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

Mercy the Clucklebeak loved rye bread. Fabrisse had tested multiple types of bread to see if any held Mercy's attention as much as the beloved rye, and it had proved to be a difficult task.

Mercy paddled in delighted circles across the surface of the North Pond, trailing little spirals of ripples behind him like calligraphy strokes. The moment Fabrisse tossed a chunk of rye bread into the water, he darted after it. His downy yellow feathers bobbed with each motion, and his tiny webbed feet kicked up lazy swishes beneath the surface.

The rye floated briefly, then vanished in a flurry of delighted quacks and splashy chomps.

On other days, Fabrisse would've been delighted at the progress.

Today, however, his mind was pre-occupied with something else hovering in front of him.

This quartz had been imbued with something. The mitts Tommaso had given him was named Thaumaturge's Throwmitts of Misguided Bravado, and it was imprinted with his emotions. But what? It could've been unintentional. Should he even ask Ganvar about this?

Fabrisse sat at the edge of the pond, the cool breeze brushing against his sleeves as Mercy chased soggy crumbs in widening circles. He took a slow breath. Okay. Shame.

He thought about all the failed spells. About the time Lorvan had tried, gently, to mask his disappointment. He thought about the time he'd flubbed a Binding Phrase so badly he'd accidentally silenced himself for a whole day. About Liene having to do damage control on his behalf.

The quartz shimmered. A dull, tentative amber crackled through the inner spiral, flickering like a candle flame in uncertain wind.

Fabrisse held his breath.

He was doing it.

But the moment the light sparked, he felt a sudden lift in his chest. He was actually doing it. For once, the spark hadn't fizzled out before it started. The fact that it worked made something else swell inside him.

The amber twisted, and the glow brightened into sky-blue, curling into the seams of his gloves like threads of dancing light.

It wasn't a ball like Liene's. Just loose sparks.

He laughed to himself. Why would it matter?

Holding this quartz was the first moment in his life he'd been able to produce colors so vividly and so consistently. He could actually graduate. He could actually cast spells that would help people do things. He wasn't about to throw all of this away now.

Fabrisse felt sudden awareness that he was being observed. He looked up.

Lorvan stood at the curve of the path near the willow bridge, framed by the swaying reeds. His robes were pressed, his expression sharper than usual, calm but with that extra layer of intensity that made it clear this wasn't a casual drop-in.

The man didn't even wait for a greeting. "Come with me."

Fabrisse's throat closed around the words he wanted to say. Is something wrong? Where are we going? Did I—? But he couldn't get any of them out.

He simply nodded and followed.

They walked side by side through the northern path, weaving between the tall-stemmed rivergrass and the soft hush of pond breeze. Fabrisse kept his eyes down, his thoughts racing. Had he broken some kind of rule again? Or did they overturn his hearing decision?

When they reached a quieter clearing near the bend of the path, Lorvan finally turned to him. His gaze swept down to Fabrisse's still-sparking palm.

"Were you able to conjure joy just now?" he asked.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Fabrisse froze.

He opened his mouth, about to say Yes, but the reflex kicked in. He tucked his hand behind his back, and with a quick, fumbling motion, slid the quartz back into his satchel.

The glow faded almost instantly.

Lorvan noticed.

Of course he noticed.

He didn't scold, not out loud. He didn't need to. The look in his eyes was clear: You used an artifact.

Lorvan was one of those who believed magic drawn through shortcuts was brittle, and that reliance on assistance made a spellcaster weaker, not stronger. Most of the Synod's senior staff agreed. Magical talent had to be internalized. Anything else was seen as academic dishonesty.

Fabrisse dropped his gaze, ashamed.

The residue of the quartz was still tingling in his fingers. And as he curled them into his sleeve, a trail of pine green scintillated behind his wrist.

Anxiety.

He clenched his fist tightly until it stopped.

The walk stretched longer than expected.

His nerves buzzed louder with each silent step. passed the familiar colonnades of the north corridor, then crossed under the arched bridge near the old observatory—places he usually only passed during field practicum or when sneaking between classes. But they didn't stop there.

