller branches and will only allow them in their headquarters for each independent country. There’s one or two proficient rank spells kept here safely that each cost around 2,500 gold coins but they’re secured inside a magic safe, whatever that is. 

 

When I asked him why The Institute isn’t afraid of people buying their spells and then teaching those spells to others for a price, he said he wasn’t worried about that at all and laughed in a rather devious manner. Apparently the mages’ guild isn’t worried about people teaching spells to their close family and friends because it isn’t something they can prevent. Utaz said they tried doing that in the past but they failed miserably and ended up wasting more money on those preventative measures than if they just ignored it. Now they focus on handling anyone blatant enough that tries to profit off of their spells. Each Institute branch head, which is Utaz’s actual job rather than just sleepy receptionist, is tasked with monitoring their respective town or city and making sure those profiteers stop one way or another. I can see now why the mages’ guild signed a contract with The Wolves. 

 

With our remaining funds, we don’t have enough to even buy a rankless spell and I’ll have to ask Derriv about selling off my goodies when we get back. Before we leave, Utaz mentions how the mages’ guild offers mage licenses which can be used as travel permits for the majority of towns and cities in the Nasaar Kingdom. Huh, now where have I heard this sales spiel before? 

 

Right, the adventurers’ guild. Even the prices he lists are the exact same with a first time registration fee of 5 silver, an annual recurring fee of 3 silver at the end of the year, and a fee to reinstate delinquent accounts for 10 silver. What the fuck is this? Why does the mages’ guild offer mage licenses that work as identification papers as well as traveling papers? I’ll just ask Bertrand when we get back. 

 

We thank Utaz for all his help and then we leave the mages’ guild before heading into the residential district following Derriv’s directions for Thorpe’s grave. It’s sometime in the afternoon when we left the mages’ guild and we’ve basically spent the entire day learning about magic and testing our talent for it. But we anticipated the whole process to take up the whole day and we didn’t make any obligations for today specifically because of that. 

 

We have a brief encounter with who I can only assume are Madame Carrina’s men and when I tell them we’re in Candle in the Dark and we’re with Derriv, they let us through without any problems. It seems even though Candle isn’t as large or as powerful as the three major factions in Midriver, Derriv was able to establish working relationships with them that allows us this privilege of traveling through gang territories uncontested. He’s a good leader from what I’ve seen this past month and seeing how he was able to make a place for both himself and his outfit in this sort of city with how few men he has, I can tell he’s a capable leader as well. 

 

Before long, we reach the graveyard Derriv told us about and seeing the rows upon rows of gray gravestones fills me with an indescribable feeling. It feels as though I imagine seeing a crowd of people in this graveyard, both men and women, both young and old, both the wicked and the innocent, parents, children, farm hands, leather hands, woodcutters, bandits. There’s stories all around me that I’ll never be able to hear and in a few years, a few decades, they’ll all be forgotten. Who knows, maybe some of these headstones have already been forgotten as the last person who remembered them is already gone. Perhaps I’ll be forgotten one day as well. Shivers run down my spine and it’s not due to the gentle summer breeze.

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