No. Class sucks.

"First, we need to talk about the fundamentals of magic." Citrinas says as you raise your hand to ask a question. You know you should let her at least finish her introduction, but you needed to have her answer this question for you ASAP. "Yes Verdi?"

"Teacher, why are these two here?" You ask while cocking your head to the side where Ruya and Tomoko were sitting. Currently, the 4 of you were in Citrinas' domain, seated within her personal library behind wooden desks. You were here because you promised to take classes on how to do normal "human" things like cast magic or mix potions, but you had no idea why those two would join in learning the fundamentals of magic considering they were both way stronger than you.

"The spellcraft event is in two days, and I thought Citrinas could tutor me before the event." Tomoko said as Ruya shrugged.

"And I thought learning formulaic magic would be more fun than sitting around doing nothing." She answers as you stare at Ruya.

"Formulaic magic?" You ask, unfamiliar with the term as Tomoko and Ruya look at you in shock. Meanwhile, Citrinas has face palmed, your question causing her to sigh in exasperation. Was that a stupid question? Yeah, it probably was.

"... Are you telling me you've been doing alchemy not knowing about formulaic magic?" Ruya asked in disbelief.

"Shut up. I don't know the technical terms you guys use." You grumble as Citrinas clears her throat.

"There's two magic types. Formulaic magic which is used mostly by humans and instinctive magic which is used mostly by monsters." Citrinas explains as you nod, this being her way of saying focus on learning formulaic magic.

"And the difference?" You ask.

"Monster magic requires a direct link to the caster, requires less focus, can be invoked faster, and is weaker than human magic. Human magic is remote, requires chanting, but hits harder and affects larger areas than monster magic at the cost of speed." Tomoko answers as Citrinas nods, happy to hear somebody in the room knew what they were talking about.

"Correct. And can monsters learn human magic or vice versa?" Citrinas asks.

"Yes, but it's incredibly rare." Ruya answers as you breathe a sigh of relief. So, you could just play off your current magic as being rare instead of impossible. "You'd have to either be an unhinged and feral human that's endured harsh environments or a high level monster that's strong enough to attain sentience." She adds as you mull over both girls' explanations.

"Citrinas, what does Tomoko mean by direct link?" You ask, suddenly remembering Tomoko's earlier answer as Citrinas nods and looks to Ruya.

"Ruya, go create an ice cube on the table in front of you please." She requests as the dragon girl looks down at the table. Upon Citrinas' request, you see a thread of ice no thicker than a hair form by Ruya's foot and snake its way to the table, climbing up one of the legs and halting on the desk in front of her. An ice cube forms at the end of the ice thread, chilling the table as Citrinas walks forward to show you her spell.

"See how she had to make an ice thread to the table? That's a direct link." She explains before looking up. "Ruya, another please, but make the ice as weak as possible." She requests as you look at Ruya create another ice thread, letting it snake up the table to spawn another ice cube. Midway through, Citrinas flicks the thread, snapping it with ease. Instantly, Ruya's spell was **** to restart from the main thread still indirectly touching her foot, the severed portion Citrinas flicked off melting into a tiny puddle before your eyes. "If you sever the connection like that, then you can destroy a monster's spell.

"So instinctive magic's worse than formulaic?" You ask as Ruya threw you a sour look.

"Instinctive magic can't be invoked remotely and it has to emanate from the caster's body, which makes attacks pretty predictable. In exchange, you have greater control over your spell, you can react faster, spells have greater speed, and you less magic power. Overall, it's best suited for close combat." She says before muttering a spell under her breath. After a minute, you see an ice cube form in front of you, Citrinas' spell activating without the need for contact like instinctive magic.

"And I assume that was formulaic magic?" You ask.

"Correct." Citrinas answers as you think over what she was chanting earlier. You couldn't catch all of it but you could've sworn you heard her say a few numbers under her breath.

"So what do you chant? Prayer to god? Request to the spirits?" You ask, now interested as Ruya looks at you.

"Why are you asking this? Aren't you already a mage?" She asks as you place you look away.

"Well, I'm self taught. I wanna hear how Citrinas does it." You answer.

"We chant calculations." Citrinas answers as your heart sinks. Calculations. Was she solving a math problems every single time she casted a spell? Explains why she was constantly muttering numbers when she fired spells.

"Explain to me what you calculated when casting that ice spell." You say as Citrinas takes in a deep breath.

"First, we determine moisture content of the air or soil since that's the source of the water for the ice, calculate the water required for our spell, and with that find the area of air or soil we'll be condensing moisture from. From there, we determine the amount of magicos, the base units of magic power, to put into the spell based on the shape, how fast we want the ice to form, and how hard the ice is since magic can reinforce hydrogen bonds. We then determine the magicos required to freeze the water using the equation PV=nRT, where-"

"You factor in the Ideal Gas Law and hydrogen bonding when casting an ice spell?" You ask, interrupting Citrinas' lesson as she gave a familiar equation to you. The ideal gas law was a law found in the 1800s, but this world's tech was at the most in the early 1300s. Furthermore, hydrogen bonding was discovered even later than that, either the late 1800s or early 1900s by your memory. This was also ignoring the supposed mechanical monsters from the "ancient people" you saw earlier in your introduction to this world being from a sci fi world. What year was this world's tech?

