Tales of the Pearly Kingdom (Pearly Tales Vol. 2)

89. Secret of Multi-classing

Cal looked up to a purple haired girl come in.

"Hey Calico, I'm glad you got permission to join us." Cal patted the teen on the head.

"The mistress heard that you requested me and jumped at the chance. She's such a softy when it comes to you." Calico wagged her tail happily.

"We go way back as you know. Come on, let's introduce you to the rest of the crew." Cal pointed at the sweaty guild members training in the early morning.

"Little brother Seamus and little sister Ophelia, it's been too long." Calico bowed toward them and then grabbed one in each arm and snuggled them.

Ophelia's eyes sparkled. "I have another sister!"

"She's more like your cousin." Cal picked Calico up by her collar. "We are all extended family, but family all the same." Cal's brow twitched just enough to put Calico in her place.

She shrugged with a sly foxy grin of half apology.

"Play nice and don't go breaking anyone, that's my job." He set Calico back down.

"And I'm here to stop that." Achilles stomped her foot. "These children require proper instruction, not torture."

"Only the strong survive after all. Some people thrive in the blacksmith's forge, others grow best in a well-maintained garden. We can't meet everyone's needs if we only have a blacksmith or a gardener." Cal winked.

Achilles ground her teeth. He was talking like he had planned her involvement as an instructor of the North Wind Academy from the beginning. He was the Trickster... he PROBABLY DID! Or maybe he just wanted her to think that he did. Cal's antics were no secret.

*

Cal had Yvette join him in his office alone. Elementalist training was no joke. A simple elemental summoning for one of the four basic elements was simple enough but they were temporary and only suited for simple tasks or as fodder for battle. The Elementals that roamed the city were a different breed altogether.

"For most elementals it is easy and economic to pour some magic into one of the elements and forming the shape of a creature. These meldings of element and magic are temporary constructs that only last so long as you concentrate and funnel magic into them. These are basic elementals a body fueled by magic and little else. Beast elementals are the next step up, they are permanent constructs that take on the shapes of animals specifically because they can be infused with basic instincts. You take the unburdened nature of the element and bind it into a shape from nature. Simply put these are beings with only a body and a mind."

Yvette listened quietly as Cal covered in his own words complex ideas that she had memorized. Learning from a book was worlds different from a lecture from a master.

"The third are the noble elementals. those are the ones that you can see all around the city. Mastering the creation of these kinds of elementals is the hardest, but this is where the Elementalists truly shine. Noble Elementals are able to take humanoid shapes along with various advanced forms only bound to the casters imagination. Although beast elementals can become very intelligent, Noble Elementals are infused with consciousness capable of being even smarter or more powerful than the caster. As the caster you can shape everything about them, there are templates you can follow when creating a soldier or a personal assistant. The reason this style is so much harder to master is because you aren't just combining simple ideas into a physical shape with the help of the elements. You are creating a person from the ground up, body, mind, and soul."