Obviously my master doesn't leave me to work on such basic tasks; instead he orders me to go practice my mana shaping. I sigh, before going to do what I was told, separating myself off a bit from the rest of the class.
Where varied element multicasting was difficult, mana shaping feels nearly impossible. Even after working on it daily for nearly a month, it is still extremely taxing. I can't help but feel that the sheer difficulty of doing so is a primary reason why straight magic is more popular.
Take making a 'physical' weapon using either system. With straight magic, specifically the branch of conjuring within it, you can summon up a blade that you can hold and use for fighting and that won't dissipate until you allow it to do so. So long as you have a bit of willpower and are not too magically exhausted, the process is extremely easy.
Compare that to elemental manipulation. The task I have been given by Sir Lector is to form a sword out of metal elemental mana, a task that I have been arduously working towards for a month. As metal is a weaker element for me, I've been working with wind, with the hopes that once I master forming the blade with my easiest element, I can move onto using other elements that I struggle with more.
However, just because wind is my easiest element does not mean that I have been having an easy time of my task. Pushing the elements into a certain shape is so technically difficult that I almost feel that I have been wasting my time. As mentioned, my progress is excruciatingly slow, but the difficulty is actually rather different from the difficulty of multicasting. Multicasting, if I had to describe it, feels much like doing two entirely different things with your brain at once, while keeping them from interfering with each other (a much more difficult task with two elements than with one). After working with it regularly for over two months, I have become very comfortable with up to three simultaneous castings, with my limit being five.
When compared to this, mana shaping is very different. The process requires carefully compacting mana into the ideal shape, which is far more difficult than it sounds. In compressed attacks, the first thing that I learnt from Lector, one simply summons an orb of an element (its natural shape) and imagines pressing it in. With mana shaping, everything must still be compressed enough to hold its form while slicing into metal, but also in the shape that the mage wants, with varying thicknesses and designs all carefully laid out in the mage's mind before the mana is precisely shaped into the ideal form.
To make things worse, mana naturally wants to take the shape of a very spread out sphere, so it takes quite a lot of mental energy to hold everything in place as you also work to shape the next part like a master craftsman.
I had started out with merely trying to form a long cylinder, with intent to further shape it. By the time that I started working with shaping I was very adept at compacting, and I figured that I could just compress four sides of the orb. However, I soon learned that the mana resists irregular shapes, and it was greatly taxing even to leave one side longer than the other.
From there, I had recognized another problem. The ends of the cylinder I had painstakingly formed were not at all compact, so while the edges were somewhat solid, the tip was a basic, uncompacted air element. So, unless I desired to merely buffet the enemy with a blast of wind when stabbed, I had to come up with a solution. Of course, I couldn't just compress the cylinder along the short sides, like the mana wanted me to do, as doing so would ruin the whole point of making a cylinder in the first place.
My initial solution, which I was admittedly quite proud of, was shot down by Lector. The idea was to utilize multicasting to put another wind spell, this one in the compressed shape of an orb on the attacking point of the sword. Lector said that the entire weapon had to be formed of one elemental spell, so I was left to find another solution.
Eventually, I realized that I could start with a larger orb of mana, and just compress the sides more than I compressed the length. This did work, but I was left with a firm rod of wind; hardly a sword of metal.
From there began a long and tiring process of shaping, a process that I had been inching along for the better part of a month. I had to carefully compress different parts of the weapon, leaving it wider at the crossguard, narrower at the tip, thinner along one edge, and so on. Furthermore, I had to shape the rounded surfaces of my cylinder into planes, planes that met each other at a sharp edge.
After all my practice, the blade of wind looks like a quite realistic, though very simple, blade. Thankfully, I only have to figure out the shaping once; once I know how to compact each part to form the blade into the desired shape, it becomes much easier. Otherwise, it would still take me hours to form the blade everytime, as opposed to a few minutes.
My current efforts are focused on optimizing the creation process, to reduce the amount of mana I initially need. At the moment, the initial orb that I use is over ten yards in diameter, much of which is thrown off by the end of the process. If I am to do it with metal, I would have the dual issues of struggling to find enough elemental particles and actually controlling such a large amount of mana I am so incompatible with.
Still, I know that cutting down on the initial size will increase formation speed, and practicing with one of my weakest non-emotional elements is never a bad thing. So, giving one more sigh, I settle in for a few hours of minor tweaks and modifications to my blade and its process of formation.
The process is obviously quite slow, but I still feel that the time spent is productive. In only four hours I had cut down the mana requirement by about 3%, which is satisfactory progress. Of course, the amount required is still far too much for me to manage with my current skills should the sword be made of iron, so I have a long way to go.
After my class is dismissed, I go to Lector. "How was your progress today?" he asks.
"I would consider it to be acceptable. At my current rate, I would estimate about two weeks until I am able to form a sword of metal. Though I estimate it will still be some months until I am truly adept at the process."
"Oh, so soon? Heh, I only jest; I have grown used to your astonishing growth. You should know, the mana shaping process took me over three years to even begin to get a grasp on, and several decades to master. Of course, I wasn't dedicating quite so much time to practice as you, but it was still three years of four hours a day to accomplish the same task that I gave you."
"Your master must have been pretty patient."
"Hmph," he snorts. "Hardly. He spent every waking moment deriding my slow process. Honestly he was even worse than my first master, whom I was a slave to."
