From the outside, the Mage Guild looked no different from the other guilds, a tall, black building with more overt decoration than the rest of the city. When freeZe walked through the archway that was the guild's entrance she immediately noticed that on the inside this guild was fundamentally different. The moment she had crossed the threshold she could feel powerful ender magic, the purpose of which becoming apparent immediately. The ceiling of the guild's entrance hall was vastly taller than the building itself would have allowed. The hall's walls were periodically lined with balconies, corridors were leading off into various parts of the guild. As opposed to other buildings, the mage guild was also made from artificial bedrock on the inside. Fire had mentioned that it could be grown using magic so it only made sense.
freeZe was stopped by a featureless marble golem seemingly acting as a receptionist of sorts. It spoke to freeZe by magically making its very hard to categorize voice appear inside of her head.
It said: "This is the first time you are here. Getting lost is easy. Take a map."
The golem then handed her a freshly projected map. The map showed the ground floor of the guild and the University of Magic that was contained within. Shadow had told freeZe about these maps, they would show your current position, along with the shortest path to wherever you wanted to go.
freeZe took a long look at the map, by moving her fingers in specific ways she also was able to look at the other floors. The map also very helpfully listed what lectures and courses were scheduled at the university, most of which she would not be able to attend due to having to register ahead of time. In the end, freeZe decided to visit a course that was dedicated to training unexperienced apprentices, which she very much was.
freeZe was past the stage of becoming a mage where she had to wrestle with her life force's will all of the time, her life force was now firmly under her control. What she lacked was experience. She still needed to figure out the finer nuances of magic, build up her mental spell library and develop a magical muscle memory of sorts.
She tapped the room on her map, it jumped back to her location and a red line indicated the direct path to that room. While she walked through the guild freeZe noticed that there were also portals leading back to the entrance hall in regular intervals. After inspecting one more closely, she found out that the portals could actually be used to travel to each other.
freeZe arrived at the door to the lecture room and pushed it open. Inside were three other apprentices, two women and a man, and a professor, also a man. Judging by their robes, the apprentices all had different affinities. The man was a pure Water mage, one woman was Life-Earth, the other Wither-Ender with a minor affinity for Air. The professor's more elaborate robes' decorations indicated that he was mainly Ender-Fire but also able to cast lesser spells from most other elements.
As freeZe walked inside, the professor greeted her. "Ah, hello there. It seems like we have another apprentice here today. May I ask who you are?"
Shadow had explained to freeZe that in the mage guild names were largely irrelevant unless you were in a higher position. Apprentices usually only knew the name of their mentor and a couple of others.
She said: "Apprentice of Shadow."
She didn't name her elements since those could be easily discerned from her robe, naturally keeping Wither a secret since there were no black decorations.
The professor eyed her suspiciously. "Not Shadow Wardbreaker, the former archmage, right?"
freeZe raised an eyebrow. "She never told me her second name but she is a former archmage."
The professor answered: "Figures, she doesn't like that name very much from what I heard." He clapped his hands and then said: "Alright, let's begin with today's lesson." He paused and then turned to freeZe again: "What is the state of your education?"
freeZe replied: "My basic training is done, I have studied the theoretical aspects of magic, although mostly where it is relevant to my elements."
The professor said: "Good, good. Do you know about magical burnout? If so, we could teach the other apprentices together because frankly while I know it very well from a practical standpoint, I don't quite remember the theory, I usually teach applied magic and my partner isn't here today."
Shadow had also told freeZe that even if you were a professor, you didn't have to know everything about magic. Usually professors taught the apprentices about their specialties in practice, with someone knowledgeable in theoretical magic explaining the workings behind it. It seemed that today that person was busy or otherwise not available.
freeZe said: "Happy to assist." Then she began: "There is a certain connection between a mage's life force and their physical body. The strength of this connection varies but usually mages with an affinity for Earth or Water have a stronger connection than Fire or Air mages. The stronger the connection, the harder it is to separate life force from body. This has both advantages and disadvantages. A stronger connection makes draining spells less effective on you but also limits how much magic can leave your body at a time."
One of the apprentices said: "Makes sense. But Earth magic usually doesn't leave your body, so is it unaffected?"
freeZe nodded. "Correct." She continued after a short pause. "Now, burnout is what happens when you attempt to push more life force out of your body than the strength of your connection allows, this is most noticeable when casting spells that require a lot of energy over a short period of time but it can also be observed when using longer, channeled spells. The effects of burnout usually manifest in nausea in its lesser forms. This stage is harmless and therefore should be where you would normally stop. If you choose to further exert yourself, then the connection may start pulling on your body. It is like trying to tear hooks from your flesh."
Another apprentice assumed: "I imagine that internal bleeding is what you're risking with that."
freeZe nodded. "It doesn't stop there. If you push hard enough you might just end up tearing yourself apart, I've never seen it happen to anything other than a projection but it wasn't pretty."
The professor said: "Good, now that the theory is covered, we'll go over to the practical part."
He projected a spherical barrier over each of the apprentices.
He explained: "I now want you to use your most unstable element until you feel the early stages of burnout. It's better to find your limit in a controlled environment instead of when you are in the middle of a spell that you shouldn't interrupt. I'm doing this specifically because that happened to one of my apprentices quite some time back, they had to renovate the enchantment chamber after the incident. We usually don't talk about it."
The professor signaled the Water mage to start. He closed his eyes and began focusing, the air inside of his barrier started getting progressively less clear, eventually turning into a thick mist. The mist changed color from white to a bright red, then cycled through the color spectrum. As it reached green for the ninth time, it stopped. The professor dispelled the barrier, the dissipating mist revealed the apprentice, now slightly paler and less steady on his feet.
He groaned. "Ugh… I'll definitely try not doing that ever again."
