Nerves jittered throughout Lucy's shoulders as she looked at the nondescript door that led to the Professor's office. Countless doubts flashed in her mind of the results of her efforts, doubts that she had to swallow down one by one as her hand hovered in front of the door's handle.

Had she done enough? Too much? Did the amount not matter to begin with, and she had just wasted her time? She honestly had no frame of reference to match herself with. And that uncertainty ate at her.

For those reasons and a few more, she'd been standing here for at least several minutes. Caught in a limbo of her own design. A silly situation for her to be in, considering she was currently in the running for being one of the most influential contributors to the field of Domain technology in recent years. She'd fought tooth and nail through design flaws, power outages, leadership training and public appearances, but now she was being stopped by a simple door?

It was a sign of weakness she'd been told time and again that she should never show outwardly. Yet, at the same time, it felt the closest to… her.

As much as she postured and played at how vital her contributions were, at the end of the day she still felt like that bookish kid who'd randomly caught the eye of someone important on her first day. Mentally, she still had trouble bridging that gulf despite the frequent personal interactions to the contrary.

She allowed herself a heavy sigh. Nothing could really be done to alleviate it, besides maybe more frequent exposure. After taking a moment to gather her wits, she finally worked up the courage to make her way into the professor's office.

The door swung inward silently on a well-maintained hinge. Like always, Edison was already behind his desk waiting for her, this time with a slightly different set of training aids. A triangular pyramid with a cavity in the center, which was also a triangular pyramid.

"You're late," he responded simply.

"Something came up," she lied.

"Uh-huh. Can't have been that important. You still bothered to show, after all."

He motioned to the spare chair in front of the desk, which she accepted graciously. The wooden legs scraped against the floor loudly as she took a seat and prepared herself as before.

"Did you do as I suggested?" Edison asked of her once she was properly situated.

"Yes, professor. I kept going at it until I managed to succeed."

"And after that?"

"Until I could manage it consistently," she responded to his prodding.

He nodded. "Show me."

Without a word, she withdrew the coin from her pocket. Barely even spending time to look at it, she fluidly palmed the metal disk into her hand and flipped it into the air with her thumb. Then, when it managed to reach the apex, she managed to snatch it out of the air completely without looking. It was, in her opinion, an impressive display of coordination that she would have never tried to perfect given any other circumstance.

"That better have been worth it," she noted warily. "It took way too long for me to figure that out."

Edison drummed his fingers against the surface of the desk, not showing any real signs of being impressed.

"...It's a start," he begrudgingly admitted, "But that's what we were looking for, anyways. Now, why don't you try to apply what you've learned."

The pyramid lifted off the table without so much as a twitch from him to indicate his control, hovering just into arms reach of her. "Like last time, we're going to start you on the basic float spell. Like this."

The recent bane of her existence dropped to onto the table with a tak noise. Her head was abuzz just looking at it, memories of countless previous failed attempts mocking her from the back of her mind. And yet, despite her internal conflict, she still managed to work out a nod in response. This was the moment of truth, where she'd figure out if her mental preparations had paid off.

Here goes nothing…

She'd had plenty of time to think about just what she was supposed to learn from the coin exercise during her practice. Mostly speculations, for now, but still useful since they gave her a direction to work in. The first lead had been just a small bit of logical reasoning. If this Domain-free activity was supposed to help with her control, then she must be training some aspect of that control not tied to mana. Pretty basic, admittedly, but it allowed her to narrow down her search for exactly what she was missing.

She'd started by looking at intent, which was the second-biggest part of spellcraft as a theory. Magic needed a direction to operate in, after all, otherwise it was just chaotic energy. Almost immediately she'd hit a wall there, too. Without magic, she could intend to create a perfect arc that made the coin spin three times end over end before coming to rest in her palm all she wanted. But there was only one very specific amount of force applied at one specific spot that made that possible. It had frustrated her to no end, until she'd realized she might have had it backwards the whole time.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Intent is based on understanding," she muttered, partly to herself and partly so that her teacher could hear. "I can say I want such and such thing to happen until my tongue falls off, and with enough stubbornness, maybe magic can accomplish it. But it's like trying to push a square peg through a round hole. It's typically far simpler to recognize that the hole is circular to begin with and work from there."

Edison observed intently. "Very good. Now, how do you achieve that recognition?" he asked, guiding her thought process as the focus glowed a soft white in her hand.

"By knowing what you want, and how that goal is accomplished in real life," she summarized. "Objects fall because there's a constant force – gravity – being enacted on them at all times. Can magic ignore gravity? Maybe, but simply counteracting it is far easier. All that requires is a force in the opposite direction. Which means…"

In a single, snappy motion, the pyramid began to float about two fingers off the table. Not a single shudder, not the slightest indication of imbalance, nothing.

She had made a massive breakthrough, and just that thought alone nearly broke her concentration then and there. Her breath caught at her success, but she soldiered on, finishing her explanation.

"...Which means that the best way to cast this spell on a whole is to intrinsically understand how much force goes into every action, and how much is needed to counteract it."

A genuine, honest to God smile broke out on Edison's face.

"Now you're beginning to understand," he said triumphantly. "This is why Law is both the most versatile, and the most challenging Domain. Every step you take to achieve that intrinsic understanding of the world around you, the more things you must innately know in that same manner to get more out of it. It's a vicious cycle, but the results…"

Edison leaned forward to pluck the floating pyramid out of the air and examine it closer. He poked a few specific points on it, tiny white sparks flashing for split seconds with each contact. Where the sparks landed, a seam in the geometric shape formed, splitting the pyramid into four smaller ones as a handful of loose pieces in front of him. They did not stay as mere pieces for long.

"...The results are utterly fascinating."

