Val groaned in agony and let his head fall to the surface of his desk.
Apparently, learning magick was not going to be as easy as he had thought it would. Sure Lord Raymond had given him that heads up on their first meeting but he hadn't expected so much reading in his first two weeks.
"Sy...I'm tired." He groaned out before pulling out his phone to check the time, 10.30pm.
He was about to cry; he had a Math test in the morning, he needed sleep but here he was cramming as much information as he could about magick terminologies and their meanings because he also had another test after the two he'd take at school.
"I'm not telling you to stress yourself out Val, you can just fail your magick test like a loser. Sure you'll be the laughing stock of the class for a month, because no one fails that test, but you could, no pressure."
Val could detect undertones of 'If you fail you are dead to me,' in that statement. He turned his chair around so he could glare at his best friend who was nonchalantly laying on the bed and playing with a piece of string.
Some things really weren't so different from when Symon was a cat.
It was almost two weeks since he had made th discovery about being a wizard and everything, and to say the least, he felt he was doing very well on his training.
His instructors on the other hand...
"You're terrible." Mika said bluntly the next day while Val was trying, as instructed, to create an energy ball. He had done the test and was confident he'd get at least seventy percent.
"If you can't perform a simple grade four attack spell after two weeks, I don't think you'll be going on a real investigation anytime soon." The red-head hissed out.
It wasn't really hard to explain. The EMCC had three divisions; The security division which consisted of magick police which dealt with protecting the secret; The research division which gathered information on events worldwide and finally the investigation division which had the job of retrieving magickal artifacts and stopping them from affecting human lives.
He and Symon were going to be Investigators since that was guaranteed to get a lot of attention.
He focused his mind on trying to make the energy sphere, the longer it took the more he doubted this was a grade four spell.
Grade 4: can be attempted by magic wielder since it belongs to no particular skill class.
Grade 3: does not belong to a skill class but is harder to learn.
Grade 2: belongs to a particular skill class but can be learned if that skill class is achieved.
Grade 1: do not attempt unless I belongs to you skill class.
He tried harder, doing as Blaise told him. He focused his flow of magick towards his hands.
"Focus Valerian." Mika said wishing he could be doing other things, but he couldn't. He had to specially attend to this one since Blaise was marking scripts.
"Its not all about focus." Symon scoffed. He got up from his chair and walked over to them. Some of the other trainees that had stayed back after class turned to look at them. No one had ever contradicted Mika.
Mika smirked, "Then what is it about? Focus is everything in magick."
Symon shook us head, and Val noticed something which happened on rare occasions. Symon looked dead serious. "Not in everyone's case. Magick flows from the heart, meaning it's at the hearts command. You really have to want something from the bottom of your heart, and direct it towards the point of output." He paused then moved to stand behind Val.
"Turning me human came easy because it belonged to your skill class but when it comes to spells outside that you needed more will power. Your form is bad, your stance is too relaxed and you're not motivated." Symon listed off while walking around him. "Don't think because you kept me out of jail that you can relax Val, you were part of this choice and now you have to carry out your end of the deal.
"If you're not prepared now you may be the reason someone loses their life in the field. I'm your friend hut I'm also older than you by a lot so I know a lot."
Val looked down into Symon's eyes, blood rushing to his cheeks from the embarrassment at the disappointment he saw in them.
He nodded, "I'll improve."
Symon smiled, "That's more like it. Oi, I need some cash to get snacks."
Of course. Val thought fondly as he reached into the pocket of his uniform to pull out some gold coins.
Symon snatched them and ran out the door oblivious to the stares following him.
Val turned back to Mika, "I'm going to try again."
"Obviously. If you don't get it today you can forget about leaving without homework."
He sometimes got a feeling Mika was around his age, mainly because Mika was around Symon's height. But there was no way he was complaining. He'd seen the guy dismember metal training dummies.
He stood straighter and took in a breath of fresh air, he put the flat of his palms together and slowly pulled them apart as he directed his flow towards them.
He closed his eyes, willing the heat in his hands to grow, he wanted this, he didn't want to fail Symon or anyone that would put their trust in him.
His heart beat with that same buzz from the alley. His hands felt very warm now, he opened his eyes and looked down to see the gold tinted ball of flickering light in his hands.
After a few seconds it slowly faded back it nothingness.
They heard clapping from the door and turned to see Blaise.
"Nice work Val, I was actually beginning to worry you wouldn't do it."
