I spent the rest of my training session with Raven and Eva blasting the warehouse wall with lightning bolts. I would have been more excited about that if it weren’t for the fact that I was only able to perform the spell correctly when looking directly at its magic circle. Without it, I had to use the method I’d developed inspired by mom’s painting technique. That is, stop worrying about getting it right and envision the magic circle to the best of my memory. That worked during the fight with Emil, but it wouldn’t be sustainable for amassing an arsenal of spells.

  When I returned home from the warehouse after training, Mizuki met me outside her unit and let me know she would be busy with more errands for her father on Saturday, meaning she wouldn’t be coming along to Raven’s penthouse.

  “Is everything okay with your dad?” I asked.

  “His boss upped his hours,” she replied. “He’s just really tired and he needs my help more than usual.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  She shook her head. “I want you to focus on the gauntlet. I can take care of my dad.”

  I wanted to insist, but she was right. One of the long-term goals of winning the gauntlet was getting us all out of poverty. I was more of an asset focusing on training than I was helping her lug groceries around. Still, though. I was worried about her and her father. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her dad, and if his hours increased even more, that would likely continue for the foreseeable future.

  We spoke a little bit longer before I bid her a good night and went inside to get some rest myself.

  The next afternoon, Raven pulled into the parking lot, ready to pick me up for our study session. I hopped in the car and was a bit surprised to see her dressed casually in a black tank top and dark blue jeans. I greeted her and immediately noted the glaring absence of Eva.

  “Where’s Eva?”

  Raven shrugged. “She said she could get there on her own.”

  I see the temperature between them is still frigid…

  I didn’t believe things would change overnight, but still.

  “I hope you’re ready to study, Shinsuke. I’m going to prove myself to you today and show you that I can help you more than you thought. By the end of this session, you’ll be on the path to mastering sigils,” she vowed.

  The determination in her eyes was undeniable. She was taking this very seriously, which was great, but it made me a bit nervous. After all, even if everyone around you is trying their best, it makes no difference if you yourself are completely incapable of capitalizing on that assistance.

  As draining as putzing around with sigils was for me, I promised myself that I would match the efforts that Eva and Raven were putting in for me—no matter how much I sucked at memorizing magic circles.

  I nodded and replied, “I hope you’re right about that.”

  “I know I am.”

  A confident smile and a wink.

  That might be a killer combination depending on who you ask.

  ***

  We arrived at the upscale apartment building, and it was nice to be able to walk right inside without any ridiculous disguises. That delicious aroma of apple-cinnamon hit my nostrils as soon as we crossed the threshold, and I couldn’t help but blush a bit when I caught Raven giggling at the sight of me sniffing the air.

  Eva was already inside, snapping pictures of the grotto beneath the indoor waterfall with her phone.

  “Oh, there you are, Shinsuke! Isn’t this place nuts? Look at this waterfall!” she marveled.

  Stars twinkled in her eyes at the soothing sight, and the irony that her eyes were bluer than the water she was so excited over wasn’t lost on me.

  “Yeah, this place is something else, isn’t it?”

  “Come here!”

  “Whoa!”

  Eva yanked me towards her and positioned us in front of the waterfall. She threw her arm around me and held out her phone.

  “Say cheese!”

  CLICK!

  She snapped a selfie of us before I even realized what was going on.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  “Perfect!” she giggled. “See?”

  The picture she showed me looked ridiculous. Eva was beaming, meanwhile I somehow managed to look like someone’s lost child, a deer caught in the headlights, and the victim of a pantsing all at once.

  An impressive feat, if you ask me.

  “Let’s head up to my penthouse already,” Raven asserted. “I want to make use of every second of your time today, Shinsuke.”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  Raven called the elevator, and I turned to Eva as we waited for its arrival.

  “By the way, why didn’t you ride over here in the car with us?”

  Eva glanced at Raven and back to me. “Personal preference.”

  Message received.

  The elevator arrived, and we filed inside. When we got into Raven’s penthouse, Eva’s mouth fell open.

  “Wow…this place is huge!” she gasped.

  It seemed Raven still hadn’t gotten around to properly furnishing her place. The penthouse was still as empty as it was when she last had me over. I wondered if she felt lonely living in the currently vacant-looking space.

  Raven patted the couch and said, “have a seat and we can get started.”

  Eva and I plopped down, and Raven retrieved a notebook from the island in the kitchen. She presented the book to me.

  “Flip through this and study the pages carefully, Shinsuke.”

  I thumbed through the pages, finding each one contained a single sigil with their respective spell names labeled in the heading.

  “I don’t get it,” I confessed.

  “I’ll show you.”

  Raven sat beside me and tucked some hair behind her ear to get a better view of the book. She flipped through the pages until she reached a blank one, then handed me a pen.

  “Pay close attention,” she directed.

