The Magic of Learning

It's a sunny day in the village, the wind blows softly, spreading the smell of burnt grass from a recently created space at the edge of the forest. Close to the river on one side, far enough that stray sparks don't risk burning down the already flimsy tents, Liam floats a few feet off the ground, satisfied with the improvised arena. Today is a special day; he will do something that he hasn't done in a long time, a tutorial video, but in person. The students this time are new players and some stragglers; the first arrival is Fathoms, mostly because she was already there, peeking out of the water since the angel started burning grass in a mix of curiosity and slight confusion. The rest started approaching with the same looks. Not long after, Sephidrac looked scared, as if some unknown beast was the cause of this. Mio looked calmer as she looked up, and she understood what was happening.

Landing in the middle of the circle, Liam retrieves his flame sabre and uses the inactive handle as a microphone. "Welcome, everyone, to the best magic school in the village!" He spreads his wings for effect.

A trembling hand goes up as the cowardly demon interrupts. "Do we have other magic schools?"

Without missing a beat, the angel continues. "No, but that doesn't have an effect on the quality of the lessons. Today, we will learn the nature of magic, and the most important thing, how to learn skills outside of level-ups." Twirling the golden hilt in his hand, Liam points at the fish still observing from the water. "Fifi, you should come closer for this."

Fathoms takes her cue to approach the semicircle forming around the angel. "Can Fifi learn how to make the pretty flowers grow?"

"Yes, but not today. The methods I will teach you are the same, so you will be able to do it on your own. Teach a man to fish and all that."

"But I can already fish?" The fish tilts her head.

Liam is momentarily stunned. "That's a... never mind. Moving on." The angel activates the sword, creating a blade of fire, and uses it as a pointer. "What is magic? We don't really know. I read a lot of lore about it but there wasn't much about its origin. What we do know is how it works." The angel creates a small glowing orb in his free hand. "Mana is the base of magic; our bodies produce it based on a combination of class and stats. It is also all around us, but not everyone can use that mana; you need some special skills for that, or the help of spirits, but we are getting sidetracked. Skills are simply the easiest way to use magic. Now, any questions?"

Mio raises a hand, waiting until Liam points at her with the sword to speak. "Are you qualified to be a teacher?"

The angel looks at her with a resigned look. "I spent more time on this than most people spend working. I read all the available lore at least twice, and this is technically my fourth time starting over. On some subjects, I probably know more than the devs."

"Are there any requirements for learning magic?" The small demon continues undeterred.

Now with more energy, Liam answers. "Technically not, at least not anymore. Learning magic is going to be easier on this run. You just need to feel the mana, high mental stats help, as does having a magic class already, but anyone can learn magic if they try hard enough, even a farmer or lumberjack." A dull sound resonates in the clearing, bringing the attention of the small group to the fact that they have gathered an audience.

Arthur stands in front of a tree with a worried expression, with a broken stone axe in his hands. He retrieves a new axe from his backpack and waves to the group. "Don't mind me, just doing my job. Fine day today for logging." He looks a bit embarrassed but continues swinging the new axe.

The angel briefly looks at the former NPC. "That was unexpected, but it could be useful. Accelerating his growth may have some unintended consequences. As I was saying, concentration is key; the energy is inside of you. Now all you have to do is keep trying to generate the right effect. For practical reasons, this time we will be using me as an example. It used to be this was the only way to learn magic." Liam points at the sky with the hand still holding the orb, saying Holy Bolt as the light shoots up and disappears in the sky. "Now, you do that. This is holy magic, and yes, demons can learn it too, focus on light and goodness, on the feeling of being right. Gather it in your hand."

The students start concentrating; some manage to make some light flicker for a few moments, some just keep getting annoyed. Sephidrac startles himself as the orb appears, losing concentration and making it disappear. "I can't, it's scary. What if I hit myself? What if it explodes?"

Mio, next to him, is maintaining a stable orb for at least half a minute. "It's easier than I assumed. Could it be the work of my stats?"

Fathoms looks intently at her hands, sparks fly and flicker, then change color and become more ominous. A strange fish-like creature appears from the ball of darkness. "Oh, Fifi didn't mean to call you Mr. Theet. Off you go." The strange creature leaps from the fish woman's hands and disappears into a puddle of darkness that quickly recedes.

