I stood there in the castle court yard as Starlight lightly adjusted the sensors attached to me and steadily added new ones, which she had been doing for the last ten minutes or so.
"So, how is the sky rift project going?"
Starlight looked up to me, then pulled my arm forward and upward to set the next sensor on the underside of my arm, just past my armpit to where it wouldn't quite get in the way when I would eventually be allowed to move.
With a brief glance of confirmation to Sunburst at the station I was hooked up to, she perked up her ears and glanced at me for just a moment before reaching for the next sensor.
"Its going just fine. Archimedes has been as helpful as always, despite the difficulties we have with communicating with him. We've got a solid fix on the location and why it was invisible when it was open, confirmed it's stable for now and we're theorizing on ways to keep it that way in the future. We know that we can maintain it by getting up close and personal with some well placed clouds and a few cloud walking spells if need be, but we're trying to come up with ideas on how to maintain it from the ground too."
"Owch!" I called as her current sensor dug a bit too deep into my side after she taped it to me.
"Sorry about that," she called out as she adjusted my safety goggles. It was hard to see out of them super clearly, but that wasn't all that necessary for this test. "At least that's the last one."
With this she backed up and set her barrier spell around herself, Sunburst and the equipment the sensors were feeding into.
"Alright then, the targets are set up and you're plugged in. Let's start off with a basic level again, to set a control."
I nodded to her general direction, turned back around and tried to focus my eyes through the slit in the goggles. With just enough vision to see the several simple boards propped up with crudely drawn faces, I selected my first targets, lifted a single finger out in front of me and called out "Vestigo Iaculum!"
Immediately, I felt three darts of magic burst out of my finger, turn in their paths and actively seek out the boards I had selected.
When they were utterly decimated, Starlight praised me then asked me to cast the magic missile spell a few more times at base level to cross check the readings.
As I steadily increased the level of my casting over the next few minutes, steadily greater numbers of magic bursts came out of my finger and started dwindling the amount of simple props to a mere handful.
"OK, that should be more than enough data." Starlight called out to me as I heard her magical barrier going down. "With this we might be able to figure out how to perform proper up casting ourselves at some point."
With two little boards still standing at the far end of the yard where we had set up, Starlight got a playful smile and lit up her horn.
A single dart of magic not too dissimilar to my own flew out of her horn, zipped across the yard and took out one of the boards. With a quick giggle, a playful smile and a moment to focus, she cast her modified version of the spell again to take out the remaining board.
With a shake of her head to get her playful smile under control, she looked back to me. "It's amazing just how much energy you can pack into those spell slots of yours, even if you have a hard time restoring them."
Sunburst walked up behind her. "I'm sure the princesses will be able to replicate it easily enough, given their raw power, but other than a few ponies like Starlight-" Starlight couldn't help but blush from this. "-most any other ponies will not have the sheer power to up cast any spell even once without completely draining themselves. Normally pouring more power into a spell just makes it more robust and harder to nullify or deflect, maybe even allow them to cover a marginally larger area. Yet this 'up casting' technique not only does that, but also introduces a whole new level of complexity in some spells."
Sunburst then looked at me with glee, quickly adjusting his glasses. "Speaking of new levels, I counted how many spell slots you used. The Animus Mundi leveled you up again, didn't she? What does that make now? Your sixth level as a druid?"
I threw my hands up in defeat. "Alright, yes she did. But it's my seventh level. She leveled me up almost immediately after I saw you last and again a couple missions ago. So I'm two levels higher than last time. If the spell slot count is anything to go by, my multiple classes are totaling a level of ten now."
Sunburst looked up with a focused expression, doing some quick math. With a smile, he brought a picnic basket he had hidden away behind the equipment and settled down. "If my numbers are correct, that means you have access to level four spells through the Animus Mundi now, am I right?"
He opened the basket and levitated half of an egg salad sandwich to me. "I'd love to hear more about them while we have lunch."
I closed my eyes for a moment and let out a huff. "You're half right. I can sense them, but still can't cast them."
I then opened my eyes again, took the sandwich half from him and almost sat down before a royal guard flew down and addressed me.
"Mr Moss!" He called out formally, "I have been sent to inform you that her m..."
