“So then..” when Elsoul was in the middle of his tenth stories, a bell chimed around the school and rang two times before it died down. My ears immediately straightened up.

Finally, an opportunity!

“Elsoul big brother!!” I raised my tone and interrupted his story telling.

“H, Huh, big brother?” He stopped talking and gazed at me instead. A confused expression plastered on his face. Somehow, he was fixated with the fact that I attached a big brother behind his name.

“It’s nice to learn about the elder extraordinary adventures, but I really need to go to back to the class now, bye!!” As soon as I finished speaking, I turned my body and immediately ran away from the library.

I ran away as quick as I can, running past the same corridor and windows, my feet stomped hard at the stone floor and finally arrived back to my class. I opened the door swiftly and found all the students had already properly seated. The teacher, the same elf again, Cirdan turned his head and stared at me. His eyebrows frowned, he raised his arm and using his index finger to fix his crooked glasses.

He didn’t said anything, instead, he used his hand to shoo me back into the class. I quickly walk my way to my chair and sat on it. After a minute or so, the elf started his lesson, I relaxed my body and sat comfortably in my chair. It seems I barely made it.

I turned my head to the chair beside me and found it empty. Twin tails girl didn’t came back into the class. But since the teacher continued the lesson without making a fuss, he must had already known the reason for her absent.

I focused my gaze back to the front. For some reason, all of the kids were surprisingly attentive to the class and their face beamed with excitement. Usually I could saw some of the students sleeping or talking, which will be punished by cirdan with eerily, precisely flying chalk in their forehead.

Cirdan raised his arm till his chest level and opened his palm. He muttered under his breath, too soft to heard it properly for my ears. The air above his palm distorted, just an inch above of his opened palm, a flame roared alive. The red flame moved continuously, dancing and licking the air with tendrils of fire. It’s a fireball with the size of a volley ball.

The kid shouted with excitement. Sounds like ‘amazing!’ ‘Ooo!’ ‘Aaa!’ could be heard from the masses, some of them even jumped up and down, knocking down their chair in the process, in short, it’s a total chaos.

Honestly, just like those kids, I’m amazed by the magic demonstration too. I could only produce a tiny candle like flame after all. But in the corner of my mind, I can’t help but to be a bit apprehensive toward the fire magic. Part of this building is made of wood, it would be disastrous if the classroom catches on fire.

Cirdan looked around the class and glared with his sharp eyes, the class instantly became quiet. After making sure each of them is properly seated, he nodded his head and opened his mouth to explain while the fireball still floating above his palm.

“As you can see, what I cast just now is one of the basic fire spell, fireball. The question is, how does we cast magic?” the fireball floated away from his palm, making a full circle in the room, before it disappeared with a hiss. The teacher keep looking at us silently, waited for one of us to answer his question.

A girl raised her arm, her short blonde hair glistened beautifully in the sunlight shined in from the windows, her face is brimming with confidence. Her face is familiar to me, then I remembered in the corner of mind, she was the little elf who is very enthusiast to separate the twin tails girl with me, she also had the most vicious mouth in the class. Her eyes gazed straight to cirdan, which he promptly replied with a nod. Then she immediately stood up and answered his question.

“Magic is cast by deriving and controlling the mana, the source of life, that existed in the air, our body, and every living and non living being in this world. We can mold the mana we collected into spell, whether by using chant or gesture, or even by drawing it on a paper by using magic circle as a conduit.” She answered it smoothly, as if she already know it by heart.

“A good answer, Cevilia.” Cirdan nodded sagely, seem to be contented by her answer.

The little elf girl, Cevilia, sat back into her chair, I can saw a glimpse of smug smile plastered on her face. Her friends beside her keep showering her with praise and envy, which she turned her head to them and replied with a ‘this is nothing for me’ expression. She sat on the front row, directly in front of the teacher desk. Must be a studios type, albeit with a foul mouth. After her seemingly perfect answer, Cirdan continued the lesson.

“That’s right, we need Mana in order to form a spell, but the method and means to form it, like chanting or gesturing, isn’t a must.” He added another explanation to Cevilia answer, I turned my head to her and saw Cