Chapter 135: Chapter 135

The lesson then quite literally became nothing but chores. The students were instructed to disperse themselves around the room and clean to the best of their abilities. The only rule was that they had to do it with magic, and the only exception Melina allowed would be to physically move buckets to better positions around the room.

At first, every student wanted to do nothing but use telekinesis, as it was brand new and exciting. While they had started off energetic, casting the spell and grabbing brooms of rags with their unseen "Mana hands" quite rapidly, they had realized that it would not be an easy task.

Their proficiency with the spell was terrible, so a lot of Mana would be wasted. They also lacked the instinctual judgment to know when to force the spell to operate or to swap to a fresh one based on the new weight.

When the students finally realized that they were burning through all their Mana at a rapid pace and would be left with nothing but dregs, they reluctantly swapped to using the simple elemental spells Melina had first provided.

Meanwhile, Professor Melina paced around the room and offered each student tidbits of advice at opportune moments, trying to make sure she gave everyone a subtle push in the right direction.

When it was Lily's turn to receive Melina's gentle guidance, she couldn't help but notice the woman hovering around her.

Is she struggling to think how to offer me any help, or is she observing the oddity of a Lagia spellcaster? Lily wondered to herself.

Lily began cleaning the stained interior of the cauldron, and that was when the professor finally approached her. She watched as Lily first made tiny flames to heat up the interior before using swirling waters to try to remove the gunk.

"I see you've had some experience using magic for chores, or at least cleaning cauldrons," the professor commented. "Although I fear your output is too low to truly get rid of these stubborn stains."

"I worked as an apprentice apothecary," Lily answered honestly. "As for my output… I normally use glyphs to get around that."

"Glyphs, you say?" Melina answered with surprise. "I guess that explains why you went out of your way to get into a second-year class. I can actually understand where you are coming from. I used to solely use glyphs to get around my lack of control in the beginning."

"It's the opposite for me," Lily replied. "Glyphs let me exert more than I otherwise could."

Professor Melina paused and seemed to be examining Lily thoroughly. Arakil even gave Lily a word of caution that Melina was using some form of Magesight, although Lily couldn't detect even a sliver of it without activating her own.

"Odd, I'd put your Mana levels above average when compared to your peers. But when you cast, it's like using a straw to fill a cup. Is it purely a lack of affinity? Do you have a bloodline?"

"My bloodline is star magic," Lily answered, still cringing a little at the bad name.

The professor nodded. "I guess it's better than the alternative of not having the capability at all. Although you were absolutely right, it's almost the exact opposite of my childhood predicament. While I had to learn to limit my overwhelming Mana, you need to learn how to maximize the efficiency."

Lily frowned, unable to hide her disappointment. She was hoping the teacher would tell her to use glyphs or focus on telekinesis instead.

"It's not like I can make my straw any bigger, and there are limits to the room for improvement."

To Lily's surprise, Melina nodded in agreement. "I'm not expecting you to refine a spell that much; that would be like me asking you to force a mountain through a keyhole. But there's certainly nothing stopping you from adding additional straws."

Lily opened her mouth to say something, but the words didn't come. When she realized the truth in the professor's words, she slowly closed it.

It sounds like a good idea. I could also just cheat, since I'm not actually incapable—

[You should give her idea a chance. It would also give you some practice to eventually start using multiple telekinesis spells at once.]

Unfortunately, Arakil's agreement sealed the deal. Lily wouldn't go against him as she owed everything she had to him, and he always seemed to know what was best.

"As for using glyphs for chores, it's a brilliant idea, and I'd be delighted to see what you've accomplished while sharing some of my own. But for now, I'd like you to stick to the lesson like the rest of the class," Melina said with a smile.

Lily nodded, realizing that she shouldn't expect special treatment and feeling a little embarrassed by her previous actions. Using the advice given, she began attempting to cast multiple instances of the flame spell to get the amount of heat she required.

As Miss Camilla taught me, cauldrons can take a ton of punishment. I need to vaporize the remains before washing them away.

