Prismatic Education Begins With A Spark 14 (MTG/Multicross)

Prismatic Education 14

Without any scholastic responsibilities for the time being, what was I to do? Tag along with Nivall when she goes back to visit her family? 

Nope! I chose to go Planeswalking!

SPARK

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that feeling…” I grumbled as I steadied myself with my staff.

Calling it the Blind Eternities was an apt name, because of how indescribable it was. You couldn’t actually see anything, but you were still perceiving it through some strange sense while in that space between planes. The ‘Eternities’ part was the other half of it, because I got the sensation of a multitude of infinities, when one itself should have been enough to overwhelm conventional understanding, because that was what an eternity was.

Thankfully, navigating through it wasn’t impossible. I just knew when I was able to enter a plane, and so far, once I had bonded with a land within the plane, I could find my way back to it without any problems. Other than the indescribable ordeal of travel.

Wonder if I can find my way back to Castle Aldrheim eventually…

“Who- Oh, it’s you.” 

I looked around for the speaker. “Gifso, is that you?”

“Yeah. So you really did come back. Hold on.”

A glowing doorway appeared, and the old temple master walked through it. He scowled when he saw me, though it didn’t hold any heat. 

“So… sorry for the intrusion, but can I be welcomed as a guest?” I asked, knowing that my reward for winning only applied for the first visit.

“No! First you must play a game! I challenge you to-”

“TEACHER!”
“TEACHER!”

Hearing the dual voices calling, I turned to see Kahono and Kiato coming towards me at a run. 

“Kahono! Kiato! Nice to see you again!” I called back to them, turning my back on Gifso. “You two have grown a little, haven’t you?”

“Yup!” The boy skidded to a halt in front of me, and stood up straight. “I’m putting on muscle too! I can dance much longer now!”

“I can sing longer as well!” His sister put in.

“Is that so? How about you two show me how much you’ve improved?”

“Sure!”

They grabbed my hands and began pulling me down the cavern corridor, totally ignoring their grandpa behind us. I could hear him spluttering in outrage, but none of us paid him any heed. Perhaps it was a bit petty of me to treat Gifso like that, but I couldn’t say I felt that much guilt about getting him back for his attitude from before.

“Hey Teacher, how long will you be staying this time?” Kahono asked.

“About that…”

As enjoyable as my last visit here was, I was thinking of exploring outside the Seabed Temple a little instead of spending my entire vacation here. I mentioned it just as the kids brought me to the room where their father Gio was.

“Ehhh Do you have to?” They whined.

“Now, now,” Gio stopped them, “That’s not good behavior.”

“But~” 

The man turned to me. “The next full moon will be in three weeks, and the currents will be weak enough for you to leave by then. I’ll use my magic to escort you out.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

“As for you two…” He looked at his pouting children, “I think it’s about time you two got to see the outside world as well.”

They instantly switched moods, going from unhappy to excited right away.

“REALLY?!”

Gio nodded. “Yes, but it will depend on your performance in the upcoming Sea God ceremony.”

“Is there anything special about this one?” I asked curiously.

“It’s the usual one,” He answered, turning his head towards me, “But with how much they’ve improved, they should be ready to handle some of the priest duties.”

“We can do it! You’ll see! We’ll show you!” Kiato yelled excitedly.

“Yeah!” His sister agreed.

Gio glanced at his children with a proud expression before looking back at me. “What about it? Interested in helping these two with it?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why not? Sounds interesting. By the way, you two are going to love what I brought for you this time.”

“What is it? What?” They asked eagerly.

“Let’s keep it a surprise for afterwards.”

With that, I was accepted as a guest once more, though it was with less privileges. In addition to helping out with the children’s education, I also assisted in the running of some errands and priestly duties. It wasn’t anything too hard, since I had knowledge of what was involved from my last time here.

My tutoring sessions this time were much more interesting, as I came prepared for that purpose. For Kiato, I had a list of exercises for developing dancers, along with tips from Nivall on how to better channel his mana with his movements. Kahono’s lessons were a bit more theory-focused, but I was able to impart to her what tricks I knew about affecting others with words.

“That’s it, Kahono, you’re shining like a star!” I praised her, causing the young girl to gasp.

