Turns out everybody present has at least one of Water, Fire, Glass, Air, or Lightning! So they'll do those. (Tiya has Water and Juin has Glass. Juin also has Air but will be using the material-halo option for now.) They are going to learn to use those elemental senses. Maurabel borrows an elemental of each type as TAs and walks everybody through how to connect to the elemental's magic and watch while they use their special sense. Then they will be able to try on their own. (The Water and the Glass will have halos up while they touch the reds, and shed them after.)

The kids ignore the reds uneasily and pay attention to the lesson.

She doesn't expect anyone to be able to do any magic sensing on their own today but with luck they will all figure out how to tap elementals.

They try it.

It's tricky. She will go around and offer advice.

Kids fidget waiting their turns and are corralled by the instructors. "If you touch me I'll kill you," a purple says to Tiya.

"If you hurt me you'll be expelled," Tiya says. "I don't want to touch you."

"I'll be expelled but you'll be dead."

"No. Adamant will keep me safe. I'm safe. I don't want to touch you."

Glare.

Tiya holds her Adamant's hand and takes a turn touching the Water, all by herself. Water sheds his halo and puts up a new one for the next batch.

Some of them make faces but they still try it.

Good.

Eventually everyone can tap into an elemental!

Great. Questions?

Can you tap into two at once? Do you have to be touching them? If you're tapping a hybrid, do you need to be focusing on one half in particular? Will it go faster now that they know how to do it?

You can. Yes, or they can be touching each other in a chain. No. Yes.

How many can you tap into at once? Does it take extra practice to do that?

No known upper limit. Yes.

Ooooooh.

What things do they most want to learn to do?

Shadow-walking! So they can go to planets! Flying! Artifacts!

"It's actually a bad idea to try to steer a shadow walk if you don't absolutely have to. Shadows are miles better at it and can bring passengers. We will definitely cover flying - I don't have enough Air to do it without help myself but I have books and we can figure out the rest. And we're going to cover artifacts for sure, what artifacts do you want to make?"

Artifacts they can sell for lots of money! Artifacts they can use for terraforming! And for self-defense! And for killing uppity reds!

That last kid can leave the classroom now. They can try again tomorrow.