Magic and Magicians

Students in their first and second years learn the four core elements.  From then on, those who continue with elemental magic learn the advanced cores and sub-types.

Summoning Magic- Summoning magic entails bringing a spirit into the physical world for a specific purpose.  Spirits reside on a place called the Astral Plane, and can be summoned through a summoning stone.  The stones vary in size, shape, and even form; they can be a necklace, a statuette, an actual stone, and just about anything else imaginable.  By channelling magic into the stone, a magician can transfer energy to the spirit so that they can pass through to the physical plane in which we reside.  Depending on how much magic is used, and how powerful the spirit is, they could remain from anywhere to a few seconds to a few years.  Keeping the spirit from returning to it's home plane also requires magic.

Summoning is considered to be one of the most dangerous arts, as the spirits can and will kill the summoner if they do not consider them to be "worthy."  If one is disrespectful to a spirit, things can get nasty as well.  As such, students spend the first two years studying theory, interacting with spirits that the teacher has summoned, and learning how to channel their magic into the stone itself.  It's only in year three that they start to summon, and at that point those are only "companion" spirits.  Like their name suggests, companion spirits act more like pets and friends than warriors and whatnot, and are much easier to handle.  A lot of magic households have a companion spirit, so they aren't entirely unfamiliar to some of the students.  Companion spirits are given to students at the beginning of the third year.  Once students reach their fifth year, they can purchase summoning stones from the school.

Healing Magic- Healing magic is still widely-used in the world today, albeit much more discreetly than before.  It combines actual magic with potions and herbs, and is much more effective than most modern medicines.  However, it's a tricky and potentially deadly art, as one wrong move, one slight of the hand, could result in the death of both the magician and their patient.  When using magic to heal, the user takes away the victim's pains and illness, and places it in their own body.  So if the victim has a massive gash on their leg, and the magician heals it, the magician will now have the gash on their leg.  While it heals within a manner of seconds on the magician, they feel the pain a tenfold.  This is where the potions and herbs come in.  Some illnesses and wounds are too severe to heal with magic alone, and a combination tends to work best in these scenarios to keep both parties alive.

Due to how dangerous this magic can be, students study theory, botany, and practice potion making for the first four years.  Only in their fifth year do they begin to apply magic to their work, learning to heal small cuts and bruises.  It escalates slowly from there until eighth year, which is when they work on the more severe wounds and sicknesses.

Transformation Magic- This magic is used to transform oneself and their surroundings.  It's arguably the second most dangerous in terms of being potentially fatal or incapacitating to he user, beaten by healing magic and most likely tied with summon.  Transformation magic allows the user to manipulate their own body into a different form, such as a bird, dog, or even an inanimate object.  That being said, it's incredibly difficult to do that last one there, and very few magicians are brave enough to attempt it (after all, who wants to be stuck being a table for the rest of their life?).  Advanced users can also manipulate parts of their body, so they could have bear arms but still retain human form.  All of these require a fair amount of magic to perform, as well as reverse.  The more time spent in a foreign form, the more magic needed to revert back to a person's original state.  Way back when, people getting stuck as cats and dogs wasn't uncommon at all, although it's gotten much better in the past little while.  Still, the danger is imminent.  People who have transformed themselves can still communicate, although if in that form for too long, they will lose every shred of humanity left, turning into just a regular old animal.

When in animal form, it is possible to communicate with other animals, as well as speak the human tongue.  Doing either does require a fair amount of practice, but it gets easier with time.  Many magicians who can shape-shift often end up being able to speak to animals even while in their human form, although this does require some effort on their part.

To prevent students from permanently changing themselves into an animal, they only modify the environment around them for the first two years, as well as study the theory of changing into something else.

Magic With Items and Weapons
Summoning stones aren't the only objects that can be used with magic.  In the old days, it was common practice for the more powerful magicians to wield blades, staffs, and other such weapons to channel their magic and help them concentrate it into more powerful strikes, and pendants and orbs to enhance physical or magical capabilities weren't uncommon either.  While most of the medieval weapons have fallen out of use in this day and age, it's not entirely unusual to see a magician with one.  Pendants and the like have become much more common, however, as they're far easier to conceal.

The issue with using a tool to channel magic is that it becomes rather difficult to control the energy being poured into the object.  Many people have blown themselves to pieces or seriously wounded themselves because their spells backfired and became much too powerful for them to command.  There is a similar issue with using pendants that enhance one's magical capabilities, and ones that enhance physical capabilities have been known to cause some issues when readjusting after the pendant has been taken off.  The physical ones also take a small toll on the body, and can wear it down much quicker.