"You had multiple masters?" I had never heard from him about this before.
"Yes. The first was a wizard who saw my potential. He trained me and used me as a slave for about thrity years before I earned my freedom from him. An unfortunately short time later, I was lured in by my second master, who was far more interested with the elemental side of things than my first. I learned quite a lot from him, so I suppose his promises weren't false, but he was a truly awful individual to be around. I left him after over forty years, before then progressing my elemental shaping skills to a very high level. By this point I had became a true master in both elemental and straight magic, but I desired even higher mastery, causing me to take on a third master, whom I was under for a truly long period of time."
After adding some numbers up in my head, I am forced to ask "Wait? How old are you?"
"Heh heh. A mage never reveals something like that," he says with a wink. "But rest assured, I am older than I look, that's for sure."
Realizing that he isn't going to give me a straight answer, I move on. "After mastering straight magic and elemental manipulation, how did you spend so long with your third master?"
"Well, my mastering of those was not to his standards, not even close, so I spent some time improving in those areas. Additionally, it was there that I learned alchemy, as well as some content from various other branches of magic."
"I see," I say, as we arrive at the dining hall.
To my surprise, Lector says to me "I'll be sitting with you today, so long as you have no objections."
For a moment, I do not answer, too surprised by the unexpected question to respond. After a moment, I get my head together and answer "Of course I have no objections."
"Good, because I was sitting with you either way. Now, why don't we sit over there," he says, pointing to an open section of table at the corner of the room. Oh? It would seem that he has something he would like to talk with me about privately. I really don't see why this can't be done tonight during our training time, though perhaps he just doesn't want to interrupt it?
We make our way to the corner. However, before we can get there, some other people take the spot. I expect Lector to either sit near them anyway or find another spot, so he again surprises me by asking them to leave. While his request is polite, they really don't have much choice, so they leave the spots with a bit of grumbling.
We take what are now our seats as I wait for him to begin whatever it is that he wants to tell me. However, he seems to be in no hurry, digging into the venison and carrots (and water, of course) that have been so generously provided. Seriously, all I want is to eat cake, cookies, ice cream, and straight sugar. Even a packet of salt would be better than this unseasoned, overcooked meat! Still, following his example, I eat. It wouldn't do me any good to intentionally weaken myself, after all.
I am interrupted by the all-too-familiar feeling of General Lion's aura washing over me. I note with some amusement that Sir Lector seems quite unaffected, continuing to eat through his overcooked meat.
"I have a rather important announcement for you today, so listen up: the deployment of those set to depart in a month has been moved up by two weeks. Two weeks from yesterday is the new date, so keep that in mind. That is all."
Wait… Isn't that me? As soon as the realization that I have half the time remaining to train as I thought that I had hits, I am left in a state of momentary panic. How could this be? I'd been counting on those weeks of training, to suddenly have them stripped away…
I glance over at Sir Lector, who appears to be as surprised as I feel. Noticing my glance, he says "Why, this is quite a surprise, though unfortunately not a very happy one. This must be an unexpected order from higher up, there is no way that they would wait until now to tell us, especially not me. After all, I was informed only this morning that I would be departing with your group in a month, so this is a very new change. Still, I wouldn't worry about it too much; with your current level of power, barring any serious misfortune, you are sure to have an illustrious military career."
"Wait," I say, caught by surprise by one of the things that he said. "Did you just say that you were departing with me?"
"Oh, yes, I got so distracted by the announcement that I momentarily forgot that I had not yet told you; actually, that was one of the reasons why I wanted us to eat together today. This morning they finally got around to giving commanders our troop assignments and deployment info. That's why I am so surprised by this announcement; as of this morning, they had our group's departure in a month seemingly locked in stone. As I said, for them to change it so suddenly, an order must have come down from higher up. Well, whatever the case, Reinhart and I will be in charge of a mixed company of swordsmen, spellswords, and elemental mages, with a handful of other mages to provide healing support - though you already know who is in your group so I guess I don't need to mention it."
"So I will be under Reinhart as well?" I ask, remarking to myself that this could not be any more perfect.
"Yes, that is the case."
Heh heh heh… ha ha ha… HA HA HA! This world thought that it could escape its just fate, its fate of ruin by my hand, merely by bribing me with favorable circumstances. I shall not fall for such low tricks! Even with this moving forward of the deployment date, the benefits are shown to be mere bribery, to turn my mind away from such absurdities!
Speaking of the moving forward of the deployment date, those soldiers that I will be deployed with (I recognize them from the company lists that the military put out a few weeks ago, lists that had been missing only the commanders) do not seem to be taking this news particularly well. Those that I can find from my company when glancing around the room appear universally stricken. On the other hand, Reinhart appears more irritated than anything, clearly not taking the news so well as my master.
Still, I don't really care about these comrades of mine anyway, so who cares how they feel about this. So long as they are not too unprepared, and having three months of training shortened by two weeks shouldn't make that much of a difference, I'll be in no more dangerous a position on the battlefield than I otherwise would. And besides, most of my company is composed of veteran soldiers who have seen the field of battle, two weeks of training to them is a truly trivial difference.
I turn back to my master, saying "You said that there were multiple things you wanted to talk about?"
"Well, actually just one more, though a rather big one. I'll cut right to the chase: I would like to name you."