<div class="floatright">(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/19/59/d5/1959d5a89df588d70e329492b8e6ff84.jpg)</div><strong>Location:</strong>Introduction to Arcane Theory<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Students<br/><br/>Professor Merryweather smiled all the more.  "Excellent questions.  The short answer is that if the will of the caster is pure, the spell will act in accordance to the desires and parameters that are set during the creation of the potion.  You'll find old textbook spells in obsolete volumes that require one to undress or whose protections don't extend to one's possessions, but it's better to focus upon the concept of the<em>self</em>extending to all of the possessions upon one's person.  Those old spells lacked the faith, the belief, and thus the power of will to extend the spell throughout.  You can't do something through magic if you don't believe you can, which is why magic can be thrown into chaos during a personal crisis.  That's why this class is one of few that allows for shifting of midterm exams if one has just gone through a personal trauma like a breakup."<br/><br/>Getting back to focus, she continued, "Appearing as a bubble of empty air is more from the movies, especially since one couldn't really see a humanoid-sized bubble of empty air in a fog but for movie special effects.  The chameleon spell will adapt to look like fog and the light will adapt - I should correctly say fail to adapt - in pretty much the same way as other methods.  Likewise, spraying an individual with paint will be short lasting as the paint seeps into one's clothing and becomes part of that aforementioned 'self.'<em>However</em>," she spun slightly for emphasis, "it's possible that, at the moment of creation of the spell, the caster had crises of faith.  Unconscious doubts might have arisen that it wouldn't protect against fog, or paint, and they chose to continue casting rather than aborting the spell altogether and banishing such doubts from their minds before beginning again.  As fear overtakes will, so does the fear of failure overtake the will of the magic.  Those who use spellcraft for evil ends and recognize the injustice often create the means of their own demise because only the most depraved believe that tyrrany is justified."<br/><br/>Finally, she said, "The hardest thing with automatic doors is that they see into the infrared spectrum.  Whether infrared light is considered light itself is a semantic question answered by the individual, similar to how different people answer the Ship of Theseus question in different ways.  If an individual believes that the 'Roy-G-Biv' visible light spectrum is the only real kind of light out there, then they'll come up on the infrared spectrum just fine.  And, of course, that's a question of whether their potion uses light at all; a chameleonic spell isn't going to fool an infrared detector no matter how much a crawling person might look like the floor."<br/><br/>She went back to the blackboard and wrote out<span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><em>Willpower</em></span>upon the board.  "It has been said that a practicioner must have a determination that is stronger than love alloyed with carbon fiber.  Magic is not a 'cheat' used by the craven who have tried everything else, but a force necessitating that reality bend to its nature.  Practicioners do not become Outcasts through powers granted by one's birth, nor through unnatural circumstances, but because we choose to embrace the supernatural and defy any and all efforts to remove us from our rightful place therein.  The willpower necessary to do so will break a person who does not believe, heart and soul, that they deserve and are worthy of it.  Laws of Power Returning Threefold are untrue, but they stem from this correct principle."<br/><br/><em><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">Know thyself</span></em>came next.  "For those who desire to advance beyond the introductory stages, I strongly recommend learning, understanding, and perfecting one's own inner nature.  Too many confuse this for becoming an apex predator or disassociating oneself from humanity altogether, but such concept create inner flaws and turmoil all their own.  Power-hungry mad casters are not unheard of among the rare cases of other Outcasts who go nuts and terrorize a small community, but above and beyond that we all police our own, this is why spellcasting has such an association with wisdom.  Magical practice invites one's own inner nightmares to come out and face us, only in small ways when carefully tempered through the five basic practices, but far moreso in advanced methods."<br/><br/>"With the exception of Summoning," said the technoshaman.<br/><br/>Professor Merryweather was reminded of something she'd intended to bring up earlier.  "Some classes do, but I don't intend to teach the summoning of demons even under supervision.  Nyx, I'd been intending to ask: what would you want summoned for the next class?"<br/><br/>Her silence gave them time to answer, but rather than wait, Professor Merryweather went behind her desk to fish out a portable stove and a glass water kettle.