"Only one of you has managed to produce flames before, and that's Lin. But his were pathetic, so don't think he has that much of an advantage on you!"
Why am I getting insulted so early in the morning?
"Teacher! Are you teaching us the legendary fireball?!" Prince asked.
"Yes! I am! I appreciate the enthusiasm, young prince!"
"Fireball... the most famous spell," Mari muttered.
"Don't worry, it's only famous because it's incredibly easy," he scoffed. "Heat is the easiest thing to produce with mana, since it's just simple energy."
"ZZZZzzzzzz"
"FIREBALL!"
A small ball of fire slowly drifted into Liora's wide open mouth, sucked in by her snoring. It exploded in her mouth, waking her up in a shock.
"AAHUGH!"
"It's also famous because it's versatile. Depending on how much mana you use, you can make fireball a tiny fire bean or a fire meteor. Or even a fire-death-explosion-vortex. Fireball is the base of almost every fire spell that magics use."
Like the one you used to decimate my village? Ha...ha...
"All of you. One by one, try to produce a fireball. It's very similar to casting magic bullet, but you'll feel heat gathering with the mana."
"What? We've never done it before, how are we supposed to magically turn our mana hot?" Mari asked.
"Just make it hot? The same way you'd make anything else hot."
That doesn't explain anything!? Not that it matters. Not for me. That's because I'm already able to cast a fireball! Even without chanting 'tân'!
My repeated usage of the tân chant already gave me the feeling of 'hot mana' that Alwyn was talking about, plus my practice using magic bullet... fireball came naturally to me.
"When we cast it, we're free for the day, right?" I asked, confident.
"Huh? Free!? What's there to do in a forest? No, you four are going to learn how to use fireball by catching breakfast! Go to the river and hunt fish using fireball. Each fish should be perfectly cooked from your fire."
What...? Does this count as a lesson? He's just hungry, isn't he!?
The four of us split into two groups. Prince and I headed upstream and Liora and Mari went the opposite way.
"Lin, what're you doing?"
I sat atop a large rock overlooking the river.
"I'm sitting. I'm not going to play in the water like a fool! That's beneath me! Ha!"
I saw a group of fish pass, and I pointed, casting a fireball from my fingertip. It exploded in the water, sending the fish flying onto shore. Prince picked one up, analyzing it.
"Wow, you can already cast fireball? Cool... you might want to turn down the power though, these ones are way too burnt to eat," he laughed.
"What? No, I did it perfectly. Let me see..."
They were charcoal.
"Hmmm, simple fix."
I pointed to a fish and cast fireball. The same result.
Why!? I thought I put less power into that one...?
The fire spells I'd been continuously casting were far too... hot. There was no way to regulate how intense the chanted spells were, so I was unfamiliar with how to make the fireball cooler.
I looked at Prince who was knee deep in the water, tracking the passing fish with his hands. He occasionally misfired magic bullets, though they were far too pathetic to even harm the fish.
Fireball! No, fireball... calm. Fireball. Argh! FIREBALL!
It wasn't working. I was just needlessly killing fish. I started to feel bad.
"Hey! Lin, look at this!"
Prince cast a fireball(?). I wasn't really sure what exactly it was. It kind of resembled a magic bullet, but orange instead of the usual blue color.
"Is that supposed to be a fireball?"
"I don't know? But it's progress, ha!"
So enthusiastic.
I felt bad for the prince. Alwyn had told me in confidence some very poor news. Alwyn had evaluated Prince's mana pool, and though he was technically capable of becoming a wizard, it was... small. So small that he would never be accepted into the tower.
Not unless he was the son of the king or something... even so, it seemed like the king trusted Alwyn's instruction more than the tower's. I found that strange, since Alwyn's 'instruction' didn't seem all that great...
What if I cast it, but don't think about fire...? Ball!
A spherical ball of mana shot from my finger and slapped a fish in the head. It didn't do much damage. Prince climbed the rock and collapsed beside me.
"I give up..." he sighed.
"So you finally quit?"
"Nah, I'm just taking a break."
"Are you ever going to quit?"
"...Is that how you feel?"
Oops. I let my inner thoughts slip.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it."
"You did. But it's fine. I know I'm not good at it, but magic is my only real passion. I don't have any responsibilities as the fourth prince, so I thought it would be a waste not to try."
"My bad. I was just surprised when you joined the party."
"You weren't surprised at Marielle being a witch?"
"No... not as much. I ran into her at the physical games during the festival, so she was already strange in my eyes. But you were just the... errr... useless prince. I kind of thought I'd never see you again after we left Corvailles."
"What!? I thought we'd become friends. Aren't we?"
