“Of course,” Hahen said. “Don’t you worry, I’ll watch, and we will fix this tonight.”
He returned my bow, and I headed into class.
Unlike the other classrooms, there were no seats or tables in the Jinsei Sorcery lab. Instead, every student stood inside a cell with three thick granite walls. Once we were inside, the small rooms sealed their fourth sides with walls of clear jinsei. There were only ten of us in the class, and our isolated workspaces were arranged in a semicircle that faced the workbench that Krieger used instead of a lectern. There was enough space to move around in the cell, but the jinsei barrier made sure that any of our spells that went off course wouldn’t endanger a classmate.
“You’ve got this,” Clem said as we prepared to enter our cells. Hers was right next to mine, so she was aware of my shortcomings in this class. “Just relax. It’s all about the flow state.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Good luck.”
My cell’s clear door sealed behind me with a rasping hiss. The only sign the jinsei was active was the silver border that surrounded the wall facing the professor.
“Good morning, class,” Krieger called after we’d sealed ourselves inside the cells. “So far this semester, we’ve experimented with the ephemeral aspect of air. Most of you have mastered the art of summoning a gust of wind and directing it to do your bidding. While this is useful for turning the pages of a book or drying your hair, it’s time to move past this simplest form of sorcery to something more advanced. Today, you will begin your mastery of the water aspects.”
A thousand thoughts about how that could go wrong filled my head. I understood the theory behind sorcery, and I had no trouble manipulating aspects. In fact, I was a little too good at that. I shook away those dark thoughts and focused all my attention on Krieger as he once again explained how to extract aspects from our environment and force them to manifest.
“Feel the water all around you,” he said. “The world is filled with aspects, and it is the sorcerer’s duty to bring them to their full potential. As you grow in power, you will find the aspects you need wherever you may be. There is water in the desert, ice in an inferno. But you must have the will and courage to claim it, and the power to control it. Now, I want each of you to fill a single crucible with water.”
I hoped I could complete the lesson without making a mess for once. I found a crucible on the shelves to my left and put it on the small workbench in front of me. I cracked my knuckles, put my hands on the bench, bracketing the crucible, and closed my eyes.
When I’d first gained my new serpents, I’d been impressed at how easily they stripped aspects from auras, even those of inanimate objects, which were hard to manipulate. Sorcery was like that, only more directed. Rather than taking aspects away from the environment, I wanted to bring them out of the ether and into physical manifestation.
I meditated, letting my senses open to the world around me, and searched for the water aspects that Krieger had assured us were there for the taking.
I quickly found aspects of air and light, easily the most common types indoors. I detected the faint presence of animals from the rats who lived in the walls of the School of Swords and Serpents. With every breath I found more aspects and disregarded all of them that weren’t water. It felt like an hour had passed before I caught a whiff of a water aspect. I focused all my attention on it and was surprised to find it hovering just above my head inside the cell. It was as small and fragile as a dandelion seed drifting on the breeze.
Afraid that I’d drive it away with a sudden movement, I held my breath and remained absolutely still. I followed the instructions Krieger had given during our first lesson and willed the frail aspect from its position in the air into the crucible I’d prepared for it. The aspect settled to the bottom of the ceramic container, invisible to my eyes, but clear to my advanced disciple-core jinsei senses.
That was the easy part.
The next step was where I’d had problems in previous classes.
Aspects required jinsei to manifest. When lodged in your aura, they took the jinsei they needed from you, their host. They could also harvest jinsei from other aspects of the same type. Water aspects manifested with almost no effort over the ocean, just as fire aspects would flare to life in a forest fire. But there was no free water in this room, so the only way to manifest the aspect was to nurture it with my own sacred energy.
Again, this wasn’t difficult. At my core level and with my unique abilities, transferring aspects and jinsei was second nature. And yet, I always failed my sorcery attempts.
“Here goes nothing,” I said quietly.
I willed a thread of jinsei out of my core and into the crucible. It connected to the water aspect, and the trickle of power soon filled my target to overflowing. A single bead of moisture appeared in the bottom of the crucible. That was a small victory, but I had to fill the crucible to complete the lesson.
Now that I had a manifested aspect, it was easier to find others floating in the air. Like attracted like, and soon enough a constellation of water aspects hovered above the crucible’s mouth. As they grew in number, I heard waves crashing on a beach and smelled fresh rain. Tiny beads of perspiration formed across my forehead and upper lip, as if my body were manifesting the elemental spirit itself.
I willed the new aspects to join the manifestation in the crucible’s bottom. They eagerly flowed into the container to reach their potential.
