For a couple of days afterwards, Gale had not properly attended her magical training, staying back at Gale’s and Sofia’s shared room most of the day instead. Professor Aberyth was starting to get a bit worried about her, but the rest of the students had assured him that she was having her meals delivered by Sofia everyday, so she should at least be physically fine. The other students were not aware of the current situation, apart from a vague involvement in the incident that had left the seer of the fair out cold for a few days, but suspected that something big had happened to them. They could also vaguely hear Gale and Sofia talk to each other te into the night. Professor Aberyth had no intention to actually tell them what had happened, but he could see that they were worried about her too.
Eventually, Gale and Sofia came down together for breakfast one day. Professor Aberyth could tell that she still looked troubled and had probably cried quite a bit, but she seemed mostly OK and somewhat determined. Hopefully, they would be able to keep working on her magical training as usual, but it’s probably better if he has a talk to her in private to know how she’s doing.
As he was standing up from breakfast pondering what would be the best course of action with Gale, there was a knock on the entrance from the yard to the building. It was the postman, but something was unusual here, as he normally just delivered his post through a fp in the door of his house. He looked to be in some kind of hurry, so he just walked up to him to see what he wanted.
“Hey there Frank, good morning. Is something the matter?”, he asked nonchantly, to try to ease the tension a bit.
“Professor Aberyth, there is an urgent communication coming from the royal adventurer’s guild, straight from Astidia. They made it very clear that I needed to hand-deliver this letter to you, and you needed to sign this document for me to send back ter”, he tried to expin in a hurry. He was clearly unaccustomed to pressure.
After sending off a now relieved postman with the signed document, he took a look at the letter. It was deep purple, indicating that the matter required his official cooperation as one of the few state researchers. As he went inside his b to read its contents privately, he sent his students off to start their daily magical training.
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Gale could feel the boys looking at her, they seemed to have been staring from the moment she finally came down today from their room, even if they tried (and failed) to hide it. It was clear that they were worried about her, but she had already decided (in no small part due to Sofia’s support) that she was going to believe Professor Aberyth saying she would be ready when the time comes, and simply wanted to continue her day as if nothing had happened. That should also put their minds at ease, even if it might take a couple of days.
Just as she was going to ask Professor Aberyth what to do, he had disappeared into the b in a hurry from his mail, with a complicated expression on his face. She, thus, decided to just start training on her own, picking up where she left off: infusing her sword with her magical aura. Not long after, Professor Aberyth exited his b again, and called them back inside for an announcement. He seemed both annoyed and tired at what the letter said, still in his hand.
“Students”, he started, “the Adventurer’s Guild examination committee is going to take a bit longer than expected this year, due to something they seem to have discovered in a forest along their way. They formally request my cooperation in their study”, he paused for a second to take a long sigh, “so they will arrive in two and a half months, instead of the regur date.” With that, he looked at Sofia and Gale. “Girls, come with me for a second. The rest, continue your training outside.”
Gale tensed up a bit at his request, wondering what did he want to talk about. Was it about the examination? She knew that passing the test was Sofia’s goal after all…
“OK, this is a bit of a delicate matter”, he started. “Sofia, what do you intend to do? Given your progress, I have no doubts you can safely pass the C-rank exams, that was your goal, right?”. Sofia just nodded, not really following. “What I want to know is what do you pn to do afterwards? Will you leave the academy? I’m sure you know why I called Gale over too”.
The girls looked at each other. Gale didn’t want Sofia to leave her at all, but she knew she had her own hopes and dreams, way before they met. A lot of conflicting emotions were going through her as Sofia started speaking.
“I… I don’t know, Professor”, she started, “You know very well I always wanted to explore the world, and this exams is in the end just a necessary step for traveling, but… I really don’t want to leave Gale behind, I… I can wait until we’re both...”.
