Knife To Meet You! 17 Nudging Things Along

'I don't want to mess up whatever plan Pacil came up with for them', He had replied telepathically when questioned about it. 'Telekinesis is relatively unrelated to the topics they've covered previously. It'll give them a break from their usual work. And maybe seeing them study a new enchantment from the ground up would help you somehow.'

He was not wrong. Watching the cla.s.s and their various attempts had shown Kyvas how different magic and enchantments are to the patterns he saw within himself.

Throughout the cla.s.s, Krys often demonstrated both the Telekinesis spell and the Telekinesis enchantment to the students.

"You already know it! Magic and Enchantment are very different, but work towards the same thing. The process required to perform them is not alike at all, but the way the mana reacts in the end is the exact same. Use the spell as a reference. See how the mana from the enchantments differ from the spell. See how changing your enchantment affects the mana. Pa.r.s.e the changes. Intuit the patterns. Try it with different object shapes. Keep it up till you get the mana to react the same way. Only then do you set the enchantments."

The next one and a half hour had the students repeatedly perform the spell and make adjustments to their carvings in their floating water shapes.

To Kyvas, this was his first experience properly sensing the mana in the air. Each desk seemed to be a hotspot of mana activity.

Chaotic, messy, flows ordered themselves as the children drew the magic runes for the spell into the air, each of them shaping the mana into a different form. Some of the runes stretched the flow, others compressed it. Some pushed mana away from them, others pulled it in. Each by itself seemed to bring some measure of order to the chaos, until the streams all combined to form a pattern of mana. Clear, crisp and orderly.

On the other hand, the carvings in the water did not seem to affect the mana actively at all, until of course user activated it. The enchantment seemed to be acting as a series of channels or pipes instead. Directing the mana in a more direct fas.h.i.+on. The pipes expelled the mana in thin, tight streams, and it seemed to be the collision of the streams that formed similar patterns. But one also had to be mindful of where to put these pipes. Carve one in the wrong s.p.a.ce and the mana flowing through it would flow too slow, or too fast, and the entire pattern could dissolve.

Kyvas noticed that what he saw inside of himself was not the self repair enchantment, but the mana pattern formed by the enchantment. Enchantments were static. The flows he had seen were not. That view of himself then -- the one he saw the self repair pattern in -- must have been the mana flow inside of himself. He decided to call it his Mana View.

Kyvas decided to look at his Mana View again and try to mess around with the mana in it. Maybe he could replicate the Telekinesis pattern, now that he knew what it looked like.

The first attempt was a failure. It turned out the could not directly morph the mana into the pattern. The changes he made were more in line with the carvings of enchantments, directing instead of morphing.

Fortunately, the changes he made disappeared as soon as he willed them to. Any of the changes did not affect the self repair enchantment either, almost like it was present in a different layer than where he was making the changes. He attempted to replicate the enchantment next.

Second attempt, another failure. He carved at the wrong spots. The mana did not flow in a way that let the pattern form.

It's the shape. Different object shapes require different adjustments. He just needed to find the right adjustments for himself.

And so he tried. Again and again. Getting better at it with each attempt.

By the thirtieth attempt, he thought he had nailed it. The pattern looked identical to the ones that Krys had been displaying.

Kyvas decided to try it out.

He looked around for a target to move.

There, on the desk. Krys's quill. Kyvas decided to try and nudge it.

He failed.

'I got something wrong maybe?' He wondered.

Two more tries. Two more failures. Kyvas frowned. He was sure he was doing this correctly.

Then a thought hit him.

'Oh! The quill is a "living". Of course it won't move'

He looked for a different target. The ink bottle.

Kyvas focused, trying to nudge it.

Klack--

The bottle immediately tipped over, ink spilling everywhere. It didn't take much effort at all, apparently.

===

Seph adjusted the enchantment for the upteenth time.

"I say the line should be more over to the right" Hiila commented, keeping one of the enchanting floating in the air using a telekinesis spell.

Seph shook her head. "No, I think I got it this time."

She sent a mana pulse to the handle of the water image, activating the enchantment.

The mana flew out of the enchantment and collided with itself, forming a flow not unlike that of the spell.

However, the pattern looked distorted and seemed to be getting worse with every pa.s.sing second. It didn't take long before the pattern dissolved entirely.

"So close...", Seph let out a small cry.

"Told you to move it more to the right.", Hiila smiled.

"That would have ruined it!", Seph exclaimed.

