3 – Tristain Academy of Magic

"Mr. Saito, we are going to the Headmaster's office now," said Colbert again, after seeing that Saito wasn't moving.

"Get up already!" Louise tried to drag him up.

Saito struggled and push her away. "I'm not going anywhere with you kidnappers!"

"What did you say?!"

Colbert waved his wand and Saito floated up in the air.

"Ah! Stop! Put me down!" Saito grasped with his hands as if trying to swim to no avail.

"Saito, you don't have much of a choice but to follow along for now," I said. "There is no way back to either of our homes at the moment. So if you want to return to see your mother, you need to survive until you can find a way. Or would you rather stay out here to starve?"

"No…why…why did this happen to me?" He stopped struggling, but his expression turned angry.

"Asking why is meaningless. Perhaps you were chosen by a mysterious power, or perhaps you were just unlucky. The important thing is to ask how you're going to get through this," I said.

He turned a glare to me and muttered under his breath. "Easy for you to say…"

"Fine! I'll go with you. Now let me down already," he said to Colbert.

Once Colbert ended the spell, Saito tried to slink to the back of our procession.

As we walked to the school, Agate went ahead to scout out the towers and general structure of the rooms while phased out in Agatespace, that layer of reality protecting the material world from Primordial Chaos. When she was phased out, she was intangible but could still use a variety of sensory magic to see and hear her surroundings.

Each of the connected towers had classes going on and student dormitories, except the one central tower. The towers at the vertices corresponded to one of the five elements, but the one corresponding to Void was empty, simply gathering dust, and it didn't have a walled passage to the central tower either.

Powerful enchantments protected the walls, though it was impossible to determine what they did. To our magical senses, it merely seemed to be layers of concentrated mana with an indiscernible structure and pattern.

The walls of the school were built like castle walls, and inside were more student dormitories and a hallway going through the entire length.

However, my interest for now wasn't in these towers, so Agate quickly sped around to the main tower. While I could have had her listen in on some lessons, the lessons themselves were of limited use to me. If a normal mage took a year or more to learn magical foundation, how much could I really learn in a few minutes or an hour of instructional time?

"Sir Axion, do you really think I have potential as a mage?!" Louise finally asked, unable to stand the long silence of our walk.

"Tell me, is it typical for your spells to result in explosions, regardless of which of the four standard elements you attempt to use?" I asked

"How did you know? No matter what I try, it's always a failure…"

"Then, what happens when you cast the Explosion spell?"

"Hah? Explosion spell? What kind of useless spell is that?"

Colbert was listening in curiously, and even Saito seemed to be interested.

"The type of spell you'd use to destroy things," I said.

"I've never heard of a spell like that…"

"And yet you can cast it by instinct. Can any of your peers create explosions? Could professor Colbert cast something of a similar nature?"

The professor hummed contemplatively. "Well, in all honesty, I couldn't. There are some fire spells that have an explosive effect, but they're not quite the same."

"So you can cast something even professor Colbert can't."

"But…why would I want a spell like that?!"

"There are plenty of reasons to want to destroy things. If you were fighting in a war, wouldn't it be quite useful to destroy enemy fortifications or valuable assets? If your explosions were strong enough, you could kill groups of enemy troops in a single strike. That is the purpose of the Explosion spell," I said.

"That's…horrible…! A spell that can only destroy…" Louise mumbled.

"Professor Colbert, you look like someone who's had experience in combat. Don't you agree with my assessment? It is useful to have a spell that can destroy things."

"Ah…what gave me away? I was a soldier at one time, yes," the bald and kindly looking professor said.

Louise gasped. "You were a soldier, professor Colbert?!"

"You have excellent reflexes and composure. So, can you think of where an Explosion spell would be useful?" I asked.

"Well…airships can be quite difficult to destroy at range with fire magic because of the protection from windstones, yet powerful Earth magic wouldn't be able to reach them in the air. If a spell could directly make it explode…it would certainly be more effective."

"So, Louise, if the kingdom was invaded by many enemy warships…would you still consider your explosions useless and horrible? Would you refuse your king or queen's call to arms, even though nobody else can do what you can?"

"Of course not! I would do everything I could to help! But…could I really destroy airships like that? My explosions aren't that strong…"

"You've never tried the true Explosion spell. Of course it wouldn't be very powerful, you've been casting it accidentally while trying other spells you aren't suited for," I said.