I'm a bad person... I was totally using him for his caretaker!
"Yeah, we are."
"Well, that's enough rest! Gotta get back to it, I wouldn't want Marielle and Liora to beat us...!"
Liora's probably already gotten it. Mari is probably close, too.
"Yeah, yeah. Listen, you know how you can tense your hand to vibrate it? Converting your mana into heat is kind of similar. At least, that's how I see it. If you figure out how to 'tense' it, then you'll be able to gather the heat in your hands just like the regular mana does in magic bullet."
"Hmmm... I think I get it."
After a few tries, the prince managed to let out a few sparks. It was shortly after that he was able to produce his first fireball.
"Hey, Lin, look! Perfectly cooked!" he boasted, taking a bite out of the fish.
"So? How'd you reduce the heat?"
"I don't know... just tense it less?"
Eugh... even he got it before me.
"YOOO!" Liora called out. "Did you guys do it yet?"
Liora and Mari were walking upstream.
"Prince did. I can't figure it out, so I gave up."
"Pffft, you sounded so confident earlier, though?" Mari smirked.
"Tch, it's not my fault the fish can't handle my power."
"I can't do it eiiither!" Liora cried. "All the fish turn out burnt to a crisp..."
It's a pattern, isn't it? Us, the more talented students, can't do it! That must mean something...!
I thought back to what Alwyn had told me about talented magics. Those with larger mana pools find it harder to learn less consuming spells, since they are more suited for smaller, more controllable amounts of mana.
Someone like Prince uses almost his entire pool to cast something like fireball, so it's easy to manipulate. Using fireball for Liora and I was closer to manipulating a singular drop of water from a large pool.
Simply, it was because we were awesome that the less talented plebeians were able to beat us.
"Let's bring the fish to the camp. Aliza's probably awake by now," Mari said.
"How many did you guys catch?"
"Oh, Mari caught like, a million. It was awesome! We're gonna have a feast for breakfast!"
A feast of only roasted fish... great...
"Did you already drop them off or what?"
"Huh? No, we carried them here."
"No... you don't mean...?"
"What? Mari put them all in my hat."
"What about all the things you keep in there...?"
She looked at me with a confused expression.
"ROOOOOAAAAAAR!"
The sound startled me so that I fell off the large rock and crunched on the ground. We all turned to the source—a large brown bear charging at us.
It's here for the fish!
"I left my sword! What do we do?!" Mari shouted.
"What do you mean!? Cast fireball you idiot!"
Liora, Prince, and Mari started casting fireball. They missed every shot. To be fair, the bear was quite agile.
"It keeps dodging!? I think it might be trained!" Liora cried out.
"Are you stupid? It's a bear!"
The bear pounced on Liora, swinging her around with its mouth. Liora screamed for help. Prince and Mari started to panic, shooting fireballs at the bear. The fire was too weak, though, and barely left smoke coming from the bear's back.
Ha! This is my chance! Only an explosive fireball can take care of such a powerful bea—
As I started to get up, Liora flew out of the bear's mouth and slammed me back into the ground. I started to feel dizzy from the repeated impacts to the head.
"Get off me!" I pushed her.
She covered me in her strange yellow blood. Really covered me. It was disgusting. It looked as if I'd jumped into a nest of eggs. I looked back up and Prince and Mari, who were now running circles around the bear trying to subdue it.
"Stand back, I have arrived!" I shouted.
FIIIIREEEEEBAAAAAAALLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!
The fireball exploded against the bear's ribs, and it reared in pain. It swiped me in the face, slamming me once again into the ground.
The bear roared as it ran away, trampling over Liora and disappearing into the woods. I clumsily got up from the ground, stumbling over to where Liora was mush.
"OMIGAUD... LIORA'S DEAD!" Mari started to cry.
Prince stared in shock, silent.
"Yo... are you dead?"
A gross sputtering came from the ground. I brushed my hand against my slashed face and dripped the blood into the puddle. Soon enough it started to meld back together into Liora.
"Liora...!? Am I seeing things?" Mari sniffled.
"Liora, you're Siarath? But back in the manor, you really were drinking Lin's blood. No, you can't be... you don't look like one at all?"
"She's Siaryn. A half-breed. So she can't die no matter how hard I—"
Liora drop-kicked me in the stomach and both of us fell onto the ground.
"Don't call me half-breed! That's so rude!"
"You kick me... after I give you my blood..."
"I think I'm going to faint..." Mari mumbled.
"Wait... me too," I said, my head spinning.
It was quite the embarrassing outing. Alwyn had tasked us to retrieve breakfast, but instead we got our asses kicked by a bear. We might've been the worst magics in the world at that moment...