Transfiguration

Will followed his classmates to the seventh floor for transfiguration. As Will walked through the classroom door, he noticed how dark and mysterious the classroom appeared. Drapes hung over the windows and candelabra lit about the room.

The desks formed a circle around the room. In the middle of the classroom was a magic formation with a lectern. The magic formation was an encircled pentagon, with symbols inscribed in each triangle.

Will found a seat, with his back close to the door. Just in case, Will wanted a quick exit from this class. After the students found seats, Will and the rest of the class noticed a large spider, the size of a kitten, on the lectern.

"Ahem," the spider exclaimed, tapping the lectern with a wand.

With all eyes on the spider, it jumped off the lectern. As it jumped it transfigured into an older man.

"My name is Magister Wright, tenth-rite and former court magician for his majesty's grandfather," said the professor.

He continued, "I was born a commoner and rose through the ranks. If any of you nobles, give me any trouble, I'll turn you to lizards and keep you in my terrarium." He pointed at ten different terrariums. Half of them held lizards with different noble-sounding names. A few students gulped. Even Ryan who was hot-tempered seemed to cool down around this professor.

"My father said he was a crazy old coot. The academy tried to get rid of him, but he has dirt on his king's family so they can't do anything," whispered one student to another.

"What's your name boy?" said the Magister Wright.

"Rigby vont Ransburg," the student whispered a second time.

In an instant, a sixth terrarium was label Rigby vont Ransburg. The student cowered expecting the worse. The rest of the class held their breath, waiting to see what happened next.

"Let this serve as the class's warning. Next time a person so much as interrupts my class, I'll turn them into a newt for a day. I have plenty of mealworms, so you won't go hungry," he smiled deviously.

At that statement, some boys and girls turned brown in disgust.

"Enough introductions, shall we begin? This class is an introduction to transfiguration. Transfiguration is a meticulous branch of magic. Altering the physical world comes with it a set of challenges and dangers. My job is to make sure no one dies or gets lost in an ethereal plane.

For this class, you'll be changing one object into another. But, to do that you must understand the magic within those properties. A misworded spell can change a tin cup into a tiger, or a dish into a dragon. If you are not careful, transfiguration may lead to catastrophes.

I've already told you that transfiguration can be dangerous, but now I feel it appropriate that we get into exactly why this is. This type of magic has many opportunities for things to go wrong, and disastrously so. This is a possibility for even the most practiced of grandmasters. This is why it is important that you do not try spells above your year. Attempting to cast transfiguration spells you have not yet learned is something that you will be severely docked for in assignments as this is an extremely dangerous practice that will not be encouraged or condoned in my class.

When spells backfire or aren't completed correctly, it can prevent items from completing their transfigurations. While this may not seem like a big deal when working with simple transfigurations, such as an apple to an orange, think about what this could mean when you get into deeper things, like human transformation. Can you imagine what would happen if you went to do a transformation to give yourself gills and it only worked halfway? Or if you were to try to vanish something and only managed to vanish half of it? Surely you can see the dangers here!

That's why it's important to feel mana within objects. Everything has mana, even the rocks. The first step of transfiguration is to attune yourself to that frequency," he paused, waved his wand and different objects landed on the students' desks.

Magister Wright continued, "when you are working with objects to transfigure, you are changing the basic mana structure of that object. That's why transfiguration is so dangerous. Take some time and see if you can understand the mana structure of the item on your desk."

Will looked at the object in front of him. On his desk sat a rock. The rock was about the size of a man's fist. Will picked up the rock and closed his eyes. Will had never tried to feel the mana of an object. In the past, Will used his mana to manipulate the earth. Closest he'd come was when he cast [radar].

The spell [radar] allowed Will to identify his surrounding, prospect for any metals or rocks. Since he learned [radar] he cast it all the time. Will wondered what would happen if he cast [radar] on the rock.

Closing his eyes, Will cast [radar]. At first the spell travel through the Wizard's Tower. Will could identify students, and faculty on the different floors, except the basement and top of the tower. Something was blocking him out, he could feel his spell being physically pushed back. In a second, his spell was canceled by an invisible force.

Will felt his eyes jolt open. A powerful witch or wizard canceled his spell, and Will felt his mind jerk to the present. He looked up and Magister Wright locked eyes with him.

'I have to get better control. I can't be allowed radar to spread out, I have to focus it on a specific point,' Will chided himself.

Closing his eyes again, he cast [radar] but willed his mind to focus on the rock only. At first, the spell wanted to travel throughout the tower again, but Will stopped it. He concentrated, he squinted his eyes, furrowed his brow, and strained his brain to only focus on the rock in his head.

