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

Rows of glass-fronted cabinets lined the walls, greeting Fabrisse as he entered. Each cabinet was filled with specimens cradled in velvet-lined cradles: spheres of rose quartz, glinting shards of tourmaline, whole geodes with their hearts split open to reveal glittering interiors. Every label was written in the same elegant, slanted hand, the ink brown with age but perfectly legible.

This wasn't the Montreals' main residence. He'd passed only a butler at the door and two servants in the halls, their presence more for upkeep than society. The space looked curated, so it was probably an auxiliary home. And judging from the cabinets and the climate wards, it seemed dedicated less to comfort than to research.

Fabrisse took two slow steps inside and almost forgot to breathe. This private collection was almost on par with the specimen archives in the Synod laboratories. Not specialized for rocks, no; but the arrangement, the climate wards, even the quality of the preservation cases were unmistakably professional. Whoever had curated this had known exactly what they were doing.

"Why are you standing there? Come in," Severa said as she walked past him. When she turned around and he still hadn't moved, she said, "I hope you don't just stand still and gawk like this in your lab work."

Fabrisse shut his mouth, which he hadn't realized was slightly open, and stepped fully inside. His fingers itched to run over the nearest case, to test the seal on the brass fittings, to see if the imprint resonance matched the ones in the Synod, but ultimately decided to keep his hands behind his back.

A central table stood under a suspended brass lightframe, its surface scattered with jeweler's tools, small resonance gauges, and a half-disassembled aether lens.

Severa slipped a hand into her robe and brought out the quartz. "What do you need?" she asked.

He stepped closer, studying the stone. The milky veins on the quartz still looked as mesmerizing as the first time he saw it. "To emulate sub-zero conditions. Aetheric catalysts, if possible. And . . ." He trailed off, eyes flicking toward the climate wards in the room. ". . . stabilization lattice, if we want to avoid shattering the imprint before it's released."

"We might have that," Severa said without hesitation.

"You sound very sure."

Severa crossed the room toward a long cabinet, glancing at the brass labels. Kestovar followed. In the end, they found only two of the catalysts he'd listed, and the stabilization lattice was of an older design.

He straightened, holding one of the small crystalline ampoules to the light. "It's not perfect, but I can make do."

As he set out the tools, he hesitated again, glancing toward her. "I should warn you—this . . . I've never done it in practice before."

"That is fine," Severa said without missing a beat. "If you fail, we'll just train you until you succeed."

Who are these 'we'? Kestovar stared at her for a long moment, as if weighing whether that was meant to be encouragement or a threat. He still didn't know by the time he looked back down at the quartz.

He'd gone all this way without seeing even the shadow of her father, the Magister, and now he got to work with quartz this rare. This was the one chance. He could do this.

Without another word, Fabrisse reached for the fine-tuned aether probe, fingers closing around the instrument.

The probe's tip hovered over the first marked grain point.

Fabrisse steadied his breathing, adjusted the sub-zero matrix, and let the instrument's imprinted aetheric resonance merge with the quartz's own. The probe gave a harmonic buzz as the needle settled. The resonance gauge flickered, then stabilized at a 0.037 Hz deviation from the quartz baseline.

He recorded it in neat script, then turned the quartz fractionally for point two.

So far, so normal.

He angled the probe toward the final point, grazing a milky vein that had always caught his eye.

Fabrisse frowned. Locked resonance wasn't something quartz did under temperature induction. At least, not unless it was shielding something inside.

I should do a lattice scan, he thought, right before the system flashed him something else.

I know that. His fingers moved before his mind caught up. He switched the probe to micron-lattice mapping mode, slowly tracing the surface. The instrument gave a soft chime when it hit a distortion.

Forty-three microns in, the lattice warped—just slightly, like a frozen eddy in a river of crystal. The interference bled faint harmonics into the surrounding grains in a pattern that should have dissipated within microseconds, yet clung stubbornly to the structure as if anchored.

