Flinging Rocks at Bureaucrats in a Magical Academy

Tufted with scraggly grass and wind-battered shrubs, the hill rose like a bump on the landscape’s forehead. Fabrisse had named it Reflection Knoll years ago, back when he was ten and decided all significant hills needed names. The name never caught on with anyone else, mostly because the townsfolk of Itakonra Hollow didn’t think a hill with three trees and one ancient mailbox deserved the word ‘knoll’ in it.

The shrine light shone below like fireflies bottled in glass. From this distance, the lanterns made the whole valley seem touched by something sacred, or at least municipally funded. Fabrisse picked his way up the slope with his breath misting in the night air and his pockets clinking with every other step. Behind him, Dubbie trudged in silence, her cloak pulled tight around her shoulders.

When they finally reached the crest, he spun in a deformed circle and muttered, “Perfect. Elemental things definitely happen on hills.”

She sighed, took a seat on a smooth-ish patch of earth, and rubbed at her eyes. “Alright then, great wizard of the knoll. What now?”

“I start gathering,” he said confidently, then immediately picked a wildflower, pinched its stem, and held it up to the sky. “One element done. I have collected the Totem of the Great Wood.”

[Item does not qualify for elemental trace.]

What? He thought.

The System’s polite denial floated in his vision.

“Should’ve been Wood,” he muttered, confused.

Dubbie raised an eyebrow. “It’s a petal. That’s not Wood. It’s flower.”

“It’s vascular plant matter,” Fabrisse held it up so Dubbie could see, despite her seeing completely fine. “That’s the working definition of Wood under the Twelvefold Flame. Subtypes include root, stem, petal, and leaf. Wood’s about growth, not bark.”

He stared at the error message again.

[Item does not qualify for elemental trace.]

“Unless . . .” His brow furrowed. “This isn’t using Twelvefold Flame classifications, is it? Different schema. Great. What even counts as a ‘natural element’ then?”

“Well, you’re the one hallucinating apparitions,” Dubbie said.

Fabrisse ignored her. “It’s not based on applied symbolism, so it’s fundamentalist.” He suddenly remembered the primary elements shown to him while he was looking at his Spiritual Alignment. “Like pre-Order schema. Fire, Earth, Water, Air . . . and something abstract. Aether? Or is it Spirit?” The primary elements would make sense; even in Thaumaturgy theory, students would learn to master Fire, Water, and Air first before branching out to other elements. To register for a Veil Thaumaturgy unit, for example, one must finish Air Thaumatury I and II as prerequisites. Earth was an elective only because of how inert that element was, but it should still be considered a primary element.

The fifth element in the apparition had been marked with ‘???’. Fabrisse didn’t understand why the glyph felt a need to hide the fifth element if it had already shown him the first four.

“If it’s stone, you should have one element already. It’s probably Earth.”

“One way to find out,” he took out a Stupenstone and held it in his hand. That was the first requirement as per the glyph quest.

[TRACE ELEMENT DETECTED: Earth]

— Earth: Registered (1/5 elements held)

— Begin resonance period: Awaiting Aetheric Impression.

“It did register as Earth,” he said. Dubbie shrugged.

Now he just needed to perform Thaumaturgic Stonecraft, a legitimate ritual channeling method from the Second Ordinance of Mineral Invocation. You align with the mineral lattice, synchronize your breath to the stone’s heat retention curve, and let the bedrock speak.

Too bad Stone Thaumaturgy was rubbish. He’d be lucky if his Stupenstone got slightly heavier.

He inhaled, centered himself, and whispered a breath into the stone’s grain.

He followed every prescribed step with textbook precision. He fixed his posture, breathed in, breathed out, and chanted the rhythm at exactly one intonation per breath cycle. A perfect harmonic resonance model, just as diagrammed in the Synod’s Fundamentals of Earth Channeling.

Nothing happened.

Fabrisse frowned. He ran over the steps in his head again. Everything had been aligned. Maybe the chanting speed? He recalibrated, adjusted the pace slightly faster—no, slightly slower—and tried again.

Wait. Was he supposed to match the heat pattern to the stone, or do the opposite?

The stone sat inert in his palm, a mute lump of disappointment.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to think. Theory wasn’t enough. This wasn’t just recitation; it was supposed to be communion. The lattice didn’t move because it had been instructed—it moved because it had been heard.

Mnemonic is fine; speed is fine. Then the problem must be in the intent.

He steadied his breath once more.

Same pace. Same chant.

This time, he leaned in, whispering just the first line of the proper alignment script and focusing all his effort into syncing with the stone’s utterly unimpressed thermal signature.

Let the bedrock speak.

Then he felt something.

Fabrisse widened his eyes. The stone did feel a bit heavier.

