Room 802: Introduction to Magic

When pulled, it would move from its spot, but with a tiny bit of resistance that increased the distance it was pulled, as though on an invisible bungee cord or rubber band. It felt otherwise light to the touch, slightly warm, and when Royal grabbed it, a small amount of red smoke materialized and swirled within it.
"Touching these will indicate the amount of mana charge you're harboring, by coded coloring and intensity," he said. A tiny wisp of dull red smoke, as many students noticed, was indicative of small, trace levels of power--most would have this reading as they were inclined to use magic or had experience before, but some would have no reading at all. For them, the goal of the class was to produce some smoke, any at all. For everyone else, there was a different objective he would get to later.
All of this, he explained to the class.

"This isn't a strength contest. Some of you are more predisposed to strong draws of power than others. Some among you control larger reserves of energy than others, and still others of you have never experienced this at all. Today, we're going to practice in channeling and precision. I would like anyone who has channeling aids or artifacts to please put those items away."

"Now remember... in a majority of cases, size doesn't matter. What you're witnessing right now is your resting power, an ambiance about you that may be affected by species, experience, and items you might be wearing or carrying. It is in no way indicative of your full potential."

The professor saw some of the students had already begun channeling and checking their spheres to be much brighter than before.

"It is important to optimize the use of your energy in spellcraft...to channel effectively, to harbor energy effectively and to prevent...leaks."

Foudre, the twin with the blue streak, reaches up and grabs a mana scope. When his hand wraps around the marble red smoke starts to boil out, a lot of red smoke. As it gathers in front of him the smoke shifts subtly, it takes the shape of a flame. Eventually smoke stops bubbling out of Foudre's mana scope. The fire shaped cloud floats in front of him, the size of any other 2 or 3 combined.

"You are such a show off."

"What it's been a while, I wanted to see if it got bigger."

"Your passive draw never gets bigger."

"Whatever, it still does the fire thing that's cool."

"Of course it does! You are a savant at fire magic. It's pretty much all you can do."

"So? Fire magic is the best."

Yet as Foudre's sphere reached a greater capacity, it was unceremoniously plucked from him to float front-and-center before the room as though on an invisible string; the professor gestured to the sphere which retained its brightness even after being severed from it's link. It had been, in essense, hijacked.

"Ah, excellent. Thank you for your demonstration, Foudre," he said, shooting a glance at the two aids as they began to fool around before addressing the class. "In a moment we will be trying to match this level of energy. There may be times when channeling is not stable or carefully throttled, particularly when lacking experience. Some students may experience surges or leaks in their efforts, which could blow out the hovering charm on the spheres. What this means if you might lose your sphere as it falls to the ground. Don't worry, it wont break--but Feu and Foudre," he looked to his aids, "what I need you to do is to reapply the hovering charm before the student if you see or hear any dropped manascopes. Surely this is well within your capabilities."

He smiled enthusiastically.

"Now in your mind... picture, if you will, a series of lines, like yarn, running parallel in a cable... this may help you visualize the nearest leyline..."

Roy notices Ashani's mastery of the sphere. Wow...she's really good at that. He looks down at his little puff of smoke, then looks back at the twins' and Ashani's.

...

Sigh.

The young man, known officially in the academy as Delmar Laurent, cautiously took a hold of his mana-scope. It was an interesting device to him, something he never had seen before and interesting. If nothing else, Delmar would have learned about these interesting devices known as mana-scopes even if he seemed to have a good handle on channeling magic.

Delmar did not know what exactly he was supposed to make the mana scope look like with his channeling so he also opted to make it look like the twin's, as was demonstrated. He sat in the back of the class, so he was for the most part out of the way. Resting his head on one of his hands propped up on the desk, he stared with a somewhat bored expression at the mana scope and the swirling mass within it. He would have to get the notes from last class at some point.

He looks over to Royal after his manascope remains unlit.
Oh thank god, I'm not the only fucking retard in this class..

Another glance revealed even more students who couldn't channel at all.
Oh okay, there's a lot of us.

He looked to Ashani, who was seated a few rows in front of him.
Something about her seems familiar... and a little bit creepy.

After some practice, he finally manages to pull a little bit of magic energy into his being, with the help of the nearby leyline on which the academy was built and the imagery help from the professor.

Roy concentrates and manages to produce a decently sized puff of smoke, similar to one that you might associate with someone smoking a pipe.

"Well, that's not too bad, I suppose..."

He glances over at his classmates.

"Maybe I should work on it a little longer."

"Good day, good day! Today I would like to change gears from channeling--I trust you will be practicing diligently from now on. Our lecture will now begin moving more into the practical essense of spellmaking and casting. But first, just to make sure you've been paying attention the first two days of class... pop quiz!"

And synchronious with the word "pop" was an actual pop--it was loud enough to make almost every student jump and each desk would, for a few seconds, begin spewing white smoke that crawled down from the surface of the desks and swirled around their feet, momentarily making the floor a twisting miasma of silvery grey sheen.
As it cleared, a parchment was visible on each desk with questions and spaces for answers. Quills were not provided.



"I will allow you a little bit of time to answer correctly, as this is a closed-note quiz."