"They're given books," he says, gesturing at the bookshelf where he left some of said books earlier today, "and told to figure it out."

"...the incentives."

"Hmmm?"

"Anyone who's not dead set on being a mage is definitely going to give up partway through that, anyone who's not good at teaching themselves same, you're only left with people who can motivate themselves to learn magic from boring old tomes even while they're young and spry and full of energy and ready to adventure."

"Hmm, not wrong, but I think that just might be how it is in general?"

"'In general'?"

"Like even out of the Academy. Picking up spell Skills doesn't really have much of a step where you keep trying to do a thing again and again until it clicks, it's all mental, so good mages kind of do have to be able to figure out how to get a spell out of a boring book.

"You can just sit down and try to meditate too but that's more likely to backfire and isn't any less boring than the tomes."

"You don't find it boring, though."

He grins. "I don't. I like spending time reading thick books that contain the secrets to spells of dread power. The kind of person who will be scared of Bjorn's vetting process won't become a mage but the kind of person who is me is all for it."

Vallynn is very cute and should get kissed for this.

"...backfire, though?"

"You know Pierre?"

"One of the mages."

"The one we saw yesterday, who got singed by his own spell."

"Right."

"He didn't tell me why he did it, and I assume it must've been due to being a kid and wanting magic, but he got a lightning Skill. But it's, uh... not... the standard Lightning Bolt Skill."

Taharqi furrows his brows. "That can happen?"

"If you try just sitting down and meditating on it, yeah. Like—how'd you get your Double Attack Skill?"

"I, uh, heard about it and tried to do it myself and focused my mind on the times I got it right until I found the Skill."

"We don't have that. There's not any real way to try to do a Lightning Bolt that isn't just casting the spell. No, like, movement you can hold on to or anything. It's just—thinking about it."

"...hmm. And so you can just get the wrong Skill accidentally?"

"Yeah."

"So how do you ever get the right Skill?"

"There's mental exercises, and thinking about it in the right way. Mind you, it's not like there are a ton of lightning Skills out there or anything, it's just that there are enough that unless you're looking for them in the right vicinity you're pretty likely to get something like what poor Pierre did, which channels lightning through his body. To be fair to him it looks really cool to shoot lightning out of your fingers, but it's not a very safe spell and most importantly it doesn't grow into Thunderstorm and Jupitel Thunder."

"...that sounds really anxiety-inducing, that you might just get the wrong Skill like that."

"I don't think it's that common? It's just, if you want to get one of the standard spells you kind of do need something to go by. Well, the starter spells, at least, from what I understand it's easier to find the right successors if you already have the correct prerequisites."