The mage who had agreed to instruct Theo in the ways of magic was a woman who went by Bretta. A stern looking woman who specialized in ice magic.

  “While your control is great, you don’t utilize your magic properly.” She explained to Theo. “Unlike my magic, you have a lot of material to work with around you. I have to rely on my staff and skills to create ice. You however are surrounded by what you need.” Bretta had created a chunk of ice in demonstration of one of her skills. Shaping it into a small sculpture in the vague likeness of Theo.

  “It’s simply due to the fact that we are constantly surrounded by it that wind and air magic are one of the most common magics people specialize in. Much like fish or other water born creatures tend to specialize in water magic and the like.” The small sculpture shifted as it split into a fish that swam around in the air near the sculpture.

  “Oftentimes it is overlooked due to its less than impressive effects. But this is partly due to how common it is and so the quality of air mages tend to be worse overall compared to someone who took the time to lean into more uncommon or unique mana alignments. But of course, that’s mainly just misconception.” The fish spat a shard of ice at the Theo sculpture and it gestured, deflecting the shard away. “The versatility of wind magic is where it truly shines. Be it movement, defense, or offense. Wind magic always has an option for nearly anything so long as you properly develop your abilities by manipulating your magic and learning the limits of what you and your skills can handle.”

  The miniature Theo began to fly after the fish all the while dodging any attacks it sent towards the figurine. Theo watched the show for a bit, but Bretta seemed to lose interest with the visual and the ice reshaped itself into a circle that she brought to hover near her head.

  “Rikard mentioned you haven’t had experience using your magic for very long correct?”

  Theo nodded.

  “Then we will start with some of the basics.” The ice ball flew to Theo and landed at her feet. “I want you to work on lifting this with your magic alone. Once you can keep it hovering steadily we can move onto another practice.”

  Theo looked at the sphere of ice, her skill [wind mantle] didn’t extend far from her body. But in the last few days she had learned that she did have some control of the mana that extended past the shell of mana the skill had formed around her. Her connection to the feather growing stronger in tandem.

  “For some people gestures help, others vocalization. Use whatever methods feel natural to you.” Bretta explained calmly before she formed a chair from ice and pulled a book from her bag to start reading.

  Theo gave her one last look before she gestured with her hand and sent some mana at the sphere. It rolled slightly, but that was all.

  Brow furrowed in thought she repeated the process but this time kept control over the mana she extended to the orb. There were several ways she felt like she could do this. Either she could compress the air enough to support the weight of the orb, or she could use a constant updraft to keep it aloft. Maybe a small vortex of wind?

  She experimented over the next hour or so, of the things she tried, compressing the air enough drained her mana at an absurd rate. Even if she wasn’t expending much mana to create the cushion of air, the skill required Theo to constantly pour her mana into it to even get close to creating the effect she wanted.

  Creating an updraft was less costly, but was unstable and it was an endless balancing act that caused the orb to bob and weave and she was unable to keep it in place a few times, causing it to “clunk” to the ground.

  The vortex worked well, but like the air cushion it was draining on her to maintain. It also had the added effect of spraying sand and dirt into the air if the miniature tornado got close to the ground.

  When Theo finally had the orb stable enough for Bretta to move on, Theo already felt she had a better understanding of controlling her magic felt like and the next task Bretta had her practice was working on the range of her air magic.

  Drawing patterns in light layers of snow the ice mage formed for her, or deflecting small snowballs that she launched at Theo.

  Unlike Rikard, she was a more passive teacher. Happy to sit quietly and read while offering advice when Theo asked for it.

  By the end of the practice session she also gave Theo a few different mana control exercises that she could work on in her room or in her free time to develop the alacrity and control she had.

  The main one she wanted Theo to focus on was suppressing their mana, it had a lot of benefits that Theo hadn’t noticed due to the feather providing a constant stream of energy for her to absorb, but she was literally leaking essence she could also be using to grow. SOme weird interaction between mana and essence when they are so closely aligned.

