Chapter 2: Chapter 2 - The Real Exam
I was in much less of a hurry now, feeling both relieved I wouldn't have to deal with part one of my final tests and more than a little angry that I had spent so much time studying for an evaluation that was not going to take place. This was a classic move by my father, one I should have seen coming. He prioritized substance and results over pageantry and formalities. The note he left in the library was his way of saying I was sufficiently well versed in the clerical arts and so there was no need for a test. Which made me wonder what he had in mind for "the real test."
My father was standing in the middle of the training yard, which was just a patch of grass large enough for a few dozen people to engage in training and duels. He was imposing, with broad shoulders and a height of well over 6 feet that qualified him easily as the tallest man I knew. He kept his salt and pepper hair and beard short, and both were well maintained, just like the manor he oversaw. His back was to me, but even from behind he projected a regal aura. To a mage like myself he stood out even more, for the mana that moved like dust in the wind around ordinary people draped around him like a cloak—organized, with a sense of purpose. I had never been able to figure out if that was because my father was doing something intentional to cause the mana to behave in such a fashion or if the mana was simply responding to him, as if his very presence imposed order on the world.
I stopped 10 feet away and waited for him to turn around. One did not hurry Mathias Elusen.
After a few long seconds he spoke, his voice a rich baritone that filled the courtyard, "And how are you doing this fine day, Warren?"
"Thanks for the stressful months of studying I just endured for apparently no reason," I replied, trying and failing to sound light-hearted.
"Was that why you studied the material? To pass an exam?" He turned to look me as he spoke, an arched left brow and half smile on his face. I didn't take the bait and remained silent. He waited a second to be sure I had nothing more to say and then gave me a small nod. "Let us begin. What is the First Law of Magic?"
I looked at my father, confusion all over my face. This was the very first thing he had taught me. This was supposed to be a final exam, not a review of our first lesson together. Did he think I had forgotten something so basic?
I launched into the textbook answer, "A mage is limited only by his abilities and the available mana. Or in other words, a mage's power is a function of his efficiency at casting a given spell and the mana at his disposal." I hesitated. Was he looking for something more? I wasn't sure what to say and so said nothing.
"If you wanted to increase your power, what would you focus on?" His face was stoic, providing no clue as to the correct answer, if it even existed.
I frowned. This was something we had never discussed—with rare exceptions there was generally sufficient mana around to cast spells with. I thought for a minute before I responded, "If 'both' isn't an acceptable answer then I would focus on increasing my ability. You can't always control how much mana you have at your disposal, but you can make sure that you are able to use the mana you have in the most efficient way possible." This wasn't something I thought much about, but it seemed like a reasonable answer to me.
He nodded, as if expecting that answer. "Summon a fireball."
A simple task. I simply had to take the mana from the air and—but I couldn't. There was no mana. I was confused. I had experienced situations with excess mana and limited mana, but never this. It was like trying to drink water from a cup, only to discover it was bone dry, with not even a few drops remaining to wet your lips. I closed my eyes and expanded my reach, Casting my mind beyond the training yard, to the edge of the manor's grounds. Nothing. How was this possible? I knew my father was a powerful mage, but this seemed too great a task even for him. I felt a chill go through me as I recalled my nightmare from the prior night, where I had been unable to feel any mana around me. I ran my hands through my hair in frustration and looked at the ground, as if the answer might be found there.
"I . . . I can't." My confidence that I would pass my father's tests began to falter.
"Are you sure?" I could hear a bit of pity in his voice.
I never was a fan of pity and he knew it. I Cast my senses even further than I had before, dangerously far. I started to sweat as the effort needed to go farther from myself increased rapidly and, when I could take it no more, I felt my awareness snap back to my body, leaving me nauseous and disoriented. Still nothing.
