After playing with the little ones for a while, I do feel better. And while I did, I let my mind drift; what Hilde said reminded me of that ‘apport’ item summon spell, and when I concentrate I can feel the little speck that is the summon mark on the wand I made way back then. Barely, but I suppose it’s expected that it would fade when neither used nor maintained.

I want to try it, and some other things, but it doesn’t fit this persona, so I say goodbye to the puppies. It’s hard to leave them behind, in the physical meaning, and I get some kinda ratcatcher of Hameln scene as they enthusiastically stumble after me. I feel my face redden as the ‘train’ draws attention from other humans, but thankfully they’re no longer following me when I leave the Den.

By taking a lesser used route I soon get to an empty spot, and quickly strip down and transform into a wolf. A short-ish run later I’m far enough away to take on the flight form and put on my normal clothes, then fly over to sweden.

The apport spell works all the way over here, which is nice, but the fact that I can use my magic to affect something far outside my normal mana range raises some intriguing possibilities, but that’ll have to be later. Time for some Sweden-shopping.

With the freshly bought groceries stored where they should, I apport the wand again, having refreshed the mark and left it in an out-of-place location. Yep, that still works. I haven’t tested it over longer distances -should’ve thought of that for the US trip-, but I’m pretty sure this moves faster than light, using the ‘skip the inbetween stuff’ loophole. And also magic.

I didn’t think too deeply about it before, but how the heck does this actually work? From a purely practical perspective, it lets me summon an item that I have marked over very long distances. The mark… I can somewhat sense it from a distance, perhaps it’s something like all these ‘bonds’ (which I should also look into), and holds part of the spell.

What if I… change that part of the spell? Could I use it for remote activation? Could I use that to make a portal?

I mean, the problem with making a portal is that you need to make both sides at the same time, and connect them, so either very carefully coordinated cooperation with someone else, or you’re limited by your mana range.

Well, before delving into that rabbit hole, what are the limitations? So far I’ve only tried it on simple things, like wands (essentially sticks), one non-enchanted bag, and that pickaxe, which I… have absolutely no use for, given my magic. Well, if there was some highly magic-resistant thing I wanted to excavate, perhaps, but, eh, remove all the other stuff with magic first and you’re left with the good stuff? Or at least a clump of mostly the good stuff.

What about a ballpoint pen? What about something bigger? Living things? I should thaw the last remaining slime to test that one. Err, for some definition of alive. The pen is fast enough to test and pose no problem. Summoning the paper bin leaves the paper behind the first time, but when I remake the enchantment to cover the insides, it works just fine.

In fact, since the enchantment is on the bin and not the contents themselves, you could possibly use this for some kinda two-way transportation thingy. Hmm… Bin or bucket on some pressure plate. Manual summon of the bin, and the release of the bin starts a timer, and the bin is summoned back after a minute or so. Or just make it remotely activated via the internet. Either way I need to figure out how to enchant the summoning part.

The slime is summonable, but absorbs the enchantment really quickly, if a bit unevenly, and washing up the scattered remains takes some time. Well, at least that frees up some space in the freezer before summer.

With that cleaned up, I make a standard-issue experimental mouse puppet, and almost immediately find a challenge: Actually getting the enchantment to stick. Curious, I try some other, more common enchantments, with the same result: some combination of innate magic resistance and something else makes it hard to even apply the enchantment, and it rather quickly degrades.

So I go about it from another angle, and put the puppet in the paper bin and summon that. Which… works. Surprisingly well, actually. Okay, so the mana cost of the summoning spell went up drastically, and the mouse’s magic went a bit haywire, seemingly being consumed by the spell once it broke through the magic resistance, and my stomach is churning, but a little teleportation sickness is a minor price to pay for instant transportation.

Note to self: Vehemently oppose testing any sort of teleportation on human subjects. Maybe even animals.

