“Captain, when are we going to do something different like magic or fighting? We’ve only been doing physical exercises on this square for the past two months.”
The one talking was a middle-class kid who was completely fed up with the current curriculum. When he passed the test, he was ecstatic. He was finally going to learn how to cast spells and zoom around the city like how those other divers he had seen when he was younger. Not only that, he apparently had a high affinity with a water specialized star. Dreams of riches, power and fame all coalesced in his mind, yet two months from then, he had only been running laps around some magical square.
Captain Phan raised his eyebrow and looked dead into the kids eyes, who shivered and coiled.
“Today.”
“...”
“Huh?”
“I said today, did you not hear me? It will be in the afternoon, SO GET BACK TO RUNNING.”
The children, upon hearing his words all seemingly sped up, not wanting to face the wrath of Captain Phan.
In the first week of the training regime, one of the noble kids went against the captain’s orders and was beaten black and blue. He was beaten so bad he almost couldn’t see for a week. From that point on, no one dared defy the captain’s orders. It was not just the pain, but the embarrassment you would have to endure, being pummeled in front of all of your peers.
…
It had been two months of physical training. The young divers had all gotten conditioned to the intense workouts and high pressure. There was clearly still a divide in the capability of the children, with nobles being in the forefront of the pack. When they saw their lesser classed peers reaching them in ability, they began working extra hard to maintain their honor and dignity as nobility, however for all their efforts, some lower classed individuals were quite talented.
Shinra was one such talent. It seemed his mysterious power provided an innate boost to his stamina. At first, his goal was to catch up to Eve, who seemed surprisingly well trained despite her fragile looks as a girl. When they were running, she was always much faster, much more consistent than him. When Shinra noticed his own improvements, he always noticed that Eve was also improving. She acclimated to new pressures extremely quickly and would always finish her sets before he did. However, as time went on, the gap seemed to slowly shrink until they were basically on the same level. And it was not that she stopped improving, it was that Shinra improved faster. Everytime his power helped him recover, they seemed to get better. He was able to see the green mist more clearly, and he could peer deeper towards the source of that mist in his own body.
“Alright, everybody listen up. Your first lesson in starcalling will begin now.”
All the kids looked up with fish eyes, giddy, ready to learn, completely opposite to the faces they showed when they were told to do stamina training.
Captain Phan pointed to a middle-class kid in the group.
“You, what is starcalling?”
The kid was taken by surprise, being called upon all of a sudden.
“Uh… it, it’s borrowing a star’s power to cast magic…” He answered unconfidently.
“Yes, at the most basic level you are right.”
A sense of relief washed over the young diver knowing he avoided an embarrassing moment.
“Starcalling is to use the power of a celestial being to assist us, not just in casting magic, but to manifest its abilities in a physical form. The stronger a connection you have with that star, the more power you are able to draw upon.”
“Captain, then how do we form a stronger connection?”
“I was.. getting there… We will discuss the details later, but by forming proxy stars in your body, you are able to harness greater amounts of your star’s power. You can form multiple stars in your body, but every time you create one, the next becomes exponentially harder to form. Most starcallers reside within the one to two star range because they don’t have the talent to progress further, that is another reason for the aptitude test, not just to figure out your alignment, but also to determine your bond level. ”
“Now, I want you all to look up into the sky and try to experience what you felt during the aptitude test. If you feel an energy, try to channel it out in front of you.”
Many of the kids looked up to the sky and closed their eyes….
Nothing happened for a few minutes until a small spark was ignited by one of the students. It was Arthur. The one that had made such a huge spectacle at the aptitude test, was also the first to cast magic.
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Soon, many more people got the hang of their abilities, all of them being nobles who had been taught magic theory by their magically adept parents.
Everything was going fine, until…
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
“HELP HELP HELP IT'S HOT.”
One of the kids, clearly not the brightest of the bunch, had accidentally set his clothes on fire.
He rolled on the floor in a panic trying to quench the flames, yelling and screaming as he tumbled.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
“CAPTAIN HELP ME, I'M GONNA DIE.”
Captain Phan looked at him and began to speak.
“Your body is a vessel that is already able to contain astral energy in a semi-pure form. By forcing it into the outside world, it will manifest in the powers of the star that that power belongs to. There are many ways to bring out astral energy, but the most common spot is from your fingers, which have the least resistance between the pathways in your body and the outside world.
