After spending the remainder of the month practicing to properly apply their mana. Cassandra starts Orin and Edward's thrird lecture, to begin the third chapter of their training.
"You both have been working hard to learn to use your mana better. You've done a good job, both of you two. But now it's time for the real deal. It's time to start making your actual spells, so you can get closer to calling yourselves mages."
"Already? Y'all kinda made it look like we wouldn't get ta that before at least a year from now."
"Oh, believe me when I say this will be majority of your training. Just learning how to change the application of your mana won't be nearly enough to make spells fit for a proper mage. So I'll be giving you free reigns for a week now to gather ideas and theorize how you apply your mana for them."
Meanwhile, a few kilometers from Whistlefreid, a cart moved along the road, with Michael and Coveto as passengers. They both sat in the back while a sharply-dressed man steered the carriage. The cart's travel was estimated to be a three day journey to the city of Pendleton, as the winds in the area were in a calm period.
As they sat in the cart, snacking on some of their rations for the journey, Coveto was changing the bandages on his arm for newer ones. His arm were covered in scars and pieces of burnt skin tissue. Where his arm was completely red, it was almost pitch black. Michael was shocked to see the damage on his friend's arm.
"Jeez, man! How the hell did you get those burn marks. Did training get a bit out of hand?"
"Heh, no. Not too long ago, I was out on a job. I think it was about three months ago. Everything was going as you'd expect from me. Just dealing with some beasts that had a history of wrecking a village. Then one guy came up to me as I was gonna go home.
I couldn't fully see his face, cause he wore completely black robes and covered his face with the hood. He went up to me and told me something like 'A dragon like you can be quite cumbersome to us, allow me to arrage your cremation.'
Next thing I knew, I felt a sudden heat rise, so I backed off. He used flame magic too. Not nearly the same kind as me, but I felt something weird from him. As if he was almost like a dragon with firepower alone. Not like me, who use my gasfire.
I greatly overpowered him, of course, but he was able to outmaneuver me slightly… And I paid the price with my arm. However, I did learn from it, and made myself some new tricks that I can use this piece of charcoal for."
Michael showed a great expression of surprise, as someone defeating Coveto was completely unheard of to him.
"Does that mean you think he was one of them…? That they're finally making large-scale moves…?"
Coveto sat quietly for a few seconds as he was wrappping his new bandages.
"Yeah, I think he was one of them… One of the blackhoods. I assume one of his caliber was in the upper echelon. I did also manage to get this from him."
Coveto took out a sheet of paper from his bags and placed it on the table. It showed a map of the Sylphi region with Whistlefreid marked with a circle. It also showed additional pieces of text next to it, but they were written in symbols they could not decipher.
"What the hell's this? Some sort of instructions?"
"That's what I assume, Mike. But since I can't read this, I was hoping a good friend of ours in Pendleton could help us. I think you know who I'm talking about…"
"You don't mean Coveto, do you? Last I checked, he didn't like us all too much after what happened last time."
"That's exactly who I'm talking about! His network should contain one way or another to translate this. It sure as hell isn't Elvish and I can guarantee that there's not many linguists who'd recognize it."
"That'll be a problem, cause I don't think we have any way to make him do us any favors… Unless… I got it!"
Coveto flinched in surprise to Michael's sudden statement.
"You got it how?"
"It just so happens that carpenter my students helped out gave them a sword as a gift of gratitude."
"Okay? Where are you getting at with this?"
"That sword is one of the nine wands of unification. Cornell, the rapier bestowed upon the bloodline of the Corvus family."
Coveto sat quietly in shock after hearing mention of the nine wands of unification. He could not find the words to say to Michael. The remaining time of their travels went by fast and they had eventually ended up in the city of Pendleton.
The city looked exactly like Michael remembered it. It was the second largest city in the country of Ouroboros, after Tiámat. The buildings were normally sized, but grew bigger and more lavish up until the center, where there stood a tall fort which stood as the main headquarters for the Continental mages' association.
The CMA acts as an organization to regulate and systemize who becomes a mage, what they can do, as well as giving them jobs if they need or want it. They also act as a form of supervision over guilds where mages work as mercenaries or with temporary jobs in general.
Michael and Coveto walked nonchalantly toward the central fort to get to the meeting in time.
"This city sure brings some memories back, huh, Covo?"
"When're you gonna stop calling me that, Mike? Don't you remember that time Elisia thought you and I had a thing because of it?"
"Oh, yeah, that was hilarious. We do have a lot of funny friends we met here back in our apprentice days, huh?"
"That we do. We should catch up wit Elysia while we're in town. Don't you think, Mike?"
"Yeah, that sounds good. I wonder if she's as touchy-feely as she used to be when we were younger."
Coveto grabbed Michael around the shoulder and pulled him in to whisper in his ear.
"You know she only got handsy with you, right? She totally had a thing for you. Probably the reason she got upset over that nickname you gave me."
Michael started to blush slightly and tried to brush of how flustered he was.
"Please, don't joke like that, Covo. Let's just go to the meeting."
"Sure, whatever you say, bud."
After strolling through the city, they eventually got to the fort and proceeded to enter. The inside was neatly decorated with paintings and draperies to show the crest, as well as signifigant people in the history of the CMA.
As they made their way through the fort to get to the meeting room, they were stopped at the door by a familiar face. A woman with long, fiery-red hair, crystal-blue eyes, as well as a blue and white fur coat that looked a little too warm for the current weather.
Based on her facial expression, she looked energetic and happy when she saw Michael and Coveto come to the door to the meeting room.
"Mikey and Coveto! Sure as hell took you two long enough. You should know better than to keep a lady waiting, Mikey! It gets lonely here without you, ya know…"
She moved towards Michael and gave him a tight hug as she pressed her uper body against his shoulder. He could feel her large chest through the fur coat that hid most of her physique, and attempted to back off.
It was clear for Coveto to see that Michael was shy and flustered, and did his best efforts to contain his laughter. Michael struggled to speak a single word, as he sometimes would find himself speechless around her.
"G–g-good to see you t-too, Elysia… Now would you mind letting go of me? You're hugging me abit too tightly."
Elysia reluctantly let go, seeming slightly vexed to have to separate from Michael, though she decided to still keep close to him. They all stood outside of the door in awkward silence for a few seconds until Coveto decided to break the ice.
"So, how have things been going, Elysia? I heard through the grapevine that ypu've taken some students."
Elysia sighed in disappointment.
"Yeah, but they're not really showing much promise. They allegedly graduated at the top of their class from basic magical acedemics. But even though they came to me to learn to use cryomancy like me, they're making no progress. Guess I should use that as a chance to teach them about originality."
Michael spoke up from his shyness.
"You're probably better off letting them go. If they're showing no resolve of their own and they're trying to copy someone else, you should probably tell them to make their own ideas and figure it out. That's kinda what I do. My top student is currently teaching my two new ones as we speak."
"Oh, you tok some new students? How great! How's little Cass doing?"
"She's doing great! I think she's reached a second-grade level already."
"Impressive. Maybe you and I should get together after the meetings and you teach me a few things…"
Elysia started pressing herself against Michael again with malicious intent behind her gaze. Before Michael could say anything, the doors began to open for them to enter so the meeting could commense.