"Yeah. The more specific your spell, the more efficient it becomes. Those are the minimum specs you need to know for ice magic." Citrinas says as you note just how intricate magic was. Well, that explains why mages couldn't cast spells in close combat now. Trying to keep track of so many factors took a lot of focus, and solving physics problems while someone shanked you was quite tough for even the most devout of nerds.

"Nevermind, continue." You say as Citrinas gives the three of you a lecture on ice magic, the specifications of a spell, what happens when you screw up a spell, and even how dissolved minerals affect crystallization rates. You're actually surprised to find that the lecture was mathematically sound, with modern physics incorporated into the spells beyond what even a modern man like you knew. As she finishes her lecture, she hands all three of you a piece of parchment with a problem written in it.

"Alright. The three of you need to solve this question and cast the spell as fast as possible." She says as you skim over the specifications of the spell written on the worksheet.

You need to conjure a spike 4m in length with a diameter of 1.2m at the base. Assuming that the moisture of the soil is 15% and you are at STP (I.E. 1 atm of pressure and current temperature is 20 degrees Celsius), what is the area of the spike, how many magicos will you need to conjure the spike to extend at a rate of 50 meters a second, and what is the area of soil you need to dehydrate to harness that much moisture? Upon completion, cast the spell according to these parameters.

You try to calculate the spell mentally, but you soon lose track of the numbers associated with it due to the sheer number of factors and equations. You soon begin muttering some of the numbers under your breath just to keep track of them, your brain's ability to retain information diminished by trying to calculate a math problem at the same time. After 3 minutes of calculations, you cast your spell, conjuring an ice spike in front of you. Instead of being the spike you calculated, you note that it was covered in water, as though it were already half melted.

"You miscalculated the amount of soil you needed to dehydrate. Bit too much from the looks of it." Citrinas says, hearing your mumbling calculations as you see Ruya form a spike in front of her. Unlike your defective spike, hers was flawless, matching the specifications provided to her perfectly. Tomoko soon follows, conjuring an identical spike in front of her. You click your tongue, annoyed to be beaten by the two of them as you cast a second spell and botch it, your spike only half formed this time.

"Damn it. How did I get this one wrong?" You mutter under your breath, going over your numbers again. This time the math held up, but you had to have made a mistake somewhere. You had unmistakable proof you screwed up. Just where was it? The spell was half formed, so you messed up somewhere in the moisture collection portion. Let's see... No, numbers for that added up, but you must have screwed up somewhere or else the spell would have succeeded.

"Oh, this time, you didn't mess up the original formula. Issue is that Ruya, Tomoko, and your spells drained all the water from the nearby soil, so you have to draw moisture from somewhere else." Citrinas explains helpfully as you redo your magic spell, drawing moisture from the air this time and yielding a completely different equation and answer. Somehow, you knew that the air was exactly 38.8% humidity and adjust your calculations accordingly, finally forming an ice spike in a staggering 11 minutes. A terrible time compared to everyone else and embarrassing to say the least. Despite that, Citrinas smiles and gives you a hug, overjoyed to see you successfully cast the spell.

"Good work Verdi! You got it!" She says, giving you genuine praise at your work as you think over your time. They got theirs in 4 minutes 11 seconds and 4 minutes 34 seconds respectively. Less than half your time. This was embarrassing. If she scolded you for this, you'd probably be on her side for such a terrible display of knowledge. You needed practice. That amused look on Tomoko and Ruya's faces were proof that your casting time was terrible.

"I think I can do better. Do you mind if we practice some more?" You ask, gaining a newfound respect for the arch imago. Doing math this quickly in a rapidly changing setting like a battlefield took insane amounts of computational power and focus to adjust equations on the fly while ignoring the fight. Furthermore, you had to predict where the enemy would be when the spell activated or adjust it to a rapidly moving target Not to mention the fact that she knew how to use every element meant that she had a firmer grasp of physics and mathematics than you did. You didn't feel ashamed to say that Citrinas was smarter than you by a significant margin, considering she had probably worked harder than you ever could to reach her level. This also meant that you weren't ashamed to ask her for help.

"Um... Do you guys mind if I tutor Verdi a bit more?" Citrinas asks as Tomoko and Ruya look to each other, sharing a small, smug grin. You feel terrible having them look down at your casting time, but you also know they had every right to do so. Bullying smug assholes was fun, and you knew damn well you were a smug asshole. You also knew that it would feel so good to mock them back when you beat their casting times later. You would let them taste victory today.

"Not at all! In fact, Ruya, I think I need some help with the historical quiz portion of the summit." Tomoko says as Ruya nods aggressively.

"I think Mathias' library has more historical books than your library. Do you mind sending us out?" She asks Citrinas with a smile, the lizard's eyes focused on you as you hold back your anger. She must be really happy to see you lagging behind her in the magic department. Stupid lizard.

"You sure? The spellcrafting event's in a few days, and I know Ruya gets sick in the city." Citrinas asks as Ruya nods quickly.

"We're fine. Just send us out." She confirms as Citrinas sends the two on their merry way. As they disappear from sight, Citrinas gives you a few pointers on how to simplify some of the equations and writes a new question for you to answer. This goes on back and forth for the rest of the day as you steadily shrink your casting time. You'd never actually enjoyed doing homework before, but being able to do homework to fire ice spikes was pretty fun.