This is great; this is awesome. If only Min allows me to conduct this sort of analysis in class. I know all the steps.

Second-order aetheric bleed; this wasn't from the coldfield nor his probe.

One was pure and mineral-clean, a tone shaped by geological time and pressure.

The other . . . the other had edges, tiny fluctuations that didn't belong to crystal growth or elemental flow. They were too irregular.

He'd seen similar interference in attuned artifacts before, where the resonance had been warped by long-term emotional bleed from a handler. Grief and joy, fear and longing—human states left faint but permanent impressions in the aetheric structure. He didn't know which emotion it was, for there were other tests needed using tools he hadn't yet learned how to use. But the emotions were there.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Is this object soulbound? Likely.

If only he could cast Aetheric Grain Analysis on these fluctuations now.

Margin of error, he thought automatically. But the problem was the probe itself. His instrument was calibrated to Synod standards, but without a sealed chamber, ambient bleed from the climate wards could introduce a 0.002–0.004 Hz variance. Normally negligible, except he was looking at a distortion on the order of hundredths.

If he had access to the Synod's triple-interferometer setup, he could give a number, tight to the third decimal. Here? The best he could do was bracket it:

±0.005 Hz, maybe ±0.006 if the climate wards were fluctuating. Enough that his locked-resonance reading could be questioned, but not dismissed outright.

And if the mineral stratification, the density-to-resonance ratio, and the stubborn refusal to so much as microfracture under coldfield were all added to the tally . . . well.

The PRAXIS note was almost smug now:

Thanks . . .

But is this item really a Legendary-tier one? Those are so rare; we're talking one in a million rare. But this was an item presented to him by Severa Montreal. If anyone had the capability to discover something of that calibre without so much as yawning, it was her.

He almost wanted to take it home with him, and would have done so had he not had principles.

1 hour, 46 minutes? He knew he had taken some shortcuts, but most field calibrators he'd read about took twice that time just to finish the survey, never mind the follow-up lattice scans and harmonic tests. If Hajin Min ever saw that timestamp, he might even nod in quiet approval.

"Montreal. Look!" He turned, ready to lay out every precise measurement and improbable anomaly for Severa Montreal—

She was asleep.

Standing.

Her head tipped forward a fraction, her breathing slow and steady. The folds of her robe swayed with each breath, but otherwise she was motionless.

He stared, unsure whether to be impressed or deeply concerned. He hadn't even known people could sleep like that.

"Uh . . . Montreal?" He called again, to not answer.

Maybe she's exhausted. That's what happens when you don't eat.

Instinct told him to wake her. This was the perfect moment to hand over his findings, basking in the rare satisfaction of being absolutely correct.

Then another, stronger instinct reminded him that Severa Montreal was not known for her gentle morning disposition . . . or her gentle disposition at any other time of day, really. He preferred her like this. Silent, but the kind of silent that didn't involve glaring daggers across the room.

But she'd have to be awake sooner or later.

With careful steps, he closed the distance. Her head tipped forward and her shoulders loosened, like her bones had taken a temporary leave of absence. The only way she could still be upright was by coaxing the air into holding her there, subtle as a cat pretending it hadn't been asleep all day.

"Montreal. Are you awake?" He called out.

Her eyes snapped open. In less than a heartbeat she was perfectly poised again—chin lifted, back straight, expression politely blank—as if she'd been that way all along.

"Of course. I've been awake all along," she said.

Right. At least she's not yelling at me. Best keep it that way. ". . . I've finished the analysis."

"What did you find out?"

"The quartz sample's reaction under sub-zero induction yielded no phase shift, but the surface lattice shows a localized resonance warping at forty-three microns. There's also harmonic bleed—probably second-order aetheric interference—"

She cut in. "In words that aren't a stratal textbook."

He paused, then said, "There's an imprint inside. I can't tell whether it's positive or negative, or if it's worth prying open. I don't have the means or the knowledge to find out. Also, the quartz is already soulbound."