Topologies shifted as the four triangular shapes swirled together in the air. Without even a trace of heat, the solid plastic molded from simple pyramids into flat sheets, and from there into patterns resembling origami figures. A crane. The end result turned all four into a single, contiguous piece, without a join or seam visible anywhere on the resulting whole.

"You've done well so far, but… I think you're ready for the next lesson." He held the angular crane figure out for her to hold. "Your goal now, is to make this float without the focus."

Excitement welled within her, pouring in by the gallons as she rode high off of what truly felt like her first real success.

She dove straight in to the next problem with a vigor she hadn't known she held. It was hard not to when one could so clearly see the results of their work firsthand. And, modest success or not, this was still her first step on the path to magehood.

She was doing it. Nobody could take that from her.

< -|- -|- >

The day's lesson ended with little progress being made past that point, but in much better spirits than the one previous. Her expectations were buoyed with the knowledge of how her past success came about, so going into the next seemingly insurmountable task didn't have her nearly as stressed as she'd been the first time around. Professor Smith ended things off with some topical anecdotes, a few pointers he thought might help, and a recommendation to start practicing mnemonics. She wasn't exactly sure how it would all tie together in the end… but she had it on good word that all of it played an important role in the big picture.

"Keep up the good work," he said, ending the lesson on a high note. "This part will likely take you a while to get a feel for, so the next lesson won't be for another week, at least. All you need to worry about for the time being is practice, practice, practice. Work those magic muscles enough to be consistent, and stay focused on that until the moment you feel a qualitative change. Then get back to me, and we'll pick back up where we left off."

"I will!" she replied, unable to contain the hint of giddiness in her voice at her progress. If her reaction was anything to go by, she might have a better understanding of why Ffion was so bubbly almost all the time. She used her powers casually, and never seemed to get tired of them. It was much easier to see why now that she'd gotten a taste of it herself.

"That will be all," Edison finished with a contented sigh. "Go get yourself some rest, you both earned it and also look like you desperately need it."

"Rest? But I'm not ti-"

A traitorous yawn from her killed that lie before it could even get off the ground. To an undeniable degree. The more she tried to stifle it, the more her face began to droop with the telltale sign of overwork that betrayed just how extensive her practice had really been.

"Okay, you got me," she finally admitted with a tired drawl. "I'll head back now."

"Sleep well."

Robotically, she got up from her seat and headed for the door with bleary eyes. The fervor of her previous efforts was fading fast, making it suddenly ridiculously difficult just to keep her eyes open. At this rate, she was liable to fall asleep standing up. She yawned again as she exited the office, fumbling with the handle once or twice before finally getting a proper grip.

Then she swung the door open, and very nearly ran headfirst into a rather unexpected guest.

"Oh-!"

She tried to slow down her momentum a millisecond too late. If the suit waiting just outside hadn't stepped out of the path of danger at the last possible moment, she might have knocked both of them to the ground, instead of her current predicament teetering on the edge of losing her balance.

"Pardon me, miss Wright," Agent Blackthorne said, dismissive of her current precariousness. "I did not mean to disturb you. The Professor requested my presence at this time."

"Ah…okay?" Lucy straightened, trying to recover a small scrap of the dignity she'd lost. "Sorry, I was just leaving…"

"Excellent."

The way he said that last statement, she'd expected him to follow it up with some explanation, but he didn't. He simply carried on, divulging nothing else on the matter. The timing felt a little strange as the crisply dressed elf sidled past her, but at this point she was really too tired to care.

Sleep was calling to her. An old friend that had been getting an icy shoulder as of late.

Her vision swam all the way back to her quarters. When she got there, she remembered the door slamming shut behind her, but past that was a complete blur. Hazy images where she might have changed into proper sleep attire, or might have just crashed in what she was wearing at that moment. She blacked out before her brain could catch up.

Oh well… she'd… figure it out… when… she… came to…

…

…

Cold.

It was very cold on the stony ground where she lay. Cold, and damp. Her eyes fluttered open, unable to see anything clearly through the crust in her eyes and the blurs in her surroundings. As she stirred, she felt the air stir with her, heavy, humid and borderline smothering her like a blanket. Her neck felt sore, as if she'd been sleeping in a bad position the whole time.

Getting to her feet once she awoke proved no easy task. Everything felt like it was in slow motion, like she was moving through molasses. Fog swirled at her feet somewhere dark and unfriendly. There was only a sliver of light to follow away from where she lie, headed towards… somewhere? It was still unclear where 'here' was.

One foot in front of the other. Staggering like a blackout drunk after a pub crawl, she made her way towards the light. Her vision cleared up just a hair with each step, encouraging her to drag herself closer and closer to the looming opening. Up a flight of concrete stairs, she used the railing to drag herself forward through the haze and up towards the source.

At the top of the flight, she paused. She recognized this place, but not in the state it was currently in. Crumbling ruins surrounded her in every direction, looking like an excerpt from an old war photograph. But if this had been any war… it had been overwhelmingly one-sided.

Bodies lie piled all around in various states of decay as a full moon loomed overhead. In the distance, she could just make out the iconic clock tower which chimed-

"-LUCY!!! You need to wake up!!"

The sudden shock caused her to bolt upright, both reeling from the lingering feeling of dread that she didn't quite understand the source of and the immediate alarm coming from Ffion. Klaxons blared in the hallway as the sound of heavy footfalls thundered through the dormitories, the telltale noise of Eleftorov's security forces. Her roommate seemingly paid them no mind, more worried about very forcibly shaking her awake instead.

She was inconsolable for some reason, babbling incoherently about some thing or another until Lucy managed to gather her wits herself. Confused and slightly less dazed than before. She snapped Ffion out of it with a commanding voice.

"What's happened? What's wrong?!"

"It's the professor!" Ffion blubbered. "He's vanished!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.