21: Lesson on Magic and Math

It was a warm april day, the academy had finally been finished, and Eliza had learned truly just how much work went into paying wages and ensuring a government facility is operating well.

She had learned that for every parent complaint, she had to fill out a form and send it to a member of the senate for approval.

Essentially, she was the middle man between the senate and the parents who hated how things ran. Though, people would always complain, no matter what. It was a simple fact of life… which meant there was never not paperwork.

“I feel like I’m growing older every minute I have to do another sheet of paperwork… Why does the government make me do all this?” Eliza whined. “I’m probably growing grey hairs already, at only 26 years old…”

And then… she remembered.

“Wait, my hair’s already naturally completely white.”

After a moment, she managed to chuckle at her own words.

“At least I get paid more for this…” she thought to herself, noting how her pay has gone from 50 silver a day to 125 silver a day.

Though, that was with the addition of teaching a three hour long class in addition to her paperwork.

She only just now would be starting her class. Even with the union putting a rush order on the new room, it still wasn’t instantly assembled.

Her time that she had for swordsmanship training had diminished greatly. Even if she was now able to use the fire element, she wasn’t confident about using it in real combat. Though, she did feel like this experience would help her in the future for learning how to use yet another element in her swordsmanship.

But, today was her first class. Whether she had paperwork left to finish or not, she needed to do it.

It was clear that when a group funds over half your entire operations, you acquiesce to their demands a bit, especially moreso when that group is the government of the city you live in. Plus, the prince himself seemed to be a decent kid, even if his attendants were extremely strange.

Soon, in the hastily constructed room to the north of Beth’s classroom, Eliza felt a bit annoyed.

“I didn’t even have the time to gather any displays, like the other rooms have…”

Looking at the eight tables and chairs in her room, she wondered if she would even get students in her class.

She only allowed entrance to people who met certain criteria, after all. Since she was teaching advanced mathematics and magic, she needed the people attending to either know more than a 13 year old child on earth, or to have some semblance of magical skill.

She may have not vetted the children who would be attending this class by herself, but Rin willingly volunteered for that, even if she was busy.

Eliza smiled, thinking about Rin. It had been a few days since they last spoke, due to Eliza being so busy, but Rin had been especially kind to her recently.

Eventually, the students who would be attending walked in. There was Lily and Mary, since they could attend for free, Astram was also attending too, but there were two more kids as well, a boy and a girl.

The boy was probably around 9 years of age, and the girl seemed to be a bit younger, and they both had the same strange purple colored hair and purple eyes.

From prior experience, Eliza knew that strange colored hair was typically seen as inherently magical by the people of Atlan, so it was likely that these children were sent here by their parents in order to try to learn magic.

“Hello.” Eliza spoke to the class once they had settled down. “I would like to take this moment to announce myself as Eliza, your teacher. As well, I would like each one of you to announce your names to the class. Hopefully you may all foster friendships together.”

Lily, who was in the class, got shivers.

“You’re speaking really weirdly, mom.”

Eliza’s eye twitched. She really wanted to counter that point, or address it, but…

She admittedly was speaking a bit more properly in front of the prince.

“I…” Eliza tried to respond, but she felt a bit stunned as for what to say. “Let’s just… begin the introductions, please.”

The first person to go up and give an introduction was the most outgoing and friendly of the group, Lily.

“Hello! My name’s Lily! My mom is the teacher, and we live at the inn! I like funnel cake and swords!” Lily said, then quickly returned back to her seat.

Eliza, who felt a bit embarrassed calmed down. It wasn’t a bad explanation for a child to give, even if she wished it could have been handled better. Though, she felt like she would be too much of a helicopter parent if she tried forcing everything, especially this, to be perfect.

“Hello.” Mary said after she had approached the front. “My name is Mary. I am seven years old, and I like reading books, and cooking.”
 

Eliza smiled at seeing Mary not stutter or be quiet with her introduction. Mary may have been a bit shy when Eliza first met her, but with Lily speaking to her constantly every day, she seems to have gotten used to dealing with people.