"You do spend more time flirting with him than teaching him." Mika said in a deadpan tone.
"Mika, hush." Blaise stated then he turned back to Val, "You're a slow learner but we'll make an Investigator out of you yet, just you wait."
Val nodded absently looking down at his palms, with a determined look on his face he took his stance. "I'm gonna try again, bigger this time."
***
It wasn't until the end of the week Val finally perfected the spell and to everyone's surprise he enhanced it.
"Watch this." He told them Saturday afternoon when he came in for one the not compulsory training session
Symon complained loudly as he came in behind Val, "Hurry up, you promised the girls we'd hang out today."
Val ignored him and turned to Blaise and Mika, "I just had to show you."
He pointed his hand to one training dummy that was a reasonable distance away. The golden light gathered round his fingers, forking the ball. He threw it. It hit the dummy completely covering it in ice.
They all looked shocked, including Symon. Mika walked over to the dummy and studied it, "Its not frozen in ice, it 'is' ice."
"Amazing." Blaise muttered, "You really are a wonderful student Val, come get a hug." He added walking towards Val with outstretched arms.
Symon growled defensively, "I advise against that."
Blaise rolled his eyes before dropping his arms to his sides, he adjusted his glasses, "I'm curious though, normal freezing spells 'encase' their targets. This is quiet new."
Val grinned sheepishly, "I'm not sure myself but it happened while I was practicing last night. I just thought about how cool it would be if my target froze up and when I shot a tiny ball at my alarm clock it froze."
"It seems some of your cre-reformation skill flowed into the spell." Symon said simply. "Do not use that spell on a real person Val you may not be able to turn them back."
"Sure." He said letting out a tense breath.
"Don't tell me you've devoted all your time to that spell?" Mika spoke up. "What about the other ones I gave you to practice."
Val tensed up again, "I'm still working on those, besides, isn't it better to work on something I have the hang of now. What if I can do more with this spell."
"Mika isn't saying you should stop improving your energy sphere, he's saying you should learn stronger stuff."
"An energy sphere shouldn't be the only weapon in your artillery. Speaking of which have you summoned a weapon yet?" Mika asked.
Val looked away.
"We'll take that as a 'no' but take your time Val there's no rush." Blaise encouraged.
***
"An investigation?! You've got to be joking?!" Val yelled as he was being dragged towards what she said was the armory.
The person dragging him was none other than Kenta, "Don't worry, it's just a simple retrieval case. It'll help you get a feel of working in the field."
"You forgot to mention he has to contribute." Symon who was tailing behind them said.
"I've barely been here a month."
"You've been training for that month, haven't you?" She asked just as she flung a door open.
She dropped his hand and went to a rack holding bows and arrows.
Symon went towards a table holding weirdly shaped guns. He was obviously still planning on not using Magick.
Val looked around, everything he saw looked like it would require a special level training. He really hadn't started practicing with weapons yet even though Mika had told him several times to do so.
"Here's a pulse pistol." Symon said chucking one gun his way. Val caught it with a lot of difficulty. "They're specially designed to inflict damage to all types of monsters. The level of damage depends on the grade of the monster but at least you hit something, right?"
Val nodded, he studied the weapon which lay in his sweaty palms. He really didn't want to have to use it. Bloody hell, he didn't even want to fight. He wasn't ready for this.
Kenta placed a comforting arm on his shoulder. "RelaxVal it'd it'd beginner level mission, I'm experienced at shit like this. But if you're still worried, Mika is the last member of our team and he's pretty good."
For obvious reasons that put Val at ease. He'd actually pity any monster that had to go against Mika.
"Don't Relax kid." Symon said bitterly. He had need acting very strange over the last few days but Val chose not to question him. Not now at least.
They went all the way down to the ground floor and to the Travelator hanger.
Val was surprised to see Mika already there. He had two spears on his back and several daggers around his waist.
"Hurry, the sooner we're done the less time I have to send with you three." He seemed rather irritated.
Val halted, watching the other two get in. Something felt really wrong about the whole situation. We're they entering some kind of trap? was he scared and just over-thinking things? What was this feeling?
"Val," Symon called in a gentle voice, "It's going to fine."
Val sighed, still shaking he stepped in. If Symon said it'd be fine, he'd trust that.
Mika pushed a few buttons. "Welcome to your first investigation newbie, try to stay alive will you."
He took that more as a warning than an encouragement.