Lord Teft sighed. “There is potential in that line of thought, if further refined, but a traditional simulacrum spell has only a short duration. They continuously drain mana from the caster. Several kinds of mana, in fact: mental mana; life mana; and general mana.” His lecturing tone had a sharp cadence to it.
“That makes them prohibitively expensive to use for a long duration. This is why we’d love to crack how the tower creates constructs that seem to last indefinitely. Suffice to say that simulacra aren’t useless for infiltration, but not as useful as they could be. Anyone else?”
No one else spoke up.
Teft shrugged a shoulder. “Well, class is dismissed, then.”
Most students glanced around nervously for a moment, uncertain.
Seriously? He’s not going to tell us the third application?
...I suppose he’ll probably ambush us again with the same question later to see if we’ve figured it out.
I shook my head as the students made their way out of the stands. I followed with the crowd, retrieved my weapons, and then headed back toward my room.
It didn’t take long for Sera to catch up to me, with Roland and Patrick still following close behind her. “You got yourself into quite a mess today.”
I glanced at Roland. “I think it would be more accurate to say that Roland got me into a mess, but you both helped get me back out of it, so I’ll call it even.”
Patrick laughed. “Oh, man, you should have seen your face when that orb exploded behind you.”
I laughed in spite of not finding it particularly funny. “Yeah? Oh, and it’s good to see you, Patrick, it’s been too long.”
That was at least partially true.
“Yeah, been a while! You seem pretty much the same, though.”
I nodded. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Roland’s contribution was almost a whisper. “Your mother misses you.”
I blinked as my mental landscape shifted.
Mother.
How long had it been since I’d even written to her?
I was a terrible son, wasn’t I?
My expression flickered, and I turned my head. “Thanks. I miss her, too. You still living with House Lyran?”
House Lyran was my mother’s house. Unlike in some cultures, married nobles in Valia generally retained their original house name as their surname. My mother, Laura Lyran, was no exception.
Roland nodded. From his expression, that looked like the end of the conversation for him, which was fine by me.
Sera frowned at me. “You look pretty rough. You want to go get something to eat?”
I looked at my two old friends, at Sera, and at the still-devastated stands. I was bone tired, but that fight had shown me something significant. Something I’d known before intellectually, but that I hadn’t really internalized.
I wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds without help. Not even ten real seconds, if the teacher had been playing fair.
If I wanted to survive the rest of the year, I needed to be a little more open to the idea of having other people in my life.
And so, I fought down the nervousness and fear that still lingered in my veins and said, “Okay.”
***
My right hand was twitching as I set my tray down on the table in the dining hall. I didn’t know if it was because I was nervous or just a side effect of the mana that was syphoned from my hand each time I’d used the dueling cane. Most likely, it was a combination of both.
Sera sat down next to me, which made things a little easier than if I’d been stuck sitting in close proximity to Roland or Patrick. I’d never had a problem with something that minor when I was younger, but a couple years had made me anxious that I wouldn’t live up to anyone’s expectations.
While I poked awkwardly at my food, Patrick leaned across the table toward me. “That was amazing back there. Do you think we’re going to get to fight in every class?”
I blinked. Goddess, I hope not.
I’d been practicing dueling since I was old enough to hold a cane (and younger than it was strictly legal). The “fight” we’d just engaged in was not something I was particularly interested in repeating. I didn’t like being an object for his lessons.
I shook my head. “We’ll get more chances to duel, I’m sure, but he wanted to make the first day flashy to leave an impression.”
Sera gave a snort of a laugh. “If we wanted to leave the ‘impression’ that he’s a dangerous narcissist, he succeeded at that.”
“I warned you.” Roland folded his arms, looking to Patrick, then to Sera. “He has a reputation for these kinds of... grandiose actions.”
Patrick grinned. “I thought it was amazing. How often do you get to see magic on that scale? I mean, there was that one time when Lady Lyran—”
Sera cut him off with a sharp gesture. “We all remember Lady Lyran’s duels, Patrick.”
Did I sense a hint of bitterness there? What was that about?
I supposed Lady Lyran being my mother and not her mother probably had something to do with it. If Sera was my half-sister... did Mother treat Sera badly? I’d never seen anything like that, but it wasn’t impossible. Especially for the last few years, while we’d been far apart.
I wanted to ask about it, but this wasn’t the place or the time.
Instead, I turned my head to Sera to ask her something different. “What was that spell you cast? I knew you told me that Summoners could draw power from monsters... Is that what that was?”
Patrick nodded vehemently. “Yeah, that was amazing, Sera! That must have been, what, like a rank two or three spell?”
Rank two or three?
I hadn’t studied much about magical classifications yet. I knew spells varied in power, of course, and giving them some kind of number designation made sense for an academic setting. Still, I didn’t ever remember hearing that term used.
How much had I missed in the last few years of school?
“Four, actually.” Sera smirked. Patrick’s eyes widened in awe. Sera turned back toward me. “And to answer your question, Corin, yes. I was drawing from a specific contract to cast that spell. I don’t need to summon the monster itself to do that. Summoning monsters directly is rare and dangerous.”
My brows knit together at that. “I’ve seen plenty of monsters summoned in duels, though.”