[AETHERIC RESONANCE REGISTERED SUCCESSFULLY: Rank I Spell]

— Resonance Agent: Neural pulse ∆37ms during incantation breath phase

— Aetheric Reaction Equation Resolved

54% Stable Emotion (Stable) + 29% Spellcasting Technique + 14% Pacing Synchronization + 3% “Let the bedrock speak” → Burden of Stones (Earth)

— Reaction Type: Solid-State Compression via Intent Coupling

— Result: Mass-to-energy inertia shift detected. Local gravity field altered by +0.04%.

— Imprint Detected: Low-tier lattice acknowledgment; partial mineral echo.

Rank I. The lowest possible recognition of magical output. The participation trophy of spellcasting. But it was progress.

“But . . . hold on.” He squinted at the notification.

What is an Aetheric Reaction Equation?

Dubbie was about to say something, but stopped after Fabrisse made a face that definitely looked like he was deeply focused in something else.

[SYSTEM NOTE: Aetheric Reaction Equation — Primer Level Access Granted]

Query: What is an Aetheric Reaction Equation?

[PRE-SAVED RESPONSE DETECTED]

Every emotional state emits a unique Information Unit—a subtle, intention-rich quantum-pulse readable by the Aetheric Field. When combined with a physical medium (such as a mineral, flame, vapor, or liquid), this emotional signature can initiate a reaction, converting pure Aether into matter-adjacent effects.

In short:

Emotion (catalyst) + Technique/Magical Item (medium) + Synchronization (timing) + Intent (mnemonic/thought) → Aetheric Reaction (energy-to-manifest output)

Some skills might not need all four components. These reactions are stored and registered as Aetheric Impressions. The stronger the emotional precision, the cleaner the result.

[SYSTEM NOTE]: Most human spellcasters succeed not through power, but emotional clarity. If your feelings are vague or misaligned, your spells will reflect that.

[ADDITIONAL NOTE: In most cases, a reaction can stabilize at ≥75% accuracy, so long as the core emotional and material components are intact. However, higher accuracy ensures stronger manifestations, longer durations, and fewer side effects.]

The text was too thick. It was like trying to read three books at once while someone whispered equations in your ear. It took him another minute to focus and another on top of that to go through the texts.

Wait. So . . . spellforms have been . . . reactions all this time?

[Yes.]

He stared at the stone still resting in his palm. Its faint warmth hadn’t been conjured by willpower alone—it had reacted to something measurable and reproducible. For Burden of Stones, for example, the mnemonic only contributed to 3% of the end product. He might as well not need it at all. Synchronization also had minimal contribution, which meant he could mess up the timing of his spell-casting somewhat and still yielded good results.

He suddenly thought of every theory text the Synod made them memorize. Entire volumes of rhetorical Thaumaturgy, deeply abstract frameworks on ‘sympathetic resonance’ and ‘archetypal form modeling.’ None of them had ever called it a reaction. They never talked about inputs. Not like this.

“Alchemy was right, Dubbs,” he whispered.

“Did the glyph tell you something?” Dubbie, who was sitting nearby chewing on a twig she’d picked up out of boredom, cocked her head.

“Input plus transformation equals output. That seems to be the gist of spellcasting.”

Alchemy—the cranky step-cousin of formalized magic—had always said: equal parts lead and intent yield gold in meaning.

Thaumaturgy had said: believe harder. Also, complete the four basic parts of the equation, but using vibes. So Thaumaturgy was wrong! Take that, Headmaster Draeth!

Fabrisse tried to catalogue each component mentally, already thinking of how to create a table. If he could weight each variable, maybe even track emotional consistency across multiple casts, he could optimize not just individual spells but entire fields of reaction theory. Finally—finally—something that could be quantified.

But it was not that easy.

He had spent years learning Thaumaturgy. Suddenly acquainting himself with an entirely alien framework—one based more on emotion and micro-interactions than ritual precision—felt like changing languages mid-sentence. Sure, he understood the terms, but not the rhythm. And certainly not the grammar.

Later, once his brain stopped screaming, he could use those numbers to adjust his casting: double down on what mattered most, cut out what was dispensable. The mnemonic, for example—only 3%. That meant Burden of Stones could still be performed without saying the fancy line. Good to know. Eventually.

Right now? He couldn’t deal with it. The text had been too thick, taking up his entire vision like a wall of glowing homework. He’d need to acclimate slowly, one brain cell at a time.

He slumped a little and glanced up at the hovering glyph.

[TIME REMAINING: 1 hour, 19 minutes]

Yeah. Time was ticking. He didn’t have time to go through all the texts.

Almost immediately, the System pulsed a pale acknowledgment.

[SYSTEM NOTICE: Adjusting Resonance Interface to suit Caster Preference Level.]

Aetheric Reaction Equations — Display Status: Disabled

→ Current Mode: Streamlined Thaumaturgic Output Only

→ This can be changed in: Diagnostics > Settings > Display > Aetheric Metrics > Toggle Detailed Equations

[SYSTEM NOTE: You will continue to benefit from reaction-based casting. Only diagnostic readouts are being simplified.]