Instead, they veered toward a smaller, side-facing wing that extended from the main complex of the Archmagus Hall.

This wasn't the administrative rotunda. It wasn't even near the public hearing chambers. This place was older, quieter, and much more shielded. The entryway alone had four diamond-shaped sigil wards that looked like layered privacy glyphs. Fabrisse had never been here before. He didn't even know students were allowed here.

Lorvan pushed the door open without a word.

The chamber beyond the privacy wards was unexpectedly cozy, and more study than tribunal. It had vaulted ceilings, yes, but the space was softened by wall-length shelves filled with battered tomes, rolled scrolls, and odd glass artifacts in various stages of glowing or ticking.

And everywhere—woven between the furniture, curling along the ceiling beams, even pooling gently near the base of a worn reading chair—flowed ley-threads.

Ley was the term for invisible or visible veins of ambient aether that ran beneath the ground like buried nerves, responding to strong magical discharge the same way a heart might respond to shock. Sometimes, when aether concentrated in the surrounding space, thaumaturges might not need to draw from their own emotions, but could draw aether straight from the environment.

But these ley-threads were different.

Fabrisse had never seen them this clearly before. Delicate strands of ambient aether shimmered into view the moment he stepped past the threshold, soft pink in hue, like ribbons of warm breath or veins of liquid rose-gold. They drifted lazily through the air like slow rivers, alive with quiet intent, pulsing faintly in time with some unseen rhythm.

Isn't pink the color of passion? None of the naturally occurring leylines Fabrisse had seen had colors this vivid. Maybe an archmagus could call upon a big enough aether reserve to weave their own ley-threads.

Seated behind a desk scattered with sealed correspondences and three mismatched tea cups, was Archmagus Rolen. His long brown hair was loosely tied back, with a few strands falling around his temples, making him look more like a distracted historian than one of the Synod's highest-ranking casters. His robe was rumpled.

When he looked up and saw Fabrisse, he offered a crooked smile and a little finger wave. "Oh, good. Come in."

As Fabrisse stepped inside, Rolen gave a lazy swirl of his fingers through the air. In response, the pink ley-threads rippled like water gently redirected with the command of his hands. The strands flowed into new arcs and loops along the edges of the room, briefly illuminating the space in bands of soft, rose-gold light.

"Enjoying the lightshow?" Rolen asked. He flicked his fingers, and the ley-threads obediently slid back toward him.

Fabrisse watched, wide-eyed, as the threads curled inward and disappeared directly into the tips of Rolen's fingers, vanishing like silk drawn into a spindle.

That confirmed it.

He hadn't walked into an old chamber saturated with lingering aether.

He had walked into a room with someone powerful enough to create and sustain personal leyflow.

And it was pink.

Fabrisse exhaled. At least this wasn't going to be some sort of rough interrogation. Rolen was the chillest out of all the Archmagi. He brewed his own tea and enchanted plants to deliver memos.

"Take a seat," Rolen said, gesturing to one of the overstuffed chairs in front of his desk. "Lugano, sit if you want. Or not. You probably want to go back to playing chess with Langley or something."

Lorvan nodded once, then stepped aside and sat near the edge of a perfectly rectangular table. Scattered across the smooth emerald landscape were balls, an array of colorful spheres—brilliant reds, sunny yellows, deep blues, and striped ones too, Fabrisse had no idea what that table was for.

Fabrisse slid into the seat diagonally across from the Archmagus, the overstuffed cushion swallowing him half a foot deeper than expected.

Before he could even brace himself for questioning, Rolen leaned back and said, in a tone far too casual for what came out of his mouth, "Eh, tough luck, huh? I've received reports you've been ambushed by a dimension expansion user."

"I—sorry, what?"

Rolen reached for one of the mismatched cups on his desk, sipped, then made a face. "Ah. Wrong one. That's Langley's awful barley root blend. Remind me to throw that out."

Then the System intruded his vision.

What?

He risked a glance at Rolen, who had leaned back in his chair again, nose angled upward slightly as he inspected the steam curling from a second tea cup.

Why are my sidequests all nonsense?