Liam looks at Fathoms and smiles in a strained way, giving a thumbs up. Fifi smiles back. "I will have to deal with that later." Approaching the more scared demon of the group, the angel reassures him. "Holy magic doesn't really explode, not at this level at least. But if it makes you feel better, you can try Bless instead." Light surrounds Liam's hand as the spell is cast. Sephidrac jumps at the opportunity to use something with less danger. After observing the rest of the students for a bit, he adds. "Once you reach a stable bolt, don't cast it, keep it in your hands, get a feel for what it's made of. Like Mio."

The sudden mention of her name at a close distance distracts her, and the orb shoots away from her and into the angel's wing. "Ah! Sorry."

"Well, that hurt, so it means you cast it well! Don't worry, just keep concentrating on it. After enough progress has been made, you will get a system message with a progress bar. I will leave you to practice for a bit."

The lesson continues among pointers and tricks, progress is slow apart from a few outilers, this is going to be a long day.

After some time, and a couple more fish and stray bolts, Liam decided that it was enough theory. "Let's move on to the next part of the training. I will need Sephi's help for this one." Liam moves to the center of the circle again, spreading his wings. "We're having a practical test." Several wolf corpses fall from his wings.

"Not again..." Sephidrac complains, but despite the disgust he feels at the sight of the corpses, he knows what he has to do. "Do they need to have flesh on them?"

"For this exploi- lesson yes. Now follow my instructions, reanimate them, then order them to stand still. After that, open your status and free them by selecting them, or ask your advisor to do that."

The smaller demon speaks up. "What is this for? Would casting the spell by itself not be enough to learn it?"

"Thanks for asking, Mio. You see, this training has several uses; first, it accelerates the progress of skill learning, using it on a living target does that. Second, it conditions the system to give you more magic skills; it could even make the system just give you the skill on level up, even if that would be an unoptimal outcome, it would be faster in many cases, so remember it. And lastly, it's free EXP, it will fall off pretty quickly, but by the end of this, you should be around level 5 if you were not already." The angel turns to the necromancer just as the last wolf is raised. "You will bless the wolves instead, same effect with less danger to everyone else. It also fits your style better." Sephidrac seems relieved.

"Will they fight back?" Asks the small demon.

"No, they have been freed, but they still follow the last command given for about two hours, so they will stand still and count as enemies. Because of the low level of our necromancer, they give less EXP than normal wolves, but can be resurrected multiple times, as long as you don't destroy the body too much." With a snap of his fingers, a small flame appears and starts following the tip of Liam's index finger. "Line up and start shooting, one wolf each. Sephi, keep healing. We don't leave here until either all of you can use Holy magic or the wolves can't be resurrected anymore. Now GO!" The flame rises and explodes like a small firework.

"Agu! Do it again!" Fathoms is distracted by the starting gun.

"Now isn't the time. If you learn the magic, I will do more. Actually, I will teach you how to do it yourself."

"You Promise?" The question sounds strangely intense, as if it held some hidden weight.

"Sure... I promise. But now you need to concentrate."

With great energy, Fathoms starts casting spells at the target, only about one third actually start, but that doesn't seem to deter her. Mio manages a steady pace; each shot isn't very fast, but they all appear, and all hit the target. Her concentration is admirable, but praising her for it will probably ruin it. The sounds of wood being chopped seem to have stopped, and a couple of flashes of light appear from that direction. When looking at him, Arthur is sitting under a tree, bewildered, but he quickly gathers the logs around him and speeds off to the village storage. To anyone observing the scene, it would seem as if the demon, desperately muttering under his breath, must be cursing someone with indescribable pain when he's just praying for the blessing to work.

As he's observing the scene, Liam notices a strange glow near Fathoms. It had become normal in this training to see the odd fish being shot instead of a Holy Bolt, but this time the two glows mixed, and a fish with wings and a halo came out. "Oh, sorry, Mr.Wings but Fifi doesn't need you now."

Just as the fish is about to dive into the ground like the other unsummoned creatures, the angel moves to catch it with a flap of his wings. "Wait! This is actually really useful. It's an elemental summon; it counts as Holy magic, so if you keep using it, you can progress faster."

"Is that a good thing? Fifi did a good thing?" The winged fish stops trying to kill itself.

"Yes, it's a very good thing. Keep any others you get if you can. It's not easy to do in this way either, so congratulations." One high-pitched squeal later, and Fathoms is back to training, now with even more energy. It's hard to tell if it's the result of the fish buff or being complimented.

