Chương 34: Chapter 31

"Hey, ladies," Bri said as she and a smug-looking Cyren joined Shaya and Samorn on their walk. Shaya's fellow giant had to slow her walk down considerably to allow Samorn's petite legs to keep up.

"On the way to Conjuration class?"

"We are," Shaya replied.

"How'd you guess?"

"There's not too much out here," Bri explained, gesturing to the open, barren mountain scape around them as they approached the inner edge of the campus, abutting against Mount Arcadia's core, "except for the Wards, so…"

"I can't wait," Cyren said, his voice suggesting he could happily wait." I definitely can't wait," Bri said, elbowing him.

"Shaya, you're going to love the instructor. She teaches my Intro to Electromancy and is really cool." The Wards was a heavy slab of a windowless building built directly into the mountain, with even its "ground" floor mostly underground. Circles of gold were embedded in the earth around it and directly into the structure, each ring etched with warding runes to prevent extraplanar creatures from crossing the barrier.

Some of the larger runes were embossed with crushed Ambercyte, able to further strengthen them for short periods of time if something went truly awry in the facility. Shaya and her friends walked down the steps and swiped their slates to enter. Wardens of Heiwa gave them quick, but thorough, searches and they proceeded to pass through one guarded checkpoint after another.

Heavy wooden doors etched with more warding runes and reinforced with iron bars lined both sides of the hallway they passed through, each door requiring their slate to unlock. The door at the end of the hallway opened into a tight, spiralling staircase befitting a castle. While Cyren and Samorn's lithe bodies had no trouble going down the stairs, Shaya and Bri's shoulders rubbed against the walls awkwardly the whole way down.

The twelfth basement level opened into a large classroom, eldritch lights illuminating its wide space and cavernous ceiling. The room's central area was occupied by two rows of three tables facing the back of the room, while the outer edges were divided into cells by clear walls of force. Each of those cells possessed its own golden ring built into the floor, etched with the same warding runes found everywhere else.

Shaya wanted to rush over and study the cells to see how one opened and closed the force walls to admit people into them, but she restrained herself. She had no doubt she'd get the chance later. Each table conveniently sat four people, so Shaya and her friends found an unoccupied one in the middle of the room and settled in. Unlike the other classes Shaya had seen so far, this classroom was full to capacity and the space didn't feel underutilized.

It helped that Conjuration wasn't tied to a single colour and that every mage wanted to make cosmic powers do their bidding. Shaya noticed Apricot sitting at one of the front seats, chatting with their professor. It was probably the first time she looked relaxed, if not excited, and Shaya was glad to see it. After a few more minutes, the rest of the students had arrived and they broke off their conversation.

A murmur swept across the classroom as the professor rose to her full height and moved to the front with a grace that made her seem like flowing water. She stood as tall as Shaya, but weighed half as much at most, giving her a ghastly thin frame to which she gave a façade of curves with layers of sleeveless, white and red robes that flared at her hips and a bright teal scarf she wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl.

Her skin was a deep cinnamon, with the right half of her body covered in swirling white tattoos and the left half of her body covered in jagged obsidian tattoos—both of which ran up to her face. Behind slim glasses that rested on an aquiline nose, eyes like solar eclipses scanned the classroom. Gaunt, angular features were framed by the professor's long, wispy hair the colour of burnt orange, but through the mass of hair Shaya still spotted the pointed ears she expected of Apricot's mother.

Then came the woman's third eye. Larger than her other eyes, it appeared to be an orb of smooth onyx with a small, permanent spark as its pupil. Looking at the spark was painful, like staring directly into the sun.

"Hello, everyone." The professor's voice was…shockingly plain given everything else about her. Despite being foreign, she spoke Imperial Common without the hint of an accent.

"My name is Doctor Amaurea Telemnar and I'll be your shepherd while we explore the multiverse together." She sighed, sitting back on the professor's table and crossing her legs.

"Yes, as you can all tell I am not from Arcadia," she said.

"I hail from the Protectorate of Vulkhad, situated far to the east of the Empire. No, I am not representative of what the people from there look like—most of us are no taller than your average human, Binders are about as uncommon, and I'm the only one crazy enough to carve a hole in her forehead to attach something like this to it.

"But we are distant cousins to some of you. Many of us are descended from the children of Vynderwynd and Astoria, who left the Empire to found their own kingdoms and empires after that sordid business with your first Celestial War of Succession." There were a few gasps around the classroom as she casually mentioned one of the most taboo topics in the Empire. A few of the students even grumbled about it. But Amaurea didn't seem to care at all.

"Awesome, right?" Bri whispered, leaning in close to Shaya.

"Absolutely," Shaya replied, in awe. She looked at the tattooed woman and her devil-may-care attitude towards the Empire's dogma and recognized someone who possessed the knowledge she needed to become the very best Warmage in the Empire. Hells, maybe even beyond it. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Conjuration is considered by many to be the first form of magic," Amaurea said with her lilting voice, still casually sitting on her table.

"Before bonds with espers were understood and binding rituals developed, humanity lived in a world of monsters and Titans—unable to access magic and, therefore, unable to defend themselves.

"The first would-be mages called out to the void in the hopes that something would respond," she continued, voice growing quiet, "and something did." Her fiery gaze swept over the room, her silence stretching out for a few seconds until she had everyone's attention.

"Can anyone speculate as to what happened?" A student across the room answered, "The first esper was bonded?"

"No," Amaurea responded.

"Anyone else?" Samorn raised her hand next.

"They were devoured?" Amaurea smiled.

