Tercius surged, Mana Manipulation [23] acting as his hands and fingers, activating each prepared part of the spell as its turn came to be executed. Search, hook and then pull back, all parts of the spell worked smoothly, oiled by three months of one-on-one practice with Mistress Helfira.

The fist-sized rock flew across the room straight to his hand, the last part of the spell slowing its momentum as it neared its destination. A meaty smack was heard as Tercius grabbed the rock from midair, and a solitary applause followed the spectacle.

“Three successful repetitions in a row, all with adequate times and no explosions,” Mistress Helfira pointed out from her office chair. “As far as I, or any other mage for that matter, is concerned, you have the basics of this spell well in hand. From now on, you have my permission to practice the spell on your own. Congratulations,” Mistress Helfira said, as she stood up from her seat. “Do you have the spell with you?”

“Yes Mistress,” Tercius said.

His left hand rose to chest level and wrote the Rune ‘Empty’, five fingers working in concert to achieve greater speed using minimal amounts of mana. While the fingers of the left hand finished the amulet-sized Rune, his right hand started writing the Rune 'Compartment’, all the while Mana Metamorphosis [7] made minute adjustments to different sections of the drawn Runes. Finally, his left hand dipped lower and wrote the Rune '13'. Neon green eyes inspected the work, and his fingers made two small corrections, before Tercius sent the three Runes, one after the other, straight into the amulet that hung on the center of his chest. The amulet soaked up the Runes as parched land drank a much-needed downpour, the enchantments checking if he truly was the owner of the amulet, and an instant later, satisfied with his identity, the amulet regurgitated the contents of compartment number thirteen into his hands— a brick-like metal box appeared just as if it had always been there.

Tercius sighed, oddly content. Even after a month of daily use, the sight was still somehow new and … well, magical. Every time it happened he used his mana sense to observe the event, hoping to get a glance at the inner workings of the enchantments. Unfortunately, the spells were shielded even from Mana Sight [32].

He placed the box on Mistress Helfira’s table.

Mistress Helfira took the box, opened it, and checked over the scroll and small crystal. Nodding to herself, she placed it into the top drawer of her desk, only to take out another box just like the one she just put in.

She extended it to him across the table. “Here is your crystal affinity spell,”

Tercius took the box and pushed his mana into the engraved enchantments, claiming it. With a small sucking noise, the lip popped open, and he took out the scroll contained within. Immediately, Tercius noticed that it was a lot heavier than the previous one. He removed the belt and the tightly bound scroll unfurled of its own accord.

“This…” Tercius murmured as he looked over the Runes and drawings. His left hand held the top of the scroll, while his right held the bottom from rolling back. “It’s at least two times longer than my previous spell… Wait—” Tercius said, as he read the top row. Confused eyes searched for the Mistress. “‘Crystal Shield’? This isn’t the spell we talked about, Mistress,”

The old lady had a small smile on her face, as she looked at him with arms crossed. She leaned on the wall near the large window and said, "Considering the speed with which you learned the previous spell, I made a recommendation that you should be a candidate for a higher tier spell, rather than a basic one, and the Repository approved. To be honest, I was not expecting a shield spell to be the one they would send, but I think that we can work with this. Versions of that spell—" she pointed at the scroll. "— are usually taught as part of the fifth year curriculum, and they are the cornerstone of magical defense,

"As you might know, we mages are a bit fragile," the old lady said with a laugh. Tercius doubted that very much, as he remembered what Mistress Helfira was capable of, but he kept his mouth shut and ears open. "Magical shields are our primary defense. This particular spell is not an omnidirectional shield, as you can see, but nonetheless, it will serve you well,"

If he was reading it right, the magical shield manifested as a mildly curved dome of about a meter and half in diameter, its weightless form affixed magically to the forearm of the dominant hand of the caster. The formulas and diagrams made some sense even with a cursory glance but something else caught his eye, something new…

“Mistress, what does this mean precisely?” he asked, unfurling the scroll across the table and pointing at the part that confused him. “Physical components?”

"Well you need something to be a physical barrier, don't you?" Mistress Helfira said. "You've seen my shields, yes? Their physical component is telekinetic in nature, channeled through my affinities for ease and speed of casting. Now, telekinesis and its applications in the magical fields are not taught during basic magical education, with the sole exception being as a component for shield spells, like this one,"

“I see…” Tercius leaned forward, a memory coming to mind. “Hmm… I once saw a mage use snow and ice as a barrier, Mistress. How did he do that?”

