<div class="floatright">(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/19/59/d5/1959d5a89df588d70e329492b8e6ff84.jpg)</div>At Nyx's question of Professor Merryweather's favorite method, the teacher drew her wand but didn't point it at anyone, showing the same level of safety and courtesy as did a trained gun user.  "Nowadays, I rarely go back to the basics.<br/>Once you completely understand the rules, you know how to bend them," she explained.  "It's part of the metamagic I explained that won't be on the introductory test.  The human mind possesses the ability to emulate every type of emotive state, platonic ideal, and so on, but at a cost of requiring rigorous training and discipline.  Likewise, the reason that a practitioner can summon a firestorm that far exceeds the energy consumed in that day is because they don't have to conjure all that energy themselves, but only use the energy to transmute the ambient ethereal magical energy into the physical, much like how you can generate heat from friction.  It's far more efficient than, say, an incandescent light bulb, where ninety percent of the energy is used to generate heat and only ten percent gives actual light."<br/><br/>With many students giving blank stares, Professor Merryweather shifted her tone, "None of that will be on the test; no mentions of metamagic will be.  It's best to learn to stand before one attempts to walk.  When I was just beginning, my preference was artifice.  Refined or exotic reagents were rarely available to level to which they are today, it was far harder to acquire someone's hair or other body samples, and sorcery was out of the question because even the most ignorant of normie believed that having someone speak unknown words to you while maintaining eye contact meant that they were giving you the evil eye.  Brooms are well recognized in lore because all you had to do was carve the Raidho rune, which was far preferable to obtaining the right kind of magically refined bird feathers for a potion to temporarily transmute one's own body, which is better yet than trading away the memory of one's first kiss to the Fair Folk in exchange for butterfly wings.  Only the most potent practitioners can use sorcery upon oneself with a significant degree of success, and only then by using a mirror to facilitate an attempt to create eye contact with oneself.  Finally, one wizard I knew long ago had the idea to try to make a poppet for flight, so that for every inch the poppet moved, he would move a foot.  That works for moving someone else around, but if carrying it oneself, you move it an inch and you'll move a foot, which means that it'll move a foot as you carry it, moving you twelve feet, and so on until you leave the Earth's orbit."<br/><br/>A few looks of shock and horror overtook the students, and Professor Merryweather explained, "Magic is far more dangerous even than technology, and there's enough already with technology to blow the planet in half.  Thankfully, the study of magic is far more pervasive and prevalent, so you have millennia of information passed down should you have a particular idea.  In all likelihood, someone has already studied, tested, and perfected the practice unless it applies to the use of modern-day technology.  Even there, technomagic is a cutting-edge practice for many a student who loves both technology and magic and wants to study the ways in which they interact."<br/><br/>Checking the time, she added, "Class is nearly over for today; does anyone have any questions?"<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(https://www.shutterstock.com/shutterstock/photos/1214456932/display_1500/stock-vector-runes-alphabet-letter-raidho-1214456932.jpg)</div>The jock raised his hand.  "Can you show me that Raidho rune for brooms?"<br/><br/>Although Professor Merryweather drew it out, she gave a warning.  "Should you go broom flying, I suggest having someone present who can either fly or with sufficient telekinesis to catch you if you fall.  Even then, I advise wearing your football gear for protection.  Cars and roller coasters have seat belts and all sorts of safety features such that people don't realize just how dangerous high velocities can be, but motorcycle fatalities are well enough known that you can get the idea."<br/><br/>One of the more stuck up girls, who had never given her name or said what she wanted to learn, raised her perfectly manicured hand.  "So, like, do we need to be able to work all five just to get a passing grade?"<br/><br/>"For a passing grade?  No."  The teacher shook her head, making her hair dance over her shoulders.  "I expect a basic understanding of each of the five and familiarity with one of the five such that you can handle a new spell that you haven't been given before, but you'll have your choice of which.  If you want a perfect grade, though, an ability to use all five, yes."