Rayne and Magic School Part 4 (Patreon)

"Work!" Rayne screamed at the plastic ring he'd been trying to imbue with power for the last hour and a half. "Fucking piece of shit!" he cursed as he finished the gestures for the Imbue spell.

"Language…" Yelena trailed off as the plastic ring started glowing with an angry red light. "That shouldn't work."

Derry laughed. "If it works, it works."

"I'll take it," Rayne replied as he looked at the ring. "So, any idea how we're supposed to identify magical items?"

"Not really," Derry admitted.

"We could probably ask Fiore, she should be in her office," Yelena said, having memorized her favorite teacher's office hours.

"Probably for the best considering this is my first magic item," Rayne said as he stood up and stretched.

"Let's go before it falls apart," Yelena said as she headed for the door.

Derry grinned as he followed Yelena.

Rayne grabbed the ring and followed Yelena outside and across the courtyard, almost having to jog to keep up with her despite his longer legs. 'Yeah, she's certainly enthusiastic about enchanting.'

Fiore looked up from her video game when Yelena knocked on the doorframe. "Another question?"

"Rayne managed to cast Imbue by cursing at his ring, is there a way to check what it does?" Yelena asked hopefully.

"Sure," Fiore replied as she pulled a pair of wireframe blue tinted sunglasses out of her storage and put them on. "Come in, I don't bite."

Rayne stepped into Fiore's office and held his plastic ring out. "Anything?"

Fiore grinned as she looked at the Enchantment her glasses revealed. "Let me guess, you were a bit angry when you enchanted it?"

"Just a bit," Rayne admitted.

"That explains the angry glow and the fact that it basically gives you an aura of danger and menace," Fiore explained then pulled a bag of plastic rings out of her storage and tossed it to him. "You should probably cast the spell a couple more times while it's fresh just to make sure you can repeat the process," she suggested, rather pleased that he'd managed to cast the spell in just a couple of days without any previous training.

"Do you have any suggestions?" Rayne asked.

Fiore considered the question for a couple of seconds. "I'm a fan of rings of mage hand or defensive gear but there's not much point in making anything particularly nice until you learn to make things permanent."

"Mage hand it is," Rayne said as he pulled one of the plastic rings out of the bag. He set his temporarily magical ring on the table with the bag of plastic rings. He took a breath then focused on the basic formula from the Enchanting book that covered imbuing things with telekinesis, bringing the details to mind as he wiggled his fingers and cast his new spell.

Fiore grinned as Rayne's ring glowed bright green for a second before fading back to normal. "Nine pounds of telekinesis, you'll have to work on it a bit but I've seen worse second attempts."

"Not exactly Mjölnir but I'll take it," Rayne said, rather happy that his ring had ended up having any type of telekinesis. "How much would I have to bribe you for the schematics for your glasses?"

"I doubt you'd be able to duplicate them without a decent amount of work but I'll tell you what, if you can answer my question from class about the number of spells I could cast, I'll let you borrow my glasses and give you the schematic," Fiore teased, fairly sure he wouldn't be able to answer her question.

"I'm guessing you disenchanted the spells you used, mastering the spell allows the caster to reclaim the energy they used to cast the spells they dispel. I could be wrong but I'm guessing you also just copied the wands after stringing everything together with string or wire."

Fiore raised her eyebrows. "What makes you think that?"

"The holes in the end of the wands and the fact that it makes far more sense than duplicating things one at a time. I'm sort of curious, could you imbue a wand with a spell, use it twice and disenchant it to get your energy back?"

"Yeah, I'm keeping you," Fiore teased. "Technically, you can, it's just most people don't really bother as you can't Imbue Metamancy spells and you have to know the spell to Imbue it."

"Damn," Derry muttered, making a mental note to pick Rayne's brain later.

"Does that mean I can borrow your glasses?" Rayne asked hopefully.

"You can borrow them for a month," Fiore replied as she tossed him her sunglasses. "I'll even toss in some interesting schematics." She pulled a notebook out of her storage and dropped it on the desk near the bag of plastic rings. "I suggest learning the Permanency spell as quickly as you can."