“No”, Gale answered cutting her off, “No, I won’t let you dey your goals for me, not even a few months”. With that, she grabbed her hand strongly, and looked lovingly into her eyes. “I will leave with you, when you get the certification. Professor, do you think I will be ready too by that time?”
Professor looked at her with a conflicted look, but then just answered: “Well, Gale, as your teacher I don’t think you will be “ready”, and clearly not as much as Sofia here, but I may be able to teach you the basics, and then you should continue your training on the way. Are you alright with that?”
“Gale”, Sofia started, “are you sure? Specially given… you know what?”
Gale gently kissed her in the hand and said “Yes, I’m sure, let’s do it”.
“OK, girls, then I may need to change your training regimen. You need to be able to at least know the basics of weapon infusion (I know Sofia already does), aura shields and using different elements from your own. I still believe the best course of action would be to show you the basics, and then to practice on your own. Since Gale was here when I expined the aura shield, let’s move directly to what you both ck: using different elements.”
He paused for a few seconds before continuing, seemingly having realized something “You know what, Gale? I think there might be a faster method for this, which might even be specially useful for you. Would you two want to try? I’m pretty much making it up on the spot, let me warn you”. The girls both nodded, so he asked them to sit down on the floor. After a few seconds he did the same, but holding two pieces of rope. He offered each girl the end of one of the ropes, and he would hold the other ends, thus connecting both to him through the ropes.
“My idea is the following: I Will infuse this rope with my aura, and then apply an element. I want you two to feel it, to get used to what a different element might feel like. Are we clear?” They nodded again, and closed their eyes.
“First, I will start with fire. It should be more or less equally difficult for both of you: Sofia has a much lower affinity for it than Gale, but with her superior control it should even out the pying field. Think of what I expined about fire: aggressive but rigid. Imagine a fme flickering, imagine wood burning, the desire to spread that fire… And feel my aura.
Gale tried to feel Professor Aberyth’s aura through the rope, colliding with hers. She could feel it was different, more… bold? Staying in pce. She thought of something, and sent a powerful burst of her own wind aura towards his. The fme aura resisted her advance, and pierced through it with a sudden spike.
“Calm down, Gale, this is not a fight. Feel it”, he started saying.
Gale cut him off in a second. “I wanted to feel the reaction, Professor, and how different it is to mine. I really think I’m feeling it now!” Gale spent the rest of the day trying to replicate the fire aura, of which she seemed to have found an intuitive feeling, much to Professor Aberyth’s apparent surprise. At the end of the day, while it’s true that she still didn’t have it (and almost included her special Rage magic accidentally a couple of times), she was indeed much closer than before.
Sofia, on her part, was having a lot of difficulty with the fire magic aura, being so different from her own affinity. Still, being able to see Gale’s way of trying to modify her own aura actually helped her find some intuition, and she felt like she was starting to make some progress. The day ended with the both of them determined to finish the basics of their training, and to help each other overcome their respective weaknesses.
The next weeks they trained hard in all the basics. Gale had a lot of difficulty with using her worst element, Earth, and needed a lot of support to suppress the natural aggression of her aura and the rage magic within her. Thankfully, Sofia’s affinity to Water guided her through the suppression of her natural tendency.
The situation was different when making the aura shield. Given her own overwhelming magical energy, Gale didn’t really need to make a perfect aura shield for it to work as intended, even if it’s density was fluctuating all over its surface. When applying her Wind aura, the shield seemed to follow naturally her thoughts without any effort, to everyone’s surprise. On the other hand, Sofia had a lot of trouble with it. While making the shield and stabilizing it was simple for her, it’s durability was quite low, and a simple push from Gale was enough to make it burst, instead of being able to pick up her affinity. Thus, Gale became her sparring match for a while, gd to be able to be the one to help Sofia for once.
The days continued, both Gale and Sofia training hard while enjoying their academy life, and the company of each other (specially at nights). Eventually, as all things do, the day of the exam arrived and their peaceful days studying under Professor Aberith came to an end.