“Amazing!” She looked down at her slightly glowing body, enhanced by my word magic. “I can feel my mana growing!”

“Do me too, Teacher!” Her brother begged me eagerly.

“Sure. Dance, Kiato, set your heart ablaze! Be flaming inspiration!” 

“UOOOHHHH!” 

He began dancing, performing the sequence of dance steps I had been drilling in him for the past hour. There was a clear difference from his previous practice as his movements were crisper, but more importantly, his movements were influencing the ambient mana in the area, drawing it along with him like waves.

“Alright, Kahono, try singing along,” I encouraged the girl.

The guide book I brought along wouldn’t have been the same as a proper vocal coach, but the lessons contained within also helped her make better use of her voice, both in singing and speaking. The results were immediately obvious, as all present felt the intense mana gathering and swirling around the place.

Oh yeah, this resonance of song and dance is awesome! I watched the rehearsal with a wide smile.

“Remarkable…” I overheard one of the observing priests commenting.

Damn right. They’re gonna blow everyone’s socks off in the actual thing!

I didn’t only focus on their specialties in the lessons I gave, but taught other stuff too. The natives of this plane might have their preferred magic types, but mana itself was full of potential, and I could demonstrate that.

“What is this?” Gio asked curiously as he peered at the results of my magical fiddling alongside his children. “Water-shaping? No… it’s not?”

“In the school I study at, one of the things we learn is how to alter space, and that’s what I’m doing here,” I explained as I stretched the water through several geometrical shapes between my hands.

“Spatial magic? It doesn’t look like any I’ve seen…”

“The reason why a lot of the lessons revolve around water… is because water itself is a good representation of a domain of space.”

Put water in a container, and it would take the shape of said container. Yet it was incompressible, resisting outside attempts to make its occupied area shrink. It was easier to influence and alter the rules within a smaller area, so Quandrix students studying abstraction always started by trying to alter the nature of space within a quantity of water. Initial success in doing so would result in the shape of the water changing, which was why so many examples of water architecture could be seen around the Quandrix campus. 

More complicated and advanced applications was how one eventually arrived at the Arithmodrome, with its infinite space within a cube of water. My expertise was enough to create water shields with dangerous effects, especially when I mixed in the Spin or my Prismatic magic. For the purposes of safe demonstration, I kept it to simple effects like shining lights or putting a small solid object into it so the effects of the altered space could be observed.

For the kids though, it was just a bonus lesson on how to apply mana in different ways. They weren’t doing the crazy things I was capable of, but they didn’t have to.

“Look, Teacher!” Kahono held her hands up in front of her face, a globe of water floating between them. “Aaaaah~”

Her voice caused the sphere to ripple and swirl, until a spinning disc of water appeared within it. She stopped her singing, but the sphere continued to emit the same sound, at least until it suddenly burst, due to her losing control of the mana within. Despite the unintentional splash, Kahono still beamed proudly at me.

“KAHONOOOO~! YOU’RE AMAAAAZING!” Gifso cheered, annoyingly loud, having appeared from nearby.

“Finally had enough of your game, old man?” Gio asked his father.

“It took a long time, but I finally beat the high score!” 

Already? Damn, this old man’s got some skills. 

One of my schemes to handle Gifso was to occupy his attention with the magical games from Strixhaven. My Artificing course had me interact with one of the game machines, learning how it functioned and how to fix it if it broke, which also included how to spoof a high score. I interacted with it enough to be able to spawn a mana copy of it, and that was what I had handed off to the geezer to distract him.

It wasn’t the only mechanical tool I had called on in my time here; at the kids’ request, I showed off several of the clockwork automata I had copied from Losheel’s collection. Most of them shared a common purpose, due to my having copied them while on a Lorehold archeological expedition. An excavation golem which helped to carve out a whole new room in the temple’s rock, load carriers that would transport rubble away from the excavated area, combat models meant to stand guard and deal with any intruders seeking to steal from a designated base area, item sorters that cataloged things faster than most trained hands could do, among several more.

Doing so taught me something important: my limits of summoning mana copies.

