Chapter 61

Even since the decline of powerful gods the amount of priests also dropped along with the power they wielded. With this decline in divine magic, mages wielders of arcane magic began to become more and more common. With more and more mages discovering their gifts in magic and sharing what they learned the faster and faster arcane magic as a whole developed.

Such a change in the landscape of magic has caused rifts between the mages and priests that on rare occasions caused fights and even a handful of wars in the past. As a result they didn’t exactly get along very well excluding the priests of Xardas. Xardas being a god that in his mortal life was a human mage, perhaps the most powerful in all of recorded history.

Seeing both the mages and priests agreeing that if either of them had been contacted they could have helped with the situation was most shocking. Normally they couldn’t stand each other, but now here they were scolding the entire council for their arrogance and their foolish pride.

“Are you people all fools!? We could have easily avoided this!”

“We do actually care about the world we live in! We do more than simply study magic in large towers!”

Most of the members of the council went quiet as they were scolded, but a small handful felt they didn’t deserve such harsh reprimands and attempted to speak up only to find no sound came from their mouths. They frantically tried to shout and alert everyone of their predicament when they noticed a handful of the mages were holding small spheres of light green light and the air around them was tinted the same light green.

‘What are they doing to us!?’

‘Is this some sort of evil spell they all just casted on us!?’

‘Did they seriously just cast a silencing spell on us to keep us from talking?’

The targets of the silencing spell were quite flustered by the show of magical prowess, it was so sudden and unexpected that even a few of the priests laughed at their misfortune.

“As I am sure you all can see, we are more than capable in the art of magic. Now I would like to know why we were not contacted about such a problem.” The lead representative of the mages looked to the flustered governing body as the silencing spall was slowly dispelled.

“We haven't had any need of magic in the everyday workings of the city, and besides you lot all charge a lot for your services. We aren’t trying to bankrupt the kingdom.” An elderly man seated amongst the nobility was the first to speak up. Unlike his peers he did not look quite as intimidated by the display of magic.

“That is what negotiation and cutting deals are for. If you had approached us we could have worked out an agreement and lowered the prices accordingly, instead you chose to try and tough it out.” The mage representative slowly began to dismantle the flimsy last ditch effort to argue.

“And even if hiring mages wasn’t an issue why hadn't you reached out to any of the churches. We would have been quite happy to assist in any way we could have.” Brother Ballio, the representative of the Circle of Fire, looked to his fellow priests of different gods and they all nodded with him, even Claudius the priest of Xardas who wasn’t exactly on good terms with Brother Ballio.

The room went quest as the entire room waited for a response from the nobility who for the longest time had directly opposed the intervention of mages and priests in the justice and law systems. But they heard nothing as they all just hung their heads in silence.

“Then I believe that settles the matter. We shall begin incorporating mages and priests into both the justice system and our investigations, starting with the matter involving the Rusted Daggers.” King Gaius announced atop his throne. “But I must ask, how do you plan to assist the investigation?”

“We will have some of our mages skilled in tracking with the use of magic to determine where that group of traitorous guards that escaped ended up. With luck we might find that they joined up with their employers.” the mage representative spoke.

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“We will be interrogating the prisoners with the use of truth detection magic. If they lie about anything we will know.” Brother Ballio explained. “With the power granted to us by Solarius we can know if someone is lying to us.”

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“Good. Does anyone have anything to say regarding this decision?” King Gaius turned and looked around the room, keeping his eyes on the nobles for a bit longer than everyone else.

“No one? Very well then.”

***********

After the council meeting most of those who attended left as there was nothing left for them to discuss. The only ones who remained were the priests, the mages, and the king and queen.

“Now what was it that you wished to discuss?” King Gaius wondered what exactly they wanted, it wasn’t often that they called meetings with him.

“It is about the young mage known as Arthur of Dom Badaher. The very same young man who assisted in rooting out the vampire nest in the old Bellwin manor.” Claudius stood and addressed the king.