“Oh,” Fabrisse muttered. “That’s . . . kind of considerate, actually.”

“Don’t talk to yourself without explaining to me . . .” Dubbie said.

The glyph dimmed politely, as if bowing out of view.

He stood and hurried over to Dubbie.

“Hold out your hand,” he said.

“Why?”

“I need you to confirm if this got heavier.”

“Compared to what?”

He placed the stone gingerly in her hand. “To this rock a minute earlier.”

She held it for a beat. “. . . You didn’t give it to me before you invoked it. Also, how much time do you have left?”

“Oh! Oh no!”

As if it’d read his mind, the glyph showed him the timer again.

[TIME REMAINING: 1 hour, 18 minutes]

He’d spent too much time walking up the nearby hill and experimenting on a rock he’d already had. He needed the other four elements quickly.

Water would be the easiest next. He’d brought a small flask in case there wasn’t a stream nearby, but the valley was kind to fools tonight. A seasonal runoff line whispered behind the shrine path and Fabrisse knelt beside it, uncorked his flask, and dipped it into the stream.

The glyph confirmed it a second later:

[TRACE ELEMENTAL DETECTED: Water]

— Water: Registered (2/5 elements held)

— Begin resonance period: Awaiting Aetheric Impression.

Perfect. He adjusted his posture, cradled the flask between his hands, and began channeling the water-breath. It was an older rhythm, passed down from introductory liturgies on liquid-bound flowwork: Ripple, draw, hold. Breathe in. Let flow. Let go.

One of the only Water skills he knew from memory. Water was a tricky one to get right for him, since it just sat still all the time, like Stone. But at least he was born with a rather decent ability to whisper into stones. When he first got into Foundational classes, they had sat him through ten trials over the first two years to determine if water would rise to his call. It never did, which was normal enough. Some elements never responded to certain individuals. Some people never learned Air. Most never learned Earth. After the tenth trial, the teachers just moved on, and he never got to enroll in any water-based classes because he would fumble the Practicals anyway. Basically, there had never been a need for him to learn a water spell, since the institution itself had given up on trying to teach him after the Foundational years.

He centered his thoughts, smoothed out his mind, and focused on the elemental feel of water, its reflection, its depth. He imagined still lakes, rushing rivers, even that one time his dorm roof leaked directly onto his notes during finals.

Absolutely nothing happened, like usual. The flask remained cool and silent, unmoved and unimpressed.

For half a second, he thought he saw a formula flashed—percentages, terms like ‘Moment of Surface Tension Collapse’ and ‘Reflective Drift Index’—but it vanished under a pulsing [Streamlined Output Mode Enabled].

[AETHERIC RESONANCE REGISTERED SUCCESSFULLY: Rank I Spell]

Huh? It still registered.

Dubbie peered over. “Did it work?”

“I mean,” he said, holding up the flask, “technically, yes? The glyph called it a success.”

“Did it do anything?”

“No. The water just sat there.”

She nodded. “Well. Maybe it’s polite.”

He was sure he did the breath pattern right, and the script was solid. His emotional state was calm and focused. However, he had a total of zero Water spells he had been able to cast. He could intuitively understand where in the rocks to support its structure so it would float, and which part to concentrate aether on to make the stone heavier. But with Water? Every patch of water looked the same. Even Fire was easier. With Fire, he could feel the thresholds in the air—the tiny, volatile instabilities where heat pooled between layers of pressure and oxygen density. With Air, he could just bend his arms along with the movement of the wind.

How could he know where in the water to transmit his aether? Or maybe it was a timing problem? Or maybe it was both. He didn’t know where to cast his spell. and when to cast it.

He felt an urge to look into the formulaic breakdown of the aetheric reaction to see if he could successfully cast a water spell by getting the timing right, or if the placement of aether was too important to mitigate, but that would mean having to mentally navigate the invisible glyph maze again.

Maybe turning it off was a mistake, Fabrisse thought. He didn’t know how to access Settings.

“Did you communicate your mnemonic at the right moment?” Dubbie asked.

“I don’t know. I’m supposed to resonate with the ripple by chanting ‘ripple’ as I just set the flask down and the water’s the most disturbed, then follow up with an anchor phrase at the right tempo. Maybe I got the timing wrong again. You can’t look at a flask and tell me this ripple disturbs the water more than the other. They all look equally disturbed.”

“Why is Thaumaturgy so over-complicated? You should’ve just learned Pre-Order Magic.” Dubbie clicked her tongue.

“There’s a reason Thaumaturges are sought-after all across the realms, you know. Their magical output is great.”

It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult. Fabrisse just hadn’t practiced enough to land it. But at least, he got an element he never got to learn out of the way.

He glanced at the sky. The clouds drifted slow and uncaring. Somewhere in the distance, a night-cricket whirred.

“Two down,” he muttered.

[TIME REMAINING: 1 hour, 11 minutes]

He shoved the flask into his robe pocket. “Air’s next.”