[I agree. To think that items could have this effect on someone's psyche is both fascinating and scary. Imagine if you can craft a s.h.i.+eld that makes the enemy feel fear or indecisiveness?]

{That would indeed be awesome. Judging by how Edward's armor made us ignore his presence, it is probably the case that crafters make use of this to elevate the quality of their work. And what about this 'transcendence' upgrade?}

[As the Temelth's Bless caused it, I think you should not mention it to anyone else until you learn more about what is normal and what is not.]

Riwall could not help but admire how Friday was always thinking about applications to anything they learned. He let a feeling of gratefulness flow into their connection, making Friday feel proud of herself.

————————————————————————————

The reveal of the Fourth Step really brought some changes to their training. Although the combat cla.s.ses got shortened, they became more frantic and unpredictable.

Friday's delicate control of the mana infusion allowed him to fight with frightening efficiency, but it soon became clear how Greg and Anna had a long way to go before being able to pace themselves to have enough mana to last an entire fight.

Eleanor intercalated short battles with lessons on how to properly manage your mana reserves while fighting. As Riwall had no need for her methods, he usually used this time to keep training inside the simulations Friday created.

Edward's new cla.s.ses were a breath of fresh air in their lives.

Every other day he would bring carca.s.ses of monsters from the Azure Forest and teach them how to properly identify the creature, what to watch for when fighting them, and how to harvest their bodies for resources. He even showed them how to properly handle a monster's mana core, which was a gemstone like the one he saw Eleanor offering to the G.o.d of Death, albeit much smaller.

His knowledge came from hunting in the forest for years before returning to the castle for his responsibilities as a Farsteel, so his lessons were never theoretical, much to Anna's delight.

They learned how to maintain their equipment, how to fix small damages to their clothes and gear, how to light fires, track monsters, how to hide their tracks, cook food with ingredients from the forest and how to judge an enemy power without the help of a spell.

————————————————————————————

The first cla.s.s with Hector after the changes was the most interesting, at least in Riwall's opinion.

"h.e.l.lo, kids. We have a lot of ground to cover in only one year, so I will have you study as much as possible during your off hours."

Anna groaned to that; she hated magic and studying. Hector did not miss his student's reaction.

"That doubles for you, Miss. You are barely qualified to attend this cla.s.s, so I will be keeping a close eye on your progress."

He continued.

"So far, you have worked to solidify your foundations to different degrees of success. Riwall has shown us how equally proficient he is with any of the four most basic elements. Greg has shown us how his mana is slight more attuned to earth and wind elements. And Anna has shown us how her mana seems to be strongly connected to the fire element."

"As you have probably noticed already, my lessons helped you become so used to casting using the three steps, that you barely need to focus on the 'information' step to cast a spell of the elements you have more affinity. This, however, does not mean that you have no need for this step, it means that your mind is so used to it, that you don't even need to focus and it will send the necessary 'information' forward."

{Just like muscle memory. Interesting.}

"There are two other major ways of casting a spell. Through a grimoire or other item, we creatively decided to call it item casting, and by chanting."

"The first is the easiest. A mage will give physical form to the process of casting one specific spell, and all the user will have to do is provide the spell with mana for it to manifest with the 'intention' and 'information' that the first mage provided."

Hector opened a beautiful book and showed them a specific page with a drawing that reminded Riwall of an enchantment.

Then, while one hand held the book opened on this particular page, the opposite arm was stretched and pointing his palm to a wooden dummy. Hector slowly infused mana in that page in a way they would be able to see, suddenly, a bird made of fire darted from the palm of the stretched arm and hit the dummy, exploding on impact.

{Curious, but useless to us.}

[It may be useless to you, but think about how much you can help your companions by creating some spells for them to use during a fight.]

{Ok, maybe not that useless.} Riwall could not help but chuckle, she always surprised him with some use for things he thought were useless.

"The second method for casting a spell is one you see more often, chanting. A chant is necessary whenever you want to cast a spell that is above your capacity of providing enough 'information' to the second step. Take, for example, the

Panel

spell you all know. It was created with the idea of emulating a Muller's Tablet effects on the user, but few have enough knowledge to properly feed the 'information' step."

"You may be wondering, how does a chant come to be? Who writes them? How can these words elicit a specific reaction from mana?"

He let those questions linger in the air for some seconds before answering.

"Just like you learned that you can infuse the skills with mana, the same holds true for imprinting a spell to the System like you can do to grimoires and other items."

"All the System demands in exchange is that you give this spell means of being activated. So, a mage goes through the three steps of casting a spell, he then has three choices: he can manifest the spell in the world, imprint this spell into an object, or imprint the spell into the System."

{That seems more useful than the method of affixing a spell to an item.}

"When a spell is imprinted to the System, it demands an activation phrase. The more complex the spell, the longer the activation phrase required."

Riwall raised his hand, and Hector allowed him to proceed with his question.

"Excuse me, Master. Doesn't that mean that there may be many chants to cast the same spell? What if someone accidentally says a chant? Shouldn't the System trigger the spell?"

"You are right, there must be millions of different chants to the same few spells. But saying the words of a chant and chanting are two different things. To properly cast a spell through chanting, it's imperative that you have the intention of doing so and have at least an abstract idea of the effects of the spell."

"Are there any benefits to going out of your way to create chants? Apart from wanting to share a spell with someone, of course."

"For one, you free yourself from the need to focus on a single spell during a fight. When things get frantic, you can't always afford to properly cast with the three steps method. The second benefit is the possibility of creating strategic-cla.s.s spells. These spells require so much mana that some need more than a dozen mages to fuel it. The only way of having that many people casting a single spell is if they are chanting at the same time. One caster out of sync can either make the casting fail or provoke a destructive reaction."

"Thank you, Master."

"Moving on. We will also dabble in advanced concepts and non-elemental magic casting. The advanced concepts we will be working on are Light and Dark, which influences the 'mana' step of spellcasting, and Entropy and Negentropy, which influences the 'intention' step of spellcasting. As the duo Entropy/Negentropy are too advanced, we will only briefly study them near the ending of our meetings purely for academic purposes."

Riwall raised his hand again.

"What are non-elemental magic?"

"Elemental magic are those that work by feeding the 'information' step with knowledge about how nature works, the more you know, the less mana you spend. To cast non-elemental magic, you provide the 'information' step with knowledge about the results you want the spell to produce. It's a blurry yet essential distinction."

"Just to see if I get it right. Elemental magic needs raw information about how things work in nature, while non-elemental magic needs information about how to achieve the desired effects, like healing a cut and feeding the 'information' step with knowledge of how a cut should heal under normal circ.u.mstances."

Hector was already used to the boy's knack for good simplifications, he wished to be half as good at this field.

"Yes. To make the distinction clearer. If you tried to cast a fireball while providing the 'information' step with knowledge about how the target's skin should burn, the spell would either fail or waste a lot of mana. Likewise, if you were to try healing a cut while providing the 'information' step with general knowledge about anatomy, the spell would either fail or waste a lot of mana."

{Rule of thump. Elemental = how things work. Non-elemental = how the desired effect works.}

"Just a warning. There are some gray areas too, some specific non-elemental desired effects will demand a lot of general knowledge too, but it will be obvious at the time, if you feel like you need to provide this information, just do it."

"Moving forward. Another thing to be aware from now onwards is that casting spells using the two methods I just told you about will yield no skill level."

{That's a given, there is barely any effort in understanding any concept while casting that way.}

"And finally, the last topic of today's cla.s.s before we move to practice some item casting. The existence of the System's party function and a System spell called

a.n.a.lyse

."

{Huh?}

"You may have noticed how the System seems to expand whenever we teach you new things. At first, you did not know about the panel at all, then, it became visible after you used the Muller's Tablet and accessible after you learned a specific spell."

"The party function is a tool created by the system to incentivize people to band together. The incentives are a faint sense of your companions' location, their general health and stamina situation, and the power to share exp between the members of the party."

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As soon as Hector finished his explanation, Friday informed Riwall of a new change.

[We have just received a stream of data about this party function. I am positive that we now can create a party to enjoy the benefits Hector mentioned.]

"There is a limit of four people in the same party, the one who will be the leader need to mentalize the idea of forming a party and who would be the members. The others will feel something tickling inside their heads, all they need to do is picture themselves accepting the invitation. Go on, try it, and then open your panels."

Riwall did as instructed, and soon Greg and Anna furrowed their brows.

[I will show you just the party panel, no need to fill your entire view with the rest of your stats.]

------ Party Panel------

---Leader---

-Name: Riwall Madec

-Age: 12

-Level: 01 (0%)

---Member 1---

-Name: Anna Kendric

-Age: 12

-Level: 01

---Member 2---

-Name: Gregory Marsastor (b.a.s.t.a.r.d)

-Age: 12

-Level: 01

————————————————————————————

{WHAT? Gregory is the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of someone from the Marsastor family? He mentioned how he never met his father, but to think it would be a Marsastor was beyond me.}

[Just so you know, this information would not show at the panel under normal circ.u.mstances. I saw a stream of data different from the others and translated it, probably all Greg can read in his own panel is his first name.]

{So you are not only a glorified calculator, but also a glorified paternity test?} Shocked as he was about Greg's family tree, he would not miss the opportunity of teasing Friday.

[I'm also a prolific ravager of mana pathways. Want to see me in action?]

That shut him up. Nothing like the fear of becoming magically crippled to make someone stop joking. Friday just laughed inside his mind when she noticed how he flinched when she joked about ruining his mana pathways.

Riwall saw how Anna and Greg were chanting the

Panel

spell, he just pretended to do the same to not raise any suspicion.

"I know it's underwhelming, but the real merit of this panel shows itself in the thick of a battle. Now, for the System's spell I mentioned, I will be teaching you

a.n.a.lyse

."

Hector taught them the chanting words and what were the effects of it once cast. That was enough for Friday to make a chantless version for Riwall.

A dagger was positioned in front of them, Hector instructed them to use the new spell. As soon as Riwall did so, the item's information appeared in front of his eyes.

--------------------------

-Name: Simple Iron Dagger

-Rank: E

-Physical Crafting Quality: Good

-Mana Pathways Quality: Null

----Special Effects----

-NONE

----Special Description----

-NONE

--------------------------

{Again, just like a game. This will prove useful once I can craft my own stuff.}

"Anyone had any trouble or have any doubts?"

The three shook their heads.

"Good, now follow me, time to get on with practical training."