Next up was the purple haired boy, who seemed to go up as if finally determined of something. He was wearing a cloth tunic and black leggings. For a commoner, it was decent clothing, likely chosen to ensure he did not embarrass himself in front of Astram.

“My… My name is Buck. I’m eight years old, and… I like eating meat, and… I really want to know about magic.”

Eliza smiled, again. She felt a bit comfortable, since Buck seemed like a polite child, if a bit shy. 

Surprisingly, Astram went up next, despite Eliza believing him to be the most shy out of the group. He seemed to take a deep breath when he was at the front of the class.

“My name is Astram Erast. I have been taught the Erast kingdom swordsmanship, and am proficient in math, history, and noble etiquette. I am six years old, and I am pleased to meet your acquaintances.”

Taking a moment to sigh, Eliza realized most of Astram’s personality here just based on his own introduction.

He was still viewing himself as the prince of the kingdom. Even in his own eyes, the ‘Erast’ name was seemingly the only valuable thing of him that was important. His own wants, his desires and what made him ‘Astram’ weren’t something he was willing to present.

But with attendants like that, it was no wonder why his personality came out like it did.

“And… Astram, is there anything that you like to do? Something that you like to do when you have free time? Or… anything that you want to do in the future?”

The boy seemed nervous at her words, then he managed to speak up after a while.

“I-I… Uh, I like… reading. And… I want to… write books.”

Eliza nodded.

“That’s good, Astram. It’s a good thing to have wants and ideas. As long as you have dreams, you have something to work towards.”

Astram's eyes sparkled a bit as he walked back to his seat. Eliza felt proud at managing to say this to the boy, hopeful that he would manage to live his own life in the future, not one others wanted him to live. Though... she did feel something odd when she finished saying those words.

Once Astram sat down, the final person went up, the purple haired girl.

The way she walked made it clear she was used to having the spotlight, but… Eliza could tell she was clearly pretending to not be nervous. The girl was pretending to not be paying attention to Astram, but she was occasionally looking at him whenever she had the chance.

“I’m Lana. I am 9 years old, and I enjoy dancing, singing, and baking.”

Eliza nodded. She was the oldest in the class, but not by much.

Though, she could tell that the way Lana was acting was not quite normal. She felt like she had some clues as to why the girl was acting strange, but she didn’t want to make any assumptions.

“And… is there anything else you like, Lana?” Eliza asked. “If there is, it would be a good idea to tell us now. If there’s a day where we try to use magic in our hobbies, wouldn’t it be good to have the thing you like the most be magical?”

The children’s eyes seemed to light up when Eliza mentioned magic, including Lily’s.

“I… I like riding around on the back of my dog like he’s a horse!” Lana spoke up excitedly.

Eliza laughed. She felt lucky that Lana was actually willing to talk about what she wanted. Lana’s parents likely had sent her here for more than just to learn magic and math, it seemed.

As Eliza prepared to discuss the first part of her lesson, which was advanced forms of math, she felt someone watching her. Not her class, no, it would make sense for one of them to be paying attention. But her.

Eliza, using a method that Grant had taught her, closed her eyes for a short moment and paid attention to her heartbeat.

Through this, she felt her connection to her inner world, and ‘pretended’ to be a swordsmaster for a moment, as if her inner world and the outer world were connected. For a regular person, this would be nothing more than a meditation technique, but for a sword expert, it was like overexerting yourself temporarily to use the power of a swordsmaster.

If she could maintain this power indefinitely, even when sleeping, she’d truly be able to call herself a swordsmaster… But for now, even just using this for a minute made her tired.

But through using this, she realized exactly where the observer was.

Opening the door up was one of the two nearly identical attendants of the prince, eavesdropping on the class.

“Ah… Priscilla, isn’t it?” Eliza asked, hoping she was right.

After three encounters over the past few weeks of meeting these two women, she had come across their names in conversation more than once. However, with their near identical appearances, it was hard to actually guess which was which. She had yet to ever guess which was which a single time, so far.

“Wrong. It’s Clover.” the woman said calmly, a hint of anger in her eyes.

