Chương 25: Day Twenty-Five

Dear Diary, Marshall duBois and Sister Siobhan tag teamed Basic Heroic Skills today. In the morning half of the class, he had us working on Status again, and in the afternoon Sister Siobhan showed us how to do a few basic Healing spells. My Remedial Mana teacher showed up before class to make me my very own Special Education Mana Working Bubble. Of course Lancaster started whining not five minutes into duBois working with us on Status.

"I know this! I've known how to do this since I was five years old! Why can't you teach us Inspect?" I swear I felt my desk rumble with a subsonic growl before the Marshall slowly drew himself up to his full height and turned to face Larry. All three of my ROTC crew, every Camden Yards kid, and even a few others went deathly silent and still as he did so.

"Lancaster, I swear to every god I've ever heard of that if you do not begin treating your Instructors and fellow Cadets with the respect due them, you will curse your ancestors for ever leading to your birth. Do. You. Understand. Me?" Apparently Lancaster had the survival instincts of a suicidal lemming, because he opened his mouth to respond with something other than the appropriate 'yes, sir'.

Rosen and Rider weren't nearly as clueless; Rosen's hand clapped over Lancaster's mouth, his other arm grabbing him in a headlock, while Rider stood up and near shouted, "understood, Marshall duBois, Sir!" Sister Siobhan chose that moment to intervene, standing from where she'd been observing my Status practice and saying, "Marshall, you've scared the poor Cadets." She turned to Lancaster, and I swear I could feel the disappointment radiating off of her nearly as strongly as I'd felt the Marshall's fury.

She crossed the classroom to Larry, each measured step accompanied by another phrase targeted at Barbie Commander.

"Cadet Lancaster. Lawrence. Lou. I admire your desire to learn, but if you wish to continue as a Cadet here at Phileo City Heroic Academy, you must learn to express yourself and address your peers with appropriate amounts of respect." I swear, the woman's words had me feeling guilty, and I hadn't done shit. I mean, today. Larry, of course, shrugged off Rosen and half-muttered, "I'm a Lancaster. People should be respecting me, not the other way around."

Before the Marshall ripped Lancaster's head off and used it as a chamber pot, Sister Siobhan intervened.

"Lawrence, everyone deserves respect. Your fellow Cadets earned their places here," she paused, and I couldn't help thinking she'd done so deliberately, "just as you did. Your instructors graduated from one school or another, and are all experienced experts in their fields. In the case of the Marshall, he not only graduated from Phileo City Heroic Academy, just as you wish to do, but he has served the City for over a decade, first as a Hero and now as Marshall.

In that time he has faced and overcome countless threats that neither you nor I are in a position to even comprehend. To receive respect, you must first give respect. You understand that, I'm sure you do." I don't know if he finally caught how close he'd come to becoming another of duBois' 'countless threats', if the Sister's purity of heart moved him, or he just wanted to stop being the center of negative attention, but he slouched into his chair and said, "yes, Sister. I'm sorry, Sister."

After a pause, he muttered, "I'm very sorry, Marshall." With a final snort, the Marshall turned away from Larry and said, "Okay, class. Let's get back to work. Most of you still need way more practice with Status, and I'll not have anyone leaving this class half-assing their Spells. That said, you'll need to find someone to pair up with when we finally do get to Inspect. Make sure it's someone you trust well enough to know what your Status screen shows, because they're going to get a glimpse at that."

As the class got back to work, I made a snap decision.

"Saffron," I stage-whispered, "c'mere." She looked away from what I assumed to be her own Status spell, shrugged, and walked over to the edge of my bubble in the back left corner of the room.

"What did you need?"

"D'you wanna pair up for Inspect?" She blinked, mouth working a bit before responding.

"You want to pair up with me? Why me?" After a moment's thought I shrugged, sometimes honesty really did work best.

"You've got a strong moral compass. You see something about me that isn't perfect you're not gonna blab it around."

"Seriously?"

"Yep." She thought about it a moment, then nodded.

"You realize if I see something actually damning in the literal sense I'll have to tell the authorities?" I paused, faking an equal amount of consideration before saying, "can you agree to talk it over with me first? If you still want to tell somebody, I'll come with you." I'm not sure she heard exactly what I meant, but she nodded again.

"Fair. Okay, when we get there, I'll pair up with you." I smiled at her.