After lying on the couch for a while for the queasiness to fade I get right back up and start fiddling with the summoning mark in the hopes of finding a way to do remote magic activation. For the most part changes either do nothing or make the spell itself do nothing, but eventually I manage to isolate the part of the spell the summoning half uses to connect to the mark, and bind that to an enchantment.

An enchantment which does not work.

No matter what I do.

After spending far too much time trying to make it work I go back a few steps, but make no progress by the time I’m interrupted by a call from a british number.

I take it but remain silent, in case it’s another of those automated scam callers, but instead of hanging up after quite exactly one second is silence, an actual person on the other end speaks up.

I answer that I am, in fact, here, and she introduces herself as being from some fancy-sounding school, and talks a bit about how they’ve ‘seen my track record’ and ‘know of my abilities’ and some other filler to butter me up or something before she’ll presumably ask me to perform at some graduation speech or maybe something for the next school start.

“-and we’re wondering if you could hold classes next year?”

Called it. Wait…

“F-kin what? Classes? Like a teacher?”

“Yes, you are among the world’s best in magic and have several highly satisfied clients in magical tutoring-”

“No, but… Me? As a teacher? With kids? I thought you said you’ve seen my track record? Are you serious?”

“Mr. Eikeli, I am quite serious. While you have a propensity for impulsive, sometimes reckless actions, you have never knowingly put anyone other than yourself at risk, and your history of injuries, and recovery, gives you a certain… unique experience with the dangers of magic. Not to mention, when other people are involved you take as many safety precautions as you can.

“Well, yeah, of course I would, letting clients be hurt is really bad for business, not to mention that it’d be quite unethical to put someone in danger when I could have taken reasonable safety precautions.”

“And that side of you is why you’re even being considered for this; we would like you to teach the basics of magic with a focus on safety. And if you’re worried about business, I can promise this deal would be quite valuable.”

“I… see.” I mutter, before thinking over it. It sounds like a great offer (on the surface, at least), and while I’d need to find out the exact details, it’s close enough that I can fly there as a day-trip.

“Okay, so…” I begin, mentioning the potential issues of a commute and the details of what I’d actually teach, but state that it sounds interesting and agree to meeting them for further discussion in a few days.

The flight to britain gives me plenty of time to think and reflect. While I usually let my mind drift in a thoughtless space for long periods during longer flights such as this, the implications, effects, and things we can learn from the wolfkins’ coming births linger on my mind. My conclusions, if you could call them that, exist in that odd state of thought you so clearly know, but if anyone were to ask you to formulate it in words, you wouldn’t be able to give a satisfying answer.

They’ll give birth any time now, and it has been arranged for a human staying with them twenty-four seven, with a couple veterinarians available on-call. The fact that they haven’t yet is interesting, though, because that means their gestation period is comparable to that of humans, as opposed to the wolves they once were.

Also interesting is that most of them have shapeshifted after they got pregnant. Well, once it started becoming more visible they first got reluctant, then seem to have formed a mental block against larger shapeshifting. Now they couldn’t even if they wanted; pregnancy seems to make it really hard to even use mana, much less complex (relatively speaking) spells such as shapeshifting. Hmm, does that apply to normal humans, too?

I’ve been thinking of another trip to the US, too. I’d check in on Karma and the other artisans, partially for business, partially to try some things at their now fully operational forge, and partially because the chat group is talking about a lot of interesting-sounding projects I want to check out. But mostly I’ll just go to places I haven’t been, probably staying for longer and traveling west then along the west coast.

Hm, I should check if there’s enough interest in east asia. I should be able to make something that is easy to market or japanese otaku. And while… boring, in a way, youthful rejuvenation has that universal draw, and there’s enough interest that I could more or less do it full-time.

Oh, that over there is the school, isn’t it?

Hmm, maybe I should set up what is essentially a clinic? With the price, a flight to come to me (as opposed to the other way round) is a neglectible cost, and what is a day against a longer lifespan? Or at least longer youth. Gotta be careful with the advertisements, there. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I like this idea. A clinic/office would be a more ‘professional’ place to do the bigger shapeshifting operations; be it for privacy or to give the person a place to get used to the changes. So far I’ve just done that at people’s home, which works (and is arguable a better place for the latter), but… yeah.

