2446 Pride and Admiration (Part 2)

"As for all the other branches of Void Magic, once you understand how every single pair of elements are fueled by the same driving force, learning them will come natural to you. Any final question before you start practicing your favorite elements?"

"I have one." King Meron said. "I must say, this is all very brilliant but also there was nothing like this in the first draft you gave us. How did you make so much progress in the short time since the end of the War of the Griffon?"

"You have to thank my wife for that." Lith shrugged.

"Your wife?" Meron echoed, followed by many shocked Archmages.

"With all due respect, Captain Yehval is no mage and her knowledge of magic is crude at best. Are you telling me that she's actually a genius and she has discovered her talent while helping you with your experiments?"

"Nothing like that." Lith said with a chuckle. "She did help me to prepare this lesson but just like you said, her knowledge is elementary. As I tried to explain Void Magic to her, I had to simplify things one notch at a time until she managed to grasp the concepts I just explained to you.

"She's no genius, but exactly because of that, I was forced to revise everything that until that moment I took for granted. By looking for examples that she could understand and exercises she could practice, my own understanding of Void Magic improved by leaps and bounds.

"To make her take a single step forward, I had to take ten myself and then set a path for her to follow. She was my first and maybe my slowest student, but if not for her, you wouldn't have such clear-cut exercises today.

"By answering her questions that I had never asked myself and clearing her doubts that my mastery of magic made me overlook as insignificant details, I've learned from Kamila more than I taught her.

"Now you'd better start. We have spent over half of the time at our disposal on theory. If you don't solidify what you just learned through practice, by our next lesson everything we said will be nothing but hot air. Pick an exercise and start working."

In the blink of an eye, the whole room became silent as everyone focused on the aspect of Void Magic in which they felt more confident. Lith sat behind his desk, practicing as well.

Yet while his students worked on first magic, he attempted to cast tier four spells.

'If I get to affect arrays with Void Magic, the sky is the limit. By combining it with Domination, I can take control of an enemy spell and then turn it into whatever I want.' He thought.

During the remaining time, talent and experience quickly created a ranking. First the Royals, then the Headmasters, the Professors, and the students dead last. In all fairness, the youths had mere six years of experience against the decades of their competitors.

Yet they had one advantage and no qualms about exploiting it.

The older mages felt in competition not only between themselves, but also with Lith. Their pride was already wounded at the idea that someone so young was ahead of them.

They felt like they had to prove their talent and ingenuity. That the only reason they hadn't discovered Void Magic by themselves was just bad luck and lack of inspiration.

Lith had already planned everything for them. Asking him questions was akin to admitting being no better than Kamila, a civil servant who had never attended one day of academy.

The students, instead, competed against each other but only felt deep admiration toward Lith, especially those of commoner origin. As the youngest Magus in the history of Garlen, he was their role model and a beacon of hope.

Asking him questions did not only feel natural, but also gave them the opportunity to introduce themselves to their hero. Lith patiently answered the questions, gracefully accepted the compliments he received, and firmly rejected their apprenticeship applications.

The girls in particular were tenacious, offering to work as handmaidens or anything he might need. Lith had no idea where their families' ambitions ended and their raging hormones started, but he had no desire to find out.

"Screw this." Professor Vastor was the first to give up on his pride the moment one of the students who was practicing on a water tank as well started to catch up with him.

Sure, the kid had asked several pointers and was leagues behind Vastor, but the Professor knew all too well the feeling of a rival breathing on his neck.

"I'd rather lose to Lith than to a runt still wet behind his ears." He answered Marth's silent question before standing up and walking to the Professor's desk.

"I got what you said, but there are too many life forces inside my tank. I don't have the time to get the feel of the flow of life that the bastards reproduce, die, or kill each other. What am I doing wrong?"

"Nothing." Lith replied, his voice low so that no one else could hear the answer. "What you consider a failure is actually a great success. The flow of life is not steady by nature. If you really can already distinguish between the various factors that shape it, you are almost there.

"Don't get blinded by your pride. You are biting more than you can chew. The first step is understanding, not control yet you are trying to achieve both at the same time."

"Gods, I'm a moron!" Vastor rushed back to his seat and in a few minutes, he had completed the first step.

Marth followed suit, asking Lith a question. The other Professors and Headmasters would have scoffed at their shameless peers if not for the fact that Marth and Vastor had both reached the second step whereas everyone else was nowhere near completing the first.

"Screw this. Light and darkness may be two sides of the same coin, but I'm not going to finish second!" Headmaster Distar was considered a genius and the greatest alumni of the Black Griffon of his generation but he was falling behind Marth.

"Shall we?" The King asked. He was practicing fire and water while Sylpha worked on earth and air.

The plan was to master them and then share their respective findings with the other after the end of the lesson to get ahead of the competition.

"Of course." The Queen nodded with grace. "After all, as long as we are in this classroom, we are just students. There is no shame in asking our Professor for help."

At that point, no ego was big enough to put themselves above the Royals.

Lith had them form an orderly line and gave up on working on his own Void Magic.

The questions were concise and the answers clear, yet from that moment until the end of the lesson, people spent more time in line than sitting behind their desk and working on their own exercises.

"I'm sorry. No overtime and no questions will be taken outside this class." Lith checked his pocket watch after the bell rang. "Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to the canteen to pick up lunch for my wife and unborn daughter."