"Thanks!" She blushed a little and muttered, "de nada," before returning to her desk to practice her Status some more. I turned back to my own practice. I'd managed to get my line of mana down to a hair thin, blindingly scintillating wire dragged behind the tip of my fingernail instead of the finger painting smudge I'd done in Remedial Shaping, but I couldn't seem to get it any thinner than that. After Tuesday's practice, I wasn't killing myself doing it though, which came as a nice surprise.

Thoughts of wire sparked in my brain, and despite both Remedial Mana and duBois' instructions not to try something 'new' without telling someone, I... Tried something. New-ish. Instead of tracing with my right hand, I put my right hand into the 'holding' position, thumb sticking upward.

I forced that tiny sliver of mana from my thumbnail, then forced more out, pushing the rest up like an extruded wire; much like my first successful Status, the point sparked like an arc welder, but this time the point kept doing that as it grew. I focused my entire attention on forcing the Mana to grow into the shape I envisioned; when it got long enough, I pictured it making a hard right turn into a gentle left curve, then forced the mana-wire to grow into that shape.

The circle came out more circle-y than I'd ever been able to do with my right hand, and I forced it to skew just enough to avoid merging with the previous wire. Two more circles, and before I could even lead the wire back into my thumb, my dual Status screen popped into being in front of me, one screen in front of the other. I focused on the first one, figuring I might be able to hide the other one from Saffron, or talk her out of looking at it, or something. NAME Tabitha Diaz RACE Hybrid HYBRID Bag (31. 25%) / Dan (25%) / Human (37. 5%) / Vanir (6. 25%) AGE Juverrnille ATTRIBUTES STRENGTH 3 AGILITY 3 ENDURANCE 6 This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. REASON 3 MEMORY 2 PERSONALITY 3 AFFINITIES Water (18. 75%), Air (9. 375%) PATRON Loki SKILLS MANA SHAPING 6 RACIAL SKILLS None The only thing I figured I'd have to do some explaining on was my Mana Shaping; sure, I'd practiced a lot over the last week, but unless they used a completely different scale, my Mana Shaping coming in as high as my Endurance might look kinda weird. A sudden errant thought struck me, and I mentally shoved the Status screen to the left of my vision; recreating the spell took some work, and I didn't want to have to redo it all.

Sister Siobhan stood facing me, head down, palms clasped before her. The Marshall stood behind her, for the first time since I'd met him nervous tension leaked through his controlled demeanor. The rest of the class just kind of stared at me, and I heard Larry mutter, "show off." Before I could say anything, my Mana Shaping instructor dashed through the door. They walked up behind duBois and calmly stated, "I'll take over from here.

Marshall, Sister, I'm certain your class has better things to do than stare at Cadet Diaz." With that the Marshall turned and got his class working again; after a few moments the Sister stopped murmuring, opened her eyes, and moved to assist him. Soon they had the entire class making circles in the air with their hands. Mana Shaping just looked at me, shaking their head.

"Whatever will we do with you, Diaz?"

"Uh, what's going on?" They chuckled a little, "You don't even realize, do you?"

"Nope. Clueless. That's me." They shook their head and spoke in a low voice, pitched to carry no further than me, "between me and you, you've just displayed an innate understanding of Mana far in advance of most of your classmates here. I'm not surprised, mind you. Your problem, inasmuch as I have been able to determine after working with you for a few hours, is not a lack of Mana to be shaped; it is in fact the exact opposite.

You have an excess of Mana, to the degree that controlling it must take an extraordinary effort of will. It's a somewhat less common dilemma, but not unheard of; I see at least one or two students a year with similar issues, although yours seems a bit excessive. It's almost like you've never even tried to shape Mana prior to entering the Academy." I shrugged.

"I didn't." That got a bit more reaction from them.

"Really? How bizarre, especially for a young person who dreamed of becoming a Hero."

"I didn't so much dream about it as it seemed the next thing to do." True enough, as far as it went.

"Odd. At any rate, the shielding seems to be undamaged; from the Message the Marshall sent to me, your display was impressively pyrotechnic, but it seems that's all it was. You've progressed very well in terms of containing and controlling your Mana; I detect nearly no residues beyond what one might expect of an ordinary Status spell coupled with a fairly potent Light spell." That reminded me of the question I'd originally pushed my Status spell aside for.

"Hey, while I've got you here, I had a question about Status?" They chuckled, clearly unwilling to leave a student with a question without answering it.

