My body hit the floor of Lady Tyresa's ever-changing shop. She had somehow grew a space for me to sleep, eat, bathe, and even train in and we were now training my body to handle whatever sinister plan she had in mind with physical beatings.
"Lady Tyresa, can we… take a break?" I managed to huff out as sweat spilled from my pores.
"We were just warming up." Tyresa frowned.
Warming up…? I gasped for air. That's… a warm up?
"Well, I guess we can. We've been going for two hours straight. I'm surprised you didn't make a single peep until now. You're such a good child." Tyresa smiled. With a wave of her hands, all of my sweat disappeared.
I pushed myself up and watched the goddess summon some chairs and sit in one.
"Want something to drink?" She asked.
"Yes, please." I pushed myself up onto my feet and moved for the seat next to her. She handed me the tea cup and I downed it. "I get I need to build up my stamina to cast magic, but we've been doing this for weeks without even an ounce of magic involved. When are you going to teach me magic?"
"Magic?" Tyresa raised an eyebrow. "Why would I teach you magic?"
"Well, you're the goddess of magic, right? Surely you know how to use it."
"Nope." Tyresa shook her head.
"I mean you could just teach me a —" I paused and turned to look at her. "Nope? What do you mean by that? You're the goddess of magic, you should know how to use magic!"
"I was the goddess of magic." Tyresa took a sip of her tea. "I may have some magic within me but I don't have whatever these people use nowadays."
"So you do know how to use magic but it isn't the magic that's what everyone else uses?"
"Exactly," Tyresa nodded, setting the tea cup down. "If you want to learn magic in the sense of chanting, large spells and commanding elements, I can't teach you that. My magic is unconventional in the sense…" She paused, turning to point at the broom moving around and sweeping the ground. "My magic has intent. It symbolizes something and is flexible, personal, even dangerous at times. Modern magic has been reduced to spell circles, fixed glyphs. They're too safe, regulated, repeatable — there's nothing to learn from modern magic! A babe could learn with their eyes closed."
She crossed her arms and huffed.
"Modern magic has sapped the creativity of magic. It's supposed to be endless like the cosmos." Tyresa reached up to the sky, eyes slightly glazing over like she was reminiscing. "With magic ever-changing, I grew weak and old. I almost died but was able to live through small offerings of those who prayed for their adventures… It wasn't until you came along that I actually regained my old self — my truth, again."
She turned and pounced on me, locking me in a hug as she rubbed her face against mine.
"L-Lady Tyresa!" I shouted, trying to push her away.
"C'mon, little Elias, if it weren't for you, I would be dead!" Tyresa squealed. She pulled away after some more teasing and a sinister look settled into her eyes. "I'll teach you magic but it's going to be my way! If you want to learn that baby shit, you can learn at one of their many institutions. You have enough money to do so."
"H-hey how do you know about that?" I stood up.
"C'mon, little Elias," she smirked. "You don't think I know about the amount of money you were carryin' when you stepped into my alleyway? You have much to learn. Come! Let's teach you some real magic!"
The staff felt heavier the moment I tried to use it. Not physically—no, that would've been easier. This was the kind of weight that settled behind my eyes, pressed into my thoughts like reality itself was asking if I really knew what I was doing.
"That's your first mistake," Lady Tyresa said, lounging atop a floating crate like this was another lazy afternoon. "You're trying to cast."
I frowned, tightening my grip. Purple lines along the staff pulsed faintly, reacting more to my frustration than my intent. "That's… how magic works."
She snorted. "That's how modern magic works. And even then, only because people forgot how to listen."
I glanced at the half-collapsed warehouse we'd relocated to—apparently her idea of a 'safe testing environment.' Dust hung in the air, unmoving, as if the space itself were holding its breath.
Tyresa slid off the crate and circled me, bare feet never quite touching the ground.
"Tell me, Elias," she said, "when you wrote code back home, did you chant at your computer?"
"…No."
"Did you draw pretty circles and hope it obeyed?"
I winced. "Also no."
"Exactly." She tapped the staff with one finger. The crystal at its head flickered. "You understood the system. Magic used to be the same." She raised her hand and snapped her fingers. The air warped. Not with light. Not with glyphs. Space itself bent, like a thought changing its mind mid-sentence. A ripple expanded outward, knocking over a stack of crates without so much as a sound.
My breath caught. "You didn't use a spell."
"I used desire," Tyresa replied. "Intent sharpened by greed." She turned to me, eyes glinting. "Magic was never about control. It was about negotiation."
I hesitated. "Then why doesn't it work anymore?"
Her smile faded—just slightly.
"Because people wanted safety," she said. "Predictability. They caged magic in glyphs and circles so it couldn't surprise them anymore." She gestured, and suddenly a modern spell circle appeared in the air between us—perfect, glowing, sterile. "Efficient. Repeatable. Boring."
With a flick of her wrist, the circle shattered. "Try," she said.
I swallowed and focused. The staff hummed, the crystal glowing brighter as something stirred at the edge of my awareness. I reached for mana instinctively—Pain flared behind my eyes.
"No," Tyresa snapped. "Stop forcing it."
I clenched my jaw. "Then what do I do?"
"Understand," she said simply. "Look."
The world shifted. It wasn't visual—not exactly. It was like suddenly seeing the math behind reality. Layers unfolded: rigid glyph chains, locked parameters, flow restrictions.
Modern magic.
And beneath it… Something older. Looser. Dangerous.
My chest tightened. "It's… incomplete."
Tyresa's grin returned, sharp and proud. "Now you're speaking my language."
A strange sensation bloomed in my chest. Words surfaced in my mind unbidden.
Trait Activated: Rewrite
The spell circle in front of me trembled. I didn't break it. I rephrased it.
The rigid glyphs softened, lines bending into curves, parameters loosening like someone undoing a knot. Mana surged—not explosively, but fluidly. The spell changed. Where there should've been a bolt of fire, heat simply existed—a wave of warmth that rolled outward, melting metal, warping stone, and leaving the air shimmering.
I staggered back, gasping. The staff rang like a struck bell, cracks of purple light racing up its length before settling.
Tyresa laughed.
"Oh, I like you," she said. "You didn't overwrite the spell. You translated it."
Tyresa tilted her head, studying the warped stone, the melted metal — everything damaged, yet nothing destroyed.
I wiped sweat from my brow. "That nearly killed me."
"Most people," she said slowly, "when given that kind of authority, choose the loudest answer."
I swallowed. "I didn't think about it."
She smiled, not playful this time. Reverent.
"Exactly." She tapped my chest again, lighter than before. "That instinct? That hesitation?" Her voice dropped. "That's your Creed."
"…That's reassuring."
Tyresa stepped closer, eyes glowing faintly. "Listen carefully, Elias. Your trait doesn't make you powerful." She tapped his chest. "It makes you dangerous."
I exhaled slowly, staring at the warped remains of the warehouse.
"So what happens when someone notices?"
Tyresa smiled like a woman watching a fire spread.
"Then," she said, "adventure begins."
And so began my daily training in both physical and magical. Lady Tyresa always continued to push me forward, guiding me in the right direction, but never gave me straight answers like she did with our first lesson. The days turned into weeks and soon, months passed and before I knew it, another Summer had come.