"Teacher, I've been meaning to ask."
"Hmm?"
"What's with those rabbits?"
Jane stared at the bizzare sight in front of him. Dozens of large, bipedal rabbits were running to and fro, doing various kinds of labor. Some of them were wearing stereotypical suspenders or overalls, making them look like poor workers who had been transfigured into animals.
"Do you truly wish to know?"
"Sure, why not."
"They are my children."
"You—!?"
'I knew he was messed up in the head, but...'
Calex completely ignored the expression of horror his disciple was making.
"I gathered rabbits from the forest, and then engraved enough runes onto their soul cores for them to become this capable."
"And you had enough space to do all of that on untrained rabbit Manahearts?"
"Of course not. I taught them how to tame mana first."
Jane began seriously reconsidering whether or not he should have been so lax towards his teacher. That person clearly had gone insane a long time ago.
"So, are those... people? Are you paying them?"
"They're only as intelligent as toddlers, so I treat them accordingly. And yes, they do get a salary. They waste it all on carrots, though."
"Waste?"
'Carrots are a perfectly good use of money, aren't they?.'
It was his teacher's turn to be surprised.
"You're telling me you could buy anything else, but would still choose to spend all of your salary on carrots?"
"Well, not all of it, but at least a good portion."
"Oh, no... my disciple has gone mad..."
"Like teacher, like student. That aside, why are we here watching rabbits do hard labor?"
Calex made a solemn expression.
"I'll be leaving soon, you see."
"Already? Thank the lo—"
"In half a year."
Jane felt cheated. Then again, his teacher was a masterful cheat.
"You call that soon?"
"Time flies, my disciple."
"Weren't you just saying that to try and make me beg you to stay?"
"I won't stop you from doing so."
"Whatever."
He stayed silent for a moment.
"My disciple, do you think you could win in a fight against a bear?"
"With or without magic?"
"What kind of mage fights without magic?"
"Well, obviously I would win. I think."
When Jane thought about it, he didn't have any offensive spells memorized. Sure, his current repertoire could easily give birth to a move or two, but he had not actually put any effort into making one.
"The first thing any mage tries to do with their magic is use it offensively. However, not all forms of offense are effective against other mages. My disciple, you would most likely win against any wild animal, even if you fought it unprepared. However, don't think that the same spells which work on a wild animal will work on a mage."
"Well, isn't that obvious?"
"It should be. As a general rule of thumb, defensive magic is always faster than offensive magic. This is because defensive magic is only casted around one's body, while offensive magic will usually have to travel a great distance before reaching the opponent. As a result, if a mage knows what kind of magic is going to attack them beforehand, they will almost always be able to defend against it."
"Couldn't I just combine it with a 'Concealment', then?"
"That is precisely what mages do in combat. You understand the difficulty of it then, right?"
As of now, Jane had not even tried to combine 'Concealment' with other runes, unless he placed it inside of a 'Void' first. This was because he would become unable to sense mana within the area of effect of the rune, making sustainment of the spell near impossible.
"So you're saying I need to learn how to control mana under the effect of 'Concealment'?"
"Not just that. Did you bring your locket like I asked?"
Jane reached around in his shirt a little before dragging out the familiar accessory.
"Any time you fight, you're going to be doing it under the influence of that locket. Thus, you will need to learn how to gather mana, construct, and move, all while you cannot sense it."
All around his body, rippling mana covered his skin like a shroud. Jane stared at the mana and tsked.
'This is going to be a massive pain, isn't it?'
---
The structure of the spell was simple. A few 'Water' runes, a few 'Heat' runes, all inside a 'Project'— and, as he discovered, the auxiliary portion of 'Void' could share the same circle as other syntax runes. When he dispelled the 'Void', a torrent of steamy water would rain down upon him, soothing his muscles and cleaning his muddied and torn skin. He then manifested the 'Void' again, and dissipated the 'Water' runes. In their place, he constructed several 'Air' runes. Jane dispelled the 'Void' and carefully manouvered the spell around, drying his body off with the hot air.
Once he was blissfully clean again, Jane gritted his teeth and reached for the nearby locket. As soon as he flicked the switch, his entire body disappeared from view.
Jane cautiously stood up and observed the world around him. Relying on the sensation of his legs relative to his viewpoint, he began walking. After he felt comfortable walking, he lowered his center of mass and started running.
'Now, for the hard part.'
Since his locket already had enough 'Concealment' runes, he didn't need to add any to his subsequent spell. As he ran by, he quickly constructed a circle with 'Void' and 'Project' as auxiliary runes, and then placed 'Heat', 'Tar', and 'Air' runes inside. While he could not sense the mana in the air, he knew he took an action to move it into the correct position. Jane took a deep breath and released the 'Void' portion of the rune. His target was a nearby tree, and while watching his spell go off—
"Shit!"
Instead of attacking the tree, the spell went directly for Jane instead. Since the spell was constructed messily, it didn't hurt too bad, but he would have been seriously hurt if he didn't dispell the magic right after realizing it went wrong.
Jane stopped running, panting heavily. He felt around for the locket's switch, and undid it. Immediately, his damaged body could once again be seen. In addition to the previous scars, his exposed skin was now slightly red, and smelt of burnt hair.
He started constructing his hot shower spell again, but in consideration of his burns, removed all of the 'Heat' runes from the circle. Jane shivered slightly, feeling the cold water run over his damaged flesh.
Although the initial construction of 'Project' was facing in the right direction, his subsequent construction of runes took too much focus, and so the 'Project' ended up warping and directing the spell towards him, instead. Jane reflected on his mock combat performance.
'I couldn't even walk while concealed at first... isn't this good enough?'
He complained, even knowing that it wasn't. After all, his teacher who knocked out a random village boy just for having too much mana claimed to be among the most merciful of mages. Others might have immediately gone for the kill, not even giving Jane a chance to explain himself. If he wanted to live any longer, he needed to be able to fight while completely concealed.
Walking around was fine, since he could touch and see, but he could not sense mana at all when it was concealed. He had to blindly exert control over an unknown amount of mana, and hope that it worked. That gave muscle memory importance, because it was impractical to consciously form invisible mana into clean runes.
Jane dried himself off with a similarly heatless spell composed of 'Air' runes, and began psyching himself up for another round of training. It was going to be a long, long night.