  Afterwards, Theo spent more time at the library learning what she could before she grew too bored and decided to explore the city once again. After collecting her payment from the city for her work on the wall, she found a nice cafe that sadly didn’t have anything close to coffee, but served nice herbal teas in stone mugs and pastries as she watched people and drained essence from her feather why trying to keep her mana from flooding out everywhere as she further progressed towards tier three.

  She felt she was getting close and her sessions on the wall provided her with even more essence and she was aiming to cross the threshold before the guard made their attack on the vermin lord.

  In the evening she practiced the forms and strikes that Rikard had shown her without working so hard that she tired herself out before she worked on the wall again. Her body worked the way she wanted it to and she already felt like she was making good progress with the practice while she familiarized herself with her weapon.

  The recall function that she had felt was interesting too, originally she thought that the sword would just come flying to her hand, but instead when she called to it through her connection it would turn into a burst of wind that would reform in her hand. There might be applications of that that she could use, but she wanted to ask Rikard to see what ideas he might have.

  Theo slipped into her routine for the next three days, mornings were spent collecting essence from the feather, its energy seemingly limitless even with her increased draw rate. She had heard from Vara that the guard was planning on making their assault on the fifth day. So she was timing her tier up the night before to help hold the walls some more. The essence from the mindless blasting with the loaned mana rifle even got her a skill. [Aim].

  A fact much teased by Mels towards Vara who at one point drunkenly voiced her complaints about it and Mels had been using it to poke fun at Vara in friendly exchange.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Despite that Vara had modified her mana rifle some to focus on larger blasts that seem more effective to take out swarms of the smaller variants of the rat’s nightly attack on the walls.

  It seemed to Theo that she was plenty accurate, but compared to Mels, Barns, and Grett who had the skill as well, They were making shots that almost always downed their targets in one go.

  Theo used the skill and thought she understood what Mels meant. She had played games where sometimes you just needed to feel a shot out. The skill gave her that feeling and if she listened to it her accuracy became uncanny.

  She wasn’t exactly sure how she received the essence, it transferred to her with each kill and the same was for all the guards on the wall. It just kind of appeared within her if she was too far from her target.

  She had learned that there was some kind of “barrier” at tier five that required what people called an “Ideal”. It took time or understanding of your magic and yourself to find one that you can “fit your essence to” when you crossed the threshold.

  If you failed to get one you simply wasted your essence as it failed to condense properly. Forcing you to gather a stage of essence again. More than one guard was using this chance to try and cross that "illustrious" threshold that drastically improved your body and health.

  Reaching “Stage One” gave you roughly double your power, though much like Rikard had explained, it varied from person to person. So far not a single guard had done it.

  Theo was a ways away from that tier, but started running some ideas for it on the back burner in her mind. The closer she got to that tier the better she would feel it out according to the library, but it wasn't a guarantee.

  A good portion of the material was information for perspective tier fives to move to one of the cities. So sifting through all of that took time.

  A lot of people like to move to higher tier areas to take advantage of the higher income they would be able to earn in stronger population centers of the kingdom.

  There was a tax system in place that helped mitigate the damage the economy would take when that happened. It wasn’t perfect, Grett had told her one night, but it wasn’t bad. The economic system could be better as a lot of times traders or nobles could steal the lion's share of a market when someone just left a vacuum in the local economy.

  Though sometimes the person who reached stage one would stay and secure business in the area, over time this would bring this settlement up to an average higher tier. Theo had debated it but eventually decided to just register with the kingdom's banking system, even if that came with taxes. Playing by the rules seemed fine by her as she wasn’t struggling for money and could always take seeker requests as soon as this rat problem was dealt with.

  With each day Theo knew the swarm was getting bigger. The guard held the walls. But even with the help of some other city mages not working directly with the guard and some volunteer militia, it was tough.

