Since Mrs. Tunson was busy with her new family, Mrs. Ryunzo offered to teach Jayde how to bake.
Hearing Mrs. Ryunzo offer, Reiko immediately started bouncing around Jayde.
[Jayde quickly accept, she makes the most delicious cakes] Reiko said excitedly.
[Oh, I thought that the cakes from Oldstrand were the most delicious ones] teased Jayde.
[No, um, well they were really good, but Mrs. Ryunzo cakes are better] Reiko answered seriously after thinking about it.
[So which do you prefer my barbecue or Mrs. Ryunzo's cakes?] Jayde said joking lightly with Reiko.
[Both! ... No, your barbecue. Yes, definitely your barbecue then cake!] Reiko answered — rushing to change his answer halfway through, as he was worried that he might upset Jayde and not get any more barbecue.
Laughing silently at her crazy pet, Jayde accepted Mrs. Ryunzo offer and returned with her to the Ryunzo's house.
After a pleasant afternoon baking, Jayde returned to the forest, laden down with cakes, tarts and meat pies.
Thank goodness Reiko was with her else she would have no way of getting all these desserts back to the cave. Looking at the baskets balanced precariously on Reiko's side, tied together with a rope draped over his back gave Jayde an idea on making saddle bags that she could store items in.
Once out of sight of everyone, Jayde quickly took everything into her spatial ring and then leaping onto Reiko's back the two of them raced off home.
***
Jayde spent the next week in the forest firstly she wanted to make a saddle for herself so that when she and Reiko returned to Doha she could go flying and secondly she wanted to spend some time practicing her fire magic and lastly she would be leaving soon and she didn't want the villagers of Tardide to become dependant on her.
"Yinxin I was wondering when will the little guys be ready to fly?" Jayde asked curiously.
[Not for another three or four years] Yinxin answered laughing at her children antics as they chased Jayde's fireballs around the cavern.
They looked more like felines than dragons at the moment, Yinxin thought, as she watched the wyrmlings stalk and pounce on the fireballs teasing them.
Noticing how her children were holding their wings up, she thought it might be sooner, after getting tangled up so many times in each other wings, the little wyrmlings had learned to hold their wing aloft when playing the chasing game, and their wing and flying muscles were developing quicker because of it.
Jayde spent the week practicing her fire magic, while she was proficient with her firebolt, fireballs and fire shield spells, she had neglected to practice some of her other spells, so working in the small entrance cave she practiced her fireblast spell.
Magic spells were divided into five schools of magic namely: Casting, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, and Transmutation.
Casting simple required a Mage to know the spell gather their Qi and weave their Qi to cast the spell. Jayde's fireball, firebolt and fire shield spells where prime examples of casting spells.
Enchantment spells were spells where a Mage would place an enchantment on an item, like when Jayde imbued her sword with fire.
Evocation spells were one of the most difficult spells to weave, as it required that the Mage draw the spell's rune, then they had to inject their Qi into the rune to invoke the spell, these types of spells required a tremendous amount of Qi and some even required a continuous supply of Qi to keep the spell active.
Illusion spells while easy to weave, as they relied more upon a Mages' mental strength, once a mage weaved the spell, they could then make the target of the spell believe whatever the caster wanted them to. These types of spells required the least amount of Qi, but the weakness of these type of spells is that if the target's mind was strong or if they had been trained like Jayde to build mind blocks, these spells would not work.
And lastly Transmutation spells, similar to Evocation spells these type of spells required the Mage to draw the spell's rune and inject their magic into the rune to invoke the spell, but these spells where placed either on the Mages body or an inanimate object, with this type of spell a Mage could temporary mutate their own bodies like giving themselves Fire Wings or Fire Claws, you could also transmute a rock into lava. Transmutation spells where gold level spells and only a high-level Mage could learn and cast them
Up until now weaving fireblast had required too much Qi to be really effective, it didn't make sense to Jayde to weave such a powerful spell that would leave her on the verge on fainting in the middle of a fight, but now that she could store more Qi and her ability to manipulate the Qi around her had increased, Jayde felt that now it would be beneficial to add this fire spell to her arsenal.