"To whom?"

"I don't know. But now that the imprint's been uncovered, whoever it's bound to will feel the effect the moment they handle it." He paused. This was the important moment, and he was eager to see her reaction. "I'm not 100% certain. But this item might be a Legendary-tier quartz." His voice grew small at the end.

"What?" Her eyes widened, then narrowed, then widened again with the demand. "Prove it."

That was a decent reaction, but not enough excitement. 6 out of 10.

"I can't—at least not aetherically," he admitted, shifting his weight. "I don't have the skills or the equipment for that kind of reading." He hesitated, then gestured to the notes laid out on the workbench. "But based on mineral stratification, the density-to-resonance ratio, and the crystalline response under sub-zero aetheric dampening—"

She cut in once more, "In plain terms, Kestovar."

He exhaled. It was harder to describe to someone who had little knowledge of minerals than he'd thought. "It behaves like a legendary-tier quartz would, based on every indirect indicator I could test without risking damage. The structure is too stable for common variants, and it resisted all thermal and elemental stimulus without a trace of microfracture. Those qualities . . . well, they narrow the possibilities down to maybe five known legendary types."

She leaned in over the table, scanning his neat diagrams and meticulous measurements. If she can't understand measurements, at least she can read the conclusions! This is impressive work. She can't deny it.

Still, she tapped the page with one manicured nail. "You said might. That means you're not sure. And if you're not sure, Kestovar, this could all just be an elaborate waste of both our time." Her tone was even, but each word pressed on the uncertainty like a thumb on a bruise.

Okay, three out of ten now.

He stiffened, shoulders drawing in. "I told you, without the right testing—"

"Yes. Without the right testing, it's nothing more than a theory. A good theory, perhaps, but still one you'd be laughed out of a guildhall for staking your reputation on."

The faint crease between his brows deepened. He should've known better than to expect praise from Severa Montreal. Still, she wasn't wrong, and that troubled her more than he cared to admit.

"Thank you for your trouble," she said. At least she was nice enough, and hadn't made any unnecessarily scathing comment.

"I don't need your thanks," Kestovar replied. "But please deliver your side of the deal." Maybe he should've asked her to honor her side of the deal and finish teaching him the skill first, but this seemed like an urgent matter to her.

"I keep my words," she said at last. "There is nothing to worry about." She slipped a hand into her sleeve and drew out a small pouch that was different than the one she had held in her hands earlier. She loosened the drawstring and pressed the contents into his hand: fifteen thick gold coins, each stamped with the crest of the capital mint. Fifteen hundred kohns. Not offered with disdain, nor ceremony either, but with the clean finality of a ledger balanced. "I will give you the rest once I have confirmed your findings are accurate. Note down your schedule in a glyph, and I'll be in contact," she said.

At least he could trust her with money. In this matter, Severa's word carried the same weight and certainty as the gold she dispensed. The coins were in his hands now. It was his.

But she still hasn't admitted she was wrong about rocks being useless.

"I—"

"Yes, Kestovar. You have a talent for stratal analysis." Her gaze fixed on him as she said it, cool and steady. Fabrisse found himself cataloguing the perfect neutrality in her face automatically. And yet, for all the neatness of her words, the part she didn't say pressed at him more strongly than what she did.

Yeah, but are the rocks useless?

"Now, your glyph," Severa said, as if to close the subject before he could push further. Her tone was brisk, almost impatient.

He did as told, and the second he finished scribbling on the glyph, Severa had already opened the door.

The butler stood at the far end of the corridor, posture so precise it might have been drawn with a ruler. The silent efficiency of the whole exchange left no room for lingering.

Fabrisse glanced back at the quartz one last time, the itch of curiosity gnawing at him. If he could bring it home, he'd have weeks' worth of tests to run, notes to compile, theories to challenge. But his time here was clearly over.

He stepped out into the hall.