"Then that means…"

"You are fully capable of casting magic. You simply need to learn the correct spells you are compatible with."

"Is that true, professor Colbert?!"

"Erm…it could be possible. But I've never heard of an explosion spell either," the professor rubbed his chin in contemplation.

"Just as you've never heard of summoning human familiars, isn't that right?"

"Indeed. It's certainly something to look into…"

"Yes! I'm not a failure! I can do magic! Once I learn the right spells, I'll show them all!" Louise cheered with a jump.

"Can anyone learn to use magic?" Saito asked suddenly.

"Huh? Of course not, you dumb commoner! Only nobles can use magic. That's why we're nobles, our bloodlines were blessed by Brimir with the gift of magic to protect and rule over the powerless commoners," said Louise.

"Right…"

It wasn't long before Agate found several areas of interest in the main tower. First was the central library, filled with rows and rows of bookshelves. The topics covered much more than just magic itself, which was no surprise as I'd noticed that the classes also covered topics other than just magic. This was an institution for the basic education of nobility as much as it was for magic—which made sense if you considered that in this society magic was effectively equivalent to nobility.

One section within the library seemed to be warded against entry. Although Agate could move in while phased out and then phase back in inside the area, it could still trigger the ward's alarms, or force her out.

It wasn't worth the risk yet.

Flying to a book entitled Elementary Concepts in Magic, Agate materialized under optic camouflage.

She would be invisible to regular sight, but not necessarily magical sight or advanced forms of technological scanning such as X-ray.

The reason for exposing herself to potential detection was because her next action required her to be materialized.

She made physical contact with the book and cast Structural Analysis on it. This spell was an advanced form of Structural Grasp, the version that I was capable of casting myself.

Grasp allowed me to send prana into an object or person in order to collect information about its structure. Analysis was a much more prana-intensive version that allowed Agate to scan the contents of a closed book, recording its text in her perfect memory.

Using this, I could scan the contents of each book in this library in just a few seconds without my body having to enter the library, then review the text at my leisure. Although it would take time for Agate and I to actually read and comprehend it, it was possible to scan through a huge amount of books within a few hours.

In this way, I could learn the theory of their magic in secret.

—Except, the book resisted the foreign prana.

'It should be possible to overpower this with enough prana, but that will probably destroy the book. Even if the enchantment doesn't have a failsafe, that much prana going in would have an effect similar to failed Reinforcement,' said Agate.

After trying many other books, and observing their mana densities, the conclusion was clear.

Every single book in the library was protected by some kind of enchantment.

But why would they have such protections on these books? I didn't think that methods of magical reading and infiltration such as what Agate did were common in this world. If the enchantment were meant to prevent commoners from reading them, it still seemed excessive. Even fiction was protected.

Was it really worth the effort to add such protective enchantments on every book?

'I'm not so sure about that. If we go by the Mystic Imposition Theory, then rather than the protection blocking Structural Analysis, I believe it's because the book has a form of Magic Resistance. The enchantment itself is magical, therefore it must impose its own Mystery to the exclusion of a competing Mystery. It doesn't need to be enchanted specifically for protection from viewing to resist other spells,' Agate thought.

'So that must be why the magi of your world think that Structural Grasp is a useless spell. It's not supposed to work on anything with Mystery,' I thought back.

'Agreed. These enchantments? They could just be preservation spells. Not like we have any way to distinguish right now.'

'I suppose it does make sense if we look at it that way. A magical library would of course preserve all its books.'

As we walked through the main gates, Agate found one other heavily warded area in the central tower. This area's wards even blocked her from seeing what was inside it, but from outside it was clearly locked by huge iron doors with a bolt and padlock—it must have been the treasury vault.

The ward was impressive magic to be sure, but what was it meant to block?

The significance of this ward could not be underestimated.

It was definitely not the same sort of phenomenon as that which blocked the Structural Analysis. Although we didn't understand the magic of the locals, this much could be discerned from the interaction of the different spells involved.

In the first place, Agate's true nature was that of a Mystic Code, an artificial tool of magic, such that her every ability could be considered a spell. Her very existence was a Mystery of the highest level, and that which allowed her to see and hear were Mysteries in their own right.

So why then, was it possible for her to read enchanted books such as text on their covers through her normal vision but not read anything through via Structural Analysis?

It was because Structural Analysis was a Mystery [applied to the target] in order to extract information, whereas her sight was a Mystery that [processed received information]. The former would conflict with any other Mystery already on the target, whereas the latter was not directly interacting with the target.

