Fallen Mage Regressor

”Apprentice?” Mal tilted his head. ”What does that mean?”

”No one’s ever told you about apprenticeship before?” Cassandra sighed. ”Of course they haven’t, you’re an F grade core—well, not anymore, but still.”

The greenhouse was completely still and quiet, not a noise to be made. She reached up and scratched the back of her head.

”Long before we had magical institutions like this one,” she said. ”Long before the existence of witches’ covens, magic was passed down from teacher to student. The teacher would impart every piece of knowledge that they learned. The student would absorb that knowledge, then begin their own study, contributing to the body of knowledge that they had been taught by their master. From there, they would seek out an apprentice to pass that knowledge onto. This was how magical progress was preserved from generation to generation.”

”Yeah, but we have these institutions now. Right?”

”Aapprenticeships still live on. For some students who prefer a more hands-on approach to learning, an apprenticeship is often a better choice, as they’ll be actively involved in the work of their master as opposed to a more formal, book-based education. Not only that, but the direct instruction of an experienced mentor who can afford to lavish time and attention onto a student is invaluable.”

”And that’s what you’re offering to me,” Mal said. ”Your direct instruction, along with all of the techniques you’ve developed over time.” He looked her in the eyes. ”What if I refuse?”

She shrugged. ”Nothing.”

Wait, what?

”What do you mean, nothing? Weren’t you saying that I’m an abomination to nature and all that?”

”Yeah, so? Does that mean I’m obligated to kill you? What, are you secretly some dastardly villain who’s planning to use your nonexistent core to engage in dark wizardry?”

Somewhere along the way, he’d half convinced himself that Cassandra was going to kill him. He supposed that there was no real reason for her to do anything to him. Really, the most selfish thing she could’ve done was send him to the church and get a fat finder’s fee. But if she was uninterested in that, then who was he to argue with her?

”What if I decide to join a coven?”

He still didn’t quite understand what a coven was, but he thought he was getting the general gist of it.

”I would probably help you get in contact with one,” she said. ”But I wouldn’t advise that. You’re a miracle, and they would treat you like one. That would be nice for the first couple of days or so, but it would be hard to get any real learning done.”

She put her pipe to her lips and took a puff. ”Besides, you risk exposure if you go that route. The more people who know you exist, the higher chance that a bad actor could want to get their hands on you. They want to figure out how to replicate the effects, and they wouldn’t be nice about how they figured it out. You’d be chained in someone’s dungeon like an animal.”

That sounded possible. Mal doubted that she was lying about this. Besides that, limiting his secret only made sense, given that his already stated goal was to stay out of the public eye as much as possible.

”What would you teach me? Herbalism?”

”No, I was planning to teach you carpentry.” She scoffed. ”Of course not, idiot. Herbalism is only the tip of the iceberg. I would teach you hexes, rituals. The art of witchcraft. Or, as you know it, resonance.”

Mal didn’t respond.

Although she said there were three options, there were technically four. Really five, if you thought about it.

The first was that he could go to the church. They were aware of the legends, though they wouldn’t put as much stock in it as a witch would. They would provide him with unlimited resources to pursue his training. Handbooks, ingredients, anything and everything to become stronger, so that they would get their research.

But that would put him in debt to the church—they would expect him to carry out their will. And while he didn’t have as much of a grudge against them as others might, that didn’t mean he wanted to be their attack dog. Not only that, but he had goals of his own that he needed the freedom to pursue.

He also found it difficult to believe that they would be able to get him access to actual practitioners of witchcraft. There was too much bad blood there. Any witch who would be willing to listen to the church would either be a charlatan, a fool, or desperate. Mal didn’t want any of those people to teach him.

The second option was a coven. Unlike the church, he’d be surrounded by actual practitioners. They would be of varying experience levels, meaning that he’d have peers, subordinates, and mentors. An ideal environment for learning a new skill.

But as Cassandra had noted, there were messianic undertones to Mal’s current status. He might have thought she was just lying except for the fact that he’d seen the same attitude confirmed in the library books. If Mal was lucky, maybe he’d be able to find a coven without as much superstition, but that would take an enormous amount of time and resources, given how well hidden covens were. He didn’t even know that they existed until Cassandra had informed him. It was clear that the witches preferred their privacy.

And then, there was the problem with both options—both the church and the coven would eventually, purely by accident, leak his secret. And at that point, he would lose what was left of his treasured anonymity.

The third option was to ignore everything Cassandra had said and continue to pursue magic on his own terms. He’d already demonstrated that he had an intuitive sense for resonance—no, witchcraft. Who was to say that his intuition wouldn’t carry him further?

