The Good Teacher



Shoutout to Bruh_Vista and Harjas_Sidhu for beta-reading and providing extensive feedback for this chapter!

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For a product to cast modular spells, the program was also highly modular. This meant that unlike a regular program, in which the process could not be halted once the inscription was initialised, there was some breathing room once a module was finalised. Of course, this theory warranted testing. Nonetheless, Shuri was on the case and verified it with a sample inscription during the planning stage.

The idea of modularising wasn't something that had been explored in the field of Automagy. Sure, there was the concept of distributed systems where one programmed core interfaced and interplayed with another program core. But within the same core, the program was whole. Shuri was on edge the whole time as she tested the feasibility of modularising the programs since the success of the entire project hinged on it being possible.

The reason for this dependence was that her design required the modules in the core to connect and complete through external connections.

Shuri centred her mind and proceeded to draw the first of the many modules that would be squashed inside the less-than-palm-sized mana core. After designing and redrawing the program through multiple iterations, Shuri could confidently say that she could print the thing with her eyes closed, not that she would decide to act on that arrogant thought. So, inevitably, the first set of stable modules was finished within the hour.

Shuri loosened her muscles, taking a moment to relax, before picking up one of the wooden pieces on the table and assembling the first octant of the wand. Then, while holding it in place, she started to draw the next set of modules that would bridge the gap from the first set through this wooden piece. This process was slower, as she had to be methodical in her approach. Therefore, within an hour and a half, the module was complete and Shuri could fasten the wooden piece against the wooden frame that was affixed to the core.

This process continued for a very long time. There were, in total, 8 pieces that needed to be assembled on top of the mana core. Each new addition added additional layers of interdependency in the modules which expanded the programming time substantially.

As time passed, Shuri grew more and more agitated as her vision of the product started to grow clearer. This was what her core was urging her to create! This would be her masterpiece... or one of them. The ethereal tapestry that was projected around her started to fill up with a magnificent design, one whose intricacy and beauty only she could appreciate.

At the tenth hour since she placed the inscription ink on the core, the once empty, ethereal tapestry was plastered with lines, gates and spell circles. As for the core itself, it was no longer a naked sphere with a wooden frame housing it. On its place was a spherical construct that resembled a two-by-two Rubik's cube. Its sides weren't coloured but had raised Braille letterings.

Shuri scanned the program, which was an amalgamation of various modules, one last time and released a satisfied smile. She then moved her palm over the gem at the side of the stand and allowed a pulse of mana to flow through it.

In doing so, the projection shook and started to compress into the core. Then, Shuri waited. She waited while the core analysed her input and chose whether to accept it or not. Shuri wasn't certain if it would succeed - she'd never shoved so many modular programs into a core before (maybe two or three at most, but here there were over fourteen modules).

The evaluation took much longer than expected - most likely because the stability of the program was being put to a rigorous battery of tests. But after a gruelling thirty-minute wait, the pulsing core stabilised itself.

The success was met with a silent celebration as Shuri wriggled in place, pumping her fists all around and revealing a euphoric expression. The expression warped even more as she started to feel her core pulsing out mana in earnest - she was going through a minor breakthrough.

Shuri did not let herself get lost in the ecstasy like the last time and proceeded to guide her mana as her core willed it.

In some ways, mana behaves like electricity, in that it takes the path of the least resistance when given the opportunity. As a mage advances and grows, their mana channels change and orient themselves differently. In doing so, the most optimal mana pathways in the body also change. Knowing the optimal pathways is important because it ensures that the mana the mage uses from its core arrives where it is needed quickly. In the grand scheme of things, what should matter is that mana gets from point A to point B. However in a combat scenario where two mages are caught casting the same spell at the same time, the minor time difference in getting mana from point A to B through pipeline C (which offers less resistance) over D can make heck of a lot of difference in the survival chances of the caster.

Finding out all the paths of the least resistance in one's body is a chore and requires a lot of time to do manually. Luckily, when one advances, their core does the job for them by moving their mana through all the least resistive channels automatically - one just needs to centre themselves and take note of how the mana is moved. Advancement may not reveal ALL the optimal routes, but definitely highlights a good handful.

Shuri's minor advancement was, as the name indicated, short-lived. Following this, Shuri stood up giddily and picked up the device still positioned on the stand. She held it in her palm and rotated it while inspecting its appearance. With both her hands, she proceeded to apply pressure in the orthogonal and transverse directions (along a vector that did not induce a turn of the layers), to test the robustness of the product. There was some jiggling, but that was within her margin of error. To ensure that there weren't any minor faults during construction, she pushed her mana sense through the apparatus and inspected it thoroughly.

With a satisfied smile, Shuri pocketed the apparatus and walked out of her room at a brisk pace, her destination: the spell casting grounds.

As it was past sunset, and close to dinner time (which Shuri did not want to miss) the field was empty. She positioned herself at the centre and faced one of the target dummies on the other end.

She brought out a dark strap of cloth from her jacket pocket and tied it around her eyes, essentially blinding her. She then held her creation in her right hand and pointed it in the general direction of the dummy. Her fingers twisted and turned the device with maddening efficiency. As she did this, the device started to project spell circle modules in front of it, that began to connect and disconnect until a simple spell circle formed in place. During this entire process, the ball would release a series of almost inaudible sounds like thumps, thwumps, thomps, shooms, shwumps, chings, twangs, bongs, and many more. Some would repeat when the combination of movements she performed was similar. With the last piece in position and the spell circle completed, a faint and pleasant cling echoed from the core and the projection started to rotate as mana was drawn from her core and fuelled into the spell.

From the centre of the spell circle, a marble-sized |Fireball| took shape and jetted out towards the dummy. A small snap resonated across the field, which Shuri took as a sign that her spell had succeeded. Just as she moved the cloth from over her eyes and stopped supplying mana, the ball in the palm of her hands started to reorient its layers until it returned to the way it was in the beginning.

"I'd say that's a success," Shuri declared. "I guess a few more tests are in order."

Shuri didn't dawdle and started to operate her product with flurrying movements. She wanted to see how it performed with more complex spells, erroneous spells, and even spell combinations that were technically possible but not accounted for in her design. She also wanted to see if there was a time limit to the core's functionality.

She found that, as planned, erroneous spell formations were rejected with an audible buzzer sound which would then reorient the device back to its initial configuration.

Complex spells had a limit - that is there were only a certain amount of modules you could call in succession before the core would once again release an audible buzzer noise and reorient itself back to start.

Unaccounted-for spell combinations weren't rejected, but there weren't any audible cues that signalled success when such a spell was formed. Shuri decided that she would try to account for these in the next iteration of the design.

Finally, after an entire hour of testing, she found that the core hadn't overheated or shut down, which meant that there was a minimum of an hour's worth of uninterrupted operation available with this core. Of course, she should test for longer but in doing so she would have to face Matron Reva's wrath for missing another meal.

Finally, Shuri also tested the effectiveness of the device in stimulating the movement of mana through one's mana channels. In doing so, she noted something peculiar. Once the mana core succeeded in creating a spell circle, it would inject a short pulse of mana into the caster, which was then reflected by an outflow of mana from their core through their mana channels. It was like the device was informing the caster's core about what was being cast!

This was a new discovery that warranted further study. BUT, all of that could wait since the most important part of the design process was still remaining.

Getting the product into the user's hands and receiving their feedback.

BUT that could wait for tomorrow... after dinner.