"What about Hex Proof?" Rayne asked warily.

"Fair point, make it the second most important spell," Fiore suggested. "Once you have that, you can start crafting permanent magical items in your spare time and start building up a collection."

"Now I just have to find a place to keep my collection that won't get stolen," Rayne said, not sure he trusted the rest of the people in his dorm not to sneak in and steal interesting magical items.

"That's easy enough," Fiore said as she pulled an elaborately carved wooden wand out of her storage and handed it to Rayne. "Use the wand, it has the improved version of the Storage spell which should give you an infinite inventory that you can access instantly."

"Shouldn't you be trying to get us to learn that?" Derry asked, thinking about the notes in the book that had waxed poetic about learning that particular spell.

Fiore shrugged. "If you end up specializing in enchanting or you get bored in your second or third year, it's something to pick up but honestly, at this point, it's basically wasted effort. You have far more important things to worry about, like Permanency or Empowering your spells or Hex Proof or any of the rest of the spells you should be working on. Besides, when you can walk into a shop and buy a wand of the improved version of the spell for less than a thousand dollars, there isn't really a point in learning the spell in your first year."

Rayne waved the wand and grinned when he realized he could sense a storage vault in a weird and slightly disconcerting way. "That's going to take a bit to get used to."

Fiore grinned as she glanced between Derry and Yelena. "You might as well hand the wand to your friends, I have more."

"You're the best," Yelena said, figuring she could always learn the spell later.

Rayne handed the wand to Yelena who promptly used it then handed it to Derry. "Thank you."

Derry used it then held the wand out. "Do you want it back?"

"Keep it, I have plenty," Fiore replied with amusement. "Do me a favor and don't tell the rest of your classmates about the trick with the string, we don't need the economy crashing."

Derry shook his head. "I'd rather not screw myself over, I'm planning on going into enchanting and trading magical items seems like a decent way to make money."

"That's the spirit," Fiore replied with a grin. "Is there anything else or can I get back to my game?"

"Not that I can think of, I'll look over the notebook," Rayne replied as he grabbed the notebook and plastic rings.

"Thanks Professor," Yelena said, looking forward to reading the notebook so she could practice.

"You're welcome," Fiore replied, knowing they'd try harder with a little help than they would fumbling on their own. She pulled her actual sunglasses out of her storage and examined the ring Rayne had created, studying the way the magic flowed through the ring. 'That's certainly an interesting effect, I'm going to have to keep an eye on those three.'

Rayne slipped the sunglasses on as they left Fiore's office and headed back towards the dorm. "Copy machine?"

"I've got a scanner," Derry offered, wanting a copy of the professor's notes.

"Good, I want a copy," Yelena said, making a mental note to see if she could find an electronic copy of her textbooks so that she could run searches. "I want a copy of her glasses."

"They're useful," Rayne said as he looked at the floating game-like popup window hovering over the ring that explained the details of the ring's magic, including the fact that the enchant was temporary. He slipped the ring on his finger and levitated the bag of plastic rings, finding it surprisingly easy and giving him hope that there was a point in learning Enchanting. "I'm going to have to pick up a knock off lantern ring for when I make this permanent."

Derry laughed as he pictured having a glowing hand that he could extend across a room to grab drinks or other party tricks. "Only if you make it have a glowing hand."

"Why settle for a knock off when you could make a decent copy of the Starheart?" Yelena asked as they left the building and walked into the courtyard.

"I'm fairly sure that falls under the no legendary or epic limits in the spell," Derry pointed out.

"Not if you get creative," Rayne mused, already thinking of ways to combine rings to get something more impressive than he could do with one spell. 'I just need to summon or make something that lets me combine items or move the property from one item to another, this would be a lot easier if I had my laptop.'

"Oh?" Yelena asked, wondering what Rayne had come up with.

"You might be able to make a gauntlet with crystals that combine to make something better than the parts or a ring that fits together," Rayne mused, wanting to test some of his more interesting ideas before he shared them with the group which meant he really needed to step up his efforts to learn to summon people and items and metamagic which would let him start building his collection of trinkets.

