The second trimester began with all of my Monday classes. Language first followed by History, Practical Chemistry, and Spellcasting. On Tuesday, I had Spearfighting and Spellcasting practice, while on Thursday I had Spearfighting and Practical Chemistry lab.

The history teacher was a woman in her mid-fifties. She would have been old enough to have spent her formative years pre-Calamity. Like the other classrooms, this one fit about thirty kids. Thankfully, I had a few people I knew to sit with. Dave was in another section, but Keira and Alicia sat with me.

"Good morning, Class," the teacher said, "my name is Mrs. Sullivan."

"Good morning," we responded. It sounded rather half-assed.

"In this class, we will go over the Calamity and what happened after that. There will be a little about the pre-Calamity, but that will be covered in more detail in another class. The world pre-Calamity is just too different from the one now that it is only useful for exploring the ruins that still remain."

Mrs. Sullivan showed a yellowing paper map of what I recognized as the Earth! I had to fight to keep my mouth closed. I shouldn't have been too surprised, though. I'd read famous books like 1984. Still, it really hit me.

"This is what the pre-Calamity world looked like."

She pulled out another yellowing piece of paper. I recognized it as the state of Virginia.

"This is what the area we live in used to look like."

She pulled a newer piece of paper. Many of the major landmarks looked similar, but it was all distorted.

"This is a map of the Kingdom of the Commonwealth where we live as well as some of the surrounding area. As you can see, it looks similar. The only thing you can't tell from just the map is that the new land is at least twice the area of the old one. It's not uniform, either. The land got stretched differently in different places.

"Class, I have a question for you. What is the Calamity?"

A girl near the front raised her hand.

"Yes, miss...?"

"Stacy Alberts. The Calamity is when magic came to the world."

"Exactly right. The reason it's called 'the Calamity' instead of 'the Awakening' or something positive is that it was a devastating event. I remember when it happened. In an instant, the world expanded and magic invaded everything. The technology of the old world stopped working in that instant.

"In the first year, the confusion, the monsters, and just the initial stretching of reality killed nearly ninety percent of people. The following four years saw another fifty percent drop. That means out of one hundred people, only five lived. I was one of the lucky ones. My husband, my parents, my friends... they were less lucky.

"There were fewer people who died after the first year because we adapted. Those of us who fought monsters gained levels and stats. With some ways to combat monsters, smaller towns were founded, like Fredericton. Those towns grew quickly and formed into countries. About five years after the Calamity, things were more stable. There were few survivors out there on their own. Most had joined the towns and cities. There has been some sporadic fighting between countries these last thirty years, but monsters have been the main issue facing all of us.

"With all of the changes, almost everything from the old world has disappeared. Weapons either no longer work or don't have ammunition. The old political landscape is gone. Even the way we use money has changed. The coins we use now come from dungeons where hunters and adventurers go kill monsters to collect materials that make the modern economy work."

The teacher continued with the overview, but there was nothing more important said about the history of the world. We were in the year 37 AC, where 'AC' stood for 'After the Calamity'. This meant I was born in 31 AC.

Practical Chemistry didn't have any information for me yet. Spellcasting, on the other hand, was a treasure trove. Dave and Keira shared this class with me, Alicia being farther ahead with magic, of course.

Spellcasting was similar enough to the way I'd circulate my mana. Once it was circulating, the mana would have to be woven together to create the spell. How people figured any of this out in only thirty-seven years blew my mind. The basic spells were all very simple. There were two kinds of weaves. The first was inside the body--an enhancement-- and the second was external--an attack of some kind.

"Class," the teacher said, "each of the basic internal weaves fortifies one aspect. For example, Red Magic's internal weave boosts the user's strength. The other magic types affect the same stat that they boost with the skill. The external weaves vary, though. Red's external can be something like a fireball while White's could be curse removal.

"The simple weave is done by taking three strands of the magic as you circulate and then braiding them together into a strong rote of mana. If you do this in yourself, you get the internal effect. If you do this externally, you get the external effect."

"Mr. Browne?" a student asked.

"Yes?"

"What if we use more than one type of magic in the basic weave?"

"If it's internal, it'll boost the aspects of those types of magic, but to a lesser degree than if it was just one type. If it's external, it could do just about anything. We'll study these later in the trimester. Specialty courses will give you a deeper understanding, so take the ones that you are interested in once you can qualify for them. You can practice these weaves tomorrow afternoon, but I warn you. Do not use Black Magic externally. They are curses. If you want to practice them, you'll have to wait until you can practice on monsters next trimester."

"Why can't we practice curses?" another student asked.

"Because you need a living opponent to practice with, unlike most of the other types, and of the ones that require a living opponent, Black Magic is the only one that is potentially lethal."

After a pause in which the student asking nodded his head, the teacher continued.

"For the rest of this time, please practice weaving internally. Save the external practice for tomorrow."

I started by circulating my mana in general. Splitting it into strands was difficult but not impossible. I spent the class just getting two strands of mana to begin weaving with. It would take a lot more practice. This was definitely more difficult than the mana training had been.

I took the afternoon to practice this. I managed to weave the simple weave internally by the end of the day. I could feel the boost in power that it brought me. I'd used General Magic as the basis rather than any particular type, so it boosted all of my stats a little bit. Testing with Red Magic along showed that the boost to a single stat was about three times as powerful, but I got more boost for my mana by using General Magic. I didn't have the MP to try using combinations like Red Magic, Blue Magic, and Green Magic woven together, but I guessed the boost would be a fraction as strong but covering more stats. What that fraction was could only be discovered by trying it out. A task for another day.