They once more headed through the village, heading towards the school. In all honesty Jace hadn't even realised there was a school. Oddly progressive to have a school in a village out in the boondocks that had no connection with any type of government. So he thought untill he asked what they actually taught at the school. It was a Combat school, they taught kids to fight and kill monsters, taught them how to better defend themselves and taught them how the system worked and ways to take proper advantage of it.
That made a lot more sense than the school he had in mind himself, although teaching kids at such a young age how to kill still rattled his modern sensibilities even if he realised the logic behind it. The Professor they were going to meet evidently had no name and was simply referred to by others as the professor. Like many others in the village he seemed to have a mysterious past that he had left behind to live a new life. Jace expected to find more outlaws and runaway criminals in a village this far out. But so far everyone seemed to be a decent person.
He started hearing the sounds of kids screaming and realised they were drawing close to the school. It was not a large building by all accounts, but it had a pretty large backyard. One that was filled by children of both genders who were being taught how to fight with weapons and without by a grizzled man with a scarred face. Scarring almost seemed to be in fashion around here, everyone had quite the collection. He followed weira as she led him into the two storied building and headed up the stairs into a room that was a combination of a lab and an office.
Behind the desk sat what anywhere else Jace would have called a salary man. He had the look and feel of an accountant but the way the papers in the office were ordering themselves betrayed the man's magical background. He glanced up and smiled when he saw Weira, he stood up and walked over and grabbed her in a tight hug. To Jace's surprise she let him, he even spotted a small smile on her face.
Well colour me surprised. Jace thought.
"Weira I did not expect to see you today, did you change your mind and finally accept that a mind as sharp as yours should be used for the study of magic!"
She smirked and shook her head and flicked a finger in Jace's direction.
"Aha! You must be the mysterious young man that popped up out of nowhere, Trishla told me about you and she shared with me her suspicions that you came from another world or plane, fascinating! Truly fascinating, tell me. Does the air you breath feel different? How about gravity, a truly marvelous new finding that by the way. Although the specifics slip my mind."
Jace stared at the man with wide eyes, Trishla knew he came from a different world?! More importantly she shared that fact with others and no one had decided to capture him for experiments! The novels had lied to him!
"Well gravity as I understand it depends on the mass of the planet we are standing on, perhaps this one is the same size as my own planet or magic somehow interferes with it's effects. I'm not proficient in the area myself, and magic goes against anything scientific that I know of."
The professor's eyes sparkled as he listened. "So gravity is caused by the mass of an object, that is interesting. But most importantly you tell me that not only does your home planet not have a system it does not even have magic?!"
Jace nodded, "Not even a little, there are a few stories about witches and people who claimed to have magical abilities but none of that has been proven and most of it has been proven to be fake, a simple sleight of hand trick more often than not."
The professor pushed his glasses up, then tapped his chin. "That begs the question how the people on your planet manage to survive the wilderness and monsters. Do you have some inborn trait that helps you handle them."
Jace shook his head, "We rely on technology to survive nature, as for monsters. We don't have any, we only have normal animals. Some stronger than humans, but none a match for our wit and technology."
The man perked up, "You say humans, are there no other races other than humanity where you come from."
Jace nodded in affirmation.
"Fascinating! Well how abou-"
Weira stepped between the two and looked at them in exasperation. She tapped Jace on the head a few times.
Jace coughed in embarrassment he had to admit he had lost himself a bit there. "My apologies professor, we are actually here to ask you about magic and how to construct our own spells."
He told the professor how he and Weira had tackled the dungeon and how they planned to use magic to make up for their lack of skills but how they would need to create all their spells themselves.
The professor was excited by the prospect of teaching his favourite pupil how to construct magic of her own. Also teaching someone who had no knowledge or experience with magic and came from another world also got the man's inquisitive blood pumping. They spent the next few hours going into depth about magical theory and magicule particles. All of that went over Jace's head but Weira was right at home. He was stunned that she had such a scientific mindset. He thought she was more of a muscle-for-brains type.
The two got into a discussion about the effects of magicules on someones respiratory system and how monsters absorbed those same magicules as a manner of growth instead of the combat focused way that most sentient species adopted. In all honesty most of the discussion was way outside his speciality and he let the two of them geek out for a while before they remembered why they originally came here.
So the prof taught them how to harness their magic. He pushed his own magic into their bodies and let them feel were the magic was stored, Jace felt odd. It was like having an organ you never had before, something that stored energy that your body could acces when you put your mind to it. He had no trouble finding and feeling the magical pool of energy but manipulating it was an entire different story.
Weira annoying little magical genius that she was picked it up within seconds. She already had a small ball of pure magic dancing to her whims, she then tried applying it to the edge of her halberd. Jace saw the edge shimmer and knew she had already succeeded. Jace tried as he might but had an issue with getting the magic to leave his body. He was getting frustrated but the prof on the other hand only got more excited. Talking about out of world experiences and the natural abilities of people born in a world of magic and those who like Jace were mundane.
Getting called mundane was oddly grating, he focused harder. Sweat was starting to drip from his forehead but finally he felt movement, the magic was moving and he managed to get a few particles to leave the palm of his hand. He grinned in excitement and tried to turn them into a ball as Weira had done. This was a lot more difficult but another hour of practice and he succeeded.
Weira in the meantime was doing all kinds of neat tricks with her limited mana reserves, she was currently focusing on making her already sharp mana edge even sharper. Jace stopped pushing the magic through his veins and took a breather, he told Weira about an idea he had of infusing the mana into his muscles for bursts of power. Perhaps at later levels when their reserves had grown they could keep it up permanently. Or they could layer their skin with the stuff and use it defensively. All such applications were for now far off in the future as he could not even properly form a ball yet.
But this did lead to another discussion between the two eggheads of ways they could enhance weapons, armour and themselves for combat. Jace had already realised that he would be focusing more on the physical aspect of battle than the magical one. He was not talented and he realised it would take a lot of effort to be able to use it properly. By all means he was NOT going to stop trying to use it. It was magic after all, the stuff was super cool. But it would not become his primary focus, his focus remained unchanged. Master the weapons he wielded until they melded with his mind and became his own limbs.
The shield would be his focus and he would wield it like no other. This was his goal, and if he could enhance that shield and his abilities with magic than all the better. But the more complicated magic that involved entire rituals.Those he would leave to his egghead sister.