Fallen Mage Regressor

The Arcane Sphere shot like a stone from a sling. It landed against the makeshift dummy that Mal had set up on the other end of the building, and shredded it into fine paste and shards.

"Did I succeed, master?"

Mal stared at the utterly destroyed dummy and back at Lusia. "Yes. You did just fine."

Behind them, he could hear Aston walking Rolam through the basics of what a Spellsword was, and how it functioned. Mal knew that he would be of no value in that particular conversation, so instead he focused on Lusia. Mal had wanted to make sure that the two would get along fine, but it was during training with Lusia, so he'd decided to merge it by going to one of the "recent acquisitions" from the Cat's Eye from when they raided that other gang with the help of the other two major powers in their region.

"You're starting to hit the limit of what can be learned in the first year," Mal said. "From what I recall, you've already mastered push, pull, lighten, and now this cutting spell, yes?"

"I have."

Mal wiped some of the sweat off his forehead. Up on top of the mountain, they were so high up that the heat wasn't quite so unbearable. But this warehouse was located deeper in the city, and it was the seventh month of the year, the Corn Moon. The midsummer heat was brutal, especially down here.

Lusia looked completely unbothered, of course. Rolam, on the other hand, had long since shed his robes and exchanged it for a loose tunic and shorts.

As much as Mal wished to do the same, he hadn't brought any extra clothes. He was very underdressed underneath the robes, and it would be very improper to walk about like that.

He used to be an Endbringer, he had some dignity.

"In light of your rapid progress—" Mal pursed his lips. "—I think we're going to do some second year material."

"Yes, master."

Mal took out a piece of chalk from his pocket and started writing down a sequence of runes in the ground. Once finished, he punctuated it with a final firm tap against the floor with his chalk, then stood back up.

This is the rune for an Arcane Bolt.

Lusia stared down at it, then tilted her head sideways. "It's more complex than an Arcane Sphere."

"Significantly more complex."

Mal pointed to the exterior circle surrounding the rune. "You can still see that there's an Arcane Sphere component. It's the thing enclosing the mana and its effects. But there have been a number of modifications. The two you'll want to focus on nailing down is this compressing rune."

He pointed at a simple diamond shape inside of the circle.

"The diamond compresses the Arcane Sphere, and this causes it to speed up, because there's the same amount of energy in a smaller body."

"I understand."

"Good. Try it out on its own. Don't bother adding any effects like push or pull to it. Just a simple bolt."

Lusia held out her hand, and an Arcane Sphere began to form before something about it sharpened at the edges. It was just about to launch out when it had abruptly fizzled.

She frowned. "Why did it fail?"

"In theory, it's a very simple modification," Mal said. "In practice, the extra energy means that the amount of mana you're channeling into it needs to be precisely calibrated, and the flow needs to be much smoother than with an Arcane Sphere. Too much mana at once overloads the Arcane Sphere barrier and it dissipates. Too little, and it's unable to maintain itself, and again, it dissipates."

"I see."

"Try it again."

She gave it a second attempt, and the Arcane Bolt lasted a little bit longer before it fizzled out again. She grimaced. The slightest tension in her shoulders.

"Relax. You're learning something that you would normally take an extra couple of months to work up to. You can't rush it."

In the background, Rolam swung the sword horizontally and Aston nodded and barked one or two corrections.

"Now, give it a third attempt. Again, this'll take some time, even for you."

She held out her hand, and once more, an Arcane Bolt started to form.

It didn't dissipate.

Within a second, it had been fully created. She pointed it back at the already destroyed dummy, and it launched out. It zipped across the entire length of the warehouse and illuminated the floor underneath it before it impacted the dummy and scattered bits of straw all over the ground.

Mal turned back at her.

This woman is absolutely terrifying, he thought.

"Did I do well?" she asked.

"Great. You did... Great."

She nodded. "Excellent."

I'm pretty sure the heroine wasn't blasting second year Arcane Bolts in her first year back in the original timeline, he thought.

He felt a little giddy about it.

I'm creating an even more powerful heroine. He paused and his heart sunk. Wait, I'm creating an even more powerful heroine. What is wrong with me?

He looked at her nervously. She was staring blankly at the wall, apparently having found the wood planks fascinating enough to hold her attention.

On the plus side, Mal was becoming more and more sure that she probably wouldn't kill him when she found out what he actually was.

Probably.

Then again, in all of the tales that Mal had heard involving a teacher-student relationship. The student often went wayward and attempted to kill the teacher. Mal recognized that this was a narrative device, but he couldn't help but feel a little unnerved by the prospect.

He shook his head and turned around to watch Rolam and Aston.

Rolam breathed deeply. Mal could see the mana circulating through his veins and empowering each of his muscles. He ran forward and sprinted to the other side of the warehouse, then ran back, fast as a bird in the air. Mal found himself standing next to Aston as they both watched him.

“Where are you finding these kids?” Aston said. “He's an absolute freak of nature. I think only Hemp would be quicker than him, and it would be a close thing.”

“You've seen Hemp fight?”