Just like human eyes took in photons and used its physical interaction with components of the eye to generate an image to be processed by the brain, so too did Agate obtain information from light.

This ward was an actual protection against unauthorized viewing, which surprised me as I thought scrying was the domain of the lost Void magic, so what need was there to defend against it, and how would they even do it with the standard four elements?

And it somehow even blocked Agate—

—Ah. The answer had been hiding in plain sight, literally. Every mage could have a familiar, who could be the mage's eyes and ears.

Just like Agate was doing for me.

It would be rather incredible if they didn't develop some ways to stop small familiars from spying on important places after several millennia.

Most familiars I could see in the Familiar Garden as we passed it were at least the size of cats and dogs, but some were quite small. I saw a frog and some fairly small birds. There was also a floating eyeball, but that one was the size of a basketball.

O O O

"…and that's the situation," Colbert said, concluding his explanation.

The white-haired Headmaster Osmond stroked his long beard thoughtfully.

"Thank you, Jean. I believe I understand. Sir Axion and Mr. Saito, you both have my sympathies. Regretfully, it is simply not possible to return you to wherever you came from. The Familiar Summoning Ritual just doesn't work that way," he said, sighing deeply. "Although I hate to be the bearer of bad news, I feel that I must be honest with you. Even if the Church permitted the blasphemy of experimenting on the ritual, the reality is that our efforts would only be in vain. When mages perform the ritual, we are not truly the ones casting the spell of summoning and binding. The Church would say that it is the immortal will of the Holy Founder which directs the spell. Whether you believe that or not, it is undeniable that the ritual is just a ceremony. The magic doesn't come from the ceremony itself or the mage performing it, but an ancient spell which activates when a noble descendant of Brimir invokes it."

"So we're—we're stuck here?!" Saito shouted.

"Indoor voice, please, Mr. Saito," said Miss Longueville, the headmaster's glasses-wearing young secretary.

"I'm afraid that is so," said Osmond.

"Mom…dad…I'll never see them again?" Saito said, legs wobbling.

"Headmaster Osmond, I am not so unreasonable as to ask you to do the impossible. But if it is as you say, then I am forced to live here in this strange land, cut off from all my domains, titles and properties. How will I be compensated for this grievous loss and live peacefully in this land?" I asked.

"I would like to assist you as much as I can, Sir Axion, but there is very little that the school itself can provide as compensation. There is no legal precedent or authority within the school's Charter that would allow me to compensate you directly in this matter. I could perhaps appeal to the Crown on your behalf, but the stance of the Queen's counsel would likely be that Miss Vallière has sole responsibility should you claim any damages. But since you are neither citizen nor resident of the Kingdom, the courts are likely to take the view that you must follow procedures for international litigation. That is to say, you must first file suit with the courts in the Kingdom in which you hold citizenship, such that they may service the documents through the relevant embassies."

"But that doesn't make any sense! The whole problem is that Sir Axion can't go back to his own country," said Louise.

"Indeed. Which is exactly why the courts would make that ruling," said Osmond, shaking his head. "Few of the justices would be interested in sitting over a case brought forth by a foreigner with no influence against a family as powerful as the Vallières."

"That's…that's dishonorable!"

"It shames me to admit it, but that is the way it is. If you feel it is unjust, Miss Vallière, you are free to offer compensation to Sir Axion of your own accord."

"Of course I will! How could I live up to the name of Vallière if I didn't take responsibility for inconveniencing Sir Axion?"

"Hey, what about me? Aren't you going to compensate me too?" Saito asked.

"Eh? If you're going to be my familiar, what's the point of compensating you? Everything I give you would belong to me anyway."

"What? I never agreed to be your familiar!"

Louise grabbed Saito's collar with an angry expression.

"Why, you stupid commoner…! You should be grateful to have this opportunity! If I had a choice, why would I ever choose you to be my familiar?"

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Saito grabbed Louise's shirt in retaliation.

"H-hey! What are you doing, you perverted dog!" Louise's face turned red as Saito's grip ripped off the top button and exposed her skin.

"Oh shit! I didn't mean—"

Saito's apology was cut off by a hard slap that sent him crashing into the secretary's desk. His head slammed into the hard wooden edge, and his eyes rolled back.

"Urk!"

His body slid down, smearing the wood with blood from his head.