"Sorcery?" Carrie's eyes widened as she looked up at Lucian, her heart beating faster with excitement.
Powerful sorcery... grand wizards! She could still vividly recall how the usually proud Earl had knelt before a senior wizard apprentice, or the awe-inspiring scene during their journey when that same apprentice had set bandits ablaze with a mere wave of his hand.
Yet, just as Carrie was swept up in these dreams, Lucian's tone shifted. A subtle smile played on his lips.
"But remember, even for the simplest sorcery, you'll need to solidify at least three mental runes first. Once you start learning, don't slack off in your meditation practice."
"Oh..." Carrie's face fell.
Three runes? She hadn't even managed to solidify her first one.
Lucian, noticing her crestfallen look, held back a smile. This was exactly his plan. Dangling the promise of casting real sorcery in front of her was bound to be an enticing motivation.
"Well, if you want to cast sorcery someday, you'll need a firm foundation in today's lesson," he said, gently tapping her on the head.
"Ouch..." Carrie rubbed her head, pouting as Lucian moved to a nearby cabinet and retrieved a set of gleaming instruments. There were knives, needles, tweezers, clamps—and even a small axe.
The sight of the sharp tools made Carrie's stomach tighten.
"Anatomy is a hands-on discipline," Lucian began, arranging the instruments with a calm, practised hand. "In the future, when you encounter special creatures, dissection allows you to study their inner structure and transform their natural attributes into knowledge of your own."
"I'll be demonstrating the dissection techniques with a Fire-Rock Lizard today," he continued. "I'll introduce you to nine essential tools and techniques."
Carrie watched Lucian polish a scalpel to a razor's gleam, her face going pale. Lucian noticed her unease but didn't comment. No true wizard had an aversion to blood. If she wanted to walk this path, Carrie would have to adapt.
Opening a cage beside him, Lucian withdrew a lizard about forty centimetres long, its scales a mix of earthy brown and fiery red hues. Ignoring its wriggling attempts to escape, he placed it firmly on the dissection table.
"There are two methods of dissection: live and post-mortem," Lucian explained. "In some cases, like our study of the Water Dart Trout, we need to observe the subject while it's alive to understand certain biological functions."
"Fortunately, for this Fire-Rock Lizard, we don't need it to remain alive. A simple post-mortem or anesthetized dissection will do. To avoid trouble from its struggling, I'll be making it a little… quieter."
Lucian calmly stroked the lizard, which allowed Carrie a moment to breathe more easily. Then, he swiftly jabbed a paralyzing needle between two scales behind the lizard's spine, severing its central nerve.
The lizard twitched once, then lay still.
"Ah—!" Carrie jumped in her seat, clutching her hands together in shock. But seeing Lucian's composed gaze, she swallowed her scream and gave a strained smile.
[Your student Carrie is in awe of you. Reverence Points +1]
"Come closer. Sitting that far away, you won't see anything." Lucian's brows knitted slightly. He felt a little queasy now that the moment was here, despite knowing the steps in detail. But he forced himself to maintain a calm exterior, his voice even and unbothered.
He held up the scalpel.
…
The Fire-Rock Lizard's organs, scales, and muscles were all ripe for study, but its unique fire-breathing system was the highlight of today's session.
"This is the flame sac," Lucian said, stepping aside so Carrie could get a good look at the specialized gland nestled beneath the lizard's jaw.
Carrie held her breath, taking note of the sac's fire-resistant membrane and its contents—a sulphurous powder that served as a natural fuel source.
"And here we have the natural spell-marked throat," Lucian pointed with tweezers to the intact structure, preserved in the dissection.
"To cast spells," he explained, "we wizards first replicate a creature's innate markings within our minds as a spell model. Then we combine it with physical components, like sulphur powder or even the creature's flame sac, and use our magic energy to activate it."
As he spoke, Lucian lifted a small pinch of sulphur powder in his left hand, demonstrating a casting sequence for Carrie.
With a faint pop, the sulphur powder in his hand ignited, merging with the mental model he'd created. Free-floating magical particles began to coalesce, binding with the sulphur powder until it became a small, unstable, orange-red gel.
Lucian projected this gel toward a stone target. On contact, it burst, clinging to the surface as bright flames spread across the stone.
Carrie's eyes lit up. She recognized the flames instantly; this was the same spell she had seen that senior apprentice use against the bandits.
But before her thoughts could drift too far, Lucian's voice brought her back.
"Now, Carrie," he said, turning toward her. "Can you identify any weaknesses in the spell I just cast? And how might we improve it?"
Carrie blinked, hesitantly raising a finger to point at herself.
"Me?"
"Yes, you." Lucian's smile twitched at her startled expression. "This isn't a trick question. Think of it more like an open-ended problem. Wizards don't just mimic spells; we refine them to suit our needs."
"For example," he continued, "what if you need to cast this spell but don't have sulphur or other flammable materials on hand?"