Slowly, incrementally, like the light of a flashlight moving closer to a wall in a dark room, [radar] began to focus on the rock. After five minutes of directing [radar] to the rock, Will felt sweat accumulate and drip to closed down his closed eyes.

Refusing to give up on this approach, five minutes later. Will felt a pop, like a dam breaking. His concentration became easier, he felt less strained concentrating on the rock. And then, something magical happened Will did not expect.

[Radar] traveled through the rock, mapping it's crystalline structure. Will felt infinitesimally small and the rock expands. To Will, it felt like the inside of the rock was the universe and he was standing in an open field staring at a cloudless night sky.

As he traced the crystalline structure, the inside of the rock resembled a cascade of starry constellations. Will felt moved, something about this resonated with him. He instinctively felt each star was a pocket of mana. Moreover, the mana called out to him like a lost relative. The connection to the starry mana felt comforting, protective.

Will had never felt such a feeling of connectedness. Suddenly, he felt a pull to the stars. To investigate the constellations. Inside the rock, this was his domain. He felt he could soar to the stars. Just as he was about to lift into the air to travel to the points and lines in the sky, a hand shook him awake.

Will felt the feeling of connectedness fade. Will cast [radar] again, he didn't want to leave. The rock world slowly grew more distant. Will fought, he wanted to return. He wanted that sense of comfort and protectiveness. Who did this, who made him leave?

"Will, Will, wake up! Will, come back," as Will travel unwillingly back to reality, he heard a person calling to him. "Will, Will, wake up! Will, come back."

Will opened his eyes and saw Magister Wright shaking his shoulder. Will's green eyes looked at the magister.

"Um, Magister Wright, why did you bring me back. I did what you asked, I could sense the mana. The mana resembles stars in the sky, it was beautiful. I mapped the mana it looked like a constellation. I was happy, why did you bring me back," Will asked sadly.

"You were losing yourself inside it is dangerous. Too many mages have gotten stuck inside the elemental world. For this class, you have observed the mana structure without getting sucked in, without getting caught in the marvel that's something that takes practice,"

Will nodded and looked around the classroom. Everyone was staring at Will. Elizabeth, Ryan, and Alice all looked at him with different expressions. Elizabeth looked concerned, Ryan looked unhappy, and Alice looks envious. Will looked at the fire on Ryan's desk and Alice had a block of ice on her desk.

Alice looked frustrated, Will assumed Alice had yet to map the block of ice. Ryan looked like he wanted Will to be stuck and lost inside the rock. Elizabeth had a doll on her desk. All three of them struggled to complete tasks.

"Let us stop, how many of you beside William could feel or see the mana inside your object," Magister Wright looked around unsurprised at the unraised hands.

"Of the various branches of magic for young magicians, transfiguration is often the hardest. Remember, there is no mage proficient in every branch of magic. Someone you will connect to transfiguration faster than others, but you will all learn to sense the mana in objects overtime.

There are two forms of transfiguration: transformation and vanishment. The first changes the properties of mana, the second removes or disrupts the properties of mana causing the object to implode. You will study vanishment next year with me.

The first month we'll focus on learning to feel and see the mana structure in objects. The next three months we'll focus on transforming inanimate objects of various sizes and structures to different inanimate objects. For your midyear and semester final, you'll need to transform an inanimate object.

Starting in the spring semester, we'll concentrate on transforming an inanimate object into an animate object, then an animate object into an inanimate object; and finally an animate to animate object," Magister Wright paused.

"Now I want you to watch as I change this cup of water into ice. Understand, I am not a water mage. I am a fire mage. As you know fire and water mages have oppositional elements. To change water into ice, I won't be using a spell, rather I am willing the water's mana structure to transform into ice's mana structure," Magister Wright took out a wand and said [transfiguration] touching cup the water.

Slowly the water inside the cup began to change properties and harden. The cup began to expand and crack. The cup finally exploded and revealing a cone of ice.

After the demonstration, Magister Wright continued his lecture, "Some say the wand is an integral and essential part of transfiguration, but I disagree. Let me explain, the difficulty of transfiguration is not the cost of mana, but the amount of willpower to transform an object. If your willpower is too weak or you lack focus, you'll find it almost impossible to transform or vanish an object. To cast this spell correctly, use your wand to amplify your concentration and focus your willpower.

As you progress through Transfiguration, you will get a more intuitive feel for how to cast, what aspects need to be strengthened when, and what objects are more or less easy to transform to the point that you will not rely on your wand at all. Once you can grasp the mana within objects, you'll gain insight into how our world is constructed and through which we try to understand the many mysteries of magic," he finished.