Now that he stood there and observed the things that he had learned during lectures and demonstrations, he was at a loss. Suddenly, he was supposed to 'figure things out,' to conjure this magic and alter the physical realm around him so that he could truly see what he was capable of.
But there was one example that he remembered vividly. It was the first time Kanrel had seen magic being used. Not even his mother had shown him its wonders. It had been done by a priest during his second year of learning about magical phenomena.
"Bringing forth things that aren't there takes a lot more effort than, let's say, pushing an object," she had said.
So, within the hall, Kanrel found an object. An unsuspecting chair, just minding its own business. He picked it up and carried it to the middle of his half of the hall and sat on it. He took a comfortable sitting position and thought for a while.
"You must first imagine the object. Its dimensions and features."
It was just a chair, this time. Wooden and solid. It had four legs and a flat seat. It was worn, but definitely not fragile. It didn't weigh that much. It had been easy to pick up and simply carry. Perhaps the only remarkable thing about it was the fact that it could burn.
"You must observe where it is. Is it stuck to the ground, and if so, how firmly?"
Kanrel stood up and took a few steps away from the chair. He went around it a couple of times, again, noting what it was, what it was made out of, and now, where it was. He knew that magic wouldn't work without sight. If he had no perception of a thing, then it might as well not exist; thus, he would not be able to do anything to it.
"And then, you may decide what you can do with it. In this case, making it hover or lifting it from the ground." Then, she had simply made the small stone hover right in front of everyone. During the next class, she explained how she had done it: Coding.
And all the things that Kanrel had made note of regarding the chair were part of that. It was necessary information to form a code. Next would come the 'commands,' or the parts of the code that would alter the physical realm.
Just like the priest had back then explained, Kanrel imagined a set of hands that would lift the unassuming object from the ground. Why not? It was something that was easy to imagine.
He relaxed and imagined, not himself, but just a pair of floating hands, first grabbing the chair, then lifting it; all the while keeping in mind what the chair entailed as a thing.
A sudden itch crawled through his body, and then he shivered as the chair jumped an inch from the floor and then fell back down. A wave of disgust went through, his stomach turned, and he found himself vomiting on the floor before him.
He breathed rapidly and took a step backward, then his vomit burst into flames. He stared at the fires.
He spat into the flames. The taste would linger.
"That is the usual reaction for a first-timer," Oidus spoke. Her tone was flat. Then, she added, "Some vomit blood, some faint, and some even die—though that is quite rare." So nonchalant was the mention of death that Kanrel barely registered it as such.
"I assume this doesn't happen every time?"
"Well, we all get used to it, so I advise you to keep at it; then you'll puke less than the others during your first practical classes." She didn't offer any more 'consolations' or advice.
With a long sigh, mostly out of habit, Kanrel looked at the chair intently. This would be a long day of vomit, failure, more vomit, and even more failure.
The next few hours were just that. He kept trying his best to lift the chair with his invisible arms, and after almost every try, he would vomit, and the times he didn't, he would instead feel like shit. He was constantly disgusted with himself and the things he was doing; this practice of magic was so unnatural and vile to him. It felt so wrong, yet he kept at it.
Kanrel paced around the chair, stopped, observed it while keeping in mind what it was made of; what it was. His brows quivered as he imagined the hands again, lifting the chair.
Disgust surged within him again, but he tried to focus, to ignore the sensation.
The chair rose, only a foot, but then began to tilt. He managed to turn his head before vomit erupted from within. By this point, it was pretty much just liquid. He didn't feel as bad, though his throat felt like it had been ripped apart.
Just moments later, what he hadn't managed to keep inside burst into flames, again.
He looked at the floor under him and around the chair. There was ash everywhere. Each spot served as a reminder of a reaction he couldn't control, and of things much more disgusting to him, such as failure.
Kanrel glanced at Oidus; she had already returned to her work, which seemed to have been, for about an hour, reading, writing, and revising notes. She had made no comments about Kanrel's multiple failures, nor had she complained about the fact that he had kept puking. Instead, she just burned it away, without saying a thing.
The whole ordeal didn't seem to bother her.
A few days ago, Kanrel would have thought that she did it out of the kindness of her heart, but that was unlikely, as she most likely did it so that she wouldn't have to do it later.
He sighed and tried again, but to no avail as another hour passed him by. He had already managed to develop a rhythm to his attempts: Coding, puking, watching the flames, resting for a few minutes, then trying again.
It wasn't the smartest approach. But he had decided that he'd try until one of three things would happen: He'd manage to make it float for more than just a second, or Oidus would tell him to stop, or until collapse.
After each attempt, collapse had become the most likely outcome.
Kanrel sat on the floor, staring at the chair. It taunted him with its existence by refusing to stay up for long enough to satisfy his foolish decision.
Why did it refuse him? He did not know. He couldn't blame the chair; there had to be something wrong with his methods, or simply with himself.
Everything about this was teetering on the side of being a waste of time; something useless that he had done. But even with such a thought taking root in his mind, he got up from the floor, dusted his robes from the extra ash.
He let out a deep sigh and tried again. By now, he barely needed to think of the object's properties or features, or whatever. They were so ingrained in his mind that they were automatically mixed with the image of the two magical hands lifting the chair.
He did not rush this time. He imagined it slowly, as clearly as he could, to the point that he made sure that the imagined hands gripped the chair as tightly as they could. Then, the motion. How the chair would lift, gracefully, as if he were doing it himself.
The chair rose. A whole foot. And it stayed there. Motionless for seconds.
He could feel it in every inch of his existence. How it crawled within him, how it instilled itself not only into his bones, but also into his very being. Five seconds went by, and he could no longer fight it. His stomach churned, the chair fell with a loud clack that echoed in the hall... but he did not vomit.