And then I realized there was mana. I was just looking in the wrong direction. It was a dangerous practice if used carelessly, and one I had only experimented with a few times, but in a pinch it was always an option. I carefully pulled at the mana I could still feel—the mana within me. Fortunately for me, he hadn't specified the size of the fireball and I brought forth a tiny ball, no greater my thumb. I let it swirl in my hand for a second before extinguishing it. My hands were shaking at the effort I had expended, first to find mana and then to make use of my own. Mana was the energy of all things. A mage generally made use of the mana around them to accomplish their will, but there was nothing to prevent them from drawing on the energy that was their own lifeforce, except the fact that it could cause injury or even kill you if you consumed too much. Like blood loss. A little blood lost was not the end of the world. A lot . . . that was a different story.
Mathias clapped his hands in appreciation for my effort. "Excellent. Now tell me the Second Law of magic."
Now, more apprehensive, I once again repeated the textbook definition that had been drilled into me, "Mana can be neither created nor destroyed."
"Where did the mana go that you tried to access just now?"
I had just been thinking that myself. Mana could be drawn within and used to enhance strength, accelerate healing, or to prepare for a massive spell. But it was like taking a deep breath before diving under water. You could only hold so much within you. The most I had ever managed to store would not have displaced what was available even a few arms' lengths away from me. And yet the mana that I had felt all around me as I walked to the training yard had vanished. But not out of existence. It must have gone somewhere. And there is only one place I could think of, although it made no sense.
"It's . . . in you . . ." My face was dumbstruck. I couldn't sense the mana in him, but I knew it was there. It had to be. I wasn't going to give him time to ask the obvious follow-up and so I beat him to it. "How? How did you do it?"
Mathias gave me an understanding smile, "That is a lesson for another day, but it is enough that you were able to understand that it was done. Just remember that the line between what is possible and what is not possible is often one of our own creation. Tell me the Third Law."
"The Third Law of magic states that for any output a mage requires a corresponding input." I waited for my father to tell me to attempt some impossible feat or answer an impossible question. Instead, he looked beyond me, to the eastern side of the courtyard. I turned to see what he was looking at and saw nothing of note, just Palin, the apprentice blacksmith, hauling some raw metal ingots. When I turned back, I found my father looking at me again, and now his brow was uncharacteristically furrowed.
"What does that definition mean to you?" He folded his arms and a sense of doom settled over me. I rarely answered his open-ended questions to his satisfaction.
I took a deep breath and tried to be as imposing as one could in the presence of a powerful mage. "I've never liked this Law, as you well know. It seems redundant given the First Law. Both deal with a mage's capabilities. They both kind of suggest the same thing, if you want to cast a spell . . . you need mana." I crossed my arms. I had butted heads with him on this point before.
Mathias rubbed his short beard. His eyes locked on mine before he spoke. "Those who do not practice the magical arts think that magic is used as a shortcut. But while true in a sense, they are also fundamentally incorrect. Everything has a price that must be paid. It is one thing to seek efficiency, it is another to ask magic to perform a task that you have not paid for in full."
"That doesn't make any sense." I was getting frustrated with my father's doublespeak and felt my voice rise as I spoke. "How can magic be a shortcut and not a shortcut?" I had given up trying to "pass" this test. I now suspected that today's events were all going according to my father's plan. It was time to just go along for the ride and see what he had in store for me.
Mathias held out his hands. "If I held a competition between two men to move a stone across a field and one of them was strong enough to lift it and the other was not, what would you think?"
"That the competition was unfair."
"What if I told you that they had six months of notice about the competition, and during that time the stronger man spent 5 hours a day lifting stones, and the weaker man had just laid on the grass and stared at the clouds all day?"
". . . Then I would say the stronger man deserved to win."
"Is possessing greater strength a shortcut to victory? On the day of the competition, it might seem like it, but a price had to be paid by the stronger man to obtain his strength. A capable man would be able to build both a ramp and a cart to move the stone in far less time than the months it took the stronger man to get the strength needed to lift and carry the rock on his own."
