He stood near the sand pit of the training areas that were not being used by the teachers in training, his new spellbook in hand, "What even are these spells?" He could only recognize two of them, Sham'Bo and Teltovig, the nullifying spell and the shattering spell as the spellbook described them. The rest were a complete mystery to him,they hadn't even been in the book that described the Oik and their magic. Some took several pages to explain or describe and made the small 30 pages of the spellbook that could successfully contain all the spells of the life school was met with a challenge to contain just 7 spells. One of the seven spells rang eerily similar to the Dominator's finale, Ulkos. The spell could destroy magic from within and extinguish any magical effects around it. A voice made him turn around, "Uri, if you don't mind," It was Helden Ervel, the head of the ice school, "We were planning on using these areas."
"Oh, don't worry," He smiled and put away his spellbook, "Do you know which area is free right now?"
"Training areas 2 and 5 are free," She commented as her teachers in training awaited her instruction. Uri nodded and headed away from training area 3 and towards training area 2.
He soon arrived in the empty training area. The mage was alone and free to test his new spells for himself, "Sham'bo and Teltovig, I know those two," He mumbled to himself as he quickly read the spellbook's description of the spells and how to cast them. The book however detailed different manners of casting the two spells, both spells had vocal casting as well as symbol casting or gesture casting. He placed the book down after reading the steps for Sham'bo, the gesture casting was an unusual set of movements that seemed to be a strange dance. As he finished the final step which seemed like an animal posturing to be intimidating, he felt the spell resolve and his body gained the Sham'Bo aura, "A dance works to activate a spell, huh," Uri thought to himself as he let the spell fade away. The young man noticed the same thing when he did the much shorter dance for Teltovig, finishing in a similar pose but the spell simply happened and did nothing. The spellbook had already shattered his concept of Oik magic by showing him a set of gestures to cast a spell was something that Oik could've used in the past.
"What are you doing, Uri?" He heard someone laughing behind him, "What is this dance?" It was Kelly and she had been watching him for an amount of time that Uri wasn't yet aware of. She stood still, awaiting his answer, "So?"
"The dance, as you called it," Uri sighed, "Is a gesture cast, Kelly."
"A what?" She looked at the open spellbook, "What are these spells?"
"Oik magic, I told you this already, the spellbook that I made."
"Oh, this is it?" Uri sighed, "Sorry, I didn't expect this type of thing," Uri nodded and sat down with the spellbook and continued to read, "Did I interrupt you?"
"No, it's fine," She seemed bothered, "Can we try something?"
"What do you want to try?" She asked while curiously reading over his shoulder, "What are these spells?"
"I want to try these two, Vendicto and Kavut."
"What do they do?" She asked while still reading the book.
"Reflect and silence spells apparently," He replied as the two read on. Kelly nodded and stood up, "Maybe something simple?"
"Sure for your reflecting spell, but I want to see how strong your Oik magic is so not for that silence spell," She grinned as she skipped to the other side of the training circle, "What spell do you want?" He stood up and walked slowly to the training circle, "First, second, third year?"
"Something small, since first of all, you are aiming it at me, second of all, my spell aims it back at you," He replied, "I would prefer that neither of us get hurt," His girlfriend nodded and began writing out a spell in the air. He responded by beginning the gesture cast of his own spell. A smile appeared on his face as they both finalized their spells together, reminding him of the many training sessions they had done together. The spell she had cast was not a small spell at all, a stream of powerful flames burst out of the spell and slammed into an invisible wall before getting fired back in a wide explosion of flames. The flames dissipated quickly as the wide reflection didn't push the fire back at Kelly far enough to hurt her, "That wasn't something small!" Uri shouted as the two spells ended, "I told you something small!"
"Oh, don't start this again, Uri, I am fine," She gestured at herself, "So who cares what spell I cast?"
"I do," She nodded, "Okay, how about we try something that can't hurt either of us for this one?" She nodded once before she began casting another note. A large elemental hand reached from out of the ground and pulled a fully formed fire elemental from the ground. It was completely normal, as he had correctly assumed, the magic spike was the cause of the disturbance in the magic of the plane, "Look at that, it isn't a mix spell," Kelly looked confused before realizing what he meant.
"My magic is normal again!" She seemed much too happy about that small difference, "I can pass my exams normally!" She cheered and did a little happy dance to herself as Uri began performing his casting gesture, "What does your spell do again?"
"It," He was nearly too focused to give her a proper answer, "Should cause your spell to end now," The pose was the same as the final pose for the last two spells and the elemental simply vanished, the flames of its body getting put out by an invisible force.
"What? How did you do that?"
"I guess this is how my ancestors fought mages then," He looked at his hands and then at Kelly, "Want to try it again?" She nodded, "A smaller spell for this one."
"Smaller like what?"
"Not a blast of flames," She rolled her eyes, still smiling before nodding. They continued to practice the new spells that had been written into a spellbook by Uri for probably the first time ever. Kelly continued to practice her own magic as she cast larger and larger spells to test the power of her boyfriend's magic. She hadn't even thought that Oiks could use magic in order to stop magic from how they were described in the history classes she took. Nothing made sense anymore when it came to what the Oiks could and couldn't do. However, the confused thoughts about magical history quickly faded away as she spotted a smile on Uri's face.
"What are you smiling about?" She asked as he extinguished another of her flames, "What is making you so happy?"
"Well, it works," He replied with a small chuckle, "I actually made a spellbook and it works, these spells work."
"Why wouldn't they work?" She replied, "You are the Hero of Mage Haven Academy, the one with a perfect vessel of magic, if someone could do it, it would be you."
"And I did it," Uri smiled as he walked towards her, "Thank you for training with me," He hugged her. She was slightly surprised by his tight hug as a tear went down his cheek, "Thank you for everything."
"Uri? Are you okay?" He nodded as he continued to hold her tightly, "Are you sure?" He nodded again as she returned the hug, "Okay then," Uri let go of her soon after and looked around nervously.
"Sorry."
"No, it's fine, just surprising," Kelly admitted, "You don't normally act like that."
"Yeah, I realized," He looked up at the sky, "What time is it?" Kelly looked down at her watch and showed it to him, "Want to practice some more?"
"Yes," She nodded as Uri turned and returned to the side he had been on. They would practice until it was time for dinner. Uri had always enjoyed practicing with Kelly but their last session was even better than the previous as he was using his very own spellbook.