Basic Thaumaturgy for the Emotional Incompetent [A Magical Academy LitRPG]

"I think you should learn this one." Celine flipped to a specific page in Anabeth's book with the confidence of someone who'd dog-eared it in her heart. Her finger landed beneath a spell diagram scrawled in rough charcoal: Pebbleburst.

"It's so satisfying," she said, practically vibrating with enthusiasm. "It's like . . . like hurling a rock but it shatters midair and rains down as sharp little fragments. It's great for crowd control, or just for flair. I used it to stop a thief once. He ran away swatting at his own face."

Fabrisse leaned in, studying the glyphs. It did sound useful, and it had a certain chaotic elegance to it, but . . . he hesitated. The spell seemed to hinge on speed and flick reflexes, with lots of quick gestures and momentary targeting. It wasn't the kind of grounded, structured magic he'd imagined himself pursuing, but more like something a sprinter would cast as they leapt.

"It's so flashy," Celine beamed, already flipping to a companion page. "It pairs perfectly with Cragscatter, look—"

"Celine," he muttered. "You overestimated my athleticism."

Fabrisse explained his expectations of the spells he wanted to learn. Celine listened intently until the end.

"Okay, okay," she said, gently closing the page on Pebbleburst with a soft flap. "You're more pressure-and-anchor than razzle-dazzle. Got it."

She flipped a few pages back, then forward, then back again, muttering under her breath. "I don't use a lot of trapping spells, but there's one that might be up your alley."

Her finger landed on a layered diagram titled Tremblehold.

"It's kind of like setting a passive tension zone," she said, tapping the corner. "You anchor it to the ground, and if anyone steps into the radius, the spell pulses and destabilizes their balance. It's not a full trap like a snare or net, but it messes with footing. Super disorienting."

"How is it different from Granule Drift?" He asked.

Celine perked up. "Good question! Granule Drift spreads stone into fine particulates, like sand or ash. It's great for slowing people down, but it's more of a surface effect. Tremblehold works deeper. It pulses through the ground itself. Like—" she wiggled her fingers, "—the terrain goes ugh under their feet. Throws off their center of gravity. It's sneakier."

Fabrisse raised an eyebrow. "Can you show me?"

Celine's grin sharpened. "Sure."

There was a beat of silence.

". . . Not on me."

Too late. She was already stepping back with a bounce in her heels, fingers weaving a practiced shape through the air. "Oh come on, you're standing on the perfect patch of gravel. Just a small shove is all."

"Celine—"

The glyph flared beneath him before he could finish. At first, nothing happened.

Then the ground betrayed him.

His stance wobbled. A deep thrumming rippled through the gravel beneath him, low and sudden, like a distant drumbeat striking through stone. Pebbles skittered against his boots without rolling. Fabrisse tilted left, then forward, then back, as if the terrain couldn't decide which direction was 'down.' It felt like he was on a lurching boat.

He flailed, caught himself with a sharp inhale, then glared.

"That was rude."

"No, that was Tremblehold, Rank II," her grin widened.

Fabrisse adjusted his footing, still mildly rattled. "Can you do it again," he said flatly. "But not on me this time? I want to see the shape of the cast."

Celine clasped her hands behind her back, utterly unrepentant. "Sure, sure. For science."

She scanned the nearby gravel, then stepped a few paces to the side. With a small breath, she rolled her shoulders and fluidly brought her hands up. Her fingers curled then swept down in a hooked crescent as her thumb flicked a sharp crosscut. The motion looked deceptively gentle, almost like she was coaxing a thread loose from the air.

The ground lurched with a subtle, traitorous pulse. The pebbles didn't bounce so much as jitter. It was like watching a heartbeat travel through soil. Fabrisse could imagine the exact moment their balance would have shifted sideways.

"There's no mnemonic?" He asked.

"Anabeth's spells don't ever have mnemonics. She just thinks about casting them because she's just that above us," Celine replied.

The spell is great for Rank I, Fabrisse thought. Sure, it didn't pin the opponents down like Stonebind did, but Rank I Stonebind could only pin down small creatures anyway. The radius of the effect was greater, and the opponent had to go through a harder DEX check. He'd already cleared the casting requirement, too.

The equation looked great, too. No emotional input required was a huge plus. He wasn't sure what Sequencing Speed would entail, but that seemed to rely heavily on DEX. The quicker and more precise he could move, the better the effect would be.

He glanced at the spell again, tracing the displacement pattern with his thumb. "Is there a higher-tiered version of this? Something it branches into?"

"There is, actually," Celine said brightly. "If you master Tremblehold and Granule Drift, you can unlock Faultweave. It's a Tier II spell."

"Faultweave?"

"Mhm. It lets you control the microbursts more precisely, so instead of just making people trip, you can steer their footing just enough to ruin their balance right before they strike. Some casters use it defensively. Others use it to line up enemies for a bigger spell. It's pretty flexible."

Ah. The opportunity really presented itself.

Fabrisse asked Celine to demonstrate. She nodded, and a grin later, the floor suddenly became super slippery and tilted at a weird angle. One of his feet slid half an inch out, then the other compensated, only to find itself tricked again. It wasn't violent, but it was annoyingly unpredictable, like walking on jelly over a tilted floorboard.

He stumbled two steps back before catching himself against a nearby tree.

Celine clasped her hands behind her back innocently. "That one had a bit of Faultweave in it. Do you feel the difference?"

"Yeah, but! Can you stop casting spells on me . . ."

"Okay, okay," Celine said, laughing. "Watch the ground over there then."

She pointed a few paces to the side, where a patch of pebbles was slightly raised, scattered with fallen leaves. Fabrisse focused on it.

Granules of sand rolled in spirals, gleaming like they had been dunked in water, before settling half a foot from where they'd started. Then came a softer second, more refined pulse. The ground flexed and tilted, not uniformly, but in a localized curve. It was the opposite of a quake; no violence, only a traitorous slide across the surface tension of solid matter.

"I missed it?" he muttered. Maybe he needed to observe Celine's stance. He was obviously not intuitively sound enough to figure out how to cast a spell just from looking at how the ground flexed.

"Did you watch me?" Celine asked.

"Obviously not . . ." He exhaled. "Can you do it again?"

Celine stepped back into a neutral stance. She moved lightly, then did a half-step twist like she was kneading the air underfoot. Her fingers shook and her wrist flexed a little. Then she syncopated a beat of motion: left foot press, fingers twitch, pause, then the pulse.

The terrain responded as before, but this time, Fabrisse saw the pattern behind the effect.

Still not enough.

"Again."

Celine gave him a look—half amused, half surprised at his seriousness—but didn't argue. She attempted the spell again, slower this time, almost demonstrative. He watched the staggered rhythm: how her core stayed centered while her limbs made the adjustments. The spell wasn't brute force. It was timing, micro-adjustments, pressure modulation.

Fabrisse's fingers flexed at his side. He stepped forward and rolled his shoulders once.

"I'm gonna try copying yours," he said.