I slowly awoke on the couch between Salem and my room, with Seren burning sticks of wood and placing them in my mouth to allow me to eat the flames. When Seren saw that I was awake, the small fire spirit began to repeatedly apologize for his mistake – he hadn’t realized that Elaine would have such a strong impact on the world. The name caused me to shudder, but I gently stroked his head and told him not to worry about it. He hadn’t known.

  Salem entered after a few moments, holding a tray with chicken soup on it, and helped me piece together the rest of what happened. Orla had found him and dragged him back to the ritual room, where he’d then moved me here to recover, while he cleaned the blood and got some food. When he asked about what had happened, I told him everything, including the bit about my burning granting others divinity. That didn’t concern him at first, but after checking several times and insisting I was more careful in the future, we circled back to it.

  “I wish she’d been more specific,” Salem said, his tongue playing with the snakebite piercing.

  “She had limited words she could use. Each of them hurt me. I think she was trying to pack as much meaning in as small a space as possible.”

  “That’s kind of the issue, isn’t it?” Salem asked. “You burn. Burn what? Your life? Do you just spend fire? Do you permanently remove your bloodline?”

  “I suspect the last, but I really can’t say for sure. Either way, it’s something to be wary of. I’m not even sure I’ll tell Jackson and Yushin, at least not for now. It’s not that I don’t trust them, it’s… I don’t trust their gods. I trust Effervesce far more than the Wyrm, but I don’t trust either of them enough, not with this.”

  “I get it,” Salem agreed, then patted me on the back. “In lighter news, don’t ya’ have your fifth circle speciality classes tomorrow?”

  “I do!” I said, perking up and shoveling some of the chicken soup into my mouth. “How’s your progress with your own?”

  “Geas is proving hard,” Salem said contemplatively.

  “Really? You’ve already created them with your affinity and your psychic threads, though.”

  “That’s ‘xactly why it’s hard,” he griped. “Since I can rework the structure of the th-shaped runes…”

  We spent the rest of the night chatting about our various struggles, until we both eventually passed out. The following morning, my fire and ether had restored themselves to normal, Seren was doing well enough, and Orla was fine, so Salem and I said our quick goodbyes and headed off to class.

  Given that the class today was dealing with a fifth circle spell, and thus was entirely optional, the classroom was only half-full when I entered. Several of the third years who’d taken abjuration as a side track were there, which made sense given the fact that they needed to be able to cast multiple fifth circle spells in order to graduate. Most probably could cast a few fifth circle spells already.

  I was a little bit disappointed to see that I was one of only three second years to attend today, however. It just didn’t make sense to me. I could understand if someone was too swamped with work to actually master a fifth circle spell that was already entirely optional. But to not attend the course and have it stored away as something to learn for later? It just seemed stupid. Professor Caeruleum didn’t seem surprised or bothered by the low attendance, but they did seem cheered when I or one of the other second year students entered the room.

  “Excellent! Thank you all for attending today, I know you didn’t need to,” the angelus-blooded professor said. “I suppose there’s no sense in delaying, though. You’re all here to get a look at a fifth circle spell, after all.”

  They rolled their hand and spoke a word, animating their chalk and causing it to begin to scribble out on the board. The spell that took shape clearly interacted with life force in some way, but it had an effect I couldn’t place. It almost reminded me of the use of arcane force, but it clearly wasn’t just that.

  “Life barrier,” the professor said somberly, their gaze sweeping around the classroom before settling on one of the third year students. “Jessica, you have a bone affinity that you’ve used to massively reinforce your skeleton, don’t you? And have taken several courses in body enhancing magic?”

  “Yes, mage Caeruleum,” Jessica, giving what looked to be a military salute. I wondered if she was doing it ironically. She was in uniform, so she was doubtless here on military contract, but it still seemed strange.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “And how many fifth circle spells can you cast in one go?”

  “Four, mage Caeruleum.”

  “Excellent. Amp up your physical power as much as you want. As much as you can, really. Then, once you’ve got as much power flowing through your body as you can, attack me with everything you’ve got.”

  For the first time, Jessica hesitated.

  “As hard as I can, mage Caeruleum?”

  “Everything you can do,” the professor confirmed. Jessica frowned for a moment before nodding. She drew a wand from her locker and began to swirl out enhancement spells. I quickly flicked on ethersight and took a deep sniff in order to get a better sense of what was going on.

