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

"If you find yourself alone, please find someone to accompany you immediately. If you're not in class, please be in class," Lorvan had warned Fabrisse.

That was why he'd come to Flame Thaumaturgy I lecture today. And he hated Flame Thaumaturgy.

He didn't understand why the founder of the discipline had named it Twelvefold Flame, as if setting things on fire twelve different ways made it more sophisticated. He didn't understand why fire, of all elements, was so relentlessly exalted in their curriculum when the others probably had just as much potential. But mostly, he hated the culture that came with it.

Flame thaumaturges were some of the loudest, most self-congratulatory spellcasters he'd ever met. They carried themselves like walking furnace billboards, radiating ego and smoke in equal measure. And of course they did, because the Order loved to parade them as the golden standard: bold, dramatic, explosively charismatic. Fire wasn't just an element to them. It was a personality contest, and Fabrisse never wanted to compete.

Today's lecture wasn't helping. Professor Markenth was ranting at the front of the auditorium, gesturing with his arms as a cinder spiral burned over his shoulder like a halo made of sparks.

"Combustion is not destruction," he declared, pacing across the tiered platform. "Combustion is conversation. The fire is asking to consume, to convert, to become! And it is your job, as practitioners, to answer that invitation with confidence!"

Fabrisse slumped a little deeper into his seat.

Last week, Markenth had compared combustion to ballroom dancing. The week before, it had been kissing. Now it was conversational etiquette. No one ever compared Earth Thaumaturgy to kissing. Or Stone. Or Moss-based Lattice Enchantments, which at least had a consistent tempo.

He glanced around. Half the students were eating it up. They always did. One of them had literally scorched their sleeve last week just to demonstrate a combustion trick. They wore the burn mark like a badge of honor.

After what felt like forty uninterrupted minutes of metaphor-heavy theory and flame-poetry, Professor Markenth clapped his hands and hushed the room. "Now. Demonstration," he said. "Montreal, would you be so kind?"

Severa Montreal stood from the second row. Her cloak swept behind her like she had a personal breeze. She was already halfway down the stairs before Markenth finished calling her name.

Fabrisse obviously wasn't fond of Severa, but who was he to deny that she was good at everything? Not in the loud, flashy, obnoxious way some of the other fire students were—though she could be that too, when she wanted—but with that kind of unsettling competency that made it look like her spells had been pre-written in the margins of reality before she even said them.

"Basic Combustion Funnel," Markenth reminded her.

Severa stepped into the casting square at the base of the lecture platform, turned, and raised one hand. She whispered something, and that was all she needed.

A narrow spiral of controlled flame bloomed from her fingertips, curling into a perfect helix. It vanished seconds later, leaving behind a neat trail of rising smoke that dispersed before it reached the ceiling.

There was no color in the aether at all, which meant no emotional sparks. She hadn't felt anything, yet she performed the spell anyway.

The class broke into soft applause. One student in the back whooped. Severa bowed, barely.

"Elegant as always," Professor Markenth praised, his smile wreathed in cinderlight. "Severa Montreal, everyone. Controlled and precise. Just as a flame should be—centered, not merely loud."

The students applauded again, this time a little more enthusiastically. Severa gave a small nod, then walked back down to reclaim her seat.

"Excuse me," said a voice from the fourth row. "May I offer a different perspective?"

Fabrisse turned, along with almost everybody else.

Aldren Ranan raised his hand.

A glyphcraft specialist, he wasn't the loudest student. He always wore charcoal-grey robes with no adornment, save for a copper-rimmed bookmark poking from his left sleeve, and he never seemed to leave the library between classes.

Professor Markenth raised an eyebrow. "A perspective, Ranan?"

"Yes, Professor," he said. "Montreal's control is excellent. No one disputes that. But this is a demonstration lecture. And what she performed wasn't a demonstration, but an execution. Demonstration requires more than clean delivery. Students need to see the gesture arc, hear the mnemonic cue, sense the emotional inflection. Without those, they can't replicate the result."