Mal suspected he would get pretty far. However, the transfer of knowledge existed for a reason. Maybe if magic wasn’t so knowledge-based, he’d consider going it alone. But it wasn’t like that. Magic was based off of accumulated research, study, the kind that takes thousands of years. Mal would be trying to build a castle from scratch using a rock and two logs.

The fourth option was to apprentice to somebody other than Cassandra. It was a possibility, but it was such a massive unknown that he supposed it didn’t really matter. Plus, it came back to the information problem. How would he find more witches? He supposed he could try asking Cassandra, but it felt incredibly rude to deny someone’s generous offer then ask for another teacher, even if she claimed to be okay with it. What if she took offense and sent somebody bad? What if she thought the other person was a good option, but they turned out to be a nutcase?

And finally, he could just accept Cassandra’s offer.

It seemed incredibly attractive on the surface. Cassandra was regarded as competent, even by wizards. He imagined that this competence almost certainly carried over to witchcraft. She seemed relatively trustworthy, based off of the fact that she hadn’t just knocked him out and sold him off to the church.

Really, the worst part was more that he found her kind of annoying. But that didn’t seem to be a valid reason to stunt his growth.

He weighed the different options for a little bit longer, then nodded.

He’d made his decision.

Mal shut the door behind him and blinked hard. It’d been a struggle to get all the way to the teachers’ housing section with how much of a migraine he had going outside. But as soon as he stepped into the house, it had significantly diminished.

No more white flecks blinding him from every direction.

Instead, the air was clean, with a few traces of mana, but nothing to the point of being headache-inducing.

”You know, my mother would kill me if she found out what I was doing.”

Mal turned his gaze over in the direction of the voice. Cassandra was reclining back on a single chair, one of her legs propped up on the table. For once, she didn’t have a pipe in hand or in her mouth.

She looked over to his direct left, where her shoes were lying on the ground. ”Don’t track mud inside of my house.”

Mal took off his shoes and set them next to her’s.

She’d chosen to take off the jacket and was instead wearing a simple white shirt and dark brown shorts. It was casual to the point of impropriety. If Mal didn’t know what they were here for, he’d be half worried that she’d been expecting something quite a bit different than him.

He stepped forward and took a seat opposite to her. He shuddered—the tile floor was cold to the touch.

Cassandra adjusted her foot atop the table. It was ornate, old. Engravings ran all along the side, each one intricate and complex. There was one section that had a group of witches around the cauldron. Another that had a witch fighting what seemed to be a wizard.

”A gift from my mother,” Cassandra said when she saw him looking at the table. ”She made most of my furniture.”

Most of the furniture was the same type as the table. Ornate, elegant. Very unlike Cassandra.

She glared at him. ”Why do I get the feeling that you just thought something I wouldn’t like?”

”Must just be your imagination.” He coughed into his hand. ”Why exactly would your mother kill you for this?”

”Witchcraft is typically passed down through the matrilineal line. Mother to daughter. Men aren’t supposed to learn it. Even when covens came around, they still only want women.” She chuckled. ”Most would make an exception for you, given your status. But mother is far too much of a traditionalist. Even for you, she wouldn’t teach you a thing.”

”Why is it only passed down among women? Where did the tradition come from?”

Cassandra shrugged. ”Probably because magic was originally practiced by the weak. In a world without magic, it was the strongest who ruled—and the strongest tended to be men. The weakest tended to be women. Eventually, a simple coincidence turned into tradition.”

”Interesting.” Mal paused. ”So would I be considered a warlock?”

”Warlock is an old-school term for a dark wizard. Completely different from a witch.”

”There are really no other terms? I’m just going to have to accept being called a witch?”

”Is it really that annoying? It’s not like you plan to publicize this.”

She had a valid point. It would be embarrassing if people knew him as a ”witch”—he was a man, dammit—But it wasn’t like that would happen.

Cassandra dropped her feet onto the floor and off the table. ”So you already know what aligned magic is. I’m sure even Igna was able to give a decent enough explanation.”

”Aligned magic is any type of magical practice that involves using any type-based mana, as opposed to unaligned mana with no type.”

”Correct, if rather boring. You were supposed to say something about how aligned magic is demonic and how only evil or dumb witches use it.”

”If I believed that, I wouldn’t be here.”

Cassandra snorted. ”You’re a rather dry one, aren’t you?”

”Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me, rather than commenting on my conversational style?”

”Yeah, yeah, I was getting there.” She shrugged. ”So, basically, Igna has the right idea, but there are massive gaps in her knowledge.”

”What kind of gaps?”