"No it wouldn't have!" Hiila turned off her spell. "You know what? Move over, I'll prove I was right."

Seph reluctantly switched places with Hiila.

"If you ruin it, I'm making you remake the entire thing again." She threatened.

"I won't!" Hiila grinned. "Ruin it, I mean."

Seph disliked how Krys taught them. He always made them learn everything solely by experience. Pacil always told them little tips and tricks during his labs. She was sure she would have finished the enchantment three times by now if he was here.

But for now she could do nothing but stare at Hiila and hope she didn't mess this all up.

She felt a sudden mana release from Krys. A release similar in its signature to her own.

"The dagger...", She muttered softly, turning to look towards the Professor's table.

Klack--

Professor Krys's ink bottle fell over. The ink spilled all over his desk. and down onto his cloak.

Krys noticed it rather quickly. The first thing he did was pick up his notebook and place it far away from the ink.

The second thing he did was curse like a sailor.

Half the cla.s.s dropped their water shapes instinctively. All of their eyes on the teacher. Seph checked if Hiila had dropped theirs too, but fortunately she still had it up.

"Which one of you did this?", Krys glared at the cla.s.s. One of his hands propped the bottle up adn the other formed a series of runes. The spell for manipulating water mixed with telekinesis, Seph realized.

The spilled ink started to float up and move towards the ink bottle. The cla.s.s remained silent.

Krys's glare still held their eyes.

"Well?", He repeated. "That was telekinesis. I could tell. Who here decided to tip over my ink bottle?"

The entire cla.s.s was drenched in silence. Krys waited.

'I think it was me, Krys.', a quiet voice echoed through her mind. Seph glanced around, trying to find it's speaker. She couldn't decipher where the sound had come from.

The ink made it's way inside the bottle. Krys capped it up again. The stains on the desk and his cloak did not disappear though.

'Wait... Telepathy? Could it be that?' She thought.

Krys grumbled and broke his stare. "Alright. I'm letting all of you off the hook this time. But you had BETTER finish the enchantment in the...", He checked his pocket watch "... 20 minutes till this cla.s.s ends."

Seph's eyes widened. It was the dagger. Without a doubt.

Well, okay, some doubt. She had a hard time believing that a dagger could talk, let alone use magic.

'And then there's the fact that it feels like me...' She added.

She had to get her hand on it to know for sure.

===

The cla.s.s ended not long after that. Krys, understandably, was in a bad mood for most of it. Then near the end of it, his face suddenly lit up. He took out the dagger used it's telekinesis to attempt to balance a coin mid-air.

Seph could tell that the mana felt like it came from the dagger itself, rather than the user. Her motivation for getting her hands on it just got stronger.

Krys was still testing out the telekinesis when he headed out upon the cla.s.s's end. Seph left soon after him, still trying to get a look at the dagger. Hiila complained about that. Seph was distracted enough throughout the cla.s.s that they weren't able to finish the enchantment in time.

Seph was about to follow Krys further, but decided against it, stopping not far from the cla.s.sroom.

She heard footsteps behind her. It was her three friends. She let them catch up to her.

"You know, I'm almost jealous of that dagger now." Callu said, prompting a chuckle from Hiila.

Seph rolled her eyes. Then lowered them. She was about to ask something much more from her friends now.

"What is it?", Hiila noticed her look and asked.

"I... might be reconsidering our opinion on thievery", she admitted.

Teak was the first to laugh. "I KNEW IT!", he grinned.

Hiila followed soon after, with a roll of her eyes. "You're trouble, Seph."

Callu just chuckled. She wove her hand inside of Seph's and smiled.

Seph smiled back.

"So...", She said, "Shall we plan a heist?"

The group let out another laugh.

This one, however, did not last long.

Seph felt Callu give her hand a tight squeeze, prompting her to look up at her face.

Callu's smile had fallen. Her face went a shade paler.

Seph looked around to see her other friends also freeze up. They were all looking at a spot behind her.

"We... might not have a choice anymore, Seph." Callu called out softly,

Seph blinked, then turned, following their gaze.

Behind her, she saw a man. Green robes of a janitor. Young. With a striking smirk and a harsh pair of eyes.

"...s.h.i.+t."

It was Yurel Nakrov. Known in some circles as Lyk's Eyes. Circles that, unfortunately, her group might have dabbled with before.

And he was walking towards them.

"h.e.l.lo, Alli Cat!", He said, shooting a look at Callu. "It seems we will be working together, again!"