Chapter 72 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 72: The Ship of Exile 06
Passing through the walkway draped in trumpet creeper, Lucita was led by Lesley to a low building on the eastern side, its walls faced with wave-patterned marble.
Up the stairs to the second floor, her future teacher, Professor Astrid, the one who had replied to her letter, was waiting, swaying gently in a rocking chair.
Unlike what she had expected, the entire second floor had no office at all, but was instead very much a handsomely furnished spacious apartment.
The living room door stood open. Deep red woven carpets covered the floor, and Astrid, the professor Lucita had corresponded with, lounged by the fireside in a rocking chair, firelight gilding the edge of her profile.
Astrid appeared to be in her early forties. She wore gold-rimmed glasses with crystal lenses, beneath which were deep-set eyes the color of layered ocean blue.
Her dark red hair had clearly been cut to shoulder length at some point, casually tied up at the back with a deep blue ribbon.
Judging by her features, she was likely of Kentrian descent, a people once famous, originating in the southeast.
This young professor looked entirely unlike the proper older professors at the university buildings in the city district. She was lying casually in her rocking chair smoking a cigar, and had not even changed out of a loose silk dressing gown to receive a guest. The whole person gave an impression of contented ease.
Lucita paused for a moment, not sure whether she ought to politely step outside to allow this professor to change.
Astrid stubbed out her cigar, rose from the haze of smoke, and before Lucita could speak she asked: "Lucita?"
Probably from the cigar just smoked, her voice was slightly husky.
Lucita nodded. "Yes. Hello, Professor Astrid."
“Such a green young thing.” Astrid studied her with frank interest. “When I was your age, I was still losing my temper over how to concentrate those irritating fire elements. It’s really quite something, that even the soil can produce a star like this.”
"Perhaps because it isn't soil," Lucita replied with an edge, "but a fertile garden."
Astrid didn't take offense, and laughed instead: "Quite the personality. Then I am fortunate to be in the presence of the brightest star in this fertile garden. Would you grant me the honor, and demonstrate your control of the fire element?"
"As you wish." Lucita offered no false modesty.
For Astrid, a family name no one had heard of, a commoner of unknown background, had somehow been elevated to a student at the magical tower, to study alongside royalty and nobility. The only basis for any of this was the application letter.
As for Callen Anastasia’s recommendation letter, it had done no more than ensure Lucita’s application was actually opened.
Lucita had won the admiration of nearly half the professors with the astonishing magical talent and remarkable analytical ability she described in her application, earning her an invitation. She therefore had to demonstrate an ability commensurate with what the application had described.
She understood this perfectly well herself.
This was a small examination.
The hearth fire was burning briskly, dry split logs crackling cheerfully. The room was warm enough to make one want to break a sweat.
Astrid was dressed in a thin nightgown, while Lucita was bundled in two thick outer layers and still wearing her newsgirl cap.
She extended her right hand, fingers gathering slightly toward the hearth, and the fire went out.
"I found the room a little warm. I'll relight it for you in a moment. Your room could use some ventilation too. Let some fresh air in." She offered this explanation, and then, under Astrid's probing gaze, thought for a moment: "Or perhaps I'll demonstrate this instead."
Her fingers moved through the air, drawing a thread of flame from her fingertip, a thin tongue of fire hovering and burning in midair.
Under Astrid’s gaze, which grew steadily more intent, Lucita began to draw with fire: a lily, carefully shaped, though still slightly stiff in its lines.
"I can't draw very well. I hope that will do." Lucita said. "Do you have any other requirements?"
Astrid blinked. The fire-lily was still floating before her eyes.
Good God above.
She had never seen anyone express their magical control by drawing a flower like this… If she or her colleagues were asked to do the same, they could not necessarily manage it.
This required an extraordinarily fine degree of elemental control, and in general there was simply never any call for such fine control — whether fireballs or fire rain, or the most demanding technique of temperature-layering to produce a white flame, the entire book of common fire-element spells that had been developed by extending these fundamental principles contained nothing that required fineness of fire element control.
And she — good God — was controlling fire to make drawings the way one would use an ordinary pen on paper.
Astrid forced herself not to look too shaken. She steadied her voice and asked the question she most needed answered: "Did you deliberately practice fine fire control? Perhaps without having received a systematic education, you're not aware that most of our spells don't actually require this level of precision. The most important factor is fire element intensity. You may have gone rather off course."
"But that's no problem, with your talent, getting onto the correct path will be very easy. I'll teach you carefully from here on."
"Intensity?" Lucita considered for a moment, and while Astrid was preparing to offer reassurance, produced a fireball in her left hand.
Astrid took a reflexive step back.
