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

Langley guided him off the field, to a slope beneath the old silverthorn tree at the eastern edge. The grass was cooler here, away from the scorch, and the breeze still held some evening light.

Fabrisse had braced himself for a lecture. Something about responsibility, safety protocols, what to report and what to omit. But Langley said none of that.

"I spoke to Lorvan earlier this week," the professor said, settling onto a stump with a graceful flick of his coat. "He asked if I'd be willing to help you find a placement. He thought it might be good for your focus."

"Placement?"

Langley nodded. "A junior lore clerk post. Rank II, under the Subcurate of Lore Management. You'd be assisting with record transcriptions, incantation indexing, probably a few artifact logs here and there. It would get you access to restricted stacks and keep your stipend active."

Fabrisse's mouth opened, then closed again.

"You'd need to pass a short interview and demonstrate some basic book-handling knowledge," Langley continued, adjusting the lenses on his nose. "But Lorvan seemed to think that wouldn't be a problem for you."

"Lorvan said that?"

"He did." Langley looked at him over the rim of his glasses. "He said your recall is sharper than your scores suggest. That you have a habit of absorbing things you pretend not to care about."

Fabrisse glanced down at his hands. He wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a compliment.

Professor Langley let the breeze speak for a while. The wind rustled the branches above, a scattering of silverthorn leaves spinning down between them. Then the professor said, "I failed my fire mastery exams three times, Mr. Kestovar."

"Huh?"

Langley's smile was faint and dry. "I couldn't sustain even a basic combustion weave without it sputtering out. I still can't, some days."

"You're a professor."

Langley shrugged. "Of hydro-aetherics and ritual cartography. Not because I'm brilliant, but because I had a very patient mentor who once told me to stop trying to be good at the wrong thing. I couldn't control fire to save my life, but it turned out I was very good at water-borne navigation. Specifically flood channeling."

He leaned back, letting his hands rest on his knees. "That skill kept half a province from drought during the Serefield collapse. A spell that never got published in any of the big flashy journals. And I am proud of it, Mr. Kestovar."

Fabrisse didn't answer, so Langley continued. "Did you know that Instructant Lugano once tried to quit teaching?"

That got Fabrisse's attention. "No."

"Oh yes. Right after his first assigned cohort. They burned through three mentors, nearly unraveled an experimental discipline project, and managed to set a chair on fire with a truth-binding spell. He thought he wasn't cut out for it."

"I can't picture Lorvan doing anything else."

"Neither could I," Langley said mildly. "But it took him time. Took all of us time."

Fabrisse stared down at the grass. For once, the thrum of frustration in his chest had softened to something smaller, quieter.

Langley stood, brushing off his coat. "Take the job if you want. It won't fix everything, but it might give you enough space to remember that you're not a mistake just because you haven't found the right kind of useful yet."

Fabrisse didn't answer, but his throat tightened in a way that felt dangerously close to choking on himself, and he was glad Langley had already turned back toward the field.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"The interview's in four days," the professor said. "I'll let the Subcurate know to expect you. Wear something with pockets."

He wouldn't have much problem fulfilling that request.

The light dusting of micapowder and powdered felspar smudged Fabrisse's fingers as he lined up the last of the mineral shards along the grading strip. One by one, he slid each sample beneath the viewing scope, checked the elemental weave integrity, and logged the structural readings in his field sheet.

Common quartz, variant 5B. Weak auric cling. Minor trace of thaum-salt. No spectral bloom.

He noted the line, initiated the box, and brushed the sample into the return tray with practiced care.

This was his fourth afternoon in a row classifying substratal earthbound fragments for the Lower Leyflow Archive. Most students found this kind of work dry—even Konan only nodded in acknowledgment when she passed him in the archive chamber stairs, heading down to her own geomantic thesis vault. But Fabrisse didn't mind the quiet.

Assistant Instructor Min Hajin glanced up from his inkboard, dark eyes narrowing just enough to suggest he'd finished reading the latest flaw reports and was waiting for Fabrisse to either break something or speak.

He took the chance.

He set the stylus down and cleared his throat. "Assistant Min?"

Min Hajin glanced up from his slate. "Hm."

Fabrisse gestured lightly to the tray beside him. "Would it be permissible to take one or two of the overflow quartz samples home? For study."

He didn't immediately answer. Instead, he tilted his head and tapped his stylus against the side of his board. "Home use?"

"Just to practice field tagging and matrix calibration," Fabrisse said. "A few of these still have aether residual charge, and I wanted to see if I could try mapping how much they hold over time."

Min Hajin folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. The chair made no noise—how it never creaked was one of life's small mysteries. He watched Fabrisse a moment more, then nodded toward the tray. "Which ones?"

Silvial quartz, like the one Ganvar Ciemnosc let him borrow, would probably be best, but there wasn't one in here. Fabrisse had a good guess about which other ones would give him a bonus in RES.

The pale, ice-veined fragments at the edge of the tray—Trinav Quartz, variant 2A. A type of high-clarity common quartz known for its unusually stable aether resonance structure, so it was sometimes used in academy training tools, like aether flow stabilizers, signal pips, and other low-stakes utilities meant to release a controlled discharge of light or sound. The glyphlights hovering all over the campus, on the other hand, didn't even use quartz at all, but light-based aether. Rocks were typically pretty ineffective for light discharge.

"This set," he said quickly, brushing his fingers across the edge of the tray where the Trinav pieces lay. "They're all pretty low-output, but still clean. Good for mapping low-resonance drift over a few days."

Min raised one eyebrow. "Are you planning to chart that by hand?"

"I mean . . . maybe." He tried a sheepish smile. "Eventually."

The assistant instructor exhaled through his nose, then waved a hand. "You can take four. Leave the rest for the others."

Fabrisse blinked. "There are other students?"

"There's one," Min had already returned to his slate. "She's on field excursion. She'll be back next week."

Fabrisse gathered the quartz like he was pocketing seeds. Four only. Four was enough.

I will be better. And if hoarding rocks is the way to go, so be it.

As he put the quartz in his pocket, the System flared.

He was right. These quartzes would boost his RES. He had an actual way of gaining control over his resonance output now. But only plus 3 instead of 4?

Ah. I see. Then, his next task would be to upgrade his Stone Resonant Carry so he could maximize the potential of his path. This was the edge the Eidralith had given him, and he must take advantage of it.

If hoarding rocks makes me useful, then so be it.