“If I recall correctly Dom Badaher was an old dwarven city we recently retook, how could this young man be from there?”

“According to the report he was already inside when the expedition got there, he was the one to actually open the front doors allowing them to easily enter and preserve the defenses.”

“That is quite odd, but I will allow you to continue.”

“He also took part in the defense of the southern district just two weeks ago. If I am correct he hasn't been rewarded for his efforts yet.”

“That is correct Claudius, but I haven't been the one to take care of distributing rewards to our citizens. Do you have something in mind to reward him with?”

“I do, but I also have something for you to consider. Since I have been looking into him he has become an apprentice to one of the local alchemists, and recently he enrolled into the first tier spells course.”

“The Fundamentals of First Tier Magic.” The representative of the mages and the current Archmage of the guild Philto corrected Claudius who gave him a look of annoyance.

“Regardless, you may want to consider giving him something to use in his studies or his alchemy, and for something specific to reward him with, why not a nice mage staff.”

“A mage staff? Don’t you think he is a little young for a mage staff. He hasn't even learned how to properly use first tier spells yet.” Archmage Philto stood out of shock upon hearing the recommendation.

“But he is taking the class to learn how to do so. So that will not be the case for much longer.”

King Gaius watched as the priest and the archmage argued back and forth while he pondered the request. ‘He knows something. This Arthur of Dom Badaher isn’t just a genius like he appears to be, and only Claudius appears to know who or what he is.’

“I will consider your request and input Claudius, but for now if we have any other matters we need to discuss we should get to them. I am sure you all have things you need to be getting too soon.”

**********

Arthur stood at the end of a long range not unlike an archery range, the major difference everyone there was using magic as opposed to bows or crossbows. The class of fifteen students each had their own target and a small piece of paper detailing a simple tier one spell for them to cast.

Arthur decided that he needed to take a short break and sat down on the cold stone floor and looked over at some of the other students. He watched as the few talented tried to cast the spell, they followed the hand signs and spoke the magic words but at most they got a single dart of fire as opposed to the several bolts that the spell was meant to have.

After a moment to regain some of his stamina Arthur stood up again and took the paper in his hands and looked it over again. ‘I am almost there, I can feel the magic moving through me every time I go to cast the spell. I just need to find that final piece.’

Arthur followed along with the student closest to him, following the hand signs and words, ingraining them into his mind and body. For almost two weeks now the entire class had been attempting to cast the tier one spell Tri Fire Bolts. Their teacher Novia, had given them several demonstrations beforehand before taking them to the range to try for themselves.

Arthur continued with his movements for a few minutes until he felt confident in properly casting the spell. Taking his right hand he closed only his ring finger and pinky and extended his index finger, middle finger, and his thumb before making a small circle with his hand. As he performed this hand sign he spoke the words “Fulmina ignis.”

Arthur felt the flow of his mana and gave no resistance and allowed it to flow through him and conjured three small bolts made up of fire. There were three bolts in total, one above his head, and the others above each of his shoulders. The fire bolts also followed where he was looking and would point to wherever he looked. Taking a look at the target ten meters away from him he mentally commanded the small bolts to fly towards it, and in a matter of seconds the bolts hit the target creating small little fires behind that flickered with little strength.

Many of the other students stopped in their tracks upon seeing someone successfully cast the spell so soon, even the teacher took notice and quickly told everyone to return to practice. “Well I am very impressed Arthur. You have a natural talent for magic.”

“Thank you Mrs. Novia. If not for you teaching me I likely wouldn’t be capable of casting tier one spells.”

“Oh there is no need to be modest, you are a very fast learner. You might even be the fastest ever, but we don’t keep records of that for obvious reasons. While you did cast the spell successfully there are still a few kinks you need to work out, so continue practicing and remember, hard work beats talent and hard work with talent beats just hard work.”

Novia returned to walking around the room while giving pointers to the students that were struggling the most, and Arthur turned back to the target and continued to practice Tri Fire Bolts.