For the duration of the next month. Samuel spent his time doing the same things, training with his mentor Bregane every day for at least half the day, with the same gemstones every single day focusing his craft with all the basic elements while training his control over life energy. Death energy or darkness as it was also called was not issue at all for Samuel.
They trained until Samuel's fine control became so good he could shape the energies in an instant as he saw them shape with his mind. During that same month he also got to know his neighbour a little bit. She was also someone who had a mentor teaching her because she had fallen behind so much from being sick her previous year, which meant that Erica was in a simillar spot to Samuel.
Samuel spent most of his day training with Bregane's guidance, while spending his free time reading tomes on magic practice. The first week had been the worst with how tired he had been after every lesson barely doing anything but sleeping and eating other than training. But after the worst week had passed and he started getting used to it he was reading as much as he could. For some reason he had always been good at soaking knowledge from books.
Perhaps it was his innate hunger for knowledge and the fact that he enjoyed reading, a lot. As time went on he started wondering when they would move on to more complex teachings like the ones he had read about in books only so far, still following his masters words on not being allowed to train other spells, so the only free time training he did was the visualization for his mind. Trying to figure out different ways to visualize and use magic and writing them down in notes for him to try when he became older.
The only thing that he was annoyed by was the fact that there were no instructed ways to create spells of higher levels, but the books often described spells that existed with no way to create more.. Apparently only the oldest and experienced of wizards created spells outside of cantrips which were more like cheap tricks compared to spells.
He asked Bregane about it one day comparing his shaping of energy to creating new spells. But Bregane had simply dismissed him and laughed in his face much to his dismay. "If it was so easy to create actual spells then why doesn't everyone do it?" Bregane asked him.
But Samuel had no answer, wondering just how difficult it was to cast spells. His answer came in the books that brought up the fact that spells were cast with set of words or runes that when changed only brought instability and danger to the caster meaning one had to create everything from scratch. Writing new magic runes that combined with incantation was something that sucked the magic out of anyone that tried without proper knowledge.
Magic was truly an unruly beast that refused to be chained, rather than trying to chain the beast and force it. One had to fight side by side with it. Samuel sighed realizing how difficult learning it all would be so instead of complain or act impatient, he stuck with the program of getting the hang of the basics.
Until a whole month had passed, that day Bregane had more things with him and when they arrived there were also target dummies set up. "Ready to finally learn actual cantrips?" Bregane turned to him and asked which made Samuel almost jump with joy.
"What is the difference between what I have been doing vs cantrips though?" Samuel asked now confused, he had read about cantrips the wrong way apparently.
"Well for one, what you have been training really is how to feel and channel magic. The most basic of basics for any wizard - we have however been cheating!" Bregane said as he took out a few weird items. "What you have been doing is something called half cast. You took the essence of magic from the gems and formed it, relatively harmless but excellent way to learn magic quick for those who are limited for time!" Samuel shrugged still not fully understanding.
"You have been using emotion to make it cooperate with you, but thats just like having a cage half open. Only half the potential can flow, what you are supposed to do next is put intent behind your half cast - you put enough intent to tell the magic what to do after visualising it." Bregane took aimed his fingers like a handgun, making electrical sparks gather before it shot out a small spark toward the target dummy and hitting it causing minor black marks.
"I gathered and shaped the magic according to my mind, but then I put the intent to use lightning to strike down my foe! Is the easy version of it!" Samuel nodded slowly piecing it together slowly how it was different from what he had done. "And may the gods help you if you didnt understand that version of it." Bregane said, making Samuels brain go over it several times.
"Ok! I think I got it!" Samuel nodded. 'Gather magic like always' Samuel thought as he gathered a small flame in his mind that appeared floating on his hand, putting passion for magic into the fire. Before opening his eyes and imagining the target dummy an enemy and intending to strike it down with fire. Making the fire extinguish itself in a puff of smoke that shot a few meters off his hand.
He turned to Bregane who instantly facepalmed. "Thats no different than shaping it with your mind." He groaned and took a stance next to Samuel, "Feel the magic travelling. Do not ask it to follow your bidding, after it enters your body the magic signature belongs to you. Demand your movement to follow through with the intent of magic being released as a force!" Bregane sighed.
"Would it not be easier to do this by crushing one of the elemental gems?" Samuel asked before trying again. "Yes it would be!" Bregane said seeing the confused youth was about to ask further he stopped him and continued. "But mages do not rely on extra power from breaking components to cast cantrips. Cantrips are supposed to come from our mind and something we can cast no matter how tired we are. But in the beginning it takes much from a novice."
The rest of the day as followed was filled with failures and experiments with different elements that led to more failures for Sam, he was close to giving up for the day and try again tomorrow being so tired and annoyed at failure when an idea sparked in his mind. Bregane was seated on a chair almost falling asleep at that point, he could not do much more than having the youth figure it out on his own, if worst come to shove he could give a few easy instructions on how to cast. But he could not just give the answers away for free, the journey of magic was more important than anything else.
So he barely registered when Samuel fetched his basic sword that was leaning on the wall, Samuel stood at the ready as if he was facing an opponent in a life or death battle. He imagined the magic power gathering on his sword, until he could see that it was almost shining with magic. Next he imagined the target dummy his opponent, he swung in an overhead arc from several meters away like he had been trying to shoot spells he used the sword as a focus.
Bregane removed a paper with some notes on it and his jaw dropped, he saw a fire arc travel toward the target dummy and cutting a nice slash of fire into it.
That made him instantly drop his paper in shock and stand up really fast with his mouth still open. "Is that about right?" Samuel asked and froze up when he saw Bregane standing there shocked. "Did I do something wrong?" Samuel quickly asked. Bregane walked forward started shaking Samuel by his shoulders.
"Where did you learn how to blade cast?" Bregane almost yelled out, half in anger and half in amazement. "I just thought to use my blade as a focus to strike down my enemy!?" Samuel quickly defended himself. "Dont ever use it where others can see you or they will think you are some kind of monster! Blade casting is something very few mages ever learn how to do.." Bregane trailed off in thought.
"I just imagined my magic coating my blade and using it to strike..." Samuel looked as his sword as if he did something wrong. "Kiddo, you should continue to train that skill, its extremely rare. However using that same train of thought, learn to cast it proper without sword as well - its quite simple really! Imagine your sword to simply be an extension of your arm. Your mind and arm is your sword!" Bregane quickly explained.
Using the same method for a few last tries, Samuel finally managed to cast cantrips without using his sword. Spending the rest of his time doing so under Breganes guidance before finally ending the night with some new skills gained and feeling the progress in the form of exhaustion. He quickly ate and went to bed.
Meanwhile Bregane had simply waited for Samuel to leave before he quickly walked over to another teleportation circle in the room and teleporting away using his own magic to unlock the circle and ending up in a location all to familiar to him.