Self-Study

The next few weeks were blurred into a steady rhythm for Eres. He would wake up early, stretch his joints for a few minutes and then head for breakfast in the study. Stretching was a habit Adrien had tried to make, and knowing he would have to undertake physical training sooner rather than later, Eres decided to get as much of a head start on at least one aspect of his body's health. 

After his breakfast, and usually some morning pleasantries with Freya, he would dive into research. From monster anatomy and local geography to history and politics, Eres would consume book after book and make reel after reel of parchment notes. He would frequently ask Freya questions just to bounce ideas around, and on more than one occasion a problem that neither of the pair had a reasonable explanation for at the beginning of his study session had more than one viable theory after discussions. With this method, Eres spent his mornings cramming as much knowledge of the world into his brain. He memorised the names of kingdoms, countries, and towns, learned of the different ways one can make a living besides being a noble and even learned various foreign customs, just in case he ever found himself in another country. 

Studying in that small dusty room from dawn til midday was quite a feat day after day, and Freya often marvelled at the Young Master's concentration and focus. She herself spent much of her time cleaning and organising the room, until what once had been a forgotten study that the third child had been relegated to, now became a room of research and knowledge. 

The piles of books that had littered the room in boxes were all organised on various shelves, and the overcrowded desk covered in old scraps of paper and plans had been cleaned and tidied into a neat writing desk. All the desk drawers were filled with previous notes that could be revised and the materials to continue making more detailed works. The other furniture had all been cleaned and polished, so that on the infrequent occasions Ellsa decided to visit to hide from her responsibilities, Freya could be happy at receiving guests in the room.

Even as proud of her own work as she was, it was her Master's work in the afternoons that had Freya truly astonished. After a quick lunch, Eres would gather all of the magical texts that he was interested in that day onto the desk, and begin his work. At first, he just looked up various ways to practice the manipulation of Mana, both internally and externally. Next, it was practising the speed and strength of his visualisation with the Shield spell, trying with different amounts of Mana, different strengths of image and even a few, admittedly unsuccessful, attempts at invoking the spell with no incantation.

Even after that, Eres wasn't satisfied. He began attempting other simple spells, most of them defensive in nature, to see the process of learning spells in general. He managed to manifest a small cloud of illusory mist using the Fog Cloud spell, to deter people from entering the room with a ward for Avoidance and even discovered some basic ways he could circulate Mana in his body to strengthen it. The rate at which he learned and discovered applications for Mana shocked Freya, but Eres seemed to understand one thing and instantly grasp the basic concept of three more. It was astounding to watch, but after nearly a month, Eres had hit his first big stumbling block. 

It was a stormy day, and rain was lashing the gardens while thunder rolled through heavy grey clouds overhead. Eres had taken inspiration from this and decided it was time for him to attempt other sorts of magic, things that wouldn't be supported by his Defender Blessing. Looking at the conditions outside, he decided to attempt a simple lightning or water spell. Searching through the beginner books he had read so many times over the last few days, he found a pair of spells that fulfilled his criteria.

First was the introductory Lightning class spell Shock which emitted a high-voltage shock through the user's hand. While it was a simple and easy spell, it was relatively powerful in the right hands, according to the instructions in the book, but was seldom used by mages who needed to maintain their range from their opponents.

The second spell was an introductory spell of the Water elemental class spell, Jet. This spell condensed water from the atmosphere and fired it forward at incredibly high velocities. While the spell itself couldn't do large amounts of damage, it was more than capable of scaring off animals or knocking an attack off-centre, and many mages still used it as an incredibly quick and efficient means of attacking a weak point when other options would take too long.

After debating back and forth with himself, Eres decided to learn Shock first. He reasoned that if he was going to be learning close combat in the coming days, a close-range spell might help him amplify those skills. So, reading through the visualisations of the spell, he stood in the centre of the room and concentrated his mind inward. 

Eres once again felt the sea of Mana in his stomach, held within the Magic Core he had fashioned. Coaxing this energy out of the Core and into his body had become easier and easier the past weeks, and he began to circulate the energy up into his hands with barely a struggle. This time the Mana crackled with lightning, jumping from point to point in his body as the visualisation of the spell began to affect it. Dragging the Mana out through his hands and into the air, it began to spark and crackle, and with a big grin, Eres spoke the incantation, "Shock!" 

A bright flash of purple and blue electricity poured from his hand and dispersed rapidly into the air, and for maybe half a second the room danced with the sparks and colours of lightning. However, when the spell dissipated, Eres' face was pale and covered in a light sheen of sweat. Freya stepped forward, but before she could do anything he staggered forward and retched into the bin, losing the contents of his stomach. 

"Eres!" Freya exclaimed as she hurried across the room, titles forgotten in worry. As she rested a hand on the back of his neck, the skin was cold and clammy but his breathing was regaining a normal rhythm. 

"Well that was horrible," Eres let out a low moan as he rolled away from the wastebin and onto his back, arms and legs spread-eagled in the middle of the study floor, "but what was it? I haven't ever reacted like that to spells before." 