  Her soft hands wrapped around my own and began to gently guide it, gliding the pen tip across the paper.

  “What are you doing?” Eva pried.

  “Wait and see.”

  She continued to lightly puppeteer my hand until, under her guidance, I had constructed a magic circle on the page.

  “This is the sigil for flicker. It’s a simple fire spell,” she explained.

  “I know. I’ve drawn this in my magic classes before.”

  “Now, watch this.”

  She slid my hand over to the blank space beside the newly crafted sigil and led my hand to begin composing another one. As it began to take shape, I was a bit confused. She seemed to be making me recreate the flicker sigil, but midway through, my brain connected the dots.

  “There,” she declared as we finished the magic circle. “Do you see it? This one is—”

  “Morning dew!” I gasped.

  The puzzle pieces clicked together in my mind as I stared at the two adjacent sigils.

  Raven set the pen aside and pointed to the spells. “Like I said, learning magic circles is a lot like learning a language. Dissect the parts and learn what each one means. Break them down, find their similarities and understand why they’re alike, and develop a shorthand for drawing them as you would writing the characters of an alphabet.”

  Every spell had one or more similarly shaped sigils like it, she observed. The problem, she explained, was that most magic classes focus on teaching students spells based on casting difficulty, the purpose of the spell, and elemental groupings. In the process of learning all of this, most students pick up on memorizing sigils just fine, but everyone learns differently. Raven’s system of pattern recognition not only made it easier to draw magic circles, it allowed an association to form in the brain between similar looking spells. The end result was better memorization and a shortcut for mentally cataloging numerous spells.

  She had me try again with several more spells, and the method to her madness became clearer and clearer.

  “Wow,” Eva uttered in surprise. “I’ve never seen anyone break it all down like this before. Your technique is actually pretty clever.”

  “I refined the process a lot more after I learned to memorize complex film scripts, too. You’d be amazed how many skills you have that are applicable in ways you never imagined.” Raven moved the notebook away from me and said, “now, Shinsuke, without looking at the sigils, try to cast flicker, then morning dew right after.”

  I nodded and shut my eyes. Rather than just envisioning the magic circles in my mind, I traced them in the dark of my eyelids. I held out my right hand and raised my pointer finger. The energy flowed through my body, and I called out the name of the first spell in my head.

  Flicker.

  I heard Eva gasp, and when I opened my eyes, I found a small flame hovering just above the tip of my finger like a candle.

  I had cast the spell, and it was a perfect execution.

  “Don’t stop now,” Raven urged. “Cast morning dew.”

  I nodded and shut my eyes again. I used the same method and, like before, when I opened my eyes, I saw a small surge of water spurt from my fingertip.

  “I-I can’t believe this,” I stammered.

  “I can,” Raven hummed. “You’re Shinsuke Watanabe, after all. Here, take these.”

  She returned to the kitchen counter for a second and retrieved a small stack of cards that she passed to me.

  “Evangeline told me you were using flash cards to learn spells, so I made you these. They’re two-sided with sigils on each side. I paired similarly constructed magic circles, like flicker and morning dew. That should help you retain their shape better.”

  “Thank you, Raven.”

  “Of course.”

  Eva picked up the notebook and flipped through it beside Raven.

  “I have to admit,” she began. “So far, he seems to be taking to your method. Can you show me how you identify which spells are visually alike? I get it with some, but there’s a few in this book I’m confused about.”

  Raven nodded. “Yeah, sure. Let’s use this one here for example…”

  I watched them chat amongst themselves. Eva’s curiosity and Raven’s desire to explain her process seemed to erode the tension and awkwardness that had been a staple of our group since Raven inserted herself into the team. It was a stark difference from just moments prior, and it was the first time I was able to see a vision for what proper synergy between Raven and the others could look like.

  ***

  I studied Raven’s flash cards for a few hours under her careful tutelage. She showed both me and Eva what made the sigils similar and the shortcuts she used to draw them faster. At about eight o’clock, Raven suggested we call it quits for the night.

  “I don’t want to overload you. You should get some sleep so you can soak in what you learned,” she said. “But first, I want you to do one thing for me.”

  She set the notebook in front of me. It was open on a blank page.

  “From memory, I want you to draw me the sigil for the lightning bolt spell, and then the one that looks most similar to it in your mind.”

  I took a deep breath and gripped the pen in my hand. Again, I closed my eyes, and rather than envision the symbol, I allowed muscle memory to guide the pen’s tip for me. When I finished etching both spells, I opened my eyes and was astonished.

  After years of failing test after test that required me to recreate magic circles from memory, finally, I could say…

  “I did it!”

  Thanks for reading! And thanks as always to my Patrons as always. As you can see, someone else has joined in my effort to thank them. It's Evangeline Dioli, of course! This is the first time she's been portrayed in the newer art style and I think she came out great. What do you think of getting to see Eva in the new art style? Let me know!