He stood there for a while. Something was supposed to happen. There was something he was supposed to feel. Instead of victory, he had been defeated. Instead of joy, there was just despair.
There was no success. There was just failure. He could only 'appreciate' the failures and the disgust.
He glanced at Oidus again, who had finished another test of hers. She furiously wrote in her journal, not lifting her gaze, not noticing his success. Had she even heard the chair fall?
It was just silent for a while; the only thing that Kanrel could hear was the sounds of writing, and soon, the sound of his stomach bellowing. It hurt. His whole body did.
Just how many hours had passed?
He was tired. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He needed sleep. Kanrel stumbled into movement and walked by Oidus. He thanked her as he went by, but the priest didn't react. Or perhaps she had noticed but saw no reason to comment on something that should be routine. He navigated through the corridors and stepped out of the Laboratory for the Study of Magical Energy for now.
He was soon met by the courtyard in the middle of the campus; it must have been later afternoon by now, as the sun still pressed on him—or was that just because of his condition?—and the other students making their way wherever they needed to next be.
Kanrel stepped toward the eastern side, where the school cafeteria and a great collection of restaurants, shops, and libraries awaited. And he wasn't the only one who had skipped lunch to have it later than usual.
Near the school cafeteria, Kanrel hesitated a moment. He stared at the building ahead. It was grand and followed a similar architectural style to the rest of the academy. Students flooded in, passing by him, not caring that he had stopped, blocking some of the way into the building. After a while, Kanrel stepped in. There was no reason not to eat, nor was there any reason to seek out a restaurant and pay for 'better' food, when whatever the cafeteria could offer would be good enough.
On the first floor, there were stairs that led to many restaurants offering a wide variety of food and drink selections. To the left of him was a large library from which he had borrowed books many times before. He would visit it later, just not yet. Instead, he turned to the right of him, where the cafeteria awaited.
The cafeteria was packed with students and faculty members alike, all carrying trays with whatever food was served today. He went in line and waited for his turn. Soon enough, he had himself a tray, on it a bowl filled with beef soup, a piece of bread with a knob of butter on it, two glasses of water—he couldn't remember when he had last been this parched—as well as cutlery.
He found himself a spot in the middle of the cafeteria filled with unfamiliar faces; without caring who they were, or whether they even would have wanted to share the table with him, he sat down. The people didn't matter, not this very moment, for what he had before him was his favorite food. It was the only thing his mother really knew how to cook when Kanrel was still a kid. Of course, she never had much time to make it for him, and more often than not, he'd instead eat whatever Dal, a servant woman, would make them.
Kanrel took his spoon and gracefully dipped it into the soup, then he ate. As the food touched his mouth, he was expecting that familiar feeling that he had had before. He was waiting for a taste that would bring him warmth and a feeling of joy from eating good, warm food; a flood of memories from when he had first had it.
He chewed the food and sat in silence. Sure, there was warmth, but that was just because it was soup, and it was supposed to be warm; it was just a sensation brought by warm food. But there wasn't any other feeling. Sure, there was a taste to the food, and he did recognize the things that he had liked about the soup before; they were there still. But he did not enjoy it.
It tasted the same, but his feelings toward it had changed. He could have eaten ash for all he cared, and he would have had the same reaction to it.
It was food, and it didn't matter; he ate it just because humans need it for sustenance.
He gritted his teeth. It was disappointing. It was unfair. It was like a memory he had once cherished had been forcefully removed from him. He had hoped that at least this he could enjoy; at least this he could wait for. That, at least, he could still have, as this one thing that could make it all worth it.
He looked at the bowl and bitterly went for another spoonful; that too was just ash for him; it was all ash, each spoonful. He emptied the bowl, leaving it nearly clean. At least it had done its job; he no longer felt hungry, but he did feel regretful.
Through all this, he felt eyes on him, and he knew that the other students at his table observed him and his reactions. Perhaps they were wondering if a priest would be able to enjoy food; perhaps they knew that he wouldn't enjoy it. Perhaps they knew pity; perhaps not.
Kanrel ate his food, returned the tray, and left the cafeteria behind. He made his way into the library just across.
He knew this library like the back of his own hand. Many times, he had placed his hand on the spines of the books and walked forth, feeling the sensation of changing books against his fingers; the etched letters, the different textures of leather. He had loved this place.
But now, he didn't even have the urge to partake in this strange ritual, which he had partaken in many times before. Instead, he just walked past the shelves of books he didn't need and found what he was looking for. A section, where most, if not all, of the literature about magic in this specific library was located, for all to see and to read, even if you weren't a novice priest.
He had figured that there was nothing better for him to do, so he might as well try to figure out how to conjure magic more fluently and more efficiently. He was sure that there were many ways he could improve the way he did things and even the way he thought of things.
After a while, Kanrel left the library with six books with him; all of them had different views on how to do magic in practice and even in theory; it would be left to him to decide which suited him better. It might be that none of them would be of any use, as all priests had their own way of seeing and imagining magic.
For Kanrel, it might have been the pair of arms; for another, it might be that the chair grew wings, and that is what made it float. He figured that there must have been an endless number of possibilities for how it all could work, and that there was no 'correct' way of imagining magic.
So it all would, in the end, come down to information about the physical world and the limitations of magical energy, and then putting all that information about an object and a desired reaction into a code that would bring forth the desired outcome.
Ewen Oidus had suggested that 'putting theory into practice' would make things 'much clearer for him,' but it was now obvious that it had only made him first vomit and then obsess with not vomiting again. Therefore, he had to find a way of doing things that was less disgusting than the one he had used, or just get used to it.
So Kanrel shut himself in his own room and did what he does best: study.