The students were all looking at the door, with most of them being excited and curious, though Astram seemed a bit embarrassed at the situation.

‘Ah… a helicopter parent.’ Eliza thought to herself, seeing Astram’s face. It was clear this wasn’t the first time that Priscilla or Clover had done this to him.

“Just keep up your lesson. I’ll continue watching.” Clover said aloud.

‘And distract my students?’ Eliza thought to herself.

Eliza quickly stepped forward once. As she did, a path of ice spread behind Clover, leading straight to the front of the building.

One of the kids, Buck, upon seeing this, got excited.

“A slide!” he shouted. “Can we use it?”

Eliza hummed, realizing that putting a slide in the children’s playground might be a good idea at this point.

“What is that? What did you...” Clover almost shouted.

“A slide, as my student Buck just stated. Clover, you and I both know that you are not suitable to watch this class. You will be far too loud, and distracting towards both me and my students. Do you want to leave on your own? It would be much better, for the both of us.” she asked.

'For the both of us...' meant that Eliza would need to fill out paperwork if she did what she was intending to do. For Clover, however... it meant facing embarrassment.

“What, are you gonna force me? You aren’t! You can’t make me leave! I need to watch over the prince!” Clover shouted, causing Eliza’s ears to nearly ring.

Eliza smiled gently.

And then, with a single tap on Clover’s shoulder, Clover fell over onto the slide and lost all grip, sliding down until she was far out of sight.

The children watched with awe, seeming extraordinarily impressed, except for Astram, who was watching with horror evident in his eyes.

Eliza then simply closed the door, returned to the front of the class, and waited for them to calm down. There was giggling from Lily, silence from Mary and Astram, and Buck and Lana were whispering to each other.

Yes, she may have been ‘doing it up’ on purpose to entertain the students on their first day and make them interested in learning their own magic, but she truthfully simply just wanted to annoy Clover, too.

“Alright then. This is probably a good time to begin the lesson on magic, then.” Eliza said calmly.

The children seemed excited, but Eliza felt like she was about to dash their hopes. How many of these children could possibly use magic on their first try?

“To use magic is to take your understanding of the world and twist it. When you change how you expect the world to respond… The world will respond by manifesting those changes, even if it’s temporary. Though this does consume your mental strength, this can be alleviated by knowing more about what it is you wish to change.”

When the children didn’t have any idea about what she said, Eliza seemed to expect this. She didn’t stop speaking, knowing that if she were to not continue, they wouldn’t be able to understand.

“Simply put… You use your imagination to tell the world that you want something to happen. You do this by imagining yourself ‘pushing’ the idea outwards, like how a swordsman does it with their attacks… Like this.”

Eliza quickly lit her fingertip alight, creating a small flame on it. It was enough of a sample as it was, though her earlier display of creating ice was likely seen as more magical by the children, even if it was technically swordsmanship.

The children were looking at her with awe, except for Lily and Astram, who seemed a little less entertained by the idea.

“The more mental strength you have, the more magic you can do. You’ll be able to use magic you weren’t able to do before as you grow stronger and face new hardships. Not stronger physically, of course, but mentally, of your mind.”

The children of course did not get it, except for seemingly Astram, but that was to be expected.

“Alright now.” Eliza said, snuffing the flame out. “Now… I want you all to give it a try, please. Imagine… the tip of your finger having a harmless flame on it. A flame that can’t hurt you, no matter what you do.”

The children began repeating what Eliza did, nearly exactly. Lily, Buck, and Lana all failed, but when Eliza looked at Astram, she saw that he had managed to create a small flicker of a flame on his finger.

“So the rumors weren’t unfounded…” Eliza muttered to herself. She had only explained it once, yet the prince had managed to succeed on his first try. For a six year old child, that was pretty impressive.

It made sense for him to be able to cast magic, too. With his level of education and how much stress he has been put through in his life, if he didn’t have the talent to cast magic, it would be surprising.

After all, the best way to forge your mental strength was a trial by fire. Your mental strength would either melt... or it would grow stronger. Seeing as Astram was still here today, able to cast magic, she knew his will was tempered by what had happened to him.

