Foxtails and Fairytales: Facades and Fables of the Phantom Prince

[Arc 3] Ch. 5 Sorcery's Hope

Vlad

"I intend to teach you all, Primal Life magic. Understand that there is risk when working with any kind of magic. But the roots of all the magic manipulation that you know of starts with Blood magic Sigils. One of the most common misconceptions of using blood magic is that you have to cut yourself open and bleed everywhere. We are going to start by simply learning sigils in the same fashion you might learn runes." I explained. "Any other questions?"

I saw several hands go up now and I called on a high-spirited girl with silver hair and glasses.

"Sorcery feels like common sense to me, why did it take you so long since the school began for it to be accepted?" She asked.

"Well, this may sound silly, but I didn't come up with sorcery. For this class there are two text books. The Audacitor's Codex, and the Sorcerer's handbook. I compiled the Sorcercer's handbook as an easy to understand guide for Sorcerers, but the Audacitor's Codex was written by someone who wanted to be accepted into Heathroam. It approached magic without the biased views of tradition and proposed that concepts we once thought were reserved for specialists and prodigies were simpler than we could have imagined."

"For instance, because they connected the dots, we can use the concepts gleaned from sigils to understand the true nature of chants. Once we have some of the basics down, chantless magic will come naturally to you." I held up my hand with my palm up and summoned a ball of fire that spun around my hand, then I closed my hand around it, and it opened it allowing a butterfly to flutter around the room. "Magic is simply a force for creating phenomena. You can destroy or create based on what you can understand."

*

I answered a few more questions that had to do with why I started sorcery, prying into the court case with Dova with many questions that I couldn't answer and wouldn't answer because they had more to do with gossip than sorcery.

On the second day of class I was met with the hard truth that over half of my class had dropped after the first day. I was left with Nine students.

"I guess we'll get started." I rubbed my eyes. I expected some to drop the class, but not half. If this keeps up, I'll... haaaaaaahhhh. I'm glad that I didn't hand out uniforms yesterday. Balek was sure we'd have hundreds of students. Now I'm down to nine at best.

"I suppose that we should do introductions and get to know everyone here." I say glad to see the eager white-haired student, I hope she'll stick around. "Will you start? Please?" I ask the girl.

"Certainly, My name is Nerys Lewellyn. I'm from a small town in Tyr Brenin. I came here to study magic, um I've always had to hide my magic. I was really nervous when I learned that Blood magic was just as hated here as it was at home. But Professor Turner gave me hope. I can finally admit that I practice blood magic. I'm here to become the first Sorcerer to become a magus for blood magic." she declared proudly.

Yes! Hope! Some actual hope!

There were two boys next to her that looked the same. The one with black hair stood up first. "I'm Gareth Lewellyn, I'm here to support my sister, but I am shooting for one of the top rankings."

After him the blonde twin stood up. "I'm Macsen Lewellyn. I'm here to support my family. I'm going to make sure none of us get exiled."

Okay... I'll take it. Beggars can't be choosers.

The next person on the row was a familiar face... buried in her desk. "Sleepyhead, it's your turn." I said pointedly.

The sleepy girl had white hair and tall rabbit ears drooping over the desk and when she roused herself from her nap she didn't even bother to stand. "Morning. I'm Hazel Turner. I don't want my idiot older brother to kill himself, so I am here to shove sorcery down the throat of the magus Archana. That's all." She waved her hand dismissingly and flopped back down on the desk.