- Julia -

What a hassle.

We only came down here so that I could demonstrate Basic Magic to Michael, but ended up dispersing an underground arena. I’ll have to report this to Edward tomorrow.

If anything, I’m glad I had an opportunity to practice my Magic. It seems my training with Stella has been paying off. She went in depth on the deeper nature of Alteration Magic and she even taught me how to create Essential substances like Black Iron.

Now, what to do about those two?

I peaked over at Michael, who was having a conversation with the boy we detained. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but I had the crawling feeling that he was up to no good.

“Hey! Are you ready to go yet?” I yelled over at them. Michael hurriedly said something to the boy before looking back at me.

“Come over here!”

What is he up to now? I walked over to where they were and sat down near them.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Well as a matter of fact, this guy here is interested in Basic Magic too! Crazy right? You can start your lesson on Basic Magic with the two of us as your students.” Michael proposed.

I looked at the two of them suspiciously as they were obviously up to something, but they stared back innocently like two children asking their mother to read them a book.

“Sure, why not. That gets our goal of reviewing Basic Magic out of the way.” I replied.

“Great!” Michael reached over and grabbed the Black Iron cuff I latched onto the boy’s wrist, cleaving it in half with a precise blade of wind.

“Before we start, let’s get introductions underway.” Michael announced. “My name’s Michael, a first year student. I haven’t been assigned to a district yet.”

“I guess I’m next.” said the boy. “My name’s Derrick Castlewood. I’m also in my first year without an assigned district.”

Might as well get it over with.

“My name is Julia Lockhart, first year student, no district.” I shared. “I’ll be showing you guys how to use Basic Magic today.”

Michael started clapping with exaggerated mirth and the boy named Derrick seemed to be following along. I rolled my eyes and continued.

“I’ll start my lesson then. As you know, the first Magic form discovered was Alteration Magic, which I’m sure you guys know of.”

I was interrupted when Derrick’s hand shot up. “I don’t know what it is!”

I stared at him in shock. “Are you serious?” He simply responded with an idiotic smile and I could see Michael holding back a laugh.

Idiots…

I collected my thoughts and continued the lesson. “Alteration Magic is the name for Magic that utilizes Essential energy to create change at a microscopic level. Put simply, it’s the Magic of small motion. It used to simply be called Magic until Vector Magic was discovered a year afterward. Vector Magic is the Magic of big motion, utilizing Essential energy to cause change at a macroscopic level.”

“So Vector Magic is just a larger scale version of Alteration Magic?” Michael questioned.

“Conceptually yes, but it can also be seen as the opposite of Alteration.”

Wait, why don’t you already know this?

I was starting to doubt that these two really needed me to teach them something so basic, but they seemed to sense my uncertainty as their eyes started to glow with attentive curiosity.

Michael already knew Magic before entering the school, and was even familiar enough with it to use it comfortably in combat. I severely doubt that he doesn’t know at least this much about the Magic forms.

On the contrary, he didn’t even know how to use Basic Magic so it’s not a stretch to assume that he may not have learned the basic principles of Magic when he was younger.

Haah, it’s been a long day. I need to study when I get home as well. Let’s just go through this quickly and head out.

I channeled the Essence within my body and drew it through my arm all the way to the palm of my hand. I then began pooling it at the surface of my skin, picturing it passing through, and consequently, a conversion channel formed on my hand by which my Life Essence shifted and converted into Shifted Essence before exiting my body. Finally, I formed concatenating script filters above my palm for the Shifted Essence to pass through to cause Magic.

“Look here. This is the basic Alteration filter that we learned a few months ago. If you look at the design, there are four different parameters one must set in order for the filter to work: X, Y, Z, and T. XYZ is the space parameter, while T is the time parameter.”

“My head is starting to hurt.” Derrick exclaimed with a pained expression.

“How do you think I feel?” Michael asked. “I have to listen to her talk everyday.”

“Shut it or I’m leaving.” I said angrily.

“Sorry, please continue.”

I sighed and focused back on the circle. “The four parameters on an Alteration filter are always balanced by a neutral parameter on the other side of the second layer. Now if we change it to a Vector filter…” I quickly altered the circle while talking. “Then you’ll see that the neutral parameters that are supposed to be balancing the spacetime parameters are now bonded to them. Because of this vast difference in principle, Vector Magic is considered by many researchers to be an entirely different Magic type from Alteration Magic.”

“Okay… I think I get it.” Derrick said, with an expression that said he didn’t understand a thing I just told him.

“Now to move on to Basic Magic, it follows the same general concept as the other two forms, but similarly to Vector Magic, has a varying structure from its predecessors.” I slowly began changing the circle into a Basic filter, making sure not to mess up the process. “A Basic filter is formed by adding another component to the center of the circle, called an Shifted Essence channel, or SE channel for short. You then remove the neutral filters entirely and add another barrier in its stead, creating a double barrier formation.”

The new filter was completed and I began scripting and activating it. “Lastly, you pour Shifted Essence out of the SE Channel and input the parameters. If you input parameters that designate the Shifted Essence as the medium then you will have successfully achieved Basic Magic.”

I exhaled with satisfaction after completing my mini-lecture and looked to see how my audience was faring. Michael was nodding off with his head drooped and Derrick was staring off in a daze.

“Hey!”

They both jumped and sat up straight, frantically fixing their clothes and hair.

“Yep, yeah, I’m listening.” Michael lied panickedly.

‘What he said.” Derrick added.

I sighed defeatedly, cancelling the script in my hand. “You two make a great pair, don’t you?”