Lord of Charm

The next day Gale woke up first. He got up quietly without waking up Valentina.

"Good morning."

It didn't work. Mages' senses were strengthened a lot by the mana and it allowed them to notice movements around them.

"Good morning, Vale."

They took a shower together and had breakfast.

"Why did you order fourth-rank dishes again? You're wasting your money. I know you can't be that rich since you come from a kingdom."

"Don't worry about it, the academy gives me many benefits because I've advanced so young, so I can afford it."

Gale had magic circles class and beast combat class, so he prepared and left the apartment.

First was magic circles class, so he went to the rectangle building where they taught second professions. He found the classroom and chose a seat. Today he was rather early, so he just picked an empty one.

As students entered the class, he noticed that most of them kept their distance from him to the point that the whole class was filled except for the seats around him. He didn't really get what was going on, but the only notable event in those past days was Joanna's death, so he figured they might be afraid of Ronda.

"Hello, I'm Tom White, I'll be one of your teachers for this class."

"And I'm Echidna Clark, your second teacher. We will be teaching together since we have all 6 elements together."

Gale was impressed by the academy's resources. Darkness mages were rare, and light mages were even rarer. Not only that, but they had 3 elements each, which was also just as rare. Both things combined were even rarer-er!

"We will start today with a simple defensive magical circle – the elemental booster. Do you know what's the hardest thing about attacking another country?"

"Killing their magi?"

"That's second! With good enough magic circles, even expert mages can defend against magi. Of course, the costs would be high, but it can be enough to hold them back or even kill them if they aren't careful enough. But when both sides have magi, the defending side can massacre their enemies if they have magic circles."

The professors started with why their course was worth studying, and why a country without magic circles lost 50% of its defenses.

"The elemental booster's job is to boost your elemental attacks. When you make it perfect, it can boost your magic up to 5 times if you're a mage, and up to two times if you're a magus. Can anyone guess how many different versions it got?"

"Six?"

"Correct, but wrong at the same time since two versions are lost. The way these circles work is by choosing one element as the boosted element, and the magic circle can collect other mana types and convert them to the main element."

Tom finished his explanation and Echidna picked it from there.

"Since mana is actually one, you can theoretically convert the mana of one element to another. It's pointless when you're doing it yourself, but if you have a magic circle to do it automatically, then it'd be a great boost for your magic."

She waited a few moments to let the students digest the information, and one student raised his hand to ask a question.

"Yes?"

"If you trap an enemy mage inside the magic circle, wouldn't it mean he will lose most of his combat power if he is from a different element?"

"Ah, not really. If he is inside the magic circle then he can just destroy one of the nodes and make it collapse. There are other magic circles meant for traps and imprisonment; this one focuses on launching long-ranged attacks on incoming enemies."

The class continued and the teachers explained how to draw the circles. The class was divided into a few groups of 4, in a way that covered all four elements.

"We don't have the versions of darkness and light, but none of you have those affinities anyway. The circles for the other four elements only require you to cast with the mana of those 4 elements."

Gale was left alone without partners but eventually joined a team of orphans that didn't mind his conflict with Ronda. The class went on for a few hours and they couldn't even get half of the circle right yet.

'This is much harder than I thought. I guess such arts need a lot of practice to become truly proficient in them."

He left the class and went to eat lunch. Valentina told him she needed to complete her beasts' quota, so she had to go hunting.

She planned on going on the weekend, but because of Gale's duel with Joanna, as well as their date afterwards, she decided to delay it for today and miss a few lessons.

He met with Tim and Amanda for lunch and the trio ordered their food. To stay inconspicuous, he only ordered third-rank dishes as always.

"How was your date yesterday?"

Tim asked with a knowing smile.

"It was great, we had lots of fun."

Gale smiled back awkwardly. It would be ok if it was only Tim, but talking about it next to Valentina's twin felt weird.

"You must keep her safe. Remember Ronda hates you now, and you probably noticed that many people keep their distance from you. If she hears that Valentina is close to you, she might target her instead."

"I will make sure not to involve her in this. But are you sure it's ok if you guys sit to eat with me then?"

"It's fine. Ronda won't attack just anyone unless they're very close to you. If she killed anyone who interacts with you, the academy can kill both her and her father whom she relies on. Even if the academy believes in power supremacy, it knows the empire won't survive if too many geniuses die indiscriminately."

They finished eating and Gale went with them to the beast combat class. On their way to class, he saw Zach approaching him.

"After your lesson Professor Alice wants to see you. You can find her in her office in the Square Building."