Seemingly satisfied, the professor signaled the next apprentice to start, this time it was the Life-Earth mage. The primary application of Life magic was to heal but it could also be used to do some other things, creating light was one of them.
As she raised her hand the apprentice said: "Look away, cover your eyes, this may get bright."
A few seconds later, light flooded the room and disappeared again. The apprentice seemed to be far from her limit. She once again made her hand light up, this time for longer and with even more intensity, anyone looking into it would have been rendered blind.
She said: "I don't think this is going anywhere, I don't have much life force and that used up a large part of it."
The professor said: "That is fine, mages with low life force rarely encounter burnout, if you're casting with an external source the problem doesn't present itself anyways."
freeZe was reminded of the shimmering crystal she had in her pocket. As promised, Shadow had gotten one for her in Drandin, it possessed an incredible storage potential. freeZe had been told to store a part of her life force in it every evening and let her pool refill itself over night. Currently the crystal was about half full, enough to refill even freeZe's pool multiple times.
The last other apprentice began immediately, freeZe felt her Wither spell resonate with her own life force. Her spell was directed at the barrier surrounding her, attempting to break with one big burst of magic. The barrier didn't break but was deformed significantly. The apprentice didn't look so well either, she staggered on her feet and then fell over backwards into the arms of the Earth-Life mage standing next to her. She had already positioned herself in a way to catch her, even before the spell had begun.
The other woman said: "I wish you would stop overestimating yourself."
freeZe felt how she used up the last bits of her life force to heal any injuries the burnout might have caused. The professor looked entirely unimpressed, this seemed to be nothing new to him.
He turned to freeZe and said: "It's your turn now."
freeZe asked: "How strong is this barrier? I have quite a large pool of life force and I haven't ever experienced burnout before so I may have to use a lot of it."
The professor said: "It will hold, it's linked to an energy source below the floor, I just control it."
freeZe took a deep breath. She had decided on which spell she would use, it was the same one her life force had used back in Shadow's summoning chamber. It was quite a crude spell but she wanted to release as much energy as possible. She concentrated on protecting herself first, she knew that as time went on and she got more experienced the protection would eventually become subconscious.
freeZe began casting her spell, her eyes began glowing in an intense green once again. Flame jets started shooting outwards from her, beginning at a low intensity, at least according to freeZe's standards. As the flames intensified, freeZe could feel how her life force travelled towards her skin to then turn into fire. Her robes were entirely unaffected by her spell since they served as an extension of her body for spell casting purposes. In order to use up as much energy as possible, freeZe pushed more life force into her spell than it naturally would have pulled without interaction. The flames inside the barrier turned from red to a bright white, the others probably had to cover their eyes but freeZe wasn't sure since the flames were too dense to look out through.
Half a minute later, freeZe's spell was still going and her life force was only one quarter depleted. This was entirely different from what she experienced in Shadow's summoning chamber, back then she had panicked because of her loss of control. Now she was perfectly calm, she knew that controlling magic had a soothing effect on the mind, it was part of the reason why mages tended to overestimate themselves. She felt nothing that even resembled the early burnout symptoms so freeZe channeled her life force into the spell with all her might. The flames inside the barrier raged on, the barrier itself was noticeably straining to contain the amounts of energy freeZe was unleashing, turning to ever darker shades of purple.
Finally after a total of one and a half minutes, the flames faded and as the last of the heat was absorbed, the now almost opaque barrier dropped as well. This revealed an exhausted, but otherwise fine freeZe. She was supporting her hands with her knees and was breathing heavily, she had almost completely depleted her life force.
"Nothing." She managed to say.
The professor looked a bit surprised. "It's quite rare to have someone with that much life force not experience burnout but I suppose that with your elements it would only make sense to have a very weak connection."
freeZe had reached into her pocket to recharge herself with the crystal, slowly catching her breath again. She didn't say anything but thought about what she had just heard. Maybe her weak connection was the reason why she didn't have much fine control over her magic, there was actually a very good possibility that it was the case. She definitely had to talk to Shadow about this.
Over the course of the next few hours they practiced various spells from their respective elements. At the end of the lesson the apprentice that had fallen over asked freeZe to stay a couple more minutes while the others left.
The professor seemingly knew why and said: "Since you have a lot of energy at your disposal, you might be able to utilize it for flight."
freeZe said: "Flight sounds useful."
The other apprentice said: "I once tried it myself but since I only have a minor affinity for Air, I didn't even lift off even a tiny bit. I'll demonstrate the spell so you know how it goes."
The apprentice focused and freeZe felt exactly how the spell worked, it was simple, really. Airflow was created downwards and the recoil then propelled the caster upwards or in any direction they desired.
freeZe said: "I guess I'll just repeat that with a higher impulse."
The others both nodded.
freeZe tried to focus her energy slowly at first to then test how much force would be needed to lift her off the ground. Instead, a huge wind blast swept through the room, violently flinging freeZe upwards. The only reason why she didn't hit her head on the ceiling painfully was the professor's quick intervention.
As she slowly floated back to the ground on the professor's spell, freeZe said: "Right."
The professor said: "I suggest not attempting it again here, maybe once you have acquired a bit more… finesse."
With that freeZe's lesson was complete. She and the other apprentice left the room and then walked off in different directions. freeZe slowly wandered the corridors and eventually ended up back in the entrance hall. She tried handing the receptionist golem her map again. It just made a gesture towards the exit. As soon as freeZe stepped outside, the projected map vanished in her hands.
She looked upwards and saw that the sun was still a few hours from setting, she assumed that her friends were still out, doing whatever they did. After a few moments she decided that it couldn't hurt to visit Carol, she surely would appreciate the company. Besides, her tea was absolutely delicious.