JUL 30 Wednesday.

The air in my lungs is forced out as I'm pushed back from Stone's hoof hitting me, "You have to remember that when fighting close up there is more than just your opponent's weapon to look out for."

I pick myself up off the ground as Stone points out yet another thing I need to learn, Stone may be a good teacher but he is also a rough teacher, I nod to him and pick up my wooden dagger getting ready for another exchange.

We've been doing this for four weeks now and I'm still getting used to the feeling of fighting somepony, it's not something I ever thought I'd need to learn but it could be useful in the future, and since when has something being hard stopped me? Not anytime soon I hope.

After several more rounds of me getting my flank handed to me we stop and move onto magic, at this point I can draw the firebolt spell while walking in roughly thirty seconds, and according to Stone that's not nearly good enough and I agree with him.

I've made progress but I really should try and advance to the next step in runic casting, but I don't have the magical capacity for that yet so I'll need to make do with what I have for now, that won't stop me from practicing the steps later today.

But for now I just focus on drawing out the spell matrix correctly, when I'm done I take a second to aim and release it, the small bolt of fire impacts the target and leaves a scorch mark on the painted stone target, I repeat this again and again as Stone reminds me of things he's taught me over the past weeks.

When we are done we go our separate ways and I walk home, when I get home I have to feed Entropy like always but when I'm done I make some tea and head to my workroom to start dumping my magic into a small wood bump, this is the fifth time I've grown a piece of what I've come to call Steel wood.

Through several tests I've found out most of its properties, I was right in my guess that it can hold a lot of magic, and sadly I was also right when I guessed that the wood couldn't handle large amounts of magic passing through it at once.

It can store large amounts of magic if the magic is gathered slowly, when magic is held in a reserve it doesn't move around but when I try and activate a spell or enchantment the wood can't handle it and normally catches on fire, or in one case explodes into wood splinters, I'm glad I put up a shield for that one.

All this means that the wood is not useable as a material to replace gems, but it still has uses, the best I've found so far is to use it as a one-time use magic battery and if I make a linking spell to transfer all that magic to a gem before the wood completely destroys itself I could use it to quickly fill gems.

But I'll need a much more heavy-duty linking spell for that so I'll look into it later, the last thing I have to say about the new wood is how much magic it can hold, and the answer is that a one-inch cube of Steel wood can hold about a quarter of the amount a one-inch ruby can hold.

Moving right along to another project that I left alone for a while and I can now make some progress in, trying to detect illusions, I was working on the illusion spell for Entropy when I realized that if I use both of the same illusion runes it might be enough to get the spell to work.

I did try and only use the one illusion rune I had but it wasn't enough for the spell to detect illusions, so until I find the rest of the other runes both of these projects can't progress, and by magic have I been trying to find the last bits of the final rune.

I've even found some of its runic context, but sadly the book that had it was only using half this runes contexts as an example for something else, but it did tell me about some of the rune's history and that led me to other books with more bits and pieces of the runes context, but not all of it.

And I rather not try guessing the context, my search continues even onwards and upwards, so for the rest of today I'll work on something else trying to advance my rank as a runic caster, right now I'm an apprentice and I want to become a journeyman.

Ranks for casting with a horn are simple, an apprentice can cast any spell they have the magic for with a good degree of certainty, most unicorns fall into this category, and most guards who fall into the upper percent of this category.

A journeyman can hold a spell matrix in their mind forever so they can cast it instantly when needed, they also have greater reserves of magic and have much better control over their magic, unicorn guards that work in the palace have to reach this level at a minimum, along with a few others who are mostly researchers or ponies seeking to push their limits.

A master can cast multiple spells at once, and have a vast knowledge of spells and magic along with considerable magical reserves and control, only guard captains and old ponies who have practiced magic their whole life ever reach this rank, there are probably only a dozen or two throughout Equestria right now.

And finally a grandmaster can instantly cast multiple spells at once, they are as close as a pony can get to an alicorn and have a scary amount of magic and knowledge, no grandmasters currently exist in Equestria right now and there are only a few recorded grandmasters in the past two millennium.

Runic magic is very similar but also different in a few ways, an apprentice runic caster can cast any spell by drawing out the rune with their magic, and have enough magical reserves and control to power the spell to cast it, not many practice runic casting and there are probably less than a thousand ponies who use it in Equestria right now.

