The Ark

Understanding One's Purpose

"You have a talent for this Suzuran."

Class has already ended but Suzuran and Marth are currently using one of the caster training halls for extra lessons.

"Your knack for the Shinto arts are clear, scarily so considering how new you are to this stuff. Must be your connection to Higashi." Apollo said.

"Uh, I'm actually not from Higashi but Scarcusa; however my father came from there." Suzuran explained.

"What did your father do back in Higashi? Was he connected to spirits by any chance?" Apollo asked as he simultaneously thought of what else to teach.

"He is a shrine priest and from what I heard he was very well liked by everyone." Suzuran said with a smile so bright Apollo had to pull out a pair of shades so he wouldn't go blind.

"That explains a lot. Perhaps that light I see from you is the love the gods may have for you, or it could be you are just that cheerful." Apollo said as an idea popped into his head. "So now keep practicing that barrier, it's quite good as it will allow you to do arts or magecraft that requires a lot of prep time. Keep in mind that the barrier will constantly suck mana out of you so keep that in mind." Apollo said.

"Understood Mr. Kotemine. I'll do my best." Suzuran said with confidence.

"I know you will Suzu." He said as he walked towards his other student and in his mind adoptive sister at this point, Marth.

"How's the work coming along?" Apollo asked.

Apollo scanned Marth from head to toe as he observed what she was doing, While Suzuran practiced magecraft based in Japan, Marth was learning more western style magecraft.

"The bounded field is coming along Mr. Apollo, I was planning to ask if you can check it out." Marth said as she drew the final line completing the magic circle.

"Sure." Apollo said as he now held two things. One was a small ball of pure mana, the other was a sucker. "Say the incantation. Also by the way you are missing a line in that magic circle."

A sense of panic flashed on Marth's place as she quickly fixed the error .Marth said the incantation as a small bubble tinted red appeared on the edges of the magic circle.

"It's a good start, now let's see how good it is." Apollo flicked the ball towards the circle. Upon contact a loud crackling sound akin to faint lighting is heard, however as quickly as the sound came it was gone as the small ball broke through the bounded field. The destruction of it was something similar to glass breaking.

"Not bad, I'm proud of you. If you keep going at this then perhaps you will be able to create bounded fields of a first rate mage." Apollo said

"Then what is considered first rate then?" She asked.

"Basically here is the list. Third rate is what you did, the bounded field was easily noticeable and destroyed easily. Second rate would be either not noticeable or not easy to destroy, while first rate is being both hard to find and destroy. However at the end of the day what matters is if it can complete its goal properly." Apollo explained.

Apollo looked at the clock and saw how late it's gotten.

"Alright you two it's getting late so before we leave I'll tell you guys one last thing. In the last six to eight weeks we have gone over a lot, to be honest a lot more than I thought. In class we covered magic circuits, leylines, strengthening, incantations and bounded fields." Apollo said.

"Is it abnormal that we've done so much?" Marth asked as she cleaned up the magic circle.

"While not abnormal, you two would be slightly above average. Similar to a shallow mage family only two to three generations deep, beyond that I have nothing else to say." Apollo explained as he threw a sucker at Suzuran.