The first was the obvious mana cost. While automata counted as artifacts, and usually didn’t require color-specific mana, some of Losheel’s creations required either White or Red mana, which I lacked compared to Blue or Green. I compensated by magicking together my elements, but doing so required a long rest to recharge afterwards. I could also resort to using my grimoire’s Prismatic Magic to coloring the mana, but the energy cost of doing so was quite severe, so I didn’t do that unless I really had to. Fortunately, the rest cost me only general mana, so drawing from the Vineglimmer Snarl, Quandrix Campus, or Seabed Temple itself was enough.

The second limit was the number of copies I could sustain, which was just like having a card limit in a deck. Summoning one was akin to putting the card into play from my hand; if I wanted to play more, I needed another copy of the same card, which was represented by how strong my familiarity with the original was. A complex thing like the excavation golem? I could only generate one, even if I had the mana to summon another. Any attempts to call out a second one just went poof, wasting my mana.

I was working on a way to circumvent that, but it was slow progress.

In the meantime though, I was making good use of the summons in teaching the children.

“That’s it, feel the rhythm, follow it!” I encouraged, directing the guardian automata to attack.

Kiato didn’t reply, but his body flowed around them, the ceremonial blades he wielded leaving marks on their metallic bodies. Using my experience in reading an opponent’s patterns, I altered the robots’ attacking timings slightly, hoping to throw him off. Instead of catching him like that, he reacted automatically, his body slipping through the blunted weaponry like they wouldn’t even touch him, almost like water.

Formless… Hm, another martial arts-related memory… meh, not important right now. “Alright, that’s long enough, go for the finisher!”

“YES!” He answered sharply.

Kiato’s dancing moves were already drawing in the surrounding mana to enhance his physical ability, but now that absorption sped up even more, which in turn accelerated his own movements. The swords, previously only leaving scratches, now started cutting even deeper.

“Huh…? He’s not using water magic, is he?” One of the observing priests wondered.

“He’s not,” Gio confirmed, looking at his son with fatherly pride.

“It’s his movements, they’re giving off an impression so strong that your mind thinks that it is seeing it as well,” I explained.

The illusion of churning currents we were seeing might not have been real, but the result of the automata being carved to pieces was very much true, with a final spin scattering the pieces around the field. It looked like there was a giant water serpent that had gone into a whirl, before surging upwards from the center as it roared its victory.

“Sea God’s Triumphant Dance!” Kiato announced, coming to a halt with a stomp, both arms outstretched, one upwards and the other out to the side.

The priests cheered and clapped for the performance that they just witnessed, including Gifso, who was crying exuberant tears.

“Father, Teacher, did you see that!?” Kiato asked us eagerly.

“I did. Well done, Kiato.”

“Magnificent,” Gio agreed, “And to think you could do it without a grimoire…”

“That just shows how much effort he and his sister have been putting in.”

“You’re right,” He responded, “I’m very proud of you and your sister. To me, you two are already worthy priests of the temple.”

The two children wore wide smiles.

I had no doubt they were more than ready for the upcoming ceremony.

…

“A bit big on you two,” I observed as the kids tried moving around in their new priest robes, which were sized for them to grow into.

As expected, their performance had been nothing short of stellar, and as a result, the pair of them were now junior priests. Rising beyond that required a grimoire, and they were still too young for that. 

More importantly, they were now qualified to leave the Seabed Temple, which was why our group of people was gathered near the edge of the barrier around the place. Gifso wasn’t with us, as he was in charge of overseeing the temple and couldn’t leave, so it was just his son and grandchildren coming along with me.

“Alright, are you ready?” Gio asked me.

I nodded, and watched as his grimoire opened up, glowing with the mana he channeled.

“[Water Creation Magic: Sea God’s Cradle]!” 

The kids with us made sounds of awe as water gathered around us, enveloping us in a swirling shell that lifted itself, and us within it, off the ground. I was already analyzing the spell, such as how the mana made us float in the airspace within the sphere, the way Gio could control its motion…

Damn, that’s complicated. No wonder grimoires are so useful in this plane.

“Here we go!” The man announced.

At his command, the sphere moved forward, plunging into the swirling water barrier around the Seabed Temple. Away from the mana illuminating the Temple, our surroundings quickly darkened… and then we hit the mana-dense area, where the water turbulence was. I could sense the heavy currents battering at our protective shell, seeking to grind it down, but Gio’s magic held strong. The kids were slightly nervous, but mostly excited as the sphere traveled through the water.

