The carriage continued on for hours more, the charged hostility and awkwardness had since been replaced by mundane disinterest shown by both Ryan and Cecil.
Ryan sighed.
'How do I learn the skill now?' Ryan thought, a question that had been on his mind for hours now. It seemed that using the skill was more complicated than he initially assumed.
He couldn't further test it on Cecil, not necessarily because of what she would think, but instead, due to the backlash he got from his last attempt.
'Is she just that strong?' Ryan wondered as he tried to understand what had happened. He couldn't determine if the skill had not worked on her because she was stronger, or due to his own inability to control it.
His mind trailed back to what Cecil had said, "Low-rank magic." That's what she called it, and even worse, she spoke as if the skill was too low ranked to even work on mages in general.
