Today marks the seventh month that I've been here in Kamar-Taj. Besides learning magic through lectures and reading theories left behind by ancient masters, all I've been doing is train, train and train...as you can see there have not been a lot of updates because I haven't made any progress on performing magic. Sure I might had caused a splash during my first month because how can a seven year old child be mature enough to understand spellcraft. My fame started to die down slowly because even though I could understand the complex procedures required to evoke and summon a spell at such a young age; my hands just can't seem to cause any sparks. In my novice class where students first learn how to create the basic shield spell I'm the only one to both surpass and flunk the class twice.
Apparently on average, it takes roughly two months for a normal person to start producing their sparks of magic. Once a novice student is able to create the baseline shield spell, they are bumped up to the next level class and are allowed to become proper apprentices and begin exploring the intermediate spells and so on. Each novice class is roughly only two months long before everything is reset and the course is retaught all over again but with a new disciple instructor. When I first started here, there were a handful of students that failed their original class but eventually they graduated half way through the course. They weren't the only students that graduated to the next step, obviously. Some of the new students in my original class also graduated soon after the older students. Once my original class ended, there was just me and another handful of students that were left behind with me.
During the second rerun of the course, my former classmates were able to graduate and move on to rejoin the rest of our original class as apprentices of Kamar-Taj. I unfortunately couldn't break through the bottle neck of forming the first basic spell. Now I didn't slack off or anything because I still kept up with my training even during this whole thing. Whenever I had free time I would go through the motions of forming the spell while trying to draw out the power of the universe to create my circle. This would go on for hours at a time, with me creating thousands of the same circle and spell in my mind. In the second novice class i was the unofficial TA for the new students since there wasn't anyone else in the class that could understand the confusing wording of the sacred text. Of course stepping into the role of the unofficial TA was a little challenging at first. Due to my age and appearance, a lot of the students disregarded me in the beginning since why would a fully grown adult need help from a child. Welp in order to establish the pecking order of the novice class, I had to repeat what I did with my original class during our sparring sessions.
In my original class I started off sparing with Rachel but quickly my skills became stagnant because it could only be sharpened so much with a low quality stone. I had asked the instructor at the time to allow me to switch partners and to be paired with the best fighter in the class. After a few heavy handed convincing sessions, I eventually got to practice with the older students that were getting ready to graduate to the next class. While the spars with the 'soon to be apprentice' students were fun, eventually even they couldn't keep up with me. Maybe it was my size that caused a slight confusion and awkwardness when we spared but they would always only last for a couple of minutes unless I played with them.
Once my original class ended and I couldn't pass the final exam of performing the shield spell, I knew I had to reestablish my pecking order in the realm of non-magic martial arts. It wasn't until after I had roughed up a good chunk of the new blood that everyone in the class started to treat me less like a kid and more like a peer. Maybe I might have been a bit of a bully but at least I got the message to them. Don't come at me with a handicap or else you'll only be hurting yourself and your development.
Now just because I was heavy handed when we spar, it does not mean that I am a full on bully. Like I said, I became the unofficial teacher assistant and tried to help the new students as best as I could since at that point I had already read everything there was to read at the novice level. During class the instructor would demonstrate the movements of the spell and the necessary steps to create and summon the spell. We would go through the process and practice the movements until class is over. After class is done but before meal time begins, I would help the students with their forms when going through the action of drawing the spell, as well as break down the wording of the ancient texts into a modern layman's term.
Maybe it might have been a coincidence but my second novice class had the highest rate of students graduating ever. Every single new student passed with flying colors. Their shields were above the standards of a novice during their final exam and their compression of the beginners materials were up to satisfactory conditions. Everyone in the class, including the disciple instructor, got great praise for starting their path a very strong note. The instructor even gained some fame for doing so well at teaching the new batch of students. That was until I got brought up.
Just like before, I could not form a spark of magic and failed to pass the bar in order to graduate to the next class. In all of the history of Kamar-Taj, they had never seen a student like me before. There has never been a student that failed to perform magic after going through the novice class twice. Neither has there ever been a class that had an almost perfect record of students graduating. This caught the attention of a few powerful masters as well as the Ancient One. She must of did some investigating that I was not made aware of because I got enrolled into my third novice class when I was expecting them to throw me out.