Seems like it’s recess as I come in for a landing, given the amount of kids doing some combination of pointing, gawking, and shouting for their friends. I barely have time revert my wings to hands, keeping the feather coat in the chilly march wind, before a teacher approaches me and instructs me where to go.

The instructions were precise, though somewhat redundant, and after going straight in the door, then through the door saying ‘staff’, I’m waved into a meeting room and shake hands with the principal, two advisors, two nurses, and one person who do not state their position.

I wonder aloud at why there’s two nurses, and they inform me that since the school is a mixed primary and secondary school, there for each part; they share duties somewhat, but have different focuses. Then again, with over a thousand students, I suppose that’s necessary.

With introductions in order, I get straight down to business:

“What do you want me to teach?”

“I believe it was mentioned previously, but we believe that it would be extremely valuable for the children to learn the fundamentals of magic in a safe and systematic fashion. As such, you would teach said fundamentals, as well as how to safely use magic.”

“Right.” I flick my wrist as I summon the piece of paper I wrote my keyword notes on.

“That’s one concern I have. You’ve already gone over why you actually trust me to this, but what age group of kids are we talking about?”

They exchange glances, “Well, we certainly want as many as possible to learn about safety, and everyone in secondary school should learn to use it.”

“So… Three grades of… three classes each?”

“Five grades with two to three grades each.”

“Oh. Ages?”

“Eleven to sixteen.”

“Great,” Sigh. “tweens with magic.”

I get questioning looks at that. “Err, in my experience younger kids have… are… Uh, they seem to have a harder time controlling mana - that is, use magic at all - and their control tends to be shaky. That combined with my reputation seems to make them think I’m sorta super magic user or something.”

“Is that not what you are?”

I open my mouth, but when put like that, yeah. Can’t really refute it, so I bob my head to the side and back.

“Anyway aside from the barest of basics in mana control, which I reckon any teacher can teach better than me if they just know the theory, I don’t think it’s effective to teach anyone under the age of twelve. Safety I can do in the form of presentations, and it could be all motivational and stuff.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Well, I base most of my spells on the laws of physics and such. Not only is it a lot easier to work with them than against them, but a lot of the same principles apply to magic, too. Conservation of mass and energy, for example. Wasted mana will become some other energy, often heat. And presentations are time-efficient, too.”

“I see.”

“Returning to the topic of actually teaching them, the best age group for learning magic is probably the oldest ones. The only problem there is that they’re teenagers, infamous for poor decision-making, but I suppose I’d give them the more complex science and safety course.”

“To elaborate, the more complex science and safety course is just part of what I do for longer tutoring, and I teach them my methods for making new spells, how I test them safely, and the like. In short, you use the scientific method to create a hypothesis -in this case, an idea for a spell- then go about using what you know to test it.”

It seems like both advisors got teaching-boners from that, and the women launch into a discussion about integrating magic into other subjects, eventually asking me a couple of quick questions for clarification, and suggesting that I should work with the various teachers to weave magic the various subjects.

“Oh, but what about Mr. Scott? He can’t-” the nurse glances at me, “he can’t use magic.”

“So he’s a ki user?”

“Ki user?”

I look around. “Wait really? None of you know that a significant amount of people can’t use magic, having ki instead? It’s more common in martial artists and those who train their body a lot. Oh, and in asia.”

The principal is about to speak up but I hold up my hand.

“Actually, that was another point on my list here. Ki and mana is mutually exclusive, but you can switch from mana to ki, and I think I can force the other way, too. I would need do a few tests, of course, but if it works I could offer the change for all the pupils.”

“And how does that work? If you’re willing to tell us, of course.”

