"Fear is only as deep as the mind allows"

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Celeste~

So today is the day. I looked at the letter in my hand, smooth, thick and branded with the logo of the one and only Blue Phoenix Academy. A prestigious institution, demonstrated in even the littlest of things, the gold of the exterior of the letter and it's heavy, sturdy build show its integrity and standing in many many ways. Every demon who wields magic of any form from the age of 16 is enrolled into one of the magic academies. 

Although many start demonstrating signs of power from as young as 11, the magic doesn't usually reach a meaningful high until around 16. Magic wielders are inherently dangerous, natural personal agendas and an um...difference in the morals of some paired with blasts of power able to kill instantly would obviously cause, well, chaos. And a lot of it. Not everyone was born with the same amounts of power, while the strength of an individual is highly dependent on their parents many unsurprisingly dedicate their lives to becoming more powerful, a pathetic, futile effort some would say, however a bit pessimistic in my opinion but I understood, because no matter how hard you trained or how many years you spent perfecting your craft there would always be someone who was just simply born better. an unfair life we live. 

Because of this difference  many hierarchies formed based of power alone, your magic being your currency in this lifetime. The Monarchy obviously being at the top of said hierarchy, were extremely powerful, without going too much into fantasy it was told that the power of the royals represents something otherworldly, different from us. some suspected that their power originated from a deity far beyond our creator while others just believed that their strength was simply a result of very selective breeding and and their natural supply of powerful genes. Personally though, couldn't care less. 

The royals usually stay out of the business of the commoners unless to do with laws and regulations and I like to return the favour. And, well,  for the rest of us we seemed to have formed our own little bubbles of security. 

The powerful marrying the powerful and the weak with the weak. In my humble opinion the emphasis placed on how much magic one could wield was ridiculous in most aspects. With most aspiring to have menial careers which don't involve combat in the slightest it made no sense to have such an emotional investment in something that does not serve you and yes while magic is needed for self protection, believe it or not there are in fact laws in place to prohibit someone from simply burning you alive if you say something they don't like. That said, looking at the letter in my band I realise we sometimes have no choice but to play the dark game of society. 

"Yes! finally, i've waited my whole life for this" I heard Chloe squeal from her bedroom and for a second honestly debated playing dead. It wasn't that I found her high energy annoying, but at 6:30am it simply wasn't necessary. Like me, she would also be attending Blue Phoenix this year and while I was already over this whole experience I was actually happy she was coming with me. Growing up I had no real family, my parents died when I was young and Chloe was the only person I really had. we were friends in middle school and when my father passed after years of drug abuse because of my mothers death, her parents took me in and we have been Inseparable ever since. 

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flooding into my room with enough energy to charge a laptop she squeals "Did you get yours?! I got mine just now, it took so long to come I thought it would never happen."

smiling I responded "Yeah I got mine just now, was kinda hoping it would never happen though"  she rolled her eyes. clearly unmoved by my lack of excitement she continued on. 

"But howww are you not excited? this is where our life starts Celeste! Where we meet our rich husbands, see how powerful we are and have the absolute time of our lives." 

I mean she was right. most met their future partners there and if we're being honest the place was built for networking and climbing ladders of wealth. I was excited for that too, but there were so many technicalities that it made my stomach churn. if I was too powerful I would be stuck with a pretentious prick or would have to date someone "below" me as they say, while the latter was not too bad and finding a partner would not be impossible, the likeliness  of a male being willing to compete with such competition was very low. males were usually the one with tendencies to date and to fall in love with those less powerful and women of course, date up. it was the typical rags to riches, girl is unfortunate and big strong man comes to save the day, and unfortunately the only realistically socially acceptable option for mixing of power. 

 "No, no I am very excited" I tried to convince her but looking at the crease between her brows I see that it may have been a futile effort. 

"It's just, I don't know Chloe. So many things could go wrong at so many times" That wasn't a lie. Maybe how unstable my childhood was made me so inadaptable to change and uncertainty but eh, I call it self preservation. 

I hated the thought of going into unfamiliar settings with unfamiliar people and i've displayed my belief that our parents should simply teach us to control and harness out powers, I mean we do take most of our traits from them. But either way I had to end up going; the cons of our powers won this battle as the fact that while the traits that are passed down are similar in style they differ in strength and how they choose to manifest themselves. A child may have a parent who wields something as vague as energy, the parent could be able to fire balls of energy, possibly mould them into different shapes if possible, the child could obviously, take on the exact same power or do something different like create an energy shield. Even those with the narrowest of powers like invisibility can pass on a different type of power, a person could also make the things they touch like their clothes invisible or on the other hand not be able to do things like making your body unnaturally quiet so invisibility was solid. 

These people would of course make up for their disadvantage with stealth but still a disadvantage nevertheless. The ways in which magic could differ was another prime reason people had to go to the academies. 

Chloe still keeping that enthusiasm said "Cheer up dark vadar, It will all be fine you do have me of course." she said so matter o factly. 

"That is true, but there is the fact that we may not go to the same Academy." It was a scary thought. Every magic holder had to also go to the mandatory Chamber Trials of Eden. They were an extensive course made up of 5 main parts, all assessing magic ability. The first part consisted of the physical trials. We would be tested on defence and attack mainly, with a side of how to work in combat together although this wasn't that important at this stage as we were to be learning those skills. 

The second part was more Intricate, a one on one assessment of each power someone has and their ability to control it. This exam had more to do with the examiner assessing how far your powers could be taken and how far away you were from that goal pared with finding any bad quirks a power may have that could cause mass harm or that is simply too much for the wielder. In these cases a temporary removal of magic could be ordered until a later date.