“She walked in on one of the demonstrations and thought it would be fun to see how she'd do against the other students. I've never seen such raw talent.” He glanced at Mal. “You have an amazing eye for discerning the wheat from the chaff.”

“Oh, I just see them for what they could be, I suppose.”

Mal smirked at his private joke. Aston, on the other hand, rolled his eyes. “Yes, that's what I meant by your eye for discernment.”

He watched Rolam come to a halt and drop his hands to his knees.

“Piss poor stamina, though,” Aston said. “We'll have to work on that.”

He walked over to Rolam and raised his voice, “Alright, pick up the stick. Let's run through basic slashes a couple hundred times.”

Rolam twisted up like he was about to protest, then he saw Mal watching him. Something in his expression seized up. He nodded at Mal, then picked up the stick and ran through and swung it down, one repetitive time after another.

I wonder why he looked at me, Mal thought. Well, it doesn't matter. I'll need to work hard on earning Rolam's loyalty, along with Lusia's. I haven't done nearly enough to bind them to me. I'm worried that with his newfound skills, Rolam will realize that I'm a weight around his neck, or something to that effect.

For some reason, Mal felt as if he was somehow horribly off base and incorrect about something in his previous thought process. With ease born of experience, he shut down those confused thoughts and walked back over to Lusia for further training.

When he got closer, she tilted her head.

"I would like to repeat my previous question from before," she said.

Mal was a bit confused for a bit before he remembered what it was she was talking about.

"Sure. I actually have a few tasks I need you to do. Two nights from now, have your weapons ready."

She nodded back, then the brief flicker of awareness in her eyes disappeared, replaced by the dull boredom that usually characterized her.

Yes, he thought. I'll need all the help I can get to eliminate the ruling family of the Black Quarter.

Mal poked at the sprout.

He was in his room, potted plants everywhere. The new Airwater hybrids had burst from their seeds. The Waterrose flowers had turned into seeds a while ago, and Mal had dutifully planted them immediately. He'd theorized that since it was composed of both air and water, it would need both in great amounts.

He set the soil cubes on the windowsill, and made it a point to give more water than he would usually do to his plants.

The resulting spout was an unusual colour—a light, pale blue. The same color as morning mist. It emanated small flecks of pale blue mana, the same color as the stem itself.

The growing pattern reminded Mal of Airgrass, but significantly boosted. It was dozens of tiny little light blue stems, pointed and thin, like a leaf.

And it was growing fast. It had only been recently that Mal had planted the seed, but it had already sprouted.

Not seeing any harm in taking a few of these half-growing spouts, he gently harvested it, whispering a request of aid, then brought it over to his workbench.

What were the properties of this strange mana and this strange plant? Mal, not sure what to do, picked up one of them and put it in his mouth.

The taste was like morning dew.

Just before sunrise, back when he'd had his own castle, he would sometimes wake up to greet the light of the day. The taste on his tongue just now reminded him of those moments.

He chewed a little bit, then swallowed.

Nothing.

That was profoundly stupid, Mal thought. What exactly was I expecting?

The next thing Mal tried was to make a herbal tea. He let the leaves steep in boiling water for some time and then took a sip.

He'd also mixed in some elder root to try to accentuate whatever magical properties were within it.

He stood up, then walked around. He felt a little bit lighter, but that was about it.

Mal crossed his arms and frowned. Whatever effects the plant had, it would take some time to figure out, he suspected.

Perhaps its effects will become more clear to me as it matures, Mal thought. I'd managed to come up with the idea for the Airgrass boots solely by observing it. So maybe the same thing will happen here.

He set the soil cubes back on the windowsill.

Right, next project.

Mal went outside around the back of the dormitory, and started shoveling. He hauled new bags of fertilizer that he'd gotten from the church, and then wooden planks, also provided by the church.

He constructed the wood planks into a long wooden wall only a few inches high, reaching up to his calf. He made four of these walls, then attached them together to create a rectangle. Finally, he brought out the fertilizer and soil, and poured it into the rectangle.

A raised garden bed.

Again, it had been Cassandra who taught him about it, saying that he was probably reaching the point where the amount of plants he wanted to grow was beyond the scope of his room when he'd told her where he was planting them. Not only that, but there were certain plants that simply wouldn't thrive well in a pot inside of a room.

He'd set up the raised bed so that it would get about half shade from the building. At some point, he would set up another raised bed in a place where it would get full sunlight across the day, but he didn't have any plants that required that kind of sun right now.

Well, he thought. Maybe the Fireglove, but it's doing fine right now, and I don't want to go to the extra effort of making two beds.

For his first transplants, he started with his older plants—his elder root, his sleep leaf, and some mundane ones to mix things up—the tomatoes and garlic and other vegetables that he'd taken to growing alongside the magical ones.

By the end, the first bed was more or less completely filled up. He wiped his dirty hands off on his robes and nodded to himself.

Another successful day.

Mal's footsteps clicked against the cobblestone. It was twilight, and the city was winding down for the day. He walked along, one step after another—

"I think it's about time you and I had a conversation."

Mal stiffened.

What was he doing here?

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