  The third year began with multiple weaker spells, first through third circle. They sunk into her arms, her legs, and across her body. Then, she began to work on the larger spells, shaping vast currents of ether. The first spell caused her entire body to blaze with an aura of empowering light in my ethersight, while the second caused the scent of raw strength reminiscent of a passive bloodline to fill the room. She finished with a spell that seemed to create planes of force armor around her, connected to her body and bones, granting them the full might of her biology and the armor. When she ended, I thought she might have enough raw physical strength to match me blow for blow.

  She kicked out of her chair and launched herself at the professor, moving at such a blinding pace that I was forced to engage my bloodline at a low burn in order to trace her movement. As I followed, I caught a glimpse of professor Caeruleum under ethersight. A sphere of swirling green and blue light emanated from their chest, surrounding them in a perfect ten-foot radius. Jessica’s hand slammed into the sphere with the force of a runaway horse and more…

  And came to a dead stop.

  Jessica hit the ground and kipped up, launching herself at Caeruleum, only to crash against the barrier. She drew back her hand, and the aura spell concentrated, but the blow that followed did nothing at all. Well, that was a lie. Jessica drew back her hand and shook it out blowing on it as if it had gotten hot. Professor Caeruleum, on the other hand, remained completely unaffected.

  “I give up,” Jessica said, and the professor stepped forward, waving their hand and dissipating the life barrier spell.

  “Please don’t try and punch me now,” professor Caeruleum said wryly. “That’s the power of life barrier. Virtually nobody can pass through the barrier without consent. It’s held against the blow of a greater demon before, and it only barely cracked. It can even stop someone from teleporting inside the sphere. So why is it only a fifth circle spell? That sounds like a sphere of invulnerability…”

  “Nobody can pass through, but that isn’t the same thing as nothing,” I said. “I would bet good money that if I flung an arcane missile at the barrier, it would pass through as if it was air.”

  “Exactly correct. Anything that isn’t alive can do that – undead, constructs, arrows, spells. It’s a great spell, but it’s far from true invulnerability. The less obvious flaw is that it locks you in place, relatively speaking. You can move within the sphere, but the sphere remains locked where you were when you cast the spell. If you pass outside of the barrier, the entire spell collapses. Still, layer this with shield from arrows, shield, and some spell defenses, and you’ll wind up being tougher than a rock wrapped in steel. Now, everyone pay attention: I’m going to be going through this spell slowly and carefully.”

  Even with the power of professor Caeruleum’s affinity helping nudge my learning speed along, I didn’t master the spell in a single lesson, but between it and my own knowledge that I could cast three fifth circle spells already, I made as much progress as most of the third year students who were about to graduate. After the class, I ate a quick lunch, then met with professor Toadweather to help her clean before class.

  “What’s the difference between a planeswalker and a realmwalker?” I asked her. The faerie squinted, then fluttered over and slapped me. It wasn’t hard, at least not by the standards of someone with my constitution, but it was definitely a slap.

  “You should forget you ever heard that there was one,” professor Toadweather said, her voice deadly serious. “Go back to thinking they don’t matter. Now, ask something less likely to get your bones turned into glue and your eyes boiled out of your skull.”

  I opened my mouth before I closed it. I didn’t even know how to respond to that. So instead, I pivoted to something else.

  “Do you know Elaine of the Loud Crackle?”

  Professor Toadweather’s buzzing wings grew louder again, and I winced.

  “You should avoid summoning her. She’s relatively benevolent. But she’s the third most powerful being in one of the nearby elemental planes of fire – probably why Seren knew of her. Summoning spells are somewhat random, but they tend to fish the nearest available creature within the criteria.”

  I said nothing, and professor Toadweather sighed.

  “I swear, if you were my own apprentice, instead of a student here, I would make you into soup, at least for a few days,” the old faerie muttered under her breath, before turning and looking right at me. “You already summoned her, didn’t you?”

  “Maybe. I’m not dead, am I?”

  “You’re a dragonling. I could probably turn the heat up on my soup pot and not kill you…”

  “So, new topic! How about… blue? It’s a nice color, isn’t it?” I asked, giving a very forced laugh as I backed away. I was saved not long after by another student entering, and we began to set up again for class. Much like before, there were only a handful of students who showed up for the optional class, which caused professor Toadweather some irritation as she started grumbling about kids these days either did nothing at all, or rushed ahead so fast they risked their own life. Once everyone who was likely to show up had done so, professor Toadweather snapped her fingers and began to write a spell on the board.

  “Alright, everyone. Let’s learn a spell that’s even better than teleport.”

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