Standing in the middle of the cave, Jayde summoned her fire magic allowing it to fill her whole being, then summoning her fire magic to her fingertips, she quickly drew the rune for the spell in the air, once the rune glowed she injected the fire magic in her body into the rune.
A blinding burst of intense fire burst from Jayde body spreading outwards incinerating everything in its path. This type of spell would be incredibly useful if she was ever surrounded, Jayde thought, but she wasn't happy with the time it took her to draw the rune.
She spent two days continuously summoning her fire magic and etching the rune in the air until she could summon, draw the rune and invoke her fireblast spell within a second. Finally happy that she had managed to master this fire spell, Jayde returned to the cavern to rest and meditate.
For the rest of the week, Jayde practiced the most difficult spell she had, it was the one spell that Reiko's mother Kameko had left her, which was part of the evocation spell school, summoning.
Summoning was one of the rare spells that any elemental Mage could use, as it was not dependant on a specific element, whatever beast you summoned would be made out of your own elemental affinity.
The summoning spell was to create a beast using your Qi, while this spell was very powerful, it was extremely difficult as the caster had to have a profound understanding of the beast that they were creating.
You couldn't just think of summoning a tiger, and you would create a powerful fire tiger. If you did summon a tiger without comprehending the physical abilities of a tiger, you would only summon a fire beast that looked like a tiger but had no strength or abilities, so in essence, you would be summoning a paper tiger.
The only beast that Jayde had a profound understanding of was Reiko, and with her bond, with him, she was able to 'see' just how his shadowbeast form was put together. She spent time examining his skeleton, muscles, organs, and skin. She even used her magical senses to view his cells, tissues and all his various systems.
It was Jayde understanding of science that allowed her to succeed where most Mages failed, as the people of Doha didn't have knowledge of physical sciences such as biology, and because of this didn't understand how a person or beast body worked.
During the morning when they hunted, and even when Jayde was riding on his back, she tracked the changes his body with her magical senses. Slowly building up an image of a shadowbeast in her mind.
Once Jayde was happy with her version of a shadowbeast, she then created her own personal rune, while drawing out the rune, Jayde had to concentrate on imbuing everything she had envisaged into the rune. This was the most frustrating part of creating the summoning spell, if she got it wrong she would need to keep on creating new runes until she finally got her fire shadowbeast right.
It took Jayde two days and over thirty runes to finally create a fire shadowbeast that she was happy with. With her rune created Jayde could now create a fire shadowbeast to fight at her side as long as she channeled her fire magic to it.
This is what made summoning such a powerful spell, and as she grew stronger she would be able to summon multiple beasts to fight alongside her.
For the rest of the week Jayde practiced summoning her fire shadowbeast, and shadow fighting alongside it, she needed to become accustomed to channeling her magic while at the same time fighting and weaving her other spells.
This type of practice drained her magic fast, and she had to stop frequently to meditate and restore her Qi. While exhausting this type of practice purified the Qi in her Dantian, and the purified Qi energy in her dantian quickly turned into a pudding-like substance, nourishing her meridians and dantian and helping her to absorb Qi energy around her even faster.
By the seventh day after practicing Jayde quickly advanced to peak sub-rank.
That night Jayde cooked a small feast for Yinxin and Reiko to celebrate her successes. She even tried to bake one of the fruit pies that Mrs. Ryunzo taught her, but much to Jayde's dismay her fruit pie did not look anything like Mrs. Ryunzo pies when she removed it from her homemade oven.
Although one couldn't rate it as awful, but compared to the desserts Reiko and Yinxin had grown accustomed to, then Jayde fruit pie was decidedly lacking. Seeing that Reiko was eating his portion with long teeth[1] Jayde promised herself that she would practice baking more often, so at least when they returned to Doha Reiko would still be able to eat his favorite treats.
---
Notes:
[1] Eating with long teeth: This is a common South African saying, comes from an Afrikaans/Dutch idiom "eten met lange tanden" – directly translates as "eats with long teeth" which means to pick at your food.
PS: While I am trying to stick to a more British/American way of writing, there are just some things in my opinion that come across more colorful using my own background. (^_~)
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