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Chapter 7. A discovery and a clarification

Louise was terribly tired. She and Saito had decided to hold the language courses in the Halkegin language separately for both groups. However, that meant she had to develop her own curriculum. And she had to put tight rein on her temperament if one of her protégés did not make the progress she had hoped for. There was also a problem, that she hadn't considered: Japanese people are very traditional. They automatically give older people greater authority than younger people. And she herself was younger than most of her charges.

In addition, she also had to take care of Mariko. She practically always had her child with her, even in her language class, but it was a major disruption to the curriculum if the baby called in the middle of a lesson and wanted to be fed or changed. Fortunately, theJapanese are not considered extremely child-friendly for nothing. Some of their protégés had children of their own, who also took part in language classes - and made amazing progress.

And she had another ambition: she wanted to improve her own magic. After the Void magic disappeared, she had awakened to system magic. But she had never had the opportunity to apply what she had learned here at school. So she had asked the academy staff to at least superficially tidy and clean a room inside the Void Tower. She had received a wand from Master Parnier that was quite similar to the old one. But similar is not the same. She first had to get used to the new staff.

And while she was re-enacting the magic she had learned in school and never mastered, she had made a discovery ...

So she had asked two of the teachers to come to the Void Tower during the lunch break - they were Miss Chevreuse, the Earth Magician and Jean Colbert, the Fire Magician. She was waiting for the two magic teachers and meanwhile she played with her daughter, who chuckled and laughed while she grabbed her fingers and her hair. Would they come?

They did it. The calm, measured voice of Colbert could be heard from the corridor, and in response the warm voice of Miss Chevreuse. Immediately afterwards the two teachers entered the room. It was anything but empty. Furniture was piled along the walls, but at least the servants had cleaned the floor of the room. Still, Miss Chevreuse twisted her mouth as she looked around. "Now I want to know why you asked us to come here, Louise, in this dusty room and why we should forego our lunch break."

"You should find out right away," said Louise and put Mariko back in her baby basket. "You know why I asked for this room?"

"No," replied Colbert.

"You know why I couldn't master a single spell correctly when I was a student, right?"

"For sure. It was because, without even knowing it, you were a Void mage. Instead of the expected results, your actual gift always came to the fore and was released in these explosions. "

"That's right. And you were at my wedding party back then and saw what happened, didn't you?"
Colbert laughed. "One of the funniest sights I've ever seen! Tiffania wore high heels that she was not used to. When she wanted to congratulate Saito on his wedding, she stumbled, fell over and dragged Saito with him, who wanted to support her, so that Saito lay on top of her. And then you came, saw Saito in this precarious position and let go of a spell. "
"That's the way it is. You can imagine that I was angry - at my wedding, of all places, Saito is so clumsy that he comes to rest with his face between the breasts of these half-elve. "
"I don't think Saito did that on purpose," said Miss Chevreuse.
"Today I think so too, but at that point I saw red and cast a spell on Saito. In itself it should have been an explosion, but to my surprise it was windhammer, an aerial spell that whirled Saito across the floor. "
"Not surprising when you consider that your mother is Karin,"the heavy wind ", a knight who did a lot for the empire with her aerial magic. That runs in the family. "
"Yes," said Louise slowly. "That was the moment I realized that I had now awakened to system magic. But there was no way to go into that any further. The wedding party went on, Julio Chesare arrived with Brimir's mirror - in short, the events rolled over."
"Yes, yes, but what does that have to do with the reason you asked us to come here?"
"Since I've been back, I've been asking myself what I learned here at school - whether I would be able to apply what I learned back then. So I had this room set up a little for me to practice. "
"Commendable," said MissChevreuse. "But what does that have to do with us? Why did we have to come here? "
"While doing the exercises I noticed something - something scary, and I asked you guys to judge it. I need independent expertise before I shy the horses. Miss Chevreuse, do you remember the first spell you tried to teach my class? You were just newly hired here. "
"Do not remind me of that! I was almost scared to death when you let go of your explosion in the middle of the classroom! But yes, it was transmutation. Pebbles to metal. A basic earth magic. "
"I went through all of the spells I learned in the first year. Not all of them worked due to lack of practice, but that could change with appropriate training. And then I tried the first two-element magic, the first surface magic, the one that I failed so spectacularly at the time - pebbles to metal. I'm proud to say it worked straight away. But I noticed something and that is what I ask for your expertise about. "
Louise pointed her wand in the center of the room. There was a little taburett on spindly legs. Louise stepped up to the table and let three pebbles roll out of her hand onto the surface. "Please, watch carefully what happens now."
Colbert nodded and stepped forward, as did Miss Chevreuse. Both leaned forward. But when Louise made the introductory movements with her wand, they automatically backed away. Each of the two magicians had already felt the violence of Louise's explosions. But then Colbert pulled himself back and leaned forward again.
Louise made the rest of the movements with her wand and mumbled the transmutation formula. There was a bright glow at the tip of the stick that spread across the three pebbles. And the pebbles changed. The shine of bare metal was created.