No light at the end of tunnel

Several months have passed. Arti and I have been diligently studying and training our magic. We had lessons on earth alongside the water element. It followed a similar structure to the water magic classes. We became more proficient and started learning harder spells. Still, we are only novices. It will take much more time and training to become adept at it. Today we are starting our light magic training. We had to wait this long to start it because it was better to learn the basics of the first four elements before moving to light magic.

We are waiting in a room resembling that of a classroom with two tables and a chalkboard. We didn’t have to wait long when the door opened, and High Priest Dallan entered.

“Greetings, young princes,” he bows to us as he reaches the center of the room and stands next to a chalkboard. “It is good to see you both again and doing well. As you both know, I am here to teach you how to perform light magic. You also know that light magic has three main utilities. Can you tell me what those are?”

Arti is quick to answer as usual. “The three main utilities of light magic are illumination magic, healing magic, and holy or purifying magic, which is magic performed to fight against the undead and purify corrupted entities.”

“Very good,” Dallan nods. “Let us start with the illumination magic since this one is the easiest. Light magic is different from the four basic elements. Instead of creating physical objects, you created immaterial spells. For example, to create light, you need to band mana together and make it glow. To use healing magic, you must use mana to repair the wound. To perform holy magic, you use mana as energy to destroy the corruption within the fouled things. Try to create a ball of light.”

We try and easily manage to do it, as expected.

“Splendid. Illumination is perhaps the easiest type of magic there is. All you need to change are the size, quantity, shape and brightness of your spells. That’s it. I will introduce you to the healing magic now. Like I said before, try to imagine mana particles repairing and closing the wound,” while saying that he fished a set of small needles out of the pocket of his robe. “Don’t worry, they were disinfected beforehand. You will have to use the needles to poke the tip of your fingers and try to close it with healing magic.”

We take the needles and each poke our finger with it. A droplet of blood appears and starts slowly trickling out. I close my eyes and imagine the skin repairing itself. I open my eyes and clean my finger with a towel that the priest provided. Once my finger is clean of the blood, I inspect it closely only to see the small puncture where I poked my finger with the needle disappear. I looked at Arti and saw he had achieved the same result.

“Well done,” the priest smiles. “Unfortunately, going any further would be impossible right now for you, Prince Zenovia. To be able to practice healing magic, a caster must work with injured people. Since doing anything more than poking your fingers with needles would jeopardize your health, we would need to go to the clinics in order to practice on injured people there, which would be impossible for you right now since it would reveal to the public that you can perform light magic. As for holy magic, we can only begin training in it once you reach a level of proficiency in healing. We will conduct several further lessons here in this room to ensure that you understand the basics, but going forward we will be visiting clinics and infirmaries, which you won’t be able to accompany us in. I hope you understand.”

This was not news for me. I figured that practicing healing magic would be impossible just on my own and I am not sure I want to injure myself to practice it.

“I understand,” I say. Arti looks at you, clearly upset I won’t be able to continue learning with him, but that is just the way it is going to be for now.

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