My father started to get more animated as he often did when he got into the meat of one of his lessons. "Likewise, you could learn to start a fire with flint and steel in far less time that it would take to learn how to summon a flame by controlling and commanding mana. The shortest path to power, to growth, to becoming . . . more, is realizing there is no shortcut. Lesser men will never be able to see this simple fact and they will waste their entire lives achieving nothing, always looking for the easy way that does not exist. Greater men will never be able to unsee this fact and will spend their days doing what is required to move to greater and greater heights. The lesser man while see these efforts and mock them, for true progress is often slow and imperceptible. But their mockery is rooted in fear and the growing realization that they will never catch up."
Mathias paused to see that I was following along. I nodded, saying nothing and he continued, "The First and Second Laws of Magic are about understanding what is possible in the moment that power is needed. The Third Law is the key to obtaining that power. The corresponding input is not just a sufficient amount mana, although it certainly is that. The corresponding input is not just the ability to control that mana, although it certainly is that as well. It's everything it took to get to that point. The output is the power to influence and change the world around you to reflect your will. The belief that access to this power can be had without paying the price . . . it is a would-be mage's greatest folly. While it has many names, to me the third law should have be called the Law of Sacrifice."
Mathias placed his hands on my shoulders, and I felt pinned to earth by the weight of them.
"What is it that you desire?"
I looked up from the ground into my father's eyes, grayish blue, like a summer storm. "I want to become a mage as amazing as you are."
He looked back at me with a warmth I could no more comprehend than some of the magic he could perform. "Are you willing to do what it takes to get there, to pay the price that much be paid?"
To this I did not hesitate, for in truth there was little else I wanted more. "I am."
He pulled back from me and his voice took on a formal tone, "Warren Elusen, son of Mathias Elusen, you have passed your exams, and your time as my student has passed. You still have much to learn, but it is now time for that learning to take place beyond these walls."
I was stunned. "I thought my time of being a student was over. And if not, what can I learn out there that you cannot teach me here? Where will I even go?"
Mathias held up a hand to halt my panicked questioning. "The time has come for me to tell you what I can, although it is not much. I set up these exams not because I wanted to test you, but because I wanted you to study and learn everything you possibly could before . . ."
"Before what?" What was so important that he wanted me to spend the last few months cramming every bit of knowledge I could into my head?
"It's about . . . your mother." Mathias suddenly looked exhausted and sweat began dripping down his face.
My heart started racing and my mouth was suddenly dry as a bone. I had never seen my mother and I knew next to nothing about her, apart from the fact that she must have existed at one point. My father had always stonewalled my attempts to inquire as to her whereabouts or if she was even still alive. There was not a topic I wanted to know more about than who or where she was.
"What about her?!?" I shouted, grabbing my father's arms as if to pull the information from him, but as I did so he became unsteady on his feet, and I felt him lean on me for support.
I had seen my father perform magic that was not mentioned in a single book in his library. Even though I had grown up in his presence, I still felt a sense of awe just thinking about all the magic I had witnessed him perform. Advanced Object Reconstruction, Teleportation without the aid of a Gate, Healing that brought someone back on the verge of death. I had never seen him so much as strain himself.
My father was trembling now, his face growing ashen. Then, to my dismay, he fell to his knees, his grip on me weakening. Seeing my father struggle was almost as shocking to me as hearing him speak of my mother. I could feel a great turmoil in the mana inside him and I realized there was a reason he had taken so much of it inside himself. He had gathered such a vast quantity of mana for this moment, to do something that challenged even a mage as great as Mathias Elusen.
Finally, he spoke, leaning his head weakly against my cheek, his voice barely a whisper in my ear, "She says . . . the time has come." And then my mentor, my father, and my friend, strong and regal just moments ago, did something I did not think to ever see—he collapsed.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
BoredOne
BoredOne My goal for the magic system is that it's not something I stop and explain with a lot of exposition but rather it's something you learn about in action. "Show me don't tell me" as they say in the book industry. This is not going to be a soft magic system like LoTR, but exactly how hard it will be . . . well, stick around and you'll see.
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