I now had new spells to work with after spending the first month mostly honing in on my physical abilities. The daily workouts that were required by the academy while at first were rough, now are becoming easier and easier. I still had this idea that I would be a front line fighter yet my current situation screamed ranged fighter. Mr. A thought I should be working on ways to defend with sceptre while I was for whatever reason convinced there was a more powerful weapon for me.
I am not sure if I did any good in the second and third month of school my first year. The tournament loss only fueled my fire to be better. There had been multiple things that happened during those months but mostly to others and I couldn't tell the tale if my life depended upon it. I remember the one thing that changed was I started eating more mana based foods.
The cafeteria at this school was easily the best cafeteria one could ask for. The food quality was impeccable. Every meal had special recipes to enhance the flavor but also enhance different properties for the beast masters. Originally I had been focusing on food that boosted my agility and strength. While none of those meals tasted bad, the first time I tried the mana rich food for magic enhancement I knew then I wouldn't be going back.
"Told you!" Adam pointed out seeing my mana rich food.
"Yeah, yeah, just remember I can use all the elements, one day I will be the most powerful out of all of us!" I confidently announced
"You two are the strongest out of us, it will be interesting to see how Adam's wyvern evolves." Joey pointed out.
That comment stung as I knew Wispy couldn't evolve and that saddened me. The large wisp next to the beast master fighting the dragon suddenly flashed in my mind again, it was Wispy's way of trying to cheer me up.
"Hey can I ask, what do you see when your eyes go purple? Does everything go a shade of purple?" Adam asked me, suddenly pulling me out of my own thoughts. I had a quizzical look on my face and Travis shoved his shiny shield in my face to where I could see my eyes were currently purple. I realized then that when I was using Wispy Vision as I self proclaimed it in my own mind it would cause my eyes to turn arcane purple.
That day was the last day anyone saw my natural green eyes as I decided to use Wispy Vision from that moment on. To be honest I am not even sure why I ever bothered to turn the vision off. I think it was due to being tired of reading as it seemed like everything had something to read.
I also remember that day because after Adam insisted I would like the mana rich food he then asked if I had the arcane milkshake. I had no idea what he was talking about as I hadn't really looked over all the food options. I have always been one to find something and stick with it. I remember the next morning for breakfast everyone was staring at me as I walked to my table with a bunch of different milkshakes.
Adam had mentioned to me that his spell blink was learned the first day of having the arcane milkshake and he now takes it because it increases your total mana pool by 1 per shake. My wispy vision told me that I would receive similar effects from the other milkshakes. I call them milkshakes because that is the closest thing that would describe the thick drinks. They also came in different cups and bottles making my tray look even weirder.
That day was a fun day, learning new spells by drinking delicious drinks but also seeing everyone's reaction to the spells being accidentally cast as I learned them created quite the scene. Fire weapon was a nice support buff I learned from the fireshake. It would coat a weapon in fire giving it enhanced damage and burn effects. It would become my favorite thing to give all the weapons of those around me. Seeing the flame on the weapons was always cool.
I unlocked chain lightning that day and while lightning attacks didn't do the damage that arcane in the long run lightning seemed to have always stun. At the time it only attacked a second target which worked nicely for the duals. I also unlocked my first light spell and shadow spell from those drinks. Smite and shadow port which smite summoned a beam of holy light onto the enemy from above while shadow port allowed me to port to a shadow allowing me to have a short teleportation skill.
The rest of the drinks gave me boosts to mana pool, mana regeneration and intellect but at a very small increment. I never had a full on smoothie breakfast after that day but I always made sure to have one each day of the pool increase, regeneration and total intellect. Wispy started talking to me more that day after I listened to it about which drinks to try.
My first winter break was the first time I saw my parents after receiving my wisp. They both instantly gave me a huge hug when I arrived home. My mother wouldn't stop talking about how my violet eyes were beautiful but she missed my green eyes. My father was more shocked that I had no other physical changes but that I had grown a lot.
"Wispy says hello, it talks to me, do your plants talk to you?" I inquired trying to relay the message and also never thought of that question before or knew to ask. My parents never talked about their plants and the fact I always was fascinated by the larger beasts that were nothing like theirs they resigned to never talking about it and I was none the wiser.
"Most plant beasts communicate in a different way than speaking the way we are speaking to each other now. It is more of a feeling or directing of knowledge to access from the beast's affinities." My father answered. He had his acacia leaves sprouted above his ears that looked like a crown making his appearance feel more regal than he was.
I felt like I understood his explanation given how my wispy vision works. I was surprised that I had both the access to the knowledge and a personality talking to me. I wasn't sure if I should reveal that to my parents but then again it wouldn't hurt to inform them that their plant beasts could grow.
"Would you believe me if Wispy told me that both of you could get past your bronze ranks and get to gold?" I inquired of my parents who my mother gasped and father laughed in a shocking manner.
"I would say you're crazy, there is no literature of an acacia beast making it past silver and you know I didn't need to spend the money just to get a slight intellect increase." My father proudly protested my proclamation of his beast becoming gold.
I calmly explained the process of the potions and foods that my father would have to ingest. Then the crystals of a herbivore beast that if he absorbed their mana for 100 days for one hour he would rank up to silver. After that he was to take an intellect rune and sleep each night with it active on his chest. I then told him he would be ready for the next steps and I would be home from school to go over it then.
He skeptically looked at me but I explained to him that it would benefit him more than he knew just to get to silver. I explained to my mother that her favorite tea was actually what she needed to consume more and she would become silver as well from any mana crystals to help speed up the tea. I didn't know at the time that I just told both of them to spend roughly 20 times the amount on food than they would spend in any given time frame.
"Hey so while we are on new things, I ran into a scholar that had a wisp for a beast. I inquired what helped the most for him or might be a nice gift for the next time I saw you. He suggested this amulet as it gives you an arcane barrier to your body based on your mana pool. He had an extra that he had been holding onto for a fellow wisp beast master as it basically gives you a beast body in terms of defending against everything besides blunt force trauma." He held up an amulet that was on a necklace in the shape of seven dots with seven colors representing seven elemental wisps.
The moment I put that on my mindset of taking a step back changed. I also now had the confidence to try and learn a different weapon. The sceptre was more of a tool than a weapon, at least that is what I felt it did for me. However, I still had no idea what weapon that would be. I thanked my dad profusely with a big hug realizing I had tears coming out of my eyes knowing my father probably made up the story but he appreciated this more than he could have known.
My mother gave me a look of not to be out done, "I too have something I came across at the infirmary. This is a special mana flask that simply never runs out of mana technically. It will refill itself with mana infused fluid for you to drink if empty, I am told in an hour it will be full. I don't have a wild story, I just came across it as this is a must for all mana users." My mother informed me.
"Wow, I would say between the two of you, you want me to live!" I pronounced.
"Gee, you think big guy!" my father grabbed me and rubbed my head.
That was a fun winter break, looking back on it I wish I could remember more than that moment but to be honest the entire two weeks was mostly just resting and talking with my parents. I would spend each day working on my routine that was developed from our Physical Amplification course. That routine stabilized me for a long time in my first few years at Ghostrun Academy.