  It was obscene how many enemies the city was facing. Mages now experience at disposing of the bodies with fire and the occasional barrel of a syrupy looking liquid that burned so hot it turned piles of rats into ash.

  One particular mage used sprays of acid that thankfully didn’t smell.

  The city had clearly grown more tense as the news had spread. Windows being boarded. Stores kept their merchandise in stores instead of on the small sidewalk shops that seemed somewhat popular. Everyone was preparing for the worst. More than a few joined the guard on the wall on the third night.

  Without help reaching them from the kingdom, they had to put their hopes in the assault but were preparing if things got a bit… hairy in the meantime.

  Theo had had one more practice with Rikard the third day, their focus more on utilizing her improving magic to work on her skills. [Air bullet] was developed into [Wind Talon] which helped empower a wind slash or wind spear that had more power or effect. She could also channel [wind talon] into her sword, increasing its strength yet again.

  Rikard seemed a little flabbergasted at how quickly she put his words into developing the skill but quickly moved onto anti swarm tactics. Emphasizing the use of her skill [geist] to help cover herself and people around her.

  Her [gale heart] didn’t see much change besides her deeper connection to her magic through the feather. She was stronger and faster, but only marginally so. A spar with Rikard had definitely left them both with a few bruises. As he had ordered or made a wooden sword that matched Theo’s for training.

  The fourth evening before Theo sat in her room at the inn, shower ready to go. She drew on the feather’s power and started to condense her essence to cross into tier three.

  She collected the magic in her body. Forcing it to crunch down and form channels in her body. Crude but for now they would allow her to put out more of her increased essence production. Her wind essence flowing in the wide tunnels in her body causing it to generate more mana wherever it passed.

  Much like the last time, her eyes stung and she quickly ran through the shower as she checked her status screen.

  [Theo Caulder]

  [Tier 3]

  [Affinity: Myriad Wind]

  [Unique Skill: Geist]

  [Skills]

  [Aim]

  [Air Strike]

  [Gale Heart]

  [Wind Mantle]

  [Wind Step]

  [Wind Talon]

  [Titles: Claimant*]

  [Traits]

  [Vigor of the Forest]

  As always. Seeing progress directly in front of her felt validating. Already she could feel that her strength had taken another jump and she felt ready for the night as she geared up.

  She had replaced her boots with heavy leather ones custom made for her slightly smaller feet. Along with increasing her own travel belongings, Theo also returned to the market district to see what custom manarms could be made for her.

  Through her contract with Vara which was now considered a Seekers contract through the guild and Grett’s insisting, Paid well, and she was now more able to see what tools she might like to use.

  She didn’t order one that day as it was currently a wait time of a few weeks out but that was okay. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted just yet.

  Healing potions were a thing apparently. But nothing was being sold at the moment with any real promise of effectiveness. The guard had bought most of it up in the last few days.

  Instead she further outfitted her medical kit with some better bandages and a balm for pain that had good reviews from Mels.

  Standing fully kitted out felt good to her, the armor making her actually feel safer. An odd feeling she hadn’t experienced before.

  When she got to the wall everyone was tense but had a determined look in their eyes. Even more people had shown up and the guard had to implement rotation for people who needed to rest. Though since nothing had started yet that just led to people standing around nervously at the base of stairs.

  Theo hopped up to the place she knew Vara’s squad was assigned to with [wind step] who welcomed into their formation with familiarity. Having grown used to some of each other’s patterns in aiming over the last few nights.

  The plan was to push to the vermin lord after the most recent wave in while its numbers were depleted. The guard had managed to get all the guilds to field people due to the direness of the situation, though Theo wasn’t sure how much the guard had paid or what politics had gone into it.

  Time weighed on Theo as they stood waiting. She was buzzing with energy after her tier increase and it made patience difficult.

  It was after the usual time came and went that Theo felt the hairs on her neck stand up as some strange gut feeling popped into her. Even worse was the system message that appeared in her focus.

  [Skill gained: Bad Feeling.]