"That's right. Mind, body, and soul were devoured by the spirit drawn across the Veil, which then went on a rampage for more delicious morsels. You see, in order to survive on this side of the Veil, a spirit needs a constant source of aether. The earliest mages learned that the greatest source of aether available in the material plane was the spiritual energy that resides in each living creature." Tension rose amongst the class as they considered the story.

"Good," Amaurea nodded with a thin smile, "when you entered this building, most of you probably looked at the wards and the defensive measures and thought, 'what overkill.' I'm happy to see that replaced with a healthy dose of fear, especially since trained mages—with their spirits exercised and expanded—possess far more aether for spirits to feast upon.

"But we've come a long way since then. Those initial mages eventually learned to formalize their rituals, summon spirits that better aligned with their own convictions, and then form bonds that turned those spirits into espers." Her smile widened as she spread her hands.

"And here we are now, able to study magic with a scientific lens. Are there any questions before I continue?" Shaya raised her hand and Amaurea nodded at her.

"What happens when a soul is devoured? Can it be freed if that spirit is destroyed?" The professor tapped her bottom lip as she considered her response. Probably filtering it through Imperial doctrine so she doesn't offend people again, Shaya thought bitterly.

"That is an excellent question, but not one that is easily answered," Amaurea began.

"Let me simplify so it doesn't derail today's lecture: spirits and souls are never truly destroyed, at least in the popular theories of the Aetherium most scholars embrace. Similar to how your colours may exert an influence upon you, the devoured soul becomes a part of the spirit and might exert an influence over them as well—assuming the will of the soul was powerful enough.

"Some scholars also speculate that the spirit inherits some of the soul's power, and that it's common for spirits to consume one another in war. The threat always being that if a spirit consumes too much that differs from it too radically, its identity changes towards that which it warred against. This is the root of some beliefs in the material world that consuming your enemy or prey makes you stronger, popular amongst the golkah and the races that branched out from them, such as yourself."

"That's, uh, pretty horrifying," Shaya said.

"Do not think on it overly in your first year." Amaurea shrugged, then smiled at Shaya.

"While I encourage you to keep asking such questions and considering the wider implications of what we study and what we're capable of, let's focus on the basics first.

"Now, before we dive into how to conjure otherworldly beings," Amaurea said, "we need to discuss the basics of cosmology." The professor's white tattoos glowed with soft light as she gestured dramatically, leaving behind an illusion of three globes.

"The beauty of magic is that anyone can access it, if they so choose," she continued.

"The source of magic has many different names across the different cultures of our world—and beyond—but they all reference an entirely magical plane of existence, full of spiritual beings. To some cultures, this world is made up of many planes, to others it is simply an overlap atop the material world, and to others still it is indescribable and alien.

"One thing that scholars have generally agreed upon, however, is that our world is separated by the Veil from what we generally term the Aetherium." With a gesture, her three globes resized and nested within one another.

"The thoughts and beliefs of those in the material plane pass through the Veil and shape the Aetherium, which is reflected in the spirits a culture might interact with. The espers and spirits you call upon in the Empire will look different from those we call upon in Vulkhad, for instance, but similarities in our cultural stories mean that some aspects may still be relatable." Shaya frowned and raised her hand again. With another nod from the professor, she spoke.

"But stories can change over time. Is it possible for a plane, spirit, or even esper to change as the stories they're linked to change as well?"

"Very astute." Amaurea gave Shaya another gaunt smile.

"Yes, there are records of espers changing radically. Imagine an esper of a ruler that once lived, renowned for their courage and empathy towards the people of their kingdom. Many revered them as a saint after their passing for the compassion they showed to the downtrodden. But years later, atrocities come to light that showed the ruler murdered and disposed of peasants to make it seem like they had eliminated poverty in their kingdom.

If enough people believed those atrocities to be true, that esper may change entirely… but if beliefs were conflicted, two espers might exist, both weakened because of the split beliefs of the people." Shaya's hand flew over her notebook, practicing her shorthand as she tried to capture all of this information. Her writing didn't look legible even to her, but she hoped she could piece it together later.

"Now, let's get to the meat of the class, shall we?" Amaurea smiled.

"In this class, we will be learning two runes that each represent one way of conjuring otherworldly beings into our world. The first rune we'll focus on is simply 'summon,' which pulls a creature into our world and subjugates it to your will.

"I'd encourage you to be somewhat wary of abusing this spell, as the creatures you call from the Aetherium are immortal, eternal entities." Amaurea raised a cautionary finger.

"And if you were suddenly pulled from your home to fight in some battle you had no stakes in, you might misinterpret commands or hold a grudge, no?" The professor waited for the chuckles to die down before continuing.

"Summon spells are convenient, however. They're the quickest form of conjuration: there's no negotiating required and extra bodies in a fight can turn the tide quickly. And we'll be starting you off with basic entities unlikely to hunt you down, assuming you don't use them as bait too often. While the conjured creatures cannot truly be killed, they can experience pain and 'die,' being forced to reconstitute themselves in the Aetherium.

"The second form we'll learn—slowly and safely—are calling spells. These runes form a stable breach through the Veil, allowing you to communicate with a called entity. This is the route I recommend you take in the long run, as it allows you to form alliances with powerful entities, assuming your goals align. We'll go into this in greater detail after the mid-term, however, as the initial test will only require you to master three different summoning spells from the list I'll pass out at the end of class."

Shaya couldn't wait to summon her own legions of powerful creatures, her hand flying as she practiced her new notetaking skills while absorbing as much of the lecture as she could.