The student burning on the ground was previously sitting in a cross-legged position with his hands firmly on the leather and cloth of his clothes.
The conclusion is evident.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I’M GONNA DIE, HELP, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”
“It is possible to manifest astral energy from other parts of your body, but the fingers and hands are the easiest and most natural, making them ideal for most starcallers.
Captain Phan took one more look at the struggling student and with a wave of his hand, extinguished the fire.
Shinra tried to move the mysterious green gas, which he now called vitality, to his hands and out. The vitality slowly floated out of his hands and into open space in front of him. However, instead of being ethereal, it manifested into a green, pulsating orb. Shinra tried to touch the orb, feeling somewhat drawn to it. As his hands approached, the liquidy green droplet turned back into the gaseous substance he was accustomed to, swiftly returning to within his body. His power seemed to function the same as everybody else’s… but how would he get stronger?
Its not like he could form proxy stars, or could he? As far as he knew, his power doesn’t even originate from any star.
Captain Phan, who was also informed about Shinra’s situation had him under keen scrutiny, however when he saw that Shinra’s powers worked the same way as his peers, at least for now, his worries lessened.
“Alright everyone, tomorrow you will begin forming your first star, and for many of you, this will continue for multiple months; and don’t forget your physical training. I will be off on a mission for the next few weeks, you can find all the information you need in the library three quarters way up the mountain. It’s a light colored marble edifice, you can’t miss it. I better see some progress when I come back.”
Shinra looked up towards the mountain and through the corner of his eyes, spotted what he thought was the library. White marble pillars dug deep into the rock, holding half the structure over nothing but air.
He begrudgingly began another ascent, this time not nearly as difficult or stressful as his first. Right in front of him was Eve, to which he called: “Are you going to the library too?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.”
“Are you surprised?”
“Yeah, a little, I thought you nobles wouldn’t need to go to the library because you have everything already.”
“Hahaha, nobles don’t have ‘everything’, the only reason we are here is because these are services only the academy provides.”
“?”
“You aren’t supposed to know this, so don’t tell anyone, but everything we are doing is simply a prerequisite to enter the main academy on a different island much larger and powerful than ours. Although our noble strongholds all reside on Arter, our ancestors all studied in the Academy. They don’t yet inform us of their existence because they want people to perform based on their desire to get stronger, not their desire to achieve prestige.”
“...”
“Why aren’t you moving, the libraries just ahead, knowing you, you’ll probably like it.”
The information that Shinra had just absorbed was quite shocking. In the course of a few months, his horizons had expanded exponentially. The world outside of his little fishing village seemed infinite and full of opportunities. He wanted to see it to the end. He wanted to see it all, but first, he needed to get stronger. His two goals were now first, figure out his powers and second, get admitted to the academy. The journey would be difficult, especially as someone of lesser class, and it didn’t help that no one really knew what his powers did, other than the fact that it could heal.
Arriving at the library, he stood there in awe. It had already looked absolutely magnificent from afar, but now, under the shadow of its marble ceiling, he felt like an ant. Gold crusted bookshelves stretched across the ground floor like a maze. Looking up, he saw multiple floors, all filled with even more books. The entire library was primarily lit up by one giant burning pyre, hanging above the center like an oversized chandelier while the rest of the nooks and crannies were bathed in the warm light of magic, luminous stones.
‘Where do I even start… I probably won’t be able to get through half the books on the first floor in an entire lifetime, there have to be millions.’
That was when he heard, “Alright everyone, gather up.”
Shinra looked towards the direction of the voice and instantly recognized who it was: the purple robed elder that had conducted his aptitude test. This time however, he wasn’t wearing purple, instead he wore a browner robe of the same design that made him blend in with the bookshelves, yet stand out against the white walls of the library.
“Each floor of the library is organized into four sections: Practical Combat, Magic Theory, Applied Magic and History from left to right, in that order. I recommend starting on either Practical Combat or Applied magic as those will be the most beneficial to you currently, however the other sections are still very important, especially for those that are unaware of this world’s history. Now get to it, you can spend as much time as you want here, just don’t forget to train what you learn.”