“We’re nearly there!” Gio reported after a while, his eyes focused straight ahead.

“Ooh! I can’t wait to see the surface!” Kahono gushed.

“Just what is it like up there?” Her brother wondered next to her.

I can feel the pressure’s dropping off… I looked upwards, where a bit of light was starting to leak through.

There was a slight jerk, and the sphere’s movements became smoother. The next moment, it unraveled, letting us drop a short distance to land on soft sand. I looked around, taking note that we were now standing on a beach. Above us in the night sky hung a full moon, and I could tell that it was having some effect on the mana around us, though it would take detailed calculations to properly identify its magnitude.

As expected of their first time, the two kids were twitching with energy, looking around eagerly and trying to take everything in. Exchanging amused looks with Gio, we started answering their questions, like what the sky and stars were, and so on. 

I was curious how the undersea inhabitants would adapt to life on the surface, but to my mild surprise, the surfacers knew about them, and welcomed them as traders with commodities only available underwater. The currency of this plane was called yul, and some of the items Gio sold could go for quite a lot of money, which would be used in turn to purchase supplies that couldn’t be obtained in the Seabed Temple. 

Of course, with the full moon restricting the timing for access to the Seabed Temple, finding a place to stay became necessary as well, and the cost of hotels in the area would have drained any spare funds. So instead, my companions found themselves work and lodging as temporary workers for the tourism industry in the area. Gio as a lifeguard was somewhat unexpected, while his kids as entertainers very much less so. As for me…

“Your price is a little expensive, but I see now it was worth every yul I paid!” The hotel owner told me gratefully.

I nodded. “With the changes you’ve made, you should regain what you spent within the next two months, and your income will continue to rise. Just make sure not to compromise on quality.”

“I will!” The man promised.

I hefted the heavy money pouch as I watched him leave. Thank you, Entrepreneur Club! Business consulting combined with magical linguistics for the win!

Apart from that bit of ordinariness, I also gained further insight into the magical culture of the place.

Apparently, flight was something almost everyone was capable of as long as they had enough mana to cast the spell. At its essence, the cantrip was a movement enchantment, which was most commonly used on brooms, though it could be done on things like loose branches too. 

“Just like that?” I stood on my staff, my feet locked firmly to its length as it floated horizontally off the ground.

“Yes, you’re good at it!” Gio praised me, impressed.

“Oof!” Kiato fell off his broom. “Ugh, I don’t get it… it doesn’t feel right to me.”

“Kyahahaha!” Kahono laughed, soaring above her brother’s head on her own broom.

It was a nice change of pace for the two children, who had only known the temple beneath the ocean until now. I had some reservations about how enticed Kahono was by the money she made from her singing, but I decided to leave that to Gio to take care of.

However, as my deadline to return to Strixhaven drew closer, I decided that I wanted to explore this plane a bit more. When I told Gio and his children about my intentions, the kids wanted to tag along, but their father put his foot down. I agreed as well, because according to the information I gathered, the wilderness of this land was quite dangerous, even for trained mages. It was better if I went alone, because I had my own ways of handling things in case I ran into trouble.

And with my mind made up, there was no way they could persuade me otherwise. So one morning, I packed my bags, with the souvenirs I got from this plane, and prepared to set out.

“Don’t worry,” I told the pair of unhappy kids, as they stood next to their father to see me off, “We’ll see each other again.”

“Really?” Kahono asked me.

“Yeah. After all, I still haven’t seen what you can do with your own grimoires yet, right?”

Kiato nodded, his face set in determination. “Un! So you better come back and see us when we’ve gotten them! Okay?!”

I chuckled. “Sure thing.”

“Have a safe journey, Roy.” Gio said to me with a smile. “I look forward to seeing you again.”

“Likewise.” I nodded to him as I mounted my staff, lifting upwards into the air.

Now, just what sort of challenges and adventures await me here…? 

Afterword: The more I reread the Black Clover manga, the more I realize there’s quite a lot to unpack about the world itself. There’s definitely a lot of experiences to be had in that setting, and I have high hopes for my muse with it. 

Unfortunately, RL is awfully busy, with work leaving me so drained I barely feel like writing afterwards. Balancing that is gonna take some effort… 

Thanks to my supporters as always!