"Sort of like the Infinity Gauntlet," Yelena mused.

"Which is also way outside the ability of the imbue spell, did you not read the book?" Derry asked as they walked into the dorm.

"I read it," Yelena replied with a shrug. "I'm not talking about creating anything close to the gauntlet just using the idea of combining effects to get something more impressive."

Derry shook his head. "I guess that could work but you're sort of trying to glide down a mountain on jet powered skis before you can walk."

"It's good to have goals," Rayne cut in as they headed down the hallway towards Derry's room.

"If you never dream, you'll just follow the same boring road as everyone else," Yelena pointed out. "Enchanting should be able to duplicate anything and everything given enough time and research."

"In theory," Rayne agreed as he focused on his new storage and mentally pushed the bag of plastic rings into it. He grinned as the bag vanished, letting him 'see' it if he concentrated on his new ability. "This should make carrying our books easier."

"And notes and everything," Yelena agreed as they stopped in front of Derry's room.

Derry knocked on the door. "Are you decent?"

"No more or less than usual," Mei replied cheerfully.

Derry opened the door and blinked when he saw a muscular purple skinned male demon fucking a movie star quality pink skinned demon girl from behind in the middle of the room while Mei was recording a video with her camera. "You call this decent?"

"I'm wearing clothes," Mei replied with amusement as she gestured for everyone to come in with the hand that wasn't holding her camera. "What's up?"

"Professor Du'Lys gave us some notes for a project because Rayne figured out how to cast Imbue, I wanted to scan them," Derry said, enjoying the show.

"Right, take it to the bathroom," Mei ordered her summons.

Rayne watched as the male demon picked up his 'date' and walked into the bathroom to continue the fun. "Is this normal?"

"I needed practice summoning specific types of demons," Mei explained as she followed her demons to the doorway so that she could film her video and talk with her classmates. "What type of notes did you get?"

Rayne flipped through the journal, looking at the labels and the various schematics. "Just notes on enchanting various items that we can use as templates for future magical items."

"Nice, I should see if Ms Yumi has any notes on monster summoning," Mei mused as Derry walked over to his computer and brought up his scanning program.

Rayne handed Derry the notebook, trying not to think about the demons fucking in the bathroom, something made harder by the noises. "What happens if they escape your control?"

"Then I banish them, never summon anything you can't kill or at least have a plan if they escape," Mei warned.

"Why record them having sex?" Yelena asked.

"Mostly because I get money for selling it," Mei replied with amusement. "People think I'm slaving away with 3D modeling software and toss money at me."

"I guess that's one way to make a living," Rayne said thoughtfully, fairly sure building up her followers took a decent amount of time and effort so it wasn't exactly free money, just close. "I should probably look into ways to make money."

"If you figure out how to make your magic items permanent, I'd buy some trinkets provided you give me a reasonable price," Mei offered. "The shop in town is expensive and the quality isn't that impressive."

"I'll certainly keep it in mind," Rayne offered, fairly sure he could make enough pocket change to cover incidentals by selling things.

Derry flipped the page. "Huh, there's a schematic for regeneration."

"Regeneration is pretty common in various RPGs, is it decent?" Rayne asked.

"Decent enough to take you from almost dead to tap dancing in an hour," Derry replied, rather impressed with the quality of the schematic. "Of course, just because we have a schematic doesn't mean we'll actually be able to reproduce it perfectly."

"How much would you sell that for?" Mei asked.

"If I can figure out how to cast it and make it permanent?" Derry considered the project and the amount of complexity he'd have to deal with while he started scanning the next two pages. "Probably 100 dollars and a date."

Mei turned to look at Rayne. "Counter offer?"

"If I can get it working, fifty," Rayne offered.

"Cool," Mei replied with a grin.

Derry sighed dramatically. "That's cold Rayne. Are you going to undercut him, Yelena?"

Yelena laughed. "No, I'm aiming to sell high end items."

Rayne smiled at Yelena, not really seeing a problem with sticking to selling cheap trinkets that he could string together and copy. "I'll get there eventually."