He scrunched his face as the word he was about to speak died in his throat before it came out. "That your 'tutor' is ready for you and requests your presence."
My body went tense for a moment, but with a deep breath, a shake of my head and a stamping of my foot, I shook it off. Turning away from the guard almost managing to hide his embarrassment and towards Sunburst, I bowed apologetically.
"I'm sorry. It seems I need to get to my lessons."
Sunburst nodded and brought out another sandwich and the other half of my current one to go. With a disappointed but understanding tone, he urged me on. "Another time then. Best to not keep your tutor waiting."
I must have been standing outside that library door while breathing heavily for a good minute before I finally knocked.
"Come in!" I heard the familiar voice of my tutor call me with just a tiny bit too much good cheer coming through in her voice than she might have intended.
I gritted my teeth and pushed the door open. I then willed my lead foot forward and stepped through the door, closed it behind me and forced my face forward into the room.
With a face filled with determination, I pried my eyes open.
My tutor sat at the table that was nearest to the door with only the librarian and Sharp Sentry standing to the side. Sharp Sentry sporting his knockoff amulet and all three of them sporting genuine, patient smiles for me.
I pressed on my amulet and called out, "I'm back, like I prom..."
My words died in my throat as the librarian gave me the cue that my amulet wasn't on despite me pressing it.
Realizing I had used up the last of my amulet's charge, I closed my eyes, placed one of my hands on my amulet, fetched the nicked crystal from my pocket and used up the last spell slot I had leftover with a carefully spoken "Linguam Intellegere," in order to do an emergency self charge of my amulet before another unicorn could be summoned to refill me properly.
Afterwords, I opened my eyes, again, pressed my amulet, again, and looked back to my tutor.
"It's good to see you again..."
I took one last moment to steel myself before finally forcing myself to sit down on the pillow they had set up for me at the table.
"...Moon Beam."
* * *
The lesson carried on smoother and smoother as the afternoon moved on and my tension mostly eased up. It was like a bunny kept in a pin with a person that does nothing to the bunny and doesn't move, letting the bunny get used to them over time.
"No..." Moon Beam shook her head. "That is the word for toilet, not tutor. You'd think you'd learn this one by now. I mean you call me that through the amulet all the ti..."
She looked at me with a bit of frustration but immediately broke when she saw my uneasy mood at her wording. "Nev-vermind. We can move on." She called out apologetically.
She was flipping through the pages of her notes while I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"It's now or never," I thought to myself.
I pulled myself up to my knees and raised my hand across the table towards her head.
She started stating "listen carefully to the sharp nicker of this next wor..." right as she looked towards me again.
She stared at my hand for a few seconds, only eight to ten inches from her face, then towards me in surprise.
"Is it really the... There?" I called out to her in hesitation.
Surprise turned to a bout of disbelief before finally settling into a bittersweet smile.
"Go on. Find out for yourself." She told me as she lowered her head to let me get a better angle.
I paused for a moment then slowly lowered my hand to the thestral's empty forehead.
As I finally touched down, I felt a hard object protruding out of the apparently blank forehead. Resisting the urge to withdraw my hand, I moved a little to confirm that it was an invisible horn I was feeling.
Moving my eyes to the spot that I wasn't seeing the horn that was apparently there to her eyes, I could see tears welling up.
Slowly, oddly without my arm moving, I found the thestral before me growing in size and taking on the form of a dark coated alicorn princess.
I took a deep gasp of air and forced myself to get over the initial shock of the illusion being dissolved. With a strong bout of anxiety, I called upon every fiber I had to remind myself that I knew this all along and was what I had been building towards.
When I didn't turn away, her eyes squinted in a way that complimented her bittersweet smile. When that happened, the tears that had been threatening to bead out finally rolled down her cheeks.
With my hand still on her forehead, I swallowed the lump in my throat for the umpteenth time.
"It's nice to finally meet you, Princess Luna..."
The moment I felt her nodding in response, my nerves finally knotted my stomach over and I was only able to fight it for about two seconds to be polite and nod back before I had to bolt to the trash.
After dumping the egg salad sandwiches from earlier onto the empty bottle of ink and broken quills, I wiped my mouth and headed for the door.
"I'm sorry everypony, but I think the lesson is over. Again, nice to meet you."