The flame spell that Melina had given them was meant for lighting candles, kindling, or even warming up food. If you reduced it and spread it out even further, you could use it to safely warm up people or a room.

However, by combining enough small flames, you could create a blaze, and this was what Lily wanted. The spell was straightforward, and since Lily had already learned its larger version from Instructor Richardus, it didn't take her long to spawn the first flame, then the second, and then the third. This continued until a small sea of fire formed inside the cauldron, which was enough to finally start burning away the stubborn residue.

When Lily judged she had burnt enough away, she cancelled the spells and then began casting the water washing spell. She spawned one small orb of water, which started to make circular patterns against the inside of the cauldron, then a second soon joined it before a third came into being.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Lily tried to conjure a fourth, but the added complexity of needing to move the spells was too much for her. She could have probably combined them into one giant water blob, which would have reduced the focus on movement required, but she was making enough progress revealing what was under the grime.

"Well done. You've clearly had experience with the original versions of these spells, but that doesn't diminish your fast learning and the difficulty of maintaining multiple spells at once," Melina said with a bright smile.

Melina then proceeded to remove the filthy water from the cauldron, saving Lily a significant amount of trouble with her current limitations. Lily would have liked to give it another cleaning, but the professor wanted her to move on to another task.

"I suggest you do the same with the earth spell in a corner of the room before moving on to trying out the telekinesis spell."

"Thank you," Lily said with a short bow.

"You're welcome, my dear, now let me go see how the others are doing."

The rest of the lesson continued in a similar manner, although that was the last time Lily spoke with Professor Melina directly. The other kids needed a lot more of her guidance, and Lily had already benefited greatly from the "multiple straws" approach.

After cleaning the floor, she began trying out using telekinesis on a feather duster to remove cobwebs from hard-to-reach spaces. While Lily wasn't exactly proficient in it, her consistent regeneration of Mana and above-average supply meant she had a lot more staying power, drawing some praise and ire from her fellow students.

A few of them had copied her cauldron cleaning method, but they didn't need to create multiple flames to heat it up to her level, so they finished the job quicker than she did. This resulted in some boasting until another annoyed student pointed out that they'd stolen the technique, as nobody would have thought to use fire to clean until Lily had done so.

Even though the truth was revealed and the gloating stopped, Lily still felt a tinge of annoyance about it. It had managed to get under her skin, and part of her wished she could use glyphs or even secretly cheat by removing her self-inflicted restriction.

Lily eventually calmed down by focusing even harder on her magic and spent the rest of the lesson focusing solely on telekinesis. When Professor Melina finally called an end to the class, Lily had already managed to cast it with around a thirty percent success rate without any repeated chanting, of course.

"I hope you all enjoyed the lessons. I encourage you to keep practicing these spells in your free time, perhaps give your own room a good cleaning," Melina said with a wink.

The class nodded, each holding their booklet tightly. A few asked again if they were allowed to share these spells with their friends, getting enthusiastic encouragement to do so from the professor.

I wonder if Rose or Lotte is interested in learning chore magic?

At dinner, Lily met up with her friends and shared her excitement over her new class and its overall goal. Lotte seemed intrigued by it while Hana looked slightly put off by the idea.

"Using magic like that feels… dirty?" Hana eventually replied. "Like I'm not one of those 'magic is for the nobles' people, but I do think there's some heavy responsibility behind it. What do you think, Lotte?"

"My bloodline corrupts most spells, so I'd probably only be able to do the lifting thing," Lotte replied. "Which does sound pretty convenient, even if it's just to reach high places."

Hana sighed. "I'll admit that one does sound useful. Although you wouldn't catch me using it to animate a broom."

Lily shrugged. If her friends weren't interested, then she wouldn't bother. She had hoped to share it and make their lives more convenient and perhaps pick up some tricks along the way, as teaching sometimes had its own rewards. But if they didn't care, it would just give her more time to focus on herself.

