Jaux Ballad has always wanted to enter the realm of magic, but could not do so by regular means. In his desperation to become a magician he finds himself with more power, and more trouble, than he could ever have imagined.

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“What do you think you’re doing?!” Jaux yelled as she backed away from Rales.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought I was getting a signal.” Rales hastily explained. “That was my bad, I guess I didn’t read the mood right.”

“Signal? What made you think that was a signal?!” Jaux complained.

“Well, your lips were kind of... look, I’m sorry.”

Jaux fumed at the audacity of Rales. A guy kissed her! Rales might not have known that Jaux was formerly a boy, but he had kissed her out of nowhere! Her first kiss was from some random boy that she didn’t even know! She hadn’t even been a girl for more than a week. She didn’t think this sort of thing could possibly be a normal occurrence that girls dealt with. It seemed more likely to her that she just might have the worst luck out of anyone in all of history.

“I... I... I need to get to class.” Jaux muttered before she rushed to the door in a huff.

“Wait, Suhara, I didn’t mea-”

SLAM!

=+=+=

There was a loud splash from the waters above, and a while blur shot down to the deck of the ship.

Frey had arrived onto the stolen merchant ship, her right arm covered in the thick protective ward that she used for combat. The pirates were shocked by her sudden arrival, but within seconds they began to charge at her. There was only one major raider on the deck who used magic, while the other deck pirates had their cutlasses drawn to strike.

Frey moved once again, becoming a white blur as she picked off the cutlass wielding pirates one after another. Her punches were too fast for the raiders to see, and the pirates were quickly getting overwhelmed by the speeding barrage. The mage pirate was trying to hit Frey with a torrent of water that was magically extracted from outside the sphere, but the water moved far too slow for Frey to be touched.

Desyi was happy at the sight of her roommate, but also curious about how she got here. Frey wasn’t on the trip, and there was no way that the Lyceum would send a student out for this situation.

Then Tricks suddenly burst in from the top of the sphere as well, landing on an invisible foothold that she formed in the middle of the air. After she looked down to make sure Frey landed safely, she used one of her light beam spells to snipe the mage pirate. The magic wielding raider went down with a scream of pain.

The final five reinforcements burst in from the top of the sphere, each caught on one of Tricks’ concentrated air platforms before being slowly lowered down onto the ship’s deck.

“You alright Desyi?” Frey asked after the last pirate was punched unconscious.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” replied Desyi as her body and robes suddenly heated up to a red hot glow. “Glad you guys are here, there are at least seven more pirate mages down in the ship.”

The magic chains binding Desyi fell away as her body burned through the links. A bit of the wood beneath her feet also caught on fire as a result, but those flames were quickly extinguished when Desyi shifted to being covered in an armor of snow white ice.

“Geez, if you could do that the whole time, why didn’t you just fight back?” Tricks complained as she walked up to Frey and Desyi.

“The merchants and my other two classmates would be in danger if I resisted, they’re somewhere below deck.” Desyi explained. “The teacher is down there too, but she can take care of herself.”

“We better go save them then.” Frey said.

“Eh, you’re kind of a loud fighter Frey, they might have heard ya and gotten ready to ambush us down there.” Jested Tricks before she turned herself invisible. “Lemme go first, see if I can trip em up.”

Trick made her down into the ship through a trap door, keeping silent as she searched for all the hostages. It took a few minutes, but eventually she located them locked in two different rooms. One of the rooms had all the merchants and sailors, while the second room held the mages. Tricks meditated on her next move, trying to think of the safest possible strategy. Then one of her brilliant illusionary plans came to mind.

First Tricks got a few of the pirates to break away from each other by throwing a bucket down an empty hall. After the pirates returned from investigating the sound, Tricks put an illusion over all the returning pirates, making them look like mages armed with staves. Things got chaotic real quick.

Frey, Desyi, and the five other backup fighters all descended into the ship when they heard the sounds of fights breaking out. The pirates were easy to take out when most of them were involved in the middle of a civil war. Tricks had taken advantage of the confusion to release all the hostages from their bindings.

“Nice trick, Tricks” Frey joked when the girls reunited.

“Gotta live up to the name.” Tricks replied playfully.

“We need to find the pirate captain.” The teacher spoke up. “I don’t see her anywhere, so she’s probably hidden in another room. She’s the one keeping the water sphere active.”

“No need to play hide and seek, I’m here.” A woman’s voice called from around a corner.

The captain of the pirates was a really tall woman. Her head almost touched the ceiling of the hall. She looked menacing, several deep scars painted across her face. Her hair was thick and heavily braided, and also stretched all the way down to her knees.

“You’ve lost, return this ship to the surface.” The teacher declared.

The captain narrowed her eyes, glaring coldly at the mages who defeated her crew.

“If you insist...” She ominously pronounced before snapping her fingers.

There was a great crunching crash as water smashed against the ship from every angle. The pirate captain ran off as the girls lost their balance in the wobbling ship.

“She just killed her own guys!” One of the other girl mages claimed. “They were still out on the deck!”

“Gotta worry about ourselves right now.” Tricks yelled as she gestured to the water that was rushing into the halls.

“I got it!” Desyi shouted as she slammed her armored arms into the floor.

Ice began to spread out from the point of impact, freezing all the wooden walls and the incoming flood of seawater. The teacher understood Desyi’s idea, and also cast a similar freezing spell on the other side of the hall. After a few seconds, every opening below deck had been sealed with ice, keeping anymore water from rushing inside.

The ship was now slowly ascending to the surface, since the air trapped below deck was enough for it to float. The footing was a bit off, since the ship was on its side. But, other than having to stand on sloped walls, everyone was safe.

=+=+=

Kissed by a boy.

Jaux was studying in class more intensely than she ever had before. She was trying to drown out the memory of the kiss with a wave of new magical knowledge.

Temperature genre magic was one of the simplest types of magic to learn. All one had to do was use magic to control the vibrations in the target of the spell.

Rales was nice about the kiss. He wasn’t trying to force Jaux or anything. All he did was take a chance. He might have misunderstood, but he realized this and immediately apologized. That wasn’t so bad, right?

Heat just means more vibrations. Fire was a common result of temperature genre magic, since enough heat will ignite air into fire. Metal weaponry was also a common use for temperature magic, since hot weapons can cause a lot more pain and harm to an enemy.

Rales looked pretty good, actually. His blond hair wasn’t too long or too short, and it kind of swept across his forehead. He was also tall, and looked pretty tough. He didn’t appear disturbingly muscular like Onhelm did, but that actually looked more natural and healthy. Not to mention he was a researcher, so he was probably really well versed with magic and magical knowledge.

Cold spells are performed by reducing the vibrations of a target with magic. Enough cold can freeze the air, which forms dry ice. Cold magic is extremely versatile because of its potential at ice shaping, which is an effective way to conjure solid objects without needing to summon them with complex dimension genre magics.

Rales had to be amazingly wealthy to be able to afford researching ancient royalty. He was probably more wealthy than Frey was. However, he didn’t act snobby or anything. He sounded genuinely good natured, and seemed to only care about the magic of ancient artifacts rather than the value.

Jaux’s eyes fell on the black bracelet that Rales forcibly gave her. If everything Rales said about the bracelet was true, Jaux was wearing a priceless piece of history. This was too extravagant of a gift to give to her just for helping with some thieves. Rales had been incredibly generous.

Neutral spells from the temperature genre are used as a protection for the user. It is possible for a mage to cast powerful temperature spells in close proximity to themselves, but they have to know how to protect their own bodies from the transfer of heat energy. A shell of neutral temperature magic is one of the most common requirements for more advanced temperature spells.

The kiss wasn’t too bad. It was just a quick peck on the lips. Isn’t a first kiss kind of an exaggerated event anyway?

The teacher instructed Jaux to conjure up enough heat to create a small flame. Jaux completely lost focus on the lesson at this point, but she already knew a bit of temperature magic from practicing the heat explosion curse yesterday. Creating a small fire between her palms barely took any effort.

Jaux was sure she still liked girls. After all, her roommates were very pretty. Frey in particular. She was strong, tough, smart, and kind...

The flame in Jaux's hands began to steadily grow as more magic was unconsciously fed into the spell.

Rales' face danced through Jaux's imagination, his hair was dramatically blown by a constant breeze.

Then they kissed again.

"Ow!" Jaux yelled when the fire in her hands grew big enough to burn her fingers.

=+=+=

Frey, Tricks, and Desyi finally arrived back at the Lyceum in one of the Marlifa wagons.

After all the hostages were liberated, there wasn't anything else to worry about in Galosrea. The merchants were a bit disappointed in how much of their stock was ruined, but they got away with their lives. Once all the mages were gathered back together, they went home.

"Maybe we should have left Suhara a note..." Tricks commented.

"Well, it wasn't the first time we left her alone." Mentioned Desyi. "I'm sure she'll be fine. Frey, you'll see Suhara in specialty, right?"

"Yep," Frey confirmed, "as long as the admins don't take too long to lecture us about breaking the rules."

"Pfft, we saved lives, they should be thanking us for making the school seem so reliable." Gripped Tricks.

"Yeah, but we can handle ourselves," Frey noted, "if someone inexperienced and rash went out and tried any of what we did, things would have gotten a lot worse."

After the girls passed through the Lyceum entranceway, Desyi split off and headed to her second class.

"See y'all at bed!" She yelled out as she rushed to the stairs.

Frey and Tricks made their way to the front office, ready to explain their actions to the cold administration of the Lyceum.