"I am not sure, Master Eres," Freya frowned, "I would say it was like an apprentice mage casting their first spell if you had not cast others. Many people react like that to the feeling of their Mana reserves depleting for the first time, and the same is true of Divine Power, but seeing as you are experienced…" Freya stumbled to stop as she looked at Eres' wide eyes.

For his part, Eres was baffled. How had he missed something so obvious? Never in any of his castings had he felt the amount of Mana in his core change. It had left his body to form a spell, but it always felt connected and flowed back into the core after the spell was done. This time, however, the mana hadn't flowed back into his body, it had flowed out into the atmosphere and the empty sick feeling as his core was depleted had left him shaking and vomiting. 

With a cocked eyebrow and a sigh, Freya continued on, "If it was simply a reaction to the expenditure of Mana, usually the body only reacts like this once or twice," she peered closely at Eres' face, which was slowly regaining colour, as she spoke, "I, of course, won't pry, Master Eres, but I will admit to finding it somewhat odd." 

"Well… Consider it a unique constitution of mine?" Eres mumbled, running his hand through his hair as he decided how much to confide in his maid. While she was a person under his father's employ, she had been kind and honest to him, so he thought he owed her at least a little explanation, "My Blessing. I won't be forthright about what it is, but it is somewhat more complex than a Mage Blessing. I simply want to stay unnoticed for now, so I downplayed it. Perhaps that makes it clearer?" 

"A Hybrid or an Advanced Blessing then?" Her eyes went wide before, catching herself, Freya bowed her head, a habit Eres was slowly but surely trying to break her of, "Apologies, Master Eres, that was improper. Thank you for confiding in me." 

"Of course, you are good conversation and a good person, Freya," Eres grinned "but I must say, what is this formality? Didn't you call my name with no title as I collapsed? I would be far more comfortable with that arrangement," 

Freya glared at Eres as she spoke, "A misstep, Master Eres. It won't happen again, I assure you." 

"Oh, you are no fun. I am fine though Freya, I promise. I feel right as rain now. Give me another few minutes and I will try again. Don't look at me like I am crazy, you said yourself that this sickness only happens a few times right? I may as well get them out of the way sooner rather than later," 

Freya sighed at her Master's stubbornness and went to brew a new pot of tea, and a plate of snacks, for whenever he was able to stomach food again. 

Eres grinned at Freyas retreating back, and once again concentrated on the inner sea of Mana. He felt like it had decreased just from that one simple spell, that he had used up nearly a tenth of his reserves on it. He knew that the most effective training for increasing the amount of Mana one had was only replenishing it when it was near depletion, so rather than trying to meditate and pull it into himself, he once again roused the sea of Mana inside himself and started attempting to invoke Shock again. 

His second try ended in failure. He wasn't sure if he was still shaken from the previous experience, but the Mana in his body didn't jump like electricity this time, and when he released it into the air, it dissipated without any visible effect. The sickness wasn't as bad this time, and by the time Freya returned to the room, it was barely visible as a tremble in his hands. 

The third try once again produced a shower of blue and purple sparks and Eres could feel his Magic Core slowly emptying. After two more casts of Shock, in an attempt to memorise its feeling so it could be cast more easily, Eres decided to attempt to cast Jet. This time the Mana he raised felt slow and languid, in the same way it felt when he was invoking Shield, and he was worried that it wouldn't work because of it, but as the Mana started to move through his hands into the atmosphere, he felt the difference. 

With Shield the Mana was fighting to stay close, to form together and build. This water magic however flowed far smoother. It didn't fight one way or another, simply flowed back and forth as it was pushed, until with a whispered "Jet!" a thin spout of water formed between Eres's hands and darted across the room, knocking over a wooden container of pencils and pens with only minor damage. 

Eres scurried across the room so he could pick them up before Freya tried to clean up his mess, as she often did, but the grin on his face was apparent. With the Mana loss no longer making him feel sick, feeling the change in his Magic Core made him feel like he was progressing, and he went to the books to try and find other beginner spells when a knock at the door stopped him halfway across the room. 

"Come in," Eres said, and standing in the doorway was Sylas, the head butler of the Household. 

"Lady Adalia has instructed me to tell you, Young Master, that your instructor will be here just after lunchtime tomorrow. That is all," and with a shallow bow, he turned on a heel and marched down the corridor without even shutting the door. 

Freya frowned as she closed the door, perturbed by Sylas' rudeness, but as she turned back she saw that the grin on Eres' face had only gotten wider. 

"Are you alright, Master Eres?" 

"Oh I am quite alright, Freya," Eres laughed, "because I was just thinking that I was going to run out of books in here before the year was out. Now with a teacher? Think how much more I can learn, how much more I can do!"

Eres' eyes gleamed as he wondered just what kind of person his Mother had found for his training, and if she had found them with a cold empty smile on her face, or the kind-eyed shock he had seen in the depths of the gardens.