She watched fireballs appearing continuously from the youth's left hand, and saw her repeatedly merging the fireballs from both hands together. The combined ball shifted from a faint warm red to an increasingly fierce white-yellow. Astrid's very breathing grew light: "Lucita... now walk slowly outside, let it explode in the courtyard..."
Lucita stopped, a little reluctant, and in Astrid's eyes slowly began to disassemble the fireball in her hand.
Astrid watched the large fireball be broken apart into many small tongues of flame, which then gradually and silently burned themselves out in the air. She was speechless for a long time.
"Is that satisfactory, Professor?" Lucita looked at the extinguished flames, feeling a pang of regret for the consumed fire element.
Although natural elements were continuously regenerating and the losses were constantly being replenished, she had just drained almost all the fire element in the room, and from outside the room as well, something she had never done on this scale before.
For her alone the drain meant little, but if tens of thousands of people were drawing on the elements simultaneously at this magnitude, it could actually threaten the balance of elements.
The pursuit of magical power and the preservation of elemental balance were probably two paths that ran directly against each other.
She furrowed her brow slightly, and for a brief moment thought about it.
Hearing Lucita's mild question, Astrid almost thought she was being mocked.
The principle of temperature-layering, formally termed superheating, was something only a small number of veteran mages could master. The spells derived from it carried immense destructive force, and even the mage who created such flame could not contain it. It would explode sooner or later.
At least in this five-hundred-year span of magical development, no one had ever managed to handle a superheated fireball once produced.
Yet Lucita had disassembled it through her extraordinarily fine control of the flame, which almost made Astrid suspect that Lucita had been deliberately mocking her earlier comment about "precision not being required" and having "gone off course."
But of course, that was a trivial matter.
Whether or not Lucita was being sarcastic, the arrogance of genius was something that could be forgiven.
Astrid quickly set the matter aside and instead pressed a hand down on Lucita's shoulder, her eyes blazing with something extraordinary, her voice barely contained in its pitch: "Lucita, you are a true genius!"
Her words came faster: "Listen to me. Your talent will make you the most powerful magician in Viktori, no, on the entire continent. You’ll become a great figure like the last court sorcerer. You’ll become the strongest in Kenting, and then we’ll reclaim those northern territories the Spring people occupy. And I, and I…"
"And I am your teacher. The teacher of a genius. Astrid."
She began pacing back and forth: "The Spring Tower will be the cradle that nurtures you, and you will find your way onto the right path. My God! What a treasure Anastasia has sent me!"
Watching the professor grow increasingly agitated, Lucita had to interrupt: "Professor Astrid, so I have been formally accepted by the Spring Tower?"
"Of course! No one would refuse you, Lucita!"
"Then I am free to study any magic I choose?"
“Hm?”
Astrid stopped mid-step, turning back with a puzzled look. “Any? Beyond the fire element, have you perceived other elements?”
In fact, she didn’t need to perceive. Since Lucita had broken through the world barrier, this world held no secrets from her. She was naturally attuned to all elements.
She didn't answer, the question didn't need answering, because what she wanted to learn was not other elements' natural magic. It was research-school magic.
"What?" Astrid was taken aback. "Research-school magic?"
She drew a sharp breath, and murmured to herself: "So this is the suffering of teaching a genius."
"You mean the research-school magic that no one in this academy studies or teaches, that has no corresponding senior mage serving as a professor, that exists only as a hobby-elective of no practical use to students, and that consists only of some old stacks of papers sealed away in the library?"
Lucita: ...It had that many prefaces?
She had actually been quite at ease about it, but Astrid's manner was making it awkward. She held firm under Astrid's imploring gaze and nodded anyway.
"Oh no —" Astrid massaged her brow. "Fine. You have a long time to reconsider, and hopefully you'll be able to give up this naive idea before too long. You may have heard many stories of the glorious achievements research-school magic once produced, but you'll discover soon enough that those are lies."
"For now, Lucita." she said, "Let Lesley take you to arrange your lodging. You'll like it here."
Lucita shook her head apologetically: "I'm sorry, but I'm not planning to stay in the Golden Buckthorn Garden. I've recently moved here, and my lodging is not very far away."
This was a small matter. Astrid didn't particularly care: "Arrange things as you see fit."
"One last thing." Before she left, Lucita asked: "When I came in, I passed the Blueford Library on the west side. Is everything in there related to magic?"
"Yes, it should be very helpful to you." Astrid had patience for her. "Feel free to go and look whenever you like."
"Thank you, Professor Astrid."
"Call me Strid, no need to be so formal."
Before she left, Lucita did indeed relight the hearth fire as she had promised, and took her leave under Astrid's satisfied gaze.
Coming around to face her was Lesley's still gentle and respectful smile: "Let me show you to your classroom, Young Master Lucita."
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