The next day Lupos, along with Fenrir and Sleipnir returned to the classroom next to Mervyn's office, with Wing and a now recovered Lucio for their next lesson. Walking into the classroom silently they sat down in front of Mervyn, who was standing at the front of the classroom, with a serious look on his face.

"When we travelled back from the inter schools competition, I warned all of you that there would be those who would attempt to use you." Mervyn paused for a moment. "What I didn't expect is that there would be those who wished to harm you this early on." 

Silence reigned throughout the room as Mervyn met each of their eyes before continuing. "As I have said before, being powerful for your age does not make you powerful, and so I have decided that it be in your best interest that I teach you the strengths and weaknesses of each type of elemental spirit, so you have a better chance when facing one. However what you learn here today must not leave this room, understood?"

Lupos, Lucio and Wing looked at each other and nodded. Lupos could feel the excitement building up in him, hoping this meant what he thought it did. Letting out a high pitched whistle, a large and majestic eagle swooped into the room. "This is Shabaz, a holy light eagle and the first of my summoned spirits." Upon seeing this, Lupos let out a sly smile before quickly changing it to an enthusiastic smile.

"Now," said Mervyn ignorant of Lupos' joy, "a light based spirit is often referred to as the most powerful. This is because light is always around us, allowing light magicians and their spirits to influence what's already around them, rather than creating it from scratch, like say a fire magician and their spirit would. This allows both light magicians and their spirits to create higher tier spells at the cost of using less power. Which is why light magicians and spirits can use very high power area of affect spells, with a large radius. Now this is basic understanding but it is often forgotten. Understood?" 

Lupos, Lucio and Wing nodded. "Good," continued Mervyn, "now it is for this reason that dark magicians and their spirits cause such problems. As powerful as light magic is, some magicians get reliant on manipulation of what is already there over creating something new. Which is why when a dark magician or spirit suddenly blocks that light they are left helpless. Unfortunately, none of you have a darkness affinity, but you can use any element to obscure the light making it harder for the light magician or spirit you are facing." 

Mervyn stopped and let out a lower whistle, before Shabaz let out a high pitched screech and dove out through the window. Once he was gone Mervyn turned to face his students. 

"Now as you can see I use sounds to communicate with my spirits, I suggest you and your spirits create signals too. It is a well known fact that although a spirit can momentarily speak with you during it's summoning, due to a high quality of magic, they normally communicate in mindspeak which is the language of magical beasts. Although humans have tried to learn it, there has never been a magical beast willing to teach it to humans. Well none we can understand anyway. Most magical beasts with the ability to take human form have either been hunted down by slavers or killed for sport." 

Lupos attempted to stop the snarl attempting to escape his lips as he thought about the fate that had befallen Akari. Suddenly Lupos noticed Mervyn had stopped speaking and turned to see him with wide eyes and open lips muttering under his breath. "Headmaster?" asked Lucio confused to why he was stopping "What's wrong?" 

Mervyn snapped out of his stupor. "I just remembered something, or rather someone. I think there was a child who may have known mindspeak and I let him go." Lucio looked at Mervyn in confusion. "What do you mean?" Mervyn ignored him and muttered under his breath "the little rat..it can't have been...but the queen gave her life for him...." 

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Lupos felt his blood run cold, that child had been him, and though Mervyn had never seen his face properly on that day he was scared, Mervyn may put the pieces together. Luckily, Mervyn shook his head and continued on "sorry for that you three I was just thinking through a theory but I believe I was just being optimistic." 

Lupos and the others nodded, however, Lupos tried to keep a straight face not letting his guard down. Mervyn let out a series of tongue clicks and a griffon came in through the same window the eagle had arrived in (it was a very big window.) the griffon had a sand like colour that shone in the sunlight.

"This is Simurgh,  he is an earth gryphon and my second spirit, now the benefits of an earth spirit is similar to that of light magic. In the fact the earth is almost always all around us, but is much harder to block. However, where light magicians use their element to create large area of affect spells, earth magicians concentrate their powers to create a focus point for their powers. Even those with only medium affinities with earth can be dangerous, as with enough focus, they can create small movements in the ground which are enough to make anyone lose their balance shifting the course of a fight." 

Mervyn paused for a breath while the gryphon demonstrated by creating a shift in the ground. "Now a disadvantage of earth based spirits and magicians is that using their power requires huge focus. More so than any other element, so disrupting their focus is an easy way to gain the upper hand." Mervyn clicked his tongue again and the griffon left. "Now the next spirit we are going to be studying is a fire spirit." Mervyn sang a high note, while Lupos was struggling not to laugh, another large bird that looked similar to a phoenix of sorts flew in.

"This is Homā my third spirit. Now fire usually has to be created from scratch so larger spells take a lot more energy to create. However, fire devours all and if you are not careful fire magicians and spirits can turn any environment against you as well as creating a high level of casualties. Fire is one of the most destructive elements and it's affects last the longest meaning the best way to defeat a fire magician or spirit is to do it before they cast. As like light magic, they are best as, area of effect spells, but similar to earth in that they require huge amounts of focus." 

Mervyn let out a grin. "Now as you have all probably been taught, I do have one more spirit. However, he's the one I'm going to be using to fight against you in our practice match so I won't reveal it yet." Wing raised his hand and Mervyn nodded to him. "Aren't you going to use two spirits to face us as we have two spirits as well?" 

Mervyn shook his head "No I've had my spirits a lot longer than you so I have an advantage in terms of partnership and besides..." Mervyn trailed off and looked at Lucio who only had one spirit before continuing on. "I'll be using all four types of magic anyway, so it'll be hard enough as it is without adding in extra spirits." Wing nodded looking slightly relieved, while Lupos grinned, he had just found out one more of Mervyn's spirits. Things were going well.

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Author's note 

Hi guys I made today's chapter a longer one so I hoped you enjoyed it, for anyone who couldn't figure it out Lupos's spirits are from norse mythology, Wings are from Greek mythology, Lucio's are from Chinese mythology and Mervyn's spirits are from Persian mythology. Hope you guys liked it feel free to leave a comment or review! :)