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

"We're learning emotional sustainment today," Ganvar Ciemnosc folded her sleeves like she was about to perform a dissection. "Today, you'll ignite and sustain your spark for more than a minute."

Fabrisse sat on the grass and held the quartz Ganvar had given him between his palms like a consecrated scroll. "For more than how much time?"

Ganvar gave him a look that could have curdled warm milk. "A minute. You are supposed to be capable of feeling emotions for more than one minute, aren't you?"

He cleared his throat. "Right."

Ganvar gave him a glance like she was already exhausted. "You are to select one valid emotional state, preferably something you're actually capable of feeling, and hold that resonance through the quartz for at least fifteen seconds first." She glanced to the left. "You're late."

"I'm not!" Liene appeared from behind one of the courtyard trellises, stuffing the last of a toasted rye roll into her mouth. "I was here. Just . . . in the shadow of that suspiciously large hedge." She pointed to the hedge. It was not suspiciously large.

Ganvar sighed.

Liene plopped onto the grass beside Fabrisse, leaning back on her palms like she was at a picnic rather than a training session. "Okay, okay, okay, teach. What are we learning today?"

"You would've known had you been here a minute earlier," Ganvar said.

Fabrisse didn't dare tease her. He knew he wouldn't win the 'punctual' argument with someone who had physically dragged him out of bed for a morning lecture.

"We're learning emotional sustainment," he whispered instead, eyes still on the Silvian quartz in his hands.

Liene leaned closer and peeked at his quartz. "Do resolve. You're good at being annoyingly stubborn when you want to be."

Ganvar gave her a look. "Do not suggest emotions to other students. That is not encouragement. That is psychic interference."

"I'm helping!"

"You are not."

Fabrisse took a deep breath. "Okay. Resolve. I'll try."

He closed his eyes, curled both hands around the quartz, and thought about every single thing he had failed at. Which was, unfortunately, a very effective list. Then he added Liene's voice saying 'I paid for the both of us' to it for good measure.

The quartz warmed.

Atop the quartz appeared sparks, first pale, then richer, until it curled into a steady, muted amber.

Liene, peering at the quartz beside him, tilted her head. "Fabri. That's shame, not resolve."

Fabrisse didn't answer. He kept his eyes on the quartz, letting the shame hum against his skin.

Ganvar stepped closer, watching the resonance curl up toward his wrist like pale smoke. "Let it run for fifteen seconds."

The shame held, faint but sustained.

Ganvar nodded. "Good."

Fabrisse let out a breath. "I perform best with this emotion."

"Now double it."

"Double it?"

"Thirty seconds," she said. "Sustained shame. If that's the emotion you can conjure best, then you'll learn to master it first."

Liene made a small noise of protest. "You know shame is a destabilizing emotion, right? The sparks typically don't keep well; that's why we don't learn to conjure it in practice. He's gonna start unraveling."

Ganvar didn't look at her. "Thirty seconds shouldn't be hard."

Fabrisse inhaled shakily, turned his focus inward again, and cupped the rock tighter. The amber glow sparked back to life, dim but consistent.

He gathered the same list of failures from earlier. The shame curved low in his gut and bloomed again through his fingertips.

Then the amber flared like light from a lighthouse. His wrists started to tingle. This was the numbing sting that came from holding too much emotion in your hands without bracing.

The physical sting proved to be too much of a distraction. He felt the corner of one intrusive thought slip in. What if this is all I'm ever good at? What if I'm not even doing shame right? And with it, the structure of the emotion buckled.

The amber dimmed. A fine crackle ran through the resonance thread like glass under stress.

Ganvar's voice cut in. "Don't let it dip."

But it was already slipping.

The light vanished like a pulled curtain.

The quartz cooled in his hands, and for a second, he didn't say anything. His chest ached. His wrists tingled with cold where the resonance had withdrawn.

Ganvar stepped forward, calm but sharp. "You overfed the emotion and let it collapse under its own weight."

Liene peered sideways at him. "What were you thinking about?"

He didn't answer.

Ganvar sighed. "Try again. And this time, keep it simple. Feel it, don't wrestle with it. If you feel a physical sting, you're trying to hold too much."

"Right."

He tried, and tried again. But after three attempts, he still failed. Both Ganvar and Liene demonstrated to him once more, but he couldn't replicate.

Ganvar exhaled, then straightened. "All right. Fifteen seconds is a pass. For now."

Fabrisse widened his eyes. "Really?"

"You're not built for endurance yet, clearly. But that should be enough to at least attempt Harmonization."

Liene perked up. "Oh, already?"

"Well, you only paid me for two lessons, so we have to take shortcuts," Ganvar shrugged. "Harmonization requires two participants. You'll share an emotional state and channel it into a mutual aether pool. From there, either party can redirect the pooled aether to cast a spell. It's an intermediate-level two-person circuit, but it's actually not that difficult."

"That's allowed?"

"It's encouraged. Cooperative channeling is more efficient in high-load rituals. And more importantly—" She flexed her fingers, and clean, bright ivory thaumaturgic sparks kindled at her knuckles, small and sharp. "—it trains precision and co-regulation." She stepped closer and tapped the grass beside her. "Sit up. Face me. We'll use Resolve as the anchor emotion."

"I can try," he said, uneasily.

"Good. You already feel it. That's step one."

Fabrisse straightened his spine, legs crossed, shoulders squared. He watched her summon a faint ring of glowing lines around them—like a glyph traced in dew—anchored to a center point between their hands.