”It has to do with what you call resonance. Remember that?”

Mal adjusted the Bramblevine bracelet. ”I remember.”

”So you were about ten percent of the way there. Much farther than any wizard I’ve ever met. But even you were missing the central tenet of witchcraft. The foundation upon which all of hexing, item construction, and herbalism stand upon.”

”Can you just tell me already?”

”Impatient.” She leaned in. ”Basically, mana isn’t an energy. It isn’t a force. It’s a living, breathing creature. All of witchcraft is about learning to cooperate and speak to that creature better and better.”

At that, Mal found his enthusiasm drained out of him. ”Mana is alive? What an intriguing theory.”

”Get your head out of your ass and drop your preconceptions,” Cassandra said. ”You want to learn how to be a witch? This is the first thing you’re gonna have to accept. If you don’t, you’re not going to make any progress.”

Mal wanted to snap back, but stopped and ran through her words.

Like most early magicians, witches had their own set of ideas about how the world worked and how exactly magic was accomplished.

Scholars agree that even though most of these early mages had most things wrong, there was almost always a grain of truth—there had to be, otherwise their practice wouldn’t work.

What he had to do was find that grain of truth. And to do that, he had to honestly live inside of the witch worldview and try it on for size. He doubted he would get himself to believe that mana had an actual will. But he could at least act it out and go along with it until he figured out what the actual truth was.

”Fine. Let’s say that mana has a will. So it’s like a spirit? A giant, unconscious spirit?”

”Not quite. Spirits are sapient and capable of making contracts and thinking rationally. Mana isn’t like that. There’s some kind of vague consciousness, but it’s not the same sort of consciousness that you or I have. Part of what makes it complicated, too, is that mana that’s been in an object for a long time becomes so closely intertwined with that thing that you can’t really tell them apart, so that means I’m suggesting on some level that the rocks, and the trees, and everything you see around you that has mana has some level of consciousness.”

”Well, that’s not needlessly confusing in the slightest.”

”The practical takeaway is that you can’t force aligned mana to do your bidding. Well, you could, but then you would cease to be practicing witchcraft and you’d be doing something much closer to wizardry.”

Before Mal could say anything, Cassandra stood up and walked over to the dresser with a potted plant on it. She took the potted plant off the dresser and brought it over to the table.

”So, according to the old texts, you should be able to see what’s happening underneath the surface of this thing, right?”

Mal leaned in toward the center of the table. Underneath the surface of the leaf, he could see the glow of mana flowing in and out of the main body of the plant.

”I can. It almost looks like I’m staring at the inside of a body. You know, veins and arteries and all that.”

She gave him a funny look. ”Not sure how you know what the inside of a body looks like, but it’ll make things easier to explain and maybe get you to take this a little bit more seriously.”

Mal didn’t dispute her perception. She was right to a degree—he didn’t really care much for the philosophy, even though he understood he needed to at least try to get a handle on it.

”What would happen if I cut off this leaf?” she said. ”If I just pick it off and call it a day, I mean.”

”I saw this happen in the class. It would leak out mana.”

”In the case of magical plants, that mana isn’t just mana. There’s something of the essence of the plant that is lost when the mana escapes. This essence is the thing that gives these plants their magical properties.”

Mal thought about it for a moment, then nodded. ”That makes sense. If there wasn’t some kind of X factor, then potion making would’ve steered in the direction of just extracting aligned mana from the plants and then mixing them together to create potions whenever needed.”

”Exactly. In fact, that’s been attempted by wizards. Each time, it’s failed. The natural properties of the plant in combination with its aligned mana is something that can’t be replicated artificially.” She picked off a leaf and mana dripped into the air. ”So there are ways around this leakage problem. Some people will tie off the stem. Others will use a specialized spell to close it. All of those methods generally come at some sort of cost. There’ll be a small amount of leakage, no matter what. Or maybe pressure builds up inside the leaf. The absolute best method is to dry the leaf to stop the flow, but the drying process often ends up taking out a substantial amount of the ingredient’s essence.”

”What does this have to do with mana having a will?”

”I was just about to get to that. Watch.”

She touched her fingers to the stem of another leaf.

Mana—a type he hadn’t seen up to now—extended out from the tip of her finger onto the stem. She picked the leaf off the base. No mana streamed out from the cut. Despite that, the mana inside of the leaf continued to circulate in slow, lazy circles.

Mal’s eyes sharpened. This didn’t make any sense. And what was that type of mana he hadn’t seen before?

”How did you do that?”

Cassandra stood up and walked over to a drying rack. She clipped the leaf onto it, then turned back toward Mal.

”Simple. I just asked.”

