A Conjuring of Ravens by Azalea Ellis

Author:Azalea Ellis [Ellis, Azalea]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: sort1
Publisher: Azalea Ellis
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

20

Practical Will-based Casting

Sebastien

Month 11, Day 2, Monday 2:15 p.m.

* * *

Sebastien’s next class was Natural Science, which she found more fascinating than she had thought she would, mostly due to the enthusiasm of the professor. The classroom was large, and divided into two sections. One part was desks and seats for students to listen to lectures and take notes, while the other section was lined with sturdy slate tables and various pieces of equipment for them to do practical experiments.

Professor Gnorrish was a big, tall man—not the image one had of a person who spent all his time in the laboratory or library—and he had a big, tall personality and a passion for his field to match. His excited grin was infectious. He waved his arms about and let his voice boom while he spoke, and at one point Sebastien even thought he might jump up and down to better impress his enthusiasm upon them.

“Natural science is the new wave of magic, powerful because of the nature of reality, rather than in spite of it. It relies on the strength of the ties that bind reality together, rather than the strength of the caster alone. One day, I believe we will discover how to replicate all of transmogrification’s abilities with transmutation as our understanding of natural science grows.”

Some students seemed to find this ludicrous, a few rude snorts coming from a couple boys in expensive clothes.

Sebastien turned around to throw them a disdainful glare, and was surprised to find Westbay doing the same across from her. He had walked into the classroom a minute after her, and had studiously ignored her since then, which she found perfectly acceptable.

Professor Gnorrish didn’t seem to mind the obvious disagreement, though. He nodded to the boys who had snorted. “You think me naively optimistic, I assume. Yet, let me ask you this. Have we not accomplished things in the last one hundred years that the humans of aeons past would have considered impossible to achieve without transmogrification by a powerful thaumaturge?” He reeled off a list of achievements and names, and when he finished, all the students were silent. “What more might we accomplish in one hundred more years?”

At the end of class, he instructed them to borrow and read certain books from the library, which held multiple copies of his specified texts, and then released them.

It was her free period next. Despite the pangs of hunger from her stomach, Sebastien went to the library rather than the cafeteria. She wanted to get there before all the other students picked the shelves bare of the assigned books.

Sebastien borrowed them with her student token, then sat at a table and flipped through each to gauge how long they would take her to read. She doubted the dorm room would be the best place to get work done, at least not while the other students were awake. After a few minutes, she put the books in her leather satchel and went to browse the shelves. ‘If I ever do anything to jeopardize my status as a student here, I will lose access to all these books.

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