142 Master Citro

In the middle of the Divinity Square, there were four practice fields since fire mages were the most common for the first two-hour practice session for both offensive and defensive magic, three of the fields would be used for magic, while the fourth would be used for water mages.

In the second two hour session, Wood, Air, Earth, and Metal mages would practice. There were no light or dark mages enrolled in the first year outer door, as these mages were extremely rare.

Three of the fields had hard dirt as a ground cover, which made sense as any ground covered in grass would have soon been destroyed by the fire mages. Dotted around the field were numerous practice dummies, Jayde could faintly make out that these dummies had a ward around them.

The last field closest to the northern wing was covered in grass and also had dummies with a ward protecting the practice dummies. Most of the fields had students standing in small groups chatting to each other, it was pretty obvious to see cliques had already developed among the student.

Once Jayde's group arrived at the practice fields Syra and Atia left the group to join the water mages, who were all standing on the grass practice field while Camelia sat on the sidelines as she was a wood mage, the rest of the group joined the fire mages on the practice field.

Five teachers stood in a group chatting on the sidelines, Jayde was surprised to see Elder Citro among the teachers.As Jayde walked on to the field Elder Citro called her over.

Surprised to see the elder waiting for her, Jayde strolled over to him.

"Elder Citro a pleasure to see you again," said Jayde, saluting him.

Smiling at the young girl in front of him, Elder Citro replied, "Young Jayde, good to see you. Please come with me."

Turning he then strode off, without any choice, Jayde followed Elder Citro off the field. Elder Citro led Jayde through a small passageway in the north wing until the came to a secluded garden.

Once they arrived, Jayde could see a couple of practice dummies had been set up. Turning to Jayde Elder Citro said, "Jayde you will be training here, I have received permission from Headmaster Albanus to mentor you personally."

Giving the old mage a genuine smile, Jayde bowed slightly, "Thank you, Master Citro."

Elder Citro felt his cheeks warm up as Jayde called him master. Waving off Jayde thanks, Elder Citro said gruffly, "Oh girl, let see what you got."

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5 hours later

Master Citro was a hard taskmaster, he made Jayde run through all her spells so that he would evaluate her skills, he had been shocked when Jayde summoned her fire shadowbeast. Summoning was a high-rank spell, and because it fell under rune magic most mages didn't even try to create their own rune summoning beasts.

While he was really proud of his young disciple, he cautioned Jayde to be very careful in using her summoning spell, the Mages Guild was clamping down hard on mages who created their own rune magic, and it was unheard of for a fifteen-year-old mage❶ to have already created such a powerful rune magic spell, the Mages Guild would do everything in their power to gain control of such a powerful young mage.

Master Citro decided to have a private talk with Sora Tadia Trifer, if Jayde could combine her earth and fire magic and summon a beast, her summoned beast would be overpowering, he thought gleefully.

Master Citro taught Jayde a new fire spell «Blades of Fire», this was a casting spell, so Jayde would not need to write to rune to create the spell, she could create multiple blades made of out fire which she could then direct with her mind, currently Jayde could only summon a single blade, but as she became more proficient she would be able to summon more blade.

While Master Citro wasn't an earth mage, he did give Jayde two scrolls, the first one contained an earth spell «Earthbolt» which he instructed Jayde to practice. «Earthbolt» was also a casting spell that could create a blast of seismic force that causes earth, rock, and sand to fly into the air, striking anything along its path.

The second earth spell was a transmutation spell «Fist of Stone», while most transmutation spells where gold level spells that only a high-level mage could weave, «Fist of Stone» was the only earth transmutation spell that any earth mage could use.

«Fists of Stone» was a rune magic spell, where the mage would write a rune upon the fist that they wanted to transmute, after invoking the rune, the mage's first would then change into a mighty fist of stone, gaining tremendous strength. The mage's fist undergoes no change in size or form, remaining as flexible and responsive as it would normally be while under the spell's effect.

The two earth spells given to Jayde had been bestowed upon Master Citro by his own master, and Master Citro had treasured them, waiting for the day when he found someone worthy to inherit them.

Jayde was exhausted by the time Master Citro finally called it a day and dismissed her, he had drained every drop of her magic, making her weave one spell after another, while dogging his own spells. Master Citro might look ancient, but he was as nimble and sprightly as a teenager, Jayde grumbled as she walked to the eastern wing for her healing class.

He hadn't even allowed her to join the rest of the students for lunch but had arranged for two trays to be delivered. Even during lunch he had lectured her on her shortfalls and where she needed improving.

Jayde healing class teacher was Stor Baebio Senna, surprisingly he was a handsome young man in his late twenties. His class was popular, Jayde figured it was more due to his looks than healing as most of his students were female.

What irritated Jayde the most was the hour was filled with the female student asking personal questions about Stor Senna's personal life rather than medical questions. Stor Senna seemed used to the attention and was quite adept at avoiding the questions and turning the conversation back to healing.

Since the first couple of months of healing would be studying human anatomy and not healing magic which was the only thing that Jayde was interested in, Jayde spent the hour reading through her healing textbook ignoring her fellow students.

Jayde had paged through the anatomy part of her textbook, as had already picked up that the people of Doha knowledge on human anatomy was primitive at best. The had little understanding beyond bones and organs, nevermind viruses and bacteria.

While Jayde had her head buried in her textbook, she didn't realize that Sora Senna had already taken note of her studious actions, besides Jayde, there were only another two students who were taking his class seriously.

Every year was the same for the poor man, initially, his class would be filled with students, most of them females, but they would soon grow bored and ask to transfer leaving him with only a couple of serious students. His wife found it hilarious and would continuously tease him about.

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Notes

❶ Just in case any of you are wondering why Jayde is fifteen years old when it has only been a couple of months since she "arrived" in Doha, remember that she still ages when she spends time in the Protoss Artifact, and she underwent one year training to stabilize her foundation after she absorbed the fire spirit.

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