5. Loop 0, Part 5

Enchantment Theory was the one class I cared about, for the simple reason that enchantment was the only school of magic that understood laziness as a design philosophy. You spent the effort once, and you never had to spend it again. It really was the best school of magic. Every other discipline required repeated casting or wore off after a certain time, or worse, made you do things. I shuddered. Enchantment let the object do the work, permanently.

Lecture Hall 3 occupied what had once been a banquet hall for dignitaries back when Old Main had been a palace. Old murals of ancient royalty lined the walls like a forgotten family tree, most faded beyond recognition. They were kept in place by the Old Main Restoration Project my uncle spearheaded. It lacked proper funding, but somehow the pictures endured.

At the head of the hall was a gorgeous stained glass that needed no saving. It depicted Queen Therumia, the last ruler of a united Hessalonia, in deep crimson and gold. She rested one hand on a brilliantly blue scepter that radiated power and magic, and, the other, she lifted skyward hoisting a sword. Around a hundred years ago, she had united the fractured kingdoms and founded her Queendom on top of an ancient library she’d discovered.

When her heir was murdered some sixty years later, it sparked a civil war that tore the country into the three nations that exist today: Hessalonia, Kratos, and Restralia. The library she built her throne upon supposedly still sat beneath our feet, but had never been found. Some said magic protected its secrets. Others said those secrets never existed at all.

That morning, the light hit the stained glass at just the perfect angle to throw colored reflections across the room. Blue and gold and red separated the room almost in perfect thirds, with the deep red silhouetting the lectern like a spotlight. Probably intentional. Queen Therumia had been known for a knack for the theatrical.

Professor Marcus Thane was already talking when we walked in, ten minutes before the class even started. Finn split off to find a seat near the front where he could take notes, like the overachiever he always pretended not to be. I climbed to the back row where the light from the stained glass didn’t reach, and the seats were warm from the heating enchantments in the stone. As much as I liked the class, I still preferred to sleep.

Floating subtitles appeared beside the professor as he paced. This was my favorite spell. The [Subtitle] charm dutifully translated his rapid-fire lecture into text I could read from across the room. At least one spell was earning its mana cost today.

“The fundamental problem of the unified enchantment theory is that everyone always treats enchantment like it’s just casting a spell on an object. It’s about as technically accurate as saying cooking is just applying heat to food.” He was pacing back and forth across the lecture hall, giving his standard pre-lecture theory chat.

“You’re not attaching magic to matter. No, no.” He laughed in an almost manic way. “You are convincing matter to behave differently. It’s a negotiation. A relationship between you, your magic, and the object of your enchantment spell.”

A handful of even earlier students than us watched from their seats with the glazed patience of people who had learned to tune out his rambling.

Suddenly, he jumped forward and thrust his wand out at the front of the stands. “You wouldn’t just walk up to a stranger and [Sticky] charm a to-do list to their chest, would you?”

“I might,” a student in the second row jeered. Thane turned his head, stroked his chin, and then approached.

“You might! And what would the consequences be, dear boy?”

“They’d probably hit me?”

“They’d probably hit you!” Thane repeated with delight, spinning away from the student with a hop before resuming his pacing. “And the objects will react the same way! Rejection! Instability! Catastrophic failure! I once saw a freshman try to enchant a wooden table into a liquid! The enchantment fought with the wood, the wood fought with the enchantment, and the table, get this, tried to eat him. Putting aside the dangers of attempting to enchant Treant-made furniture, enchantment is all about persuasion.”

Thane approached a chalkboard that appeared out of nowhere before casting another spell at the board. Writing appeared and started diagramming his speech.

“You have to understand what the material wants and then convince it you want the same thing. Wood wants to be sturdy? Stout and tall? Wonderful. You’re not changing that at all.”

It was nine o’clock, the hall had filled with students, and Thane was still ranting about the same topic. But nobody wanted to stop him.

“No. Instead, you’re saying, ‘Hey there, friend, sure would be nice if you could be stout and tall and sturdy. But you know, I think if you really want to be sturdy, you also need to be fireproof. Or unbreakable, or bigger, or smaller.’”

He paused now, taking a moment to realize his class was already there.

“That is why enchantment is the superior school of magic. Every other school forces its beliefs. Its ideas. Its magic on the target of the spell. But enchantment at its core forms a partnership between mage and spell, between mana and object.”

There was a complicated magical diagram on the board, which had slowly enlarged itself as he spoke. At its center was a spell titled [Access Ward], its schematic laid out in detail. I never bothered with anything as complicated or finicky as another person’s spell schematic. Usually, they cost too much mana, or required extra thinking, planning, or time. All things I hated.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Still, I took note of what he suggested for the persuasion piece.

The board said: Stone wants to be still. Use this. Stillness is a wall. You’re just asking it to be still with a specific purpose…

There was more, but my eyes glazed over at the obviousness of the spell. While I had never cast this spell before, I didn’t have to be Sara Voss to know that a fucking stone wants to be still. I shook my head at this waste of my time. Why did I even bother getting out of bed?

The problem with most schools is that they’re forced to teach down to the rigor of the lowest common denominator, and despite never making proper headway with that denominator, everyone keeps acting like education is still on the up and up. And when things inevitably come crashing down, the system is never the problem. It’s the teacher.