The purple haired twins and Lily may not have as much luck compared to the prince, but right as Eliza was about to reassure them… she saw it. On Mary’s hand wasn’t fire, like she had demonstrated, but instead a gale of wind.

Something that shouldn’t be possible. She didn’t teach that.

Eliza’s mind quickly ran through all possibilities, but… it made little to no sense. Mary was only slightly more than a year older than Lily, yet her creativity was so high that she could cast magic already?

And then it hit Eliza. She didn’t even know Lily’s stats. She hadn’t been paying as much attention to her own daughter as she should have been.

It had been over a year since she had checked her daughter’s status… She had even forgotten that she had the ability to do so.

After all, Eliza wasn’t here just to enforce that Lily would grow up strong. She wanted her daughter to feel loved and appreciated with every moment Eliza possessed.

Eliza wanted to know more about the situation, to try to come up with any idea on how to help Mary. She wasn’t expecting anyone other than Astram to succeed.

To get an idea of both how Lily and Mary were doing… Eliza checked Lily’s stats. She hadn’t done it in so long, and Lily and Mary spent so much time with each other, so they would likely have similar stats… right?

[Lily: Age 5]

[Physique: 237. Wisdom: 165. Emotions: 103. Creativity: 330.]

[Body: 12. Mind: 15. Charm: 15.]

[Talent: Destined swordmaster.]

Eliza was shellshocked. She stared, dumbfaced and silent for quite some time, not sure of what to say.

How had her daughter grown so strong so fast? 

She may have her birthday coming up and would become a 6 year old child soon… But Lily had nearly half the physical strength of the average fully grown adult. 

The only thing that seemed to be growing on pace was her emotional control…

But Eliza had no doubt in her mind that Lily would master that, before long. After all, it was the primary stat used in becoming a swordsmaster.

Eliza coughed. 

“Ah, it’s… Uh, it’s almost time for recess. I’ll lead you all to the playground now, okay? Then we’ll have lunch in the main hall.” Eliza interjected into the silence, feeling like she was distracted for far too long.

Lily, Buck, and Lana all walked together, barely talking. Each one of them felt bad, but they couldn’t explain why. It wasn't just not being able to use magic, but it was a big part of it.

Mary and Astram, however, were walking together, excitedly talking about magic and what they wanted to do with it.

They soon made it to the playground, and they were not the only class present. The other classes had already made it to the playground, but with Eliza being stunned for so long, she had accidentally delayed their departure for a while.

Off, walking into the corner, was Lily. Alone, not with Buck and Lana, who were chatting happily together.

Lily felt… upset.

Mary and Astram were smiling and chatting happily about being able to cast magic.

It didn’t feel good for her. She and Mary always had things in common that they were able to talk about, so not having this…

“Urgh!” Lily screamed, picking up her wooden sword and swinging it as hard as she could.

And moreover… she was annoyed at not being able to cast magic.

Lily continued swinging her wooden sword. Unlike before, when she was training in the forest with Eliza, the sword no longer launched right out of her hands when she swung.

Whenever she brought her sword down, it was clear she had a sword path in her mind. But her body simply couldn’t execute it.

But today, she was able to swing just as she planned. Just as she wanted. 

In her mind, she imagined her mother’s sword swings she saw every day in the past when she was training in the forest. Those swings that seemed to never cut anything her mom didn’t want to cut, or to cut things that were nowhere near it if her mom wanted it.

She continued thinking about it for a while, but soon, Eliza came out to announce that recess was over and they would be joining the rest of the students for lunch, where they would be eating in the large entry room of the academy.

With her final swing of the recess, it was as if Lily saw a grey silhouette. Her mind was running faster than ever in the hopes of being able to do the same thing her mom once did.

Without realizing it, Lily felt like there was nothing in the world but her and her sword, even the noise of the playground and the other students besides their class was drowned out.

And then, with her soft wooden sword, a mark was left on the playground grass that day, in a spot where no sword had ever touched.

Even though Lily may not have been a mage like Astram and Mary, she was now officially able to be considered a proper swordswoman… at 5 years of age.