Time passed. She brought him into her house and began the lesson at once.
Putting a book down in front of him, she said, "The foundation of magic is Moronius. We won permission from your parents and from the Lord only with great difficulty, so give it everything you have."
"I'm ready for anything," he said confidently, and began to study.
Time passed. The percentage of Moronius he had studied grew, and so did the stack of books he had read. And when at last he had completely mastered it, he gained the ability to use the official magical language of the arch mages perfectly.
It took him seven years.
Alletus closed the book and said with a smile that the theoretical part was over. Now they could move on to the next step. Ian had learned the magical language; now it was time to practise.
For this they went up into the mountains, and Alletus immediately launched her student high into the sky.
Falling back through the air, he screamed in fear.
"Teacher! Aren't you rushing this?" In the last seven years he had learned nothing but Moronius. What was he supposed to do now?
"Listen to the voices!" she shouted back at him.
He did not understand what voices she was talking about, least of all in the middle of the sky. All he could hear was the wind.
But as soon as he heard the voices, he understood her.
A man is flying, they were saying. Is he the same as us?
A stream of wind caught him and held him up, helping him stay in the air.
Is this Moronius? he thought.
The system notified him of a new skill: the art of air. He could now control wind magic.
When he came back down to his teacher, she told him about the mysteries of nature, though she kept laughing at his ridiculous appearance after that flight. Mages draw their power from the mysteries of nature by communicating with them. That is what magic really is.
Now he could hear the voice of the wind. It was time to listen to the next riddle.
"I'm ready," he said, with a confident smile.
"First — the art of water!" she exclaimed.
To study this, he climbed into the water. The voices were unhappy with his presence, since he was stirring up trouble down here.
Next, the art of cold. He went up to the peaks of a snowy mountain and waited for the voices to finally answer him. He was simply shocked by her teaching methods, but Alletus praised him constantly. He was learning at an incredible speed.
So next they had fire. A wall of flame erupted in front of him, and he called out for his teacher in fear, and the voices of the fire said, Who is this? Is this a person? Maybe we should burn him.
Hearing that, Ian was very scared.
He successfully learned fire magic and went on to conquer the caves. The last thing left to him was the art of earth.
So, regarding what flows, said the voices, you cannot call something fluid that is devoid of movement.
He did not understand anything at all, and thought that perhaps he simply had no talent for the art of earth. He decided to focus on his other training for now.
A skill window opened in front of him, and he smiled. It looked like he really was some kind of cheater in this world. In that case, he needed to raise his level in the art of earth, because he had no idea what they were talking about.
As soon as he did this, the voices warned him that there was lava flowing below. Let him be careful. When an earthquake happens, it will burst up to the surface.
Since he had heard the voice of the earth, he decided to get out of there and tell his teacher everything. He commanded the fire to burn, and his torch immediately flared up — and a scream came from off to the side.
I hate light.
Ian turned towards the voice. "Who is that speaking? Is that Earth?"
It's darkness, the voice answered him.
Meanwhile, Alletus was waiting for him at the cave entrance, thinking about the pyromancers' conference, when her student came running out of the cave and called out to her in excitement. She ran up to him at once, rejoicing at his success.
"Besides earth," he said, "I also learned the shadow arts of the darkness."
She was very surprised. Had he really heard a voice from a cowardly, arrogant shadow?
Her face immediately became serious.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"It's time for us to descend from the mountains," she said.
He smiled. "Where will we go now?"
"That isn't what I meant. Now our paths will diverge."
Let him go to Chronolog and attend the space-time conference of magicians. If he was destined to study those arts, then there he would meet someone who could teach him.
He was confused. He had never even known that space-time arts existed.
Looking at his puzzled face, she laughed and patted his head. Ian had been born with a natural inclination for mysteries. If her intuition was correct, she was certain that he too would be able to manipulate time.
She said goodbye to him, saying that they would meet again in three years, in Danheim.
After that he went into the city, thinking about that conference. His teacher was unpredictable, after all. Somehow this all seemed too sudden.