A Journeyman runic caster can focus their magic in the air to form a spell matrix without needing to draw it, they can also hold a spell matrix in their mind to form it at a moment's notice like a unicorn, but fulfilling both of these categories is harder than a unicorns path, so there are probably less than a dozen ponies who have reached this level in Equestria right now.

A master runic caster are basically the same as their counterparts, they can cast multiple spells at the same time and hold a large amount of knowledge and experience along with large reserves of magic and a great degree of control over their magic, to my knowledge there are no ponies who have reached this level in Equestria right now, and I could only find a few references to masters of this craft in existing in the past.

And finally grandmasters at runic crafting, just like masters they are basically the same as a grandmaster who uses horn casting, but I could only find one pony who ever achieved this title and sadly their name and much of their achievements have been lost to time and forgotten by the world.

Coming back from one of my mental rants I sit down and start meditating, I don't have the magical reserves to form a full matrix all at once but I can at least practice trying to draw a matrix without my hooves, I need to concentrate on my magic and push it outside my body.

This is another reason that becoming a Journeyman as a unicorn is easier, using their horn they can push magic outside their body much easier than others can, so a unicorn can become a Journeyman at runic casting faster than an earth pony or Pegasus.

I push my magic outside my body and try to keep control of it, I try and condense it into a line but I don't control the magic well enough and it starts dissipating, this is what makes this process so hard I need to condense my magic and keep it like that in a complex pattern.

And doing this takes a lot of magic from me, much more than I normally need to draw a matrix and even if I can create a matrix with this method I still need to supply the spell with enough magic to cast it, this is the main reason that basically nopony reaches Journeyman rank in runic magic.

I make some fresh tea and try again, this time I don't try to make a line but just a rough one-inch dot, this time a small deep green dot forms in the air it's smaller than I planned but it's there, I then try and form a line using the dot as a starting point but after a moment it also dissipates.

I keep trying this again and again, but I never get more than an inch or two of length before I reach my limit, I can see several ways to improve my attempts but this is mostly just about practice and repetition, I probably have enough control to form a matrix but I'll need much more practice.

So I settled in and started training in yet another way, this could take a few months but I need to do this if I ever want to improve my casting ability.

time skip

AUG 1 Friday.

I get out of bed and start yet another day of messing around with magic and hoping for the best, like all days I first cook some food for me and Entropy and make some tea that I'll need throughout the day, I sip my tea and eat a fish sandwich as Entropy devours her bowl of fruit and raw fish.

When we're done I spend a while cleaning up, I then spend a while doing my morning exercises and when I'm almost done, "Berry" I nearly jump out of my skin as Entropy says her first word, and after calming down a smile forms as I look over to her, I reach out my hoof and start scratching her.

"Well I think that's a bit overdue, good job girl" many crows learn to mimic sounds and words, and unlike Entropy they aren't nearly as smart, so I think it's about time she learned a word or two although I'm not sure how to really teacher her more words beyond just talking to her often.

"I guess I'll have to talk to you more hu girl?"

She seems to understand that I'm happy, at least that's what I think from the speed at which her tail feathers are moving, "Berry" she mimics again.

"Sure girl" I grab a juniper berry and feed it to her as a reward.

This is definitely a new way to start my day, but I have things I want to do so after a few trips quick through a black void I head to my workroom with my tea, first things first I want to practice drawing out a matrix with only my magic, I've started doing this every day for at least some amount of time.

I've made some progress and can now form a line five inches long, but I need at least a few feet and several dozen different individual structures to form even a basic spell matrix, but progress is still progress so I continue on, each time improving slightly.

Once I'm done I move on to something else, I have some reading material that Caelum wanted me to read through, she mostly teaches me how to speak the language but was also insistent I learn to read and write the language just as well.

This is easier as I already know a decent amount of the written language, it's more work to do but I don't mind, if there is one thing I've learned it's that I might be a training junky, but that's something I refuse to call a problem, plus I do other things and take breaks.

The book she wanted me to read is a griffin history book, it's dry but there are a few interesting things in the book and some interesting griffins to learn about, I get through some of the book before I want to take a break from reading so I decide to start practicing with forming a matrix again for a while.

I go back and forth several times over the next three hours and by the time I'm done reading the book and taking notes for later I want to do something else entirely, so I decide to spend the rest of my day playing with Entropy and trying to teach her more words.

Author's Note

I'm still busy but I had some inspiration and wrote this out in two hours at three in the morning, so enjoy I guess.