"Hey, kids, my name is Remilia, I'm the professor for Incantations and Magic Circles. You can address me as 'Professor' or 'Professor Remilia'. This is your second to last class of the day, so if you managed to screw it up and still be in the wrong class, please hurry along so we can all get started."
Professor Remilia was a rather fun-sized teacher. That wasn't to say that she was younger than expected, or that she was small in any other aspect. She was simply below the average height by a larger margin than one would expect. To put it kindly, even amongst the students, she was among the shorter ones.
However, to compensate for this, she was able to use some sort of flight magic to hold herself high enough to write on the whiteboard. Not to mention that the way she spoke, flew, and held herself gave off a strong enough presence that not a single student laughed or mocked her high pitched voice.
Professor Remilia then started to draw on the board, her short arms flailing about. She constantly had to readjust her position through her flight magic to complete the diagram she was drawing.
She had drawn a large circle on the board, with some words in the middle that read:
[O fyre that burns thy land, grow and sear thy enemy, Fireball]
[O water that drowns thee, freeze and pierce thy enemy, Ice Spear]
[O light that cleanses life, liberate and soothe thy soul, Greater Heal]
"Very well then, turn to page five of your textbooks, and let's begin." Professor Remilia started.
Over the course of the lesson, the one thing that stuck out to Alphonse the most was how well structured this class was. The class lecture was very similar to the type of lectures he would attend while in university, where the professor would lecture for a while before pausing to answer questions.
Although the amount of information was dense, he was able to understand a lot of it due to the practice he had with Eve the previous night. Essentially he was correct. Despite the discrepancies in terminology, it appeared that human magic was far simpler than he expected.
From what he could tell, as long as he used terminology that he understood, he would be able to construct a mana circle that would activate according to his intent. In fact, it appeared that his version was more detailed than the standard incantations.
"Incantations, however, are short and to the point. Most of the time, they are used as a method to study a spell at the base level." Professor Remilia explained, "Take this fireball spell as an example, although it achieves its goal of creating a fireball, it doesn't specify when the fireball should be fired off. It doesn't specify how much mana to use, or how hot the fireball should be. Everything at that point would be determined by how you, the mage, would picture this spell in your mind."
'That's similar to the mental image that Eve talked about…' Alphonse recalled.
"However, all of the variables can be filled in by…" Professor Remilia began to aggressively draw out a massive circle around the most recent incantation she had written down, "A magic circle."
"Within a magic circle, you can define many different variables that a simple incantation could not. Through creative use, you can turn an offensive spell, like the Ice Spear spell, into a defensive spell by having it intercept an enemy spell. You can turn a Fireball spell into a trap."
"And most importantly..." Professor Remilia emphasized her words dramatically.
"By combining a Magic Circle with an Item powered by a mana core, you can create the Mage's signature weapons!" she whipped out a square-looking hard-cover book, "This here is my own very personal grimoire. Within this grimoire, I have stored many spells that I have personally modified with variables that I believe are important."
"In this class, you will be spending the majority of your time not learning incantations or magic circles, but what variables are important to your own style as a mage. Specifically, the relationship between a mage and their types of magic circles and incantations."
Professor Remilia grinned maniacally, "You all better be ready, for your first assignment, you must modify one incantation in your textbook's glossary of incantations into a magic circle. This will be due tomorrow, and yes, even if you get something wrong, you WILL be marked down for it!"
In contrast to his classmates, who were mostly panicking at their homework, Alphonse was extremely excited to see that his experiments the previous night and this morning had paid off. He was almost certain that the mana cores that he had created this morning and turned into mini-weapons had not been created in vain.
In fact, Alphonse was so excited to try out his inventions, he found himself shaking in anticipation of the next class: Intro to Combat Magic.
---
'How should I humiliate that peasant…' Lars thought to himself while sitting in Arithmetic.
He and Otto had spoken about how to handle the situation in the Arithmetic class prior. They had come to the agreement that Lars would use the Mana Core stored in the locket that Otto had given him to cast a spell that Lars would inscribe on the locket prior to the duel.
At this moment, he did not care to pay attention in class. He was too busy fantasizing about putting an incredible magic circle on the locket, and ultimately smiting that peasant and humiliating him.
Anyways, how important could Arithmetic possibly be? He was the elder brother, and would most likely inherit his father's position as the head of the Halstien Household. When he got to that point, he could simply order some servants to take care of whatever calculating would need to be calculated.
For Lars, constructing the magic circle was definitely a better use of time.
'Should I use fire magic? Earlier, while I was in the Elemental Magic class, it showed that I have high compatibility for fire, but Otto had almost no compatibility for it. Since I'm using his mana core, shouldn't I be using something we're both compatible with? We're both compatible with Earth magic and Water magic…'
While Professor Ashe, the professor of Arithmetic, was busily explaining how to calculate single and double-digit addition, Lars continued to smolder in his ideas.
*DING-DONG* *DING-DONG* *DING-DONG*
"Ara, would ya look at that!" Professor Ashe remarked, "It's already time to move on to your next class! Remember, your Homework for tonight is on page thirty-three, problems one to fifty!"
Finally! It was time for the Intro to Combat Magic class.
It was finally time to put that peasant back in the grave from which he crawled out from.
Although he did not tell his brother or the headmaster, right before being forced to leave after the headmaster had caught them in the act of brutalizing the boy, Lars had tried to find Alphonse's pulse and had confirmed that it was slowing down rapidly.
If anything, Alphonse should have been dead by now. Lars was rather happy about that, as dead men told no tales. His father could definitely get him out of any troubles he got into, but if it was revealed that he had been harassing the daughter of the Kassadin family, then he would get into deep trouble for sure.
Thankfully, it seemed like the daughter of the Kassadin family didn't quite care for their trifle matters, so Lars didn't seem to have to worry about any rumors spreading.
That was the case until he saw Alphonse sitting perfectly fine in the Mana Theory class. How did that boy survive? Surely it was due to being treated at the infirmary, but who carried him there? Who would help out a peasant?
But what infuriated him more was when that scum even tried to insinuate that he would need help in developing a mana core! What a slap to his face!
Thankfully, he now had a chance at redeeming his honor. In this next duel, he would set things straight. He would knock his opponent off their feet using Earth Magic's Boulder Toss, and finish him off with the use of Water Magic's Ice spear, straight through that scum's heart.
Finally, he had a chance at redemption.