“That’s direct manipulation of—” Mistress Helfira paused abruptly and then chuckled. “Oh, you mean our self-proclaimed cousins from the Empire. Hmm… Under the right circumstances, the use of alteration— that's fine manipulation of physical materials through the use of spells if you've never heard of it before— is the better option, I do admit, but ultimately it's proven suboptimal as shielding, most of the time.

"Techniques and spells for manipulating liquids are different from those used for manipulating gases, and so on. Solids are relatively easier, but even they are demanding. Mana affinity is of great help here, allowing an innate connection that paves an easier path," Mistress Helfira explained. "Think of it like this. With alteration, you are using spells to influence already present materials or create new materials through something as basic as changing aggregate states of water, to make yourself a shield, while affinity variants of telekinetic shields are the spell itself. Do you see the difference?"

Tercius pondered for a moment and nodded his head finally. "I think so, Mistress. Casting spells and then using them to make a shield is probably more time-consuming than just casting a spell. Seconds matter. If you are in a situation where you need a shield, you need it now, not a moment later,"

“Exactly! Seconds are important,” Mistress Helfira exclaimed. “In this matter, our shields are a lot like skills, and that is purposefully so. Although you overlooked something. Let's say you make a shield out of actual sand,” she smiled. “Not a very stable example, but please bear with me, it's the point that matters. I only need to collect water from the air, or any other water source, and drench your sand. Provided you didn’t make contingencies for such a case, your shield would fall apart. If you did anticipate it, well done for you but the added weight of the water would spend the mana you used to power the spell much more quickly. If you use a spell to dry your sand, you once again have to spend mana. A telekinetic shield, on the other hand, is bound to you and only you. It's as strong and as versatile as you can make it, its properties adjustable per your situational needs,”

"So… did I get that amazing spell or a… free sample?" Tercius asked.

Mistress Helfira snorted. “What do you think?”

Tercius shrugged, sending a smile to the elder. “I think that you, Mistress, missed your true calling in life. After a sale like that, I somehow want to buy the full spell even as my mind keeps screaming at me that I’m being duped,”

The elder laughed. “Verify my words, by all means, but only after you learn to cast it successfully.”

The afternoon session flew by as Mistress Helfira explained how to go about learning this new spell, showing him in which order to attune himself to morphed mana examples present inside the spell box.

Then, after he finished with his lesson and he stored his new spell into his amulet, Mistress Helfira guided him through the paces of a mental exercise that all possessors of active mana skills practiced. Basically it boiled down to making sure you kept a tight leash on your mana when you got emotional. There were dangers to letting strong emotions take over, teachers had warned all year long.

With that done, he left Mistress Helfira's office and then the teachers' building, headed to dorms.

Building of the Rectorate loomed straight ahead, three lengths of football stadiums of colors of fall between it and Tercius. Mistress Kalina’s warning came to mind every time he saw it, and he made a left turn, and took the longer route to his dorm, preferring to never go near the grandiose building.

When he came to the dorm building, rather than head straight inside, he made his way to one of the park benches that surrounded the dorms and took a seat. Stone Sight found a small stone to his left, and Tercius started drawing the attraction spell, pointed in the direction of the stone. Slowly, he added more and more mana to the pullback part of the spell, and abruptly the buried stone overcame the obstacle with a small shower of dirt and grass. Heads of anyone who heard the commotion turned his way, but they quickly lost interest. Spell practice in the dorms park was common enough that gardeners came every other day to repair any damage done.

With a smack, the stone hit his hand with more force than what he was used to. Note to self, if you add mana to the pullback construct, add some mana to the part that will slow down the stone, as well. Hmm… How about I make another part for the spell that would do transfers between the two parts as needed… but the interference… and the morphs… hmm…

Rubbing the jagged stone between his palms, his Stone Shaping did away with the edges and left a roughly spherical stone in its place, while he pondered how he would go about making his idea a reality. There was a small gash where blood seeped out of the cut that the stone had made when it hit his hand, and slowly it dyed the stone crimson.

Spells were dangerous, he had heard countless times. Spells can make you bleed… but then again, this isn’t the spell’s fault. It’s mine.

Tercius kept his bloody stone and headed to the nearest bathroom. There, he washed away the dirt and blood, from both his hand and stone and inspected the wound. It wasn't deep, nor wide, just a strip of skin that got peeled off by the impact. He ripped off the hanging bits around the edges of the wound and made sure nothing foreign was in it. From his amulet, he conjured a strip of clean fabric, and bound it around his hand a few times, while leaving his thumb free.

“I should find some alcohol for that…” Tercius murmured, as he reached for Familiar Bond.

His mind flowed in Amber’s direction along the link and he felt the direction she was in.