After dinner, Hana left the group, leaving just Lily and Lotte heading back to her room. To her surprise, outside of it was Rose, who had apparently randomly decided to finally show up.

"Lily!" Rose cried out, rushing up to her and lifting the bunny up in another tight squeeze. Thankfully, it never escalated to her needing to forcibly separate them.

"Nice to see you again," Lotte said with a wave.

"Heya," Rose replied cheerfully. "I hope you two have been surviving. The first few weeks are both rough and extremely boring!"

After entering Lily's room, the two shared their experiences and opinions. Rose seemed to be listening quite happily until Lily explained her most recent lesson, which made her big sister put on a rather sour expression.

"So you met the fake dragon," Rose said in an almost snarl.

"Don't call her that!" Lily instantly replied. "Professor Melina was such a sweet woman. How can you possibly hate her?"

"I don't hate her," Rose admitted. "I just… find her a little pathetic."

"Really? Because she seemed quite powerful to me. I've never seen so many spells in action at once."

Unfortunately, that seemed to only further dampen Rose's mood. "Exactly! She should be powerful, but instead she wants to chain herself up." Rose shook her head. "I can't understand it at all. I was recommended to see her when I first arrived, as they thought I might have some control issues with my magic. The experience was awful."

"Could she not help you?" Lotte asked.

"I didn't need any help in the first place. We have totally different ways of thinking. Like I said, she thinks you need to chain yourself down, where any true Dragia knows that you need to let yourself go and dominate your magic entirely!"

[While your rambunctious sister is technically correct, I surmise that Professor Melina lacks enough draconic heritage to go that route. Limiting and controlling herself was likely the only option she had available. Which, as she and I mentioned, had other benefits.]

"I know nothing about Dragia, so I have no clue," Lotte replied with a shrug.

"I think she doesn't have a potent enough bloodline to do that," Lily replied cautiously.

"Exactly. Hence, she's weak and also a fake dragon!" Rose replied stubbornly.

Lily tried explaining the benefits of efficiency or precision, but Rose wasn't having it and declared that she didn't need any of that junk. This went far beyond her usual obstinacy, and Lily had to eventually give up trying to persuade her.

Instead, Lily demonstrated the telekinesis spell, hoping it would maybe catch Rose's eye while also explaining it to Lotte. Rose seemed a little interested but was reluctant to accept a spell from "that woman".

Lotte, on the other hand, was excited by it, and Lotte began slowly going through the spell with her. She managed to cast it through repeated chanting and tried lifting up a small cup. Content orıginally comes from Nove1Fire.net

"I did it!" Lotte exclaimed happily.

Lily wanted to celebrate with her friend, but something caught her attention. "What's that noise?"

Rose sniffed and pointed at the floating cup.

Lotte slowly brought the cup to them, where a distinct caustic sizzling noise could be heard.

"Are you telling me even this spell is corrupted!" Lotte cried out in defeat and ended the spell, leaving the empty cup to fall to the floor.

Lily tried to comfort her friend, gently rubbing her shoulder.

"My Mana really is cursed…" Lotte muttered. "I hate this stupid bloodline."

Lily wasn't sure what to say to help, and when she turned to Arakil, he didn't have any solutions and merely cited that her affinity was so strong that it influenced something that was meant to be effectively pure Mana.

[I dare say her bloodline is even stronger than Roses. Can you convince her to try the spell?]

It took a while, but eventually Rose gave in and attempted to cast the spell. Against all odds, Rose cast it correctly on the first try, and when the cup lifted, it didn't suddenly burst into flames like they might have assumed.

Lily was slightly despondent after seeing Rose do it so easily when she didn't even want to, while Lotte shared similar feelings. The cup was a little warm to the touch, but otherwise completely unharmed, ignoring the minor acid touch it had received a few moments ago.

Both Rose and Lotte left shortly after that, leaving Lily alone with Arakil while feeling quite conflicted.

I guess no good deed goes unpunished… Lily thought somberly to herself.