Mal furled his eyebrows together. ”Asked who? What are you talking about?”

”The plant. I asked politely, and it decided to help me out.”

”But you didn’t say anything. That doesn’t even make sense.”

”I didn’t have to. I channeled my intent into my mana when I touched the plant. The plant sensed that intent and agreed to cooperate.”

Mal scowled and glared at Cassandra. He knew that she was taking him for a ride. This was the part where she was pretending to give him the silly answer and then she would follow it up with the correct answer.

”Can you just tell me what actually happened?” Mal said.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. She stepped back over and sat back in her chair.

”I just finished explaining how mana has a will. That’s how we started your first lesson. This is just a practical application of that.”

Mal’s jaw clenched. ”Let me try.”

”Be my guest.”

Mal reached out and pinched the stem.

The first thing Cassandra had done was extend out that strange mana from inside of herself. Mal thought for a little bit longer about what it could’ve been before he froze.

Of course. This was all resonance.

That strange mana had been the small amount of internally generated mana that every human creates. Cassandra had extended it out, resonated with the plant… And then somehow got the loop to close? He still wasn’t sure about how exactly that was happening, but it was resonance.

Of course, to a witch, it would appear as if it was nothing more than intent. Mal knew better.

He smirked. ”I think you’re about to be unpleasantly surprised, Miss Cassandra.”

”Miss? When did I give you permission to call me that? Isn’t it supposed to be professor?”

Mal froze.

For a moment, he’d thought he was back in his magical workshop, speaking with one of his generals about a new spell.

”I suppose I don’t mind it,” she said.

Mal looked over at her in surprise.

”Really, you should be calling me mistress—that’s what the apprentices are supposed to call their teachers. But I’ve never been one for tradition anyway.”

”… Right.”

Mal was pretty sure that he would sooner die than call her mistress. The thought made him want to gag inside of his mouth.

He turned his attention back to the plant.

He internally keyed his mana to the mana of the plant. The process was instant. All it took was the slightest shift and he instantly found the correct frequency.

Cassandra glanced over at his hand. ”You picked that up fast.” She hummed. ”Must be that mana hypersensitivity.”

She didn’t seem at all worried about her upcoming embarrassment. Mal laughed to himself internally.

He tugged back on the plant and —

… It was leaking mana.

Cassandra put her feet back up on top of the table and leaned back. ”What was that you were telling me? Something about me being unpleasantly surprised?”

”I’ll get it in a few tries,” Mal said. ”Of course I wouldn’t get it on the first attempt.”

”Let me know when you finally realize you’re being an idiot.”

Mal ignored her. She would eat her words soon enough.

For the next hour, Mal tried everything that he could think of. He tried adjusting his frequency. He tried squeezing the plant stem tighter. He tried pulling on it in different ways.

Nothing worked, every single one of his attempts ended in failure.

The whole time, Cassandra’s smug grin didn’t relent in the slightest.

”Fine,” Mal spat out. ”I’ll ask it. But it isn’t going to work, and you know it.”

”You seriously think that I’m lying to you just for my own amusement?” Cassandra pressed a knuckle against her chin. ”Actually, that does sound like something I’d do. But no, in this case, I’m telling you the truth.”

Mal pressed his index and thumb against the stem of the leaf.

He struggled to say the words. His teeth were gritted together and every muscle in his jaw seemed to be locked in place.

”Help. Me.”

He tore the leaf off the stem. As before, it hadn’t worked.

Mal took several deep breaths, then glared at Cassandra. ”I did what you said, and it sure didn’t work.”

Cassandra scoffed. ”If I could see that massive scowl on your face, the plant could. If someone came up to you, spitting hellfire, and demanded your help, would you help them?”

”But I asked! I did what you said!”

Cassandra muttered something under her breath about how ”this is why I hate wizards,” then pointed over at the leaf on the drying rack.

”You know what I plan to use them for?” she asked.

”Not a clue.”

”A brew for pain relief. I have migraines once a week, so I need some way to deal with them. When I was asking the plant, that’s what I told it. I needed to tell it—genuinely. It responded in turn.”

The leaf seemed to taunt Mal—which was ridiculous, given that it was a leaf—but it was hard not to get that feeling.

Is it really that simple? he thought. Surely not. Has to be some kind of catch. This is so ridiculous.

But nothing else seems to be working. I might as well give it a try.

”I’ve actually been dealing with pretty bad headaches for the past day,” Mal wanted to stop. His breath caught. He let out a sigh, then continued. ”From what I understand, this leaf can be used for pain relief. Please, let me borrow some.”

Mal picked the leaf off the plant.