53 Chapter 53 Leaving On A...Caravan (2/2)

He continued reading in horror and was muttering in anger under his breath. Stella kept glancing up at him in concern. He had never acted this way before.

”But I mean, this is just…wrong. No wonder it takes years. How could it ever get this bad?”

(I a.s.sIGNED YOUR TRAINING REGIMEN TO MAXIMIZE EFFICIENCY. THESE NOTES SEEM TO BE TYPICAL FOR MOST MENTORS IN THIS REALM. LOWER n.o.bLES ARE NOT NECESSARILY AS EFFICIENT AS THESE NOTES.)

”But Stu and Selena…wait. Stu thought I had no talent. He was merely following dad's orders so he may have shown me the base rune instead of spells because of that.”

Joseph started start pouring through Stu's notes in his memory. He focused on FOOD because he was more chef than mage. Selena had such a high comprehension of FIRE, she was probably at advanced or master level.

”She can invoke any spell with intent after she inscribes the base FIRE, can't she system?”

(SELENA IS A SPECIAL, THOUGH NOT UNIQUE, CASE IN THIS REALM. HISTORICAL RECORDS DO SHOW OTHERS HAVE HAD HER LEVEL OF THE GIFT.)

”So, her affinity makes her a bad case study?”

(HER LEVEL OF AFFINITY FOR A SINGLE RUNE IS WORTH 25 LIFE POINTS. FOR ALL SCHOOLS, IT WOULD COST 50 LIFE POINTS AFTER ACQUIRING THE SPECIAL BLOODLINE FOR IT TO BE POSSIBLE.)

”Um, Joseph, you need to come back to me. You haven't been this far away for a long time.”

'Stella was talking. Shavist, she has been talking for about a minute.'

She jumped when he turned to look at her.

”Joseph, you really need to stop the eye glowing thing.”

'Wow, her aura has gotten prettier and stronger.'

Joseph stopped the active mage sight. He had to get better control of his emotions. Since gaze became intermediate, it had started to become reflexive. It wasn't a problem with control, but inner chaos. He really hoped he hadn't done it at the ball, but n.o.body mentioned it, so hopefully not. Since breath was constantly active, recharging and absorbing mana, keeping other techniques from activating sometimes slipped.

”Shavist. Looking at these notes, it's a good thing we kept my magic a secret from everyone. I would have been completely…wait. If I train others correctly, I could make mages ridiculously easy and quickly.”

Stella sighed and shook her head. He was a lost cause today. She sat back down and went back to her book.

(ERROR. JOSEPH YOUR WILLPOWER AND FOCUS POSSIBLY OBSESSION WILL NOT BE IN OTHER STUDENTS. COMMON 7 YEAR OLDS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FOCUS ON COMPREHENDING A RUNE WITHOUT THEIR MIND DRIFTING FOR HOURS AT A TIME.)

”But I could cut the standard mage training down for others to a few years from a decade, couldn't I?”

(YES.)

With that in mind, he turned back to the notes more seriously. About a third of the notes were utter trash. About 5% was immediately useful, about 20% would be useful with effort, and the rest he wasn't sure of. It might be useful as reference? This is disgusting. None of them had Selena's master level of a base rune which he had been expecting. He wasn't expecting none of them to have advanced in any rune. Only the Archmage had WATER and FIRE at intermediate, apparently to help deal with droughts and fight invaders or a.s.sa.s.sins. He hadn't raised another mage high enough to have an intermediate rune, but 3 showed promise.

They were all over 40 already. Joseph was feeling a mix of disgust, horror, and elation at their level compared to his own. It would take a while to get the base runes from all of their modified runes. Only a few hours each though. He got FOOD from Stu and an incredible FIRE from Selena, HEAL from watching the mages cure everyone of poison after the feast, LAW which was a composite of COMMUNICATION and MIND CONTROL from the contract, so he could take runes apart to get each base rune as well as a good start on how to combine runes.

From the mage's doc.u.ments Joseph could reverse design WATER, EARTH, AIR, PLANT, and WEATHER. NECROMANCY was outlawed, so no notes on it. The n.o.ble houses may have some others or maybe the other kingdoms. That should be all the base runes he needed to start restoring the wastelands though, so he was pretty happy. After puzzling over it for a few hours, he started focusing on ignite fire. They were about a week out from the northern plains. He would cast the spells there, after he was sure none of the king's or n.o.bles' spies were around.

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