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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"I'm sorry, but I'm not interested." Said Suhara.

"I'm not asking for a date. I just want us to get to know each other a little better." Rales explained.

The two were currently alone out in the dormitory halls.

"Rales, you really are nice, but I think going on a week long research trip with you is asking for even more than a date." Suhara stated.

"It'll be completely intellectual. Getting exclusive access to a newfound ancient castle ruin is a very rare opportunity you know." Countered Rales.

"We barely know each other, I think spending a week alone with you is not something I'm ready for."

"It's just eight days. We won't even be staying in the same room at night. You could spend all the ruin observation time on the other end of the castle if you want."

"I'm sorry, but no."

"Okay, fine. Look, the trip is in almost exactly two weeks. Can you at least think about it before I leave?"

"... Sure. No promises."

"Thank you, that's all I'm asking." Rales said, before he finally left.

Suhara stayed in the halls for a few more seconds, watching Rales as he left. Then she turned and placed her key into her room's gateway. It could have just been the door or her imagination, but Suhara was sure she head the sound of scattering footsteps as the gate began to open.

"So... what did he want?" Tricks asked.

"He's got a research outing of some sort in two weeks, and he wants me to go with him." Answered Suhara.

"That sounds pretty cool," noted Desyi, "you gonna go?"

"No, I'm just not comfortable with it." Suhara said.

"Aw, it can't be too bad," Tricks remarked, "I say go for it!"

"Come on guys, she already says she's not comfortable with going." Frey pointed out.

"Frey, you're her ace, you should be encouraging her to take rare opportunities like this!" Asserted Desyi.

Frey sighed, falling back until she was laying flat on her back. Her eyes shut, and she seemed to think carefully for a bit.

"Well? Give up?" Tricks teased.

"I don't really have to make any decisions right now. The trip is in two weeks..." Suhara reminded them.

"Well, if there's really only one spot and someone else takes it, then you won't get to go even if you decide to later!" Argued Tricks.

"Hey, it's your call, Suhara." Desyi said. "It's getting late, let's get some sleep and you can see how you feel about the trip with a rested head!"

Afterward, all the girls went through their nightly rituals, before getting into bed one after another.

Suhara felt completely at home in the room now. The unease that came from sleeping in a foreign environment no longer picked at her head. She absentmindedly hugged her second pillow up to her breasts, and felt her tired body being pulled into her dreams.

Just before she nodded off, Suhara had an unusual desire course through her head. All the intimate contact from today came to mind, and she really wanted to kiss someone. She couldn't exactly go up to Frey while Tricks and Desyi were still in the room, so after a few seconds, she settled for giving her pillow a quick smooch.

She felt kind of moronic for practicing kisses on a pillow, but it was the only way to settle her current urge.

Then the happy dreams came to accompany her.

=+=+=

Frey and Tricks refused to let Desyi forget about the duel that was promised. After everyone went through their morning routines, Desyi and Tricks left to schedule the fight between them.

That left Frey and Suhara all alone.

Frey caught Suhara in her arms as soon as the gate closed. She nibbled gently behind her novi's ear, whispering even though there was no one else in the room. "I know we should go get you to magic practice, but I wouldn't mind being a little late."

Suhara could feel Frey's breasts smothered on her back, and tilted her head so that she could just barely face the taller girl.

"I'd love to be late today." Suhara whispered back.

Frey smiled wide, before dragging Suhara to bed. The two flopped into the silky sheets, sliding up to each other and cuddling. The red head brushed her hand down to Suhara's waist, feeling the smooth white skin beneath the slippery fabric of the nightgown.

"You know, we haven't really been on a date or anything." Frey mentioned, without showing any signs of slowing down.

Green eyes met violet ones, and soon their lips pressed together, fitting like puzzle pieces.

"I wonder if this counts." Whispered Suhara when she pulled back, as her hand started to rub against the red head's bosom.

The taller girl moaned softly as her breasts were caressed, and bit down lightly on the dark haired girl's lower lip as they kissed yet again. Suhara tensed up lightly as she felt teeth pressing against her skin, but more because she wasn't very sure about how next to proceed.

Frey could feel how nervous her partner was, movements began to slow. The shorter girl was obviously inexperienced with this. In a sudden move for control, the taller girl pushed Suhara down and straddled on top of the smaller body. She ran her hand through the ebony tresses, while also squeezing the shorter girl's breasts.

Suhara sighed pleasurably, feeling the fond tickle in her hair and the press around her bust. Then the red head leaded down, pressing their bosoms together as another sensitive kiss was shared between them.

This time the shorter girl opened her mouth wide, and the red head's tongue gladly accepted the invitation into the moist depths. The girls' tongues touched and fondled, tasting each other and stimulating a lasting tingle.