In the past few months, the little creature had a particularly intense growth spurt. Her body size almost doubled, while her head gained the particular shape that gave the river lions the second part of their name. As her transformation had progressed Amber only had the energy to eat and then sleep. Tercius had grown worried and he had asked Mistress Helfira for a written permission to visit the Librarium. With the help of the librarians, he had learned that the growth spurt signaled the start of the sexual maturity of the river lions.

He learned that river lions laid anywhere between twelve and twenty eggs in a single mating season, and the little buggers had three annual mating seasons! In the wilderness, most of the offspring would never reach maturity for various reasons, but Amber and her potential children were not in the wilderness. If he didn't dispose of the tiny eggs, then most if not all of her children would hatch and grow up, only for the same thing to happen two more times during the year. Of course, she needed a male for that and thankfully one was not available currently. But that state would not last forever. The eventuality required some beforehand research.

Tercius went to the reading room and picked up Amber from Euria.

"You won't stay?" Eunim asked as he saw Tercius head out with Amber in hand.

“Amber and I have an appointment,” Tercius said.

Together the two of them went for a visit to Master Zver, the aging beast tamer mage. His workshop was just on the outskirts of the Academy, and Tercius had already made an appointment at a previous date. Seated in the corner of Master Zver’s workshop, Tercius explained his problem to the mage, who only considered it for a moment before answering.

"You have potions and spells of a temporary nature, of course," the old man said while stroking his gray facial hair. "And the same of the more permanent variety," the old man nodded and looked at Amber for a while. "The scale pattern on your pet is quite pleasing to the eye, I do have to say, in a very strange manner. Very strange indeed. Are you interested in selling her?"

Tercius resisted a frown. “No, Master, I’m not,”

Without skipping a beat a book appeared in the old man's hands and he started leafing through the pages. "Then don't make her sterile permanently. That's a… Sogean River Lion… south Sogean to be precise—" the old man briefly turned the book to show an accurate drawing of Amber's kind. "—present only on the banks of Hippotion… Hmm… I think that the zoo has a few male specimens. If she were to lay viable eggs, then I would buy all of them. A moment, please," the old man said, as the book disappeared and another appeared. "Hmm… we can do the exchange at one Repository point per… ten eggs, let's say. If you hatch them, then I will buy only the hatchlings with a pattern like that—" he pointed at Amber. "— two per point, let's say,"

"I…" Tercius paused, as his heart skipped. Did the old man make shoes or something? Forget that, the old man accurately pinpointed the general area of Tercius's home, making his nerves a bit tense. This had been a mistake. Lately, it seemed that he couldn't prevent his past from floating up. There were so many details that linked him to the past, that he started dreaming that Mistress Kalina had found his family from some of his slip-ups. The dream would always end there because he always woke up. Tercius coughed, his Acting [5] coming to his aid. His heartbeat settled. “I will think about it. Master, do you mind sharing with me the names of these potions and spells, and where I might find someone who would be willing to sell them?”

“You can find both here,” the old man said, his hands pointing around the workshop and then finally at himself. “You can get seven vials of the temporary potion for one Repository point or one of the permanent kind. Each spell, on the other hand, is one Repository point per cast,”

Tercius stayed a while yet, asking a few questions of interest to the old mage. All of the answers came with a friendliness that was difficult to handle as Tercius grew worried about his slip-ups. The foul mood and thoughts followed him back to the dorms, all through the dinner with his friends, and it was one of the last things on his mind before he fell asleep.

Morning arrived and he found it difficult to get up. Neither his body nor his mind wanted to leave the bed. Both demanded rest and darkness, safety and oblivion. Lately, all days had started with that state, and a single question had come to linger in the back of his mind.

How long can I keep getting up to this?

Alarms flared to life in him, their red lights blazing like lighthouses on a stormy night. He knew that question. The last time he had asked himself that question, he had left college within a week. His mind went deeper, and he saw the time before that when he had left his old family home just when he turned eighteen.

Tercius admitted something to himself at that moment. He felt stifled and suffocated. He had felt that way for months now. The pressure of his cruel imagination had been weighing on him like a hydraulic press, slowly increasing in intensity to see when he would snap. He wouldn't for a while yet, he knew. But he didn't want things to go that far, in the first place. That was why he had left his old home, that was why he had left college. Both times he had known that he was approaching a breaking point and that he needed some space only for himself.

Leave the Academy? Tercius’s eyes narrowed. As things stood now, that had more appeal than all the knowledge collected in the Repository. Despite all of the downsides and possible fallouts from that action, he seriously considered it. Just a simple pack, and leave everything behind. Or… seek out Mistress Kalina and clear this all up. I need to know on what ground I'm standing. I can't keep guessing and thinking over what-ifs over and over again. I can't keep my guard up all day, every day.

Not anymore.