At the beginning of my third novice class there was a slight change to the course. Instead of being taught by just one instructor, it became the first class to have two teachers. One was the normal disciple instructor who was on the cusp of graduating into master rank, while the other was a teacher assistant. I became a teacher assistant....which I still don't know how I feel about it. I mean I was doing the job of a TA during my second class, but it feels odd having an official label now. Anyways, as the TA I was allowed access to the apprentice books as a way to help me further my studies. Even though I did not manage to pass the test, I must've showed enough special merit to be given a special privilege. However it was only under the supervision and mentorship of Master Kaecilius.
With me helping out the new students learn the path and assisting them on their forms. This group of students became the fastest graduating class in recent times. In just one month of regular class teaching and me helping the students develop step by step, the new recruits were able to create their shields in record time. Seeing the quick and rapid development of so many new students in the recent months, the Ancient One and my Master began shifting my training towards a different direction. Not only had I managed to help these new students develop their first strands of magic and a strong foundation for them. I did all of that without producing even a drop of magical energy myself.
After nearly five months of being in school, helping two classes worth of bodies develop their magic foundation, being under the teachings and training routine of Master Kaecilius, and still not being able to create a spell. I began looking for desperate solutions. I've been doing all these bullshit exercises day in and day out and even when I sleep, my mind is still exercising just to end up with me helping other people reach a treasure that I can't even touch. On the next day after all the novice students of class three had left to start learning the next step in apprenticeship, I asked Master Kaecilius to give me a hasher training method. Since I feel like I'm not getting anywhere even after all the effort I had put in, why don't I try something else. A different road, less traveled on...
When I asked my master about Chi and the usage of it, all he could do was give me a long silent pause before suggesting we go pay the Ancient One a visit. She had explained to me it is a commonly known fact that here in Kamar-Taj that sorcery is not the only method to manipulate energy and bend the universe to one's own will and desire. And me wanting to try exploring a new and uncharted path catch up to my peers is highly encouraged as it will allow for future generations to follow in my footsteps. I may not be the only student in the history of this school to not be able to produce magic but according to the Ancient One, I am the only person she had ever encountered that can't attract any cosmic energy.
When you invoke a spell you also invoke the energy of the cosmos to do your betting. The body naturally commands this energy into changes of reality through usage of the willpower and desires of the mind and soul. Without the ability to call for these mystical energy, a sorcerer can never perform magic, let alone survive on magic if they ever get stranded in a different dimension or reality. So as a gifted student of the mystic arts, the Ancient One and Master Kaecilius had allowed me to try and study the art of Chi. But with that being said, this is a mostly sorcery based school so there's very little knowledge about Chi. The only thing we have here about it is: how to identify the power, how dangerous a user of the power can be and how to best deal with a user of Chi. There is however a little crossing of Chi and magic when you look towards the school of internal bodily and health magic. For there's a record here in the library that states how a user of Chi can heal themselves and others at a rate that's beyond what our understanding of healing magic can do. I even came across a passage of an ancient sorcerer that must've had some good relations with a chi user, as their passage was about the healing and restoration of paralyzed nerves in order to invoke magic once more.
As a new method of trying to activate my Chi or at the very least allow for me to sense the damn thing, I had Master Kaecilius help me with a method during one of our training sessions. Instead of my regular routine of carrying heavy weighted cuffs on my body while practicing how to fight, we instead tried to cleanse out my acupuncture points using magic. Just like the novels I used to read during my previous life. I had laid down on a table and allowed him to inject a strand of his magic into my body and through my acupuncture points. By moving his magic through my body, it would allow me to develop a sense of familiarity with magic as well as special magical bullshit energy. Well at least that was the idea. But an unforeseen and secondary side effect declared itself to the two of us very soon after we've started the process. All of my 'miderians' became cleared out and cleansed to a disgusting frightening degree and I started vomiting black putrid sludge everywhere. And I didn't just vomit the sludge by itself. Apparently from what Master Kaecilius told me, my skin started oozing out a thick layer of that shit soon after I passed from vomiting.
Honestly that was about two months ago and ever since then I've never felt better. Everyday it felt like I was getting stronger and better because everything would start to feel like it was not as heavy as the day prior. Even if I were to push myself into exhaustion as long as I could get a full night's rest, I would wake up the next day feeling and ache to do more and to do better. Now my body did sort of felt like this before the treatment, but it never recovered this fast. Before the wuxu cleansing of my body, I could go to sleep for just a few hours and be fine like I did get a full night's rest. Nothing fully went away but I allowed the sting and the fatigue to act as motivation to keep fighting to get stronger and better. Now when I wake up after a long and strenuous training session I don't feel any fatigue or tiredness anymore, just the hunger of being untested and my limits just being pushed yet.