"Go on?"

"The Attribute numbers in my Status all seem kinda low, and my Skill numbers," I stuttered a little making the word 'number' plural, to make it seem like I had more than one skill, "are weirdly high comparatively." Mana Shaping nodded, their face showing just a touch of a smile.

"Other than ratios, all numbers in most Status spells are exponential in nature. Do you understand what that means?"

"Maybe? Could you explain it to me?"

"Certainly! It's quite a simple concept. For Attributes, a 'one' is equal to the Attribute of an average Adult Human with no special training or focus in that Attribute. A 'one' in a Skill is someone who has just mastered the Skill, enough to have it show in their personal Status or to an appropriate Inspect.

In more advanced studies of Attributes and Skills, we often use the moniker 'Joe Stag' to describe a wealthy layabout who has never had to exert themself, and as such has only the baseline abilities, and who is such a dilettante they have a 'one' in every Skill imaginable, but nary a single 'two'. In the real world, finding a person who has not at least focused enough to raise one Attribute is excessively uncommon." They paused, looking at me to see if I understood. I nodded, and they continued.

"At any rate, a 'two' indicates someone who is at least twice as capable in that regard to that Attribute as someone with a 'one'. A two Strength can lift twice as much as a one, a two Endurance can run twice as far as a one, a two Memory remembers twice as many details for twice as long, and so on. With me so far?"

"Yeah?" They nodded again.

"A 'three' is twice as capable as a 'two', and a 'four' is twice as capable as a 'three'."

"Oh! So it's all powers of two?" I interrupted. They looked at me, clearly shocked at my statement, yet not upset at all.

"Yes! That's it exactly! I find myself unable to not ask, who was your Maths tutor?" I panicked a little, throwing out the first math teacher's name I remembered.

"Mister Houck?" They looked a little put out.

"Houck? How strange, I've never heard of them, and I know most of the prominent mathematicians in Phileo City." I shrugged.

"As far as I know, he lives north of Camden. Camden Yards, that is."

"Fascinating. I simply must see if I can find this unknown mathematical genius tutor of yours."

"Cool cool. No idea how to get in touch with him, though. My mom might have known, but..." They nodded, a sympathetic mask imperfectly hiding their excitement over meeting the mysterious Mr. Houck.

"I understand." They turned, waving to the Marshall.

"Marshall duBois, a word?" He nodded, finished up with his current student, and walked over to Mana Shaping.

"What did you need?"

"I've inspected the shielding, and while I'll add another shield before I go just in case, Cadet Diaz' Mana shaping was simply a method I've been teaching her in order to overcome the difficulties which landed her in my class. Upon close inspection, there was little if any need for the first shield, despite the somewhat spectacular visual nature of the Cadet's Spell." The Marshall nodded, accepting Mana Shaping's verdict while clearly less than sanguine about it.

"Fair enough." He turned to me.

"Cadet?" I straightened my spine from its usual slouch and replied, "yes, Marshall?"

"Carry on practicing the way you've been shown by your Mana Shaping instructor. Do try to tone down the... Spectacular visuals... if you can do so safely." He turned back to Mana Shaping.

"I'd still appreciate that second shield before you go, though." With a chuckle, they did just that, winking at me once the Marshall turned away, whispering, "keep practicing!" before leaving the classroom at a brisk pace, leaving me alone in my bubble with my Status screen. All of a sudden my six in Mana Shaping looked like it needed a lot more explaining. My six in Endurance certainly explained my Marathon run, though.

Pulling my Status back in front of me and putting my back to the corner, just in case someone could read my Status screen over my shoulder, I flipped to my second Status screen. Even at a quick glance, I just had to hope like hell Saffron didn't catch wind of it, or if she did that I could talk her out of looking at it. Because I'm sure as hell I couldn't talk my way out of the deep, deep shit I'd be in from that one.

NAME Mimic RACE Mor AGE JuvErrnilErr ATTRIBUTES STRENGTH 4 AGILITY 2 ENDURANCE 16 REASON 4 MEMORY 2 PERSONALITY 8 AFFINITIES Water (56. 25%), Air (28. 125%) PATRON Loki SKILLS None RACIAL SKILLS MIMIC 16 MIMIC (Attack) 4 MIMIC (Attribute) 4 MIMIC (Defense) 8 MIMIC (Size) 16 MIMIC (Skill) 8 BLEND 32