Mei glanced at Yelena and Rayne. "Are you looking forward to Epidromancy and Mensuramancy tomorrow?"

"More Mensuramancy than Epidromancy," Yelena replied. "I'll probably pick up Change Mental Attributes from Epidromancy so that I can keep my grades up with less effort."

Derry turned to look at Yelena as the latest page was being scanned. "Slacking?"

"There's nothing wrong with giving yourself a mental boost if you can," Yelena argued, figuring she'd just cast Permanency with the spell giving her a decent boost for the cost of a couple of spells when she wasn't working on something else.

Rayne shrugged. "I'm looking forward to learning a couple of things in Mensuramancy but that sort of depends on if I have any talent. I'll probably do the same for Change Mental Attributes, it should help with tests."

"Unless the teachers dispel it," Mei pointed out.

Rayne shook his head. "Always possible but I doubt most of them would waste the effort or magic."

"Probably not," Mei agreed. "Most of the teachers care more about results than fairness."

"That should do it," Derry said as he finished scanning the last page of the journal and handed it to Rayne. "Here. I'll turn the images into a PDF and drop it by in a bit."

"Thank you," Yelena said as she headed for the exit.

"You're welcome," Derry replied with a smile as he watched Yelena leave.

Rayne turned to look at Mei. "Best of luck and sorry for interrupting your fun."

"Don't worry about it," Mei replied as she went back to watching her summons.

"I'll order some pizza and drop by in a bit, let me know if you learn anything interesting," Derry said as he started working on editing the scans so they'd look somewhat professional or at least halfway reasonable.

"Sounds good," Rayne said as he left, glad that he'd found people willing to help or at least bounce ideas off of. He quickly cast his absorb information spell on the journal on the off chance it vanished, figuring it was more important than practicing one more time. 'That leaves me with two spells, I might as well work on Imbue and Permanency, maybe I'll get lucky.'

0o0o0

Emilia Townsend glanced up from her notes when the bell rang and glanced over the collection of first year students that were sitting at their desks ready to learn. "Welcome to Mensuramancy, I'll be teaching you to bend space and time or open portals to interesting worlds if you've got the talent and drive to make something of yourself."

"Does this mean we can explore strange new worlds?" Derry asked excitedly, forgetting that he probably shouldn't interrupt any of the staff as they were more than a little unhinged.

Emilia shook her head. "Unfortunately, I've been told that I'm not allowed to send a bunch of new mages tumbling through the multiverse before they've learned the basics so I won't be teaching anyone to freely jump worlds until their fourth year. Of course, if you're interested in learning how to open a portal to certain well traveled locations, I can help you with the incantations."

"What type of worlds? Can we go to Hell?" Jennifer asked with a dreamy expression on her face that caused several students to stop snickering and stare at the dark haired girl when they realized she seemed genuinely happy about the idea of going to Hell.

Emila considered the question for a couple of seconds then shrugged. "You can find almost anything if you look for it, I happen to know a spell that opens a portal to the Abyss, we'll cover it in second year."

"Thank you," Jennifer said cheerfully.

'Magic school, leave your morals, sanity and ethics at the door,' Rayne mused, hoping he'd be able to keep at least some of the three by the end of his time at the academy.

"How about useful worlds?" Trisha asked, wondering if the spells were worth studying.

"Several, take a look at the pamphlets on your desk," Emilia suggested with a smile, rather amused when several people blinked and stared when they realized there were pamphlets on the desks.

"Teleportation?" Maia asked as she glanced around, trying to figure out how the teacher had teleported all of the pamphlets without looking like she'd cast anything and why she'd wasted the mana.

"No, I cast a S.E.P. spell on the stack before you got here," Emilia explained.

"Which broke when you mentioned it, right?" Yelena asked as she started looking through her pamphlet.

Emilia smiled at Yelena. "Correct. Being ignored is often better than actually being invisible when you're exploring strange worlds. Either way, take a look at the pamphlets and try to get an idea of what you want to learn over the rest of the year."

Rayne smiled as he looked through the collection of spells, looking forward to learning how to warp time and space.