The sun is low, not quite setting, and the clearing is quiet as the students rest. The remains of the wolves are being cleaned up by the angel to allow the others a moment of rest. It took longer than expected, so many just gave up halfway. Liam speaks up after he puts away the last bone pile. "Congratulations for making it this far, you should have the skill by now, by one method or the other. Even if you don't, you know how to approximate it enough; this method will work with all elemental magic and most magic in general. Rituals are even easier to learn, but for another time if necessary."

The necromancer recovered enough to interrupt. "Are we done here? Is the lesson over?"

By now, only three students remain. Fifi looks with curiosity at the teacher, Mio seems determined to see the end of the lesson, and the cowardly demon looks like he's about to collapse. "You can go if you want; the end of the lesson is not necessary for you, but it would be useful. For the remaining two, the last step is simple. One at a time, you just have to hit me." After a moment of silence and some glances between them, Fathoms just casts a Holy Bolt straight at Liam, who simply flaps his wings and takes to the air. "Of course, I'm not going to make it easy for you; the enemies will not either. Just land a single hit, and you pass."

Mio ponders for a while, as Fifi clearly already stated, the turns are decided. Bolts fly in the air, the angel moves out of the way, the frequency slowly increases as the fishing instructor gets more animated, they get more accurate as they get used to movement. As Liam dodges to one side, another bolt clips his wing on the other. Deciding that it counts, the angel snaps his fingers and creates a flash of fire to attract the attention of the onlookers, then signals for Fifi to stop. Now on the ground, the angel approaches the group. Fathoms is bouncing. "Did Fifi hit you?"

"You did, as proof of your feat, I grant you a weapon." From his wing an elegant sword appears, very decorated, with a fish carved on the blade. "Now off you go, you need to sleep early today."

"Wow, shiny. Thanks, Mr. Liam, I can catch fishies with this." Before the angel can comment any further, she jumps into the river.

Sephidrac is still there; he doesn't seem interested in trying the challenge, but he does keep casting Bless on himself at random intervals. He took at least one part of the lesson seriously.

The small wizard approaches, seemingly nervous but with enough determination to speak. "I have a question. Do I have to hit you with a Holy Bolt?" Magic must be important enough to her to get over her apparent base shyness.

The angel smiles. "I will put it like this, you need to deal Holy damage to me, do with that what you want." And with a flap, he's gone again. "Do your best, seeker of knowledge."

A few moments pass in silence, the demon and angel just stare at each other, light shines as a spell is cast, a miss. Mio moves around the arena, attempting to shoot from different angles, to catch a blind spot, it doesn't seem to work. The ground glows under her feet in complex pattern, the lines are a bit smudged but it works and she is shot up in the air. Liam is surprised and instinctively tries to catch her. Suddenly, a blade stabs his leg; the little demon is holding one of the angel's swords. Grinning despite the pain, Liam casts Bless on himself and does his best to glide back down and gently puts down Mio. A green orb appears in the angel's hand, then disappears as the cut on his leg closes up.

The small demon looks apologetic, Sephidrac on the side looks horrified. "I'm sorry. In my defense I wasn't expecting you to try to catch me."

Still smiling, Liam almost pats her head but stops. "Don't worry about it, you definitely pass. Damn, my swords hurt. You understood the assignment and used all you had to get to your goal. It's kinda my fault for forgetting I gave you a sword."

"Are all lessons going to be like this?" A slight worry seeps into the question.

"Oh no, this one was pretty grounded. Future lessons will be more specific and about more complex things. Unless you have questions on something, in that case, you know where to find me."

"I do not; you tend to disappear as much as Yaofan."

"You just don't hide it. Everyone knows when you set off, but you are still hard to find." Sephidrac adds, gathering himself, finally ready to leave.

"We do have the messaging part of the system, just use that. I can't go too far anyway, I promised to be available for emergencies." Looking to the setting sun, the angel gestures to the village. "We should get going, this was a long day after all. I could have been longer too, but I don't want to risk the space-time continuum just in case."

The trio starts walking to the village while chatting. "You're joking, right? That's not something you can do, right?" The necromancer asks, almost as a plea.

"Maybe? I used to do that a lot, almost got banned for it too, not sure what the implications of doing it in a real world would be."

"Are any of the things we did today likely to damage reality?" The smaller demon asks.

Liam laughs. "No, if they did, you would know. Maybe one day I will teach you my secret world-ending spell." Light swirls around the angel's fingers, and his eyes glow red.

The demons look at each other, then back at Liam. They decide to change the topic. Sometimes there are questions you don't want to know the answer to.