“So, uh, the method I know works, was done by a… very intimate couple. But you shouldn’t need that, the key point is that the man’s ki overwhelmed and replaced the woman’s mana while they, uhh…”

I trail off and wave my hand as I try to think of a better way to phrase that.

“Not important. Point is, I think I can, at least with Leda’s help, but probably with just a medium-sized mana absorption array, do the same but opposite.”

“So you just… replace all this… ki, with mana?”

“Err, yeah? Well, I mean, ki and mana is like oil and water, doesn’t really mix. The running theory online is that whatever you got first, mana or ki, you got stuck with. Those who had tried magic between the Reveal and Upheaval got mana, but other than that it seems to have been mostly up to chance.”

I scratch my head. “In short, if you push off of the ki out, only mana remains, and no more ki can come. I haven’t gotten around to testing it yet, though. There are some potential safety concerns, and I don’t know if it can be done completely safe.”

The person who didn’t state a title, having kept quiet for all this time, takes the word. “How safe is it?”

“Oh, that depends on whether you’ve practiced it or not. As you practice ki -or mana- it becomes more integrated with your body, and I know that for my own part I will feel really weak if I use all or most of my mana, and if the change from high to low mana is fast, I’ll lose consciousness momentarily. Also, it sucks.”

He looks thoughtful, noting something down on a small (paper) notepad. “And this ki… how do you practice it?”

“Exercise, meditation, breathing techniques… Any of that has some effect, but… You’ll know? It seems largely instinctual, at least after you reach the first stage.”

“First stage?”

“Practicing ki is known as cultivation, it’s really like the concept of the same name in a genre of primarily chinese stories, and your progression is ‘measured’ by milestones in changing your body and learning new abilities.

He finishes scribbling down whatever he’s writing, then look me dead in the eyes. “Up to which stage would you say it is safe enough to try your experiment?”

“Safe enough? Ideally, ‘zeroth’ stage, but I don’t think it poses any long term risk in the first stage, and it would probably be fine for most of the second stage.”

“Principal, will you call Mr. Scott here?”

A minute later ‘Mr. Scott’ enters and is told of the possibility that I could make him able to use magic. Seeing a grown man tear up like that…

I probe him with my mana, washing through his body to get a sense of- ah- oops.

“I’m gonna want a legal waiver here. I don’t have anything at the ready, but a short note saying you agree to the ki-to-mana procedure and that I will have no responsibility for the effects, long or short term, and that I have no obligations to revert it or anything.”

I have to clarify that I think it is quite safe, but that my lawyer said I should make sure I have waivers for stuff like this, even if the chance is infinitesimally small. Getting an empty paper from the notepad, he writes the waiver without thinking twice, however, and I carefully fold it and store it in one of the smaller pockets in my bag.

“Quick question, do you do any kind of meditation or exercise?”

“…no?”

“Okay, cus… Uhh, you already have mana, so you can use magic now.”

“What!?” he almost yells. “Since when?”

“Since I accidentally pushed out what little ki you had when I scanned you.”

“Here you are talking about how reluctant you are to even try because it might be dangerous, and it happened accidentally?” He says through tears of joy.

“Well, yeah, I don’t know the long term effects. Also, don’t thank me yet-”

I reach out with a tendril of mana, taking control of the feeble amount left behind after the scan.

“Hold out your hand.”

He does so, and I cast -via him- the simplest possible spell with an actual effect: I push the mana out of him, and, having made it unstable, let it disperse in the form of light and heat.

“Now try to do that, without me.”

It takes a bit of trying, but eventually a he creates some warmth and a bit of light. It might be too dim to see in the well lit room, but it’s there, and after his subsequent try he thanks me profusely before returning to his office to prepare for his next lesson, eyes still teary.

The last point on my list (‘the commute’) isn’t that big of an issue. Finding a place to sleep should be a non-issue, and the principal says they will coordinate so that I don’t have to fly back and forth every day, by clustering lessons either in one or two days per week, or in weeks with longer pauses in between.