After sleeping for about half the day, I woke up and began working on my magic. Mainly trying to improve my understanding of the elements I hadn’t studied on Mundus, trying to figure out how they worked and in what ways I might be able to incorporate them into my spellcasting. Sadly, without the affinity to them, progress was slow going, though I did manage to push my Water Magic to level three and the long shower afterwards was enough to push my Water Rune Mastery to three. Getting a handle on the temperature of the water was still eluding me. Still, I thought that pure focus and Water Magic might be enough, or would certainly be enough if I managed to incorporate a concept of a geyser, or some sort of natural hot spring.

Sadly, my work was cut short when a loud barrage of loud barks announced that something was happening. Walking up the stairs into the almost uncomfortably bright upper floors of the house, I only needed a moment to figure out what was going on. My students wanted to visit and the army of dog had decided to protect the house, barking in an attempt to warn them off, while also alerting Silva and me.

“Silence,” I commanded and for a moment, the effect startled me. The noise immediately died down, as if somebody had pressed the mute button on the remote. When I took a cautious look outside, making sure to stay out of the sun, I was greeted by the sight of a good dozen dogs, standing more or less at the ready, keeping their eyes trained on my students - Who were standing on the street, staring back at the dogs and looking rather perturbed.

“They are my students, let them in,” I commanded and again, the dogs demonstrated just how intelligent they were when they moved aside to open the path.

My students, obviously not confused by the situation made the best of it, and simply went with it, no matter how strange. Maybe it was a good opportunity to make them more accepting of the weird and insane, something rather useful on the Arcane Path. At least if it was properly harnessed, most things weird and insane were fascinating but it could also kill you if you weren’t careful. And sometimes they could kill you, even if you were careful, but that was just one of the pitfalls on our path.

Grinning to myself, I watched as my students entered, before moving into the room I had used as the classroom.

“Lia, come here, it’s class time,” I called out, stopping Lia’s martial training. She had shown incredible enthusiasm, both for the lessons I had given her and what little Mrs Wu had shown her thus far. In addition to the enthusiasm, she seemed to have quite a bit of talent, or maybe the experience of the night had jostled her in the right direction, when I had briefly checked on her earlier, her progress had been readily visible. It would still take her hundreds of hours to perfect her style, but she went from wild flailing to the beginnings of a fighting style.

“Ms Samantha, what’s with the dogs? Before, you only had that huge dog but now, there’s a whole pack of them,” Kevin asked, looking out the door, to the gathered dogs, with a look that mixed awe and fear. Sure, the individual dogs were relatively weak, only between level four and seven by my reckoning, but with twenty of them, they could do quite a bit of damage. And that was while ignoring their magic.

While we waited for Lia to appear, I gave them a simplified version of the events, just telling them that Silva, Lia and I had saved the pack and the dogs were now working with and following us. Mostly Silva but I was relatively sure that the humans considered dogs, even an incredibly powerful dog like Silva, as something beneath them. And while Silva was my follower, I doubted she’d follow anybody else if something were to happen to me.

Finally, Lia appeared and I began the lesson, trying to make sure everybody had a similar foundation, to build their skills on.

“Today, we’ll talk about different types of magic, not only the differences between elements but also the fundamental differences between innate, arcane and divine magic. Amusingly, all three can have very similar effects, only the way one goes about creating them is vastly different,” I started the lesson of the day, partially using the experience with the dogs the previous night to illustrate, partially trying to help Lia with her own self-exploration and understanding. It was an interesting subject, even if my own knowledge of it was somewhat spotty and routed in speculation.

Especially when it came to the boundaries between the skills. The easiest to differentiate was divine magic, if the power came from a deity, or any higher power, really, it was divine magic. Sure, I was relatively certain that the foundation of divine magic was either a parasitic or a symbiotic partnership between deity and follower, which it was I had no idea, but that was neither here nor there. Just because mortals originally supplied the Astral Power during prayer didn’t mean that the power wasn’t filtered or changed by contact with the divine, giving it attributes that it normally wouldn’t have.

Amusingly, the closest analogy I could come up with was the tax system, prior to the change. Everybody, at least theoretically, in the community gave their fair share, to give a higher power the means to supply its agents with the ability to enact positive change within the community.

But that was neither here nor there. Divine Magic was, quite frankly, the least interesting of them all, as it was simply having a patron do the heavy lifting, while you supplied that patron with the sweet, sweet Astral Power of the congregation.

Innate Magic, on the other hand, was more interesting, while also being less complex. However, it was not something that could be trained, at least not directly. Class Abilities could be considered innate, at least to a point, as could racial abilities or those that were otherwise acquired. Prime examples were Lia’s claws and my own Magical Sight, both abilities that used Astral Power to allow the user to do something normally impossible.

Lastly, Arcane Magic. The widest category and what we all were studying. I classified everything that could be taught to others as arcane, though that might simply be my personal bias. If there was a chance to teach the ability to another, it was an arcane ability.

For a few hours, we were discussing the varied abilities out there, my students considering how their own abilities might fit into a wider paradigm and how they might be able to improve them. In my eyes, only understanding allowed you to progress on the Arcane Path, and that was what my lessons were focused on. Understanding of the self, of the physical world and the Astral, all three were necessary to master the arcane path, at least that was my conviction.

Amusingly, by the end of the discussion, I noticed that the dogs had clustered around us, especially the smaller dogs. The dogs that had used magic the night before, I was almost certain they were listening and only the language barrier on their end prevented them from joining in.

Maybe that should be my next project, figure out a way to speak with dogs, especially Silva. There was much to learn there and having a few extra bodies, all with their own abilities, could prove vital.

But that was only half of it. According to my students, there were more people at the gym with affinities, though apparently none of them was brave enough to learn directly from me. Even with the help I had given the survivors here, there was a certain fear and distrust directed towards me, but that wasn’t anything new. So, instead of trying to force the issue, I decided to give my students some resources so they’d be able to teach on their own. It would almost certainly reduce the quality of the lessons but the other people with affinities would at least learn something.

And I was curious if there’d be some sort of paying forward thing going on, where I’d get EXP for teaching people how to teach. I doubted it, but if it worked, it would be incredible. Though I was relatively certain that if there was such a mechanic, Mrs Wu would have outstripped me in level already, simply due to the number of people she was teaching.

Regardless, it was something that would ultimately improve the chances of survival for the people here, while costing me nothing but some time.

With that in mind, I began to give my pupils instructions to gather information. THere were so many affinities out there, I couldn’t even begin to speak of them all. Even if we focused on those that were present, it would take a few days but that was time I was willing to spend on the experiment.

Somehow, my original plan of moving on within a day or two had changed, making me wonder, just how long would I stay here? How long should I stay, how long did I want to stay?

And where should I go, once I decided to leave?