Severa had already made it halfway up the steps back to her seat. She regarded Aldren with the kind of polite interest someone might give a new kind of beetle. "I was under the impression we were here to learn flame control. Not showmanship."

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Aldren is brave, but Severa is every professor's favorite student. Professor Markenth won't let him have it.

The professor ran a hand through the cinder-spiral above his shoulder, as if rearranging its shape, then tapped his pointer finger twice on his lectern. A small flame snapped into existence and winked out. His smile thinned, almost indulgent.

"Excellent," Markenth said, clapping his hands again. "Then I suppose we'll have the rare fortune of an educational counterpoint today. Aldren, the floor is yours."

Or maybe he will?

Aldren was one of the few students who could actually argue with Severa and not instantly get roasted. Maybe his demonstration will be different.

Aldren stood and calmly descended the steps.

As he stepped into the casting square, he turned to the class. "The Basic Combustion Funnel, as most of you know, has three principal triggers: ignition, spiral retention, and forward taper. If you want a flame that curves like a thread and doesn't collapse under its own heat, you need to time your pulse with each transition."

He raised his right hand. "Mnemonic: 'Draw breath, coax warmth, speak bright.' It's not official. It's what I use."

Then he inhaled, murmured the phrase, and made a deliberate spiral gesture. Fabrisse could follow the movement; he could actually remember the steps. But he could never replicate them so precisely.

Fabrisse caught Severa rolling her eyes, and that caught him by surprise. She'd always tried her best to keep a composed front.

The flame emerged. It was not as perfect as Severa's, but it had a steady coil and a pleasing cadence. More importantly, a flicker of yellow-orange danced along the edge. That meant emotion. Aldren had given the spell something to feed on.

He closed the casting and bowed his head.

"That," Aldren said, "is what I believe a demonstration should be."

The class clapped again—this time not louder than for Severa, but with more murmurs of curiosity.

Severa had already taken her seat. Her foot tapped a few times beneath her desk, rhythmically.

Professor Markenth chuckled. "Well then. We've had the courtly version and the scholarly version." He swept his gaze over the room. "Do we have a third offering today? Perhaps one from the emotionally embattled faction?"

Fabrisse immediately looked down.

Please don't call me. Please don't call me.

He could feel Professor Markenth's gaze, like twin heat-lanterns drilling directly into the crown of his head. Not even the lecture flames were this intense.

Across the aisle, Cuman—smug little elemental specialist he was, who lived to see people flounder—twitched as if about to raise his hand. But then he smirked and leaned back in his seat, folding his arms instead. He wasn't going to volunteer.

He was waiting to feast on Fabrisse's misfortune.

Fabrisse's pulse thudded in his ears.

Markenth opened his mouth again. His eyes lingered on Fabrisse a second longer.

"If nobody volunteers," he said, pulling out a chalk strip and tapping it once against the edge of his lectern. "We'll work in pairs. A stronger caster will guide a struggling one. Teach the funnel and share the cadence. If your partner immolates their sleeves, that shall constitute a bonding experience. We shall start with Cuman and Nagrisse," he called, glancing over his shoulder at the roster. "Aldren and Veck."

Fabrisse let out a breath so long it nearly fogged the desk in front of him.

He didn't realize, of course, that what came next would be worse.

"Montreal and . . . Kestovar."

The syllables hit Fabrisse in slow-motion. His gaze crept to the side.

Severa's expression was as still and elegant as ever. But her foot had stopped tapping.

Fabrisse stood, clutching the hem of his outer sleeve. This must've been Professor Markenth sending a message.

You're a brilliant caster, Severa, but can you teach someone who doesn't even spark?

Subtle criticism. Served hot, flame-grilled.

Fabrisse made the walk over slowly, the way a guilty pilgrim approaches a very judgmental shrine. When he reached her side, she gave him a curt nod and stepped toward the casting square without a word.

He followed.

"Kestovar," she said. "Let's start."

As he reached the casting square beside Severa, the system intruded with a notification.

Oh.

He realized he would get this as an immediately usable spell. If he could survive Severa.