It didn't get too far beyond that. Frey wasn't one to rush. Suhara was disappointed that they didn't go further though, and tried to whine.

"Suhara, I was serious about not dating before. I really care about you, but we should understand each other better before we do anything else." Frey told her.

"Aw, but you started it." Complained Suhara.

"We were interrupted yesterday, just making up for it." Frey teased, before she started to dress in her robe. "Now hurry up, you have spells to practice."

Suhara pouted a bit, but went ahead to her wardrobe to change.

=+=+=

Because of the girls' morning antics, they were not able to get a practice puppet for today. To solve that problem, Frey proposed a session of combat spell training. The idea was for Frey to act as a melee opponent that Suhara was to take down with whatever new spell she wanted to learn. A minor protective blessing was activated so that Frey couldn't be hurt.

The two faced each other, Frey with a boxing stance and Suhara dual wielding her staff and wand. Suhara was going to practice with two spells at once, one on her wand and one on her staff. Her staff was loaded with an enchantment type spell that ate away motion from the surroundings in order to speed itself up, allowing it to be swung with more force for less effort. Another motion spell was used with the wand, which released a cloud of mist that slowed the movement of anything caught inside.

Although the idea of using the two spells together seemed to be good, it didn't do so well in combat.

Frey was extremely good at dodging, so hitting her with the staff was next to impossible for Suhara's less refined movements. Even with the motion boost, Suhara had a very barbaric fighting style that was easy to predict. Every swing of the staff came after pulling it back in the opposite direction. Frey was able to duck away from the range of all the staff swipes and tap the shorter girl a few times to indicate counterattacks.

The wand spell did slow down Frey slightly, but since the spell ate away at motion, it also completely negated her staff's spell effect. Curses that take away from the same source of energy were actually not too compatible. Suhara also wasn't immune to the slowing curse, so if she cast it too close to herself, she got hindered as well.

After understanding the problems with the first round of combat practice, Suhara prepared her next set of spells with curses that powered up from different sources of energy. She set a temperature genre enchantment on her staff, which absorbed temperature from the surroundings over time and released it in a heat wave whenever the staff landed a hard hit on anything.

The spell she planned to use with her wand was an advanced motion based spell. It was supposed to lay down a trap that immobilized whatever touched it. The spellbook stated that the spell looked like a thick blob of tar on the ground, but Suhara was only able to conjure up a thin paint-like film of the substance.

The second round of combat was delayed while Suhara practiced summoning a larger amount of the movement impeding magic gel. The motion tar spell was actually kept together with a bit of concentration magic, and Suhara still had problems with mixing genre spells. She instantly regretted not paying as much attention to the concentration magic lesson from yesterday.

While Suhara tried to figure her new advanced spell out, Frey was examining the blessing cube. The Gear of Miju had a lot of tiny runes marking the surface, but no clues as to how it was activated. Frey had to pick through the lines of mystical code, figuring out how each one was activated. Based on how they started with a specific requirement for air motion, Frey had to assume that the cube was voice activated with a specific keyword.

Through intense focus and patience, Frey began to decipher the required sound for each stage of activation. She wrote down her notes on a scrap of parchment, trying to put together the correct phrase.

After Frey was a third of the way finished with deciphering the cube's requirements, Suhara finally succeeded at forming the motion trap. A small blob of what looked like melted black rubber laid on the floor, and when Suhara tested it, her foot was stuck. It worked as it intended!

The tar trap curse was a very condensed form of other motion curses. It absorbed over ninety percent of any motion that passes through it. Thanks to that, the effect was very similar to getting stuck in a real blob of sticky gel.

It took a few minutes to get her foot out of the trap, and then she was ready to begin combat again.

She didn't do any better.

The concept of the tar trap curse was very nice, but it was a very noticeable spell that could be sidestepped without effort. Frey's natural combat reflexes made trapping her with the spell a fruitless goal. Frey blocked the first strike of the staff, just so that Suhara would know how her new staff spell reacted. The heat wave added a decent amount of force power behind the strike, but that was after the staff had been sitting around for a while. The amount of time it took for the staff to charge up was highly impractical at room temperature.

While excited by the combat training, Suhara forgot to keep track of magic fatigue and had tired herself out once again. It wasn't as bad as the previous session, since she didn't directly cast as much, but the fatigue had progressed a bit too much for Frey to refill any magic immediately.

While Suhara sat and rested her magic for a bit, Frey went back to inspecting the Gear of Miju. There were a total of twelve air motion locks, which meant the key phrase was twelve syllables long. They had to also be said in a certain order, but Frey had no way of telling that the order was supposed to be. All she had now was a bank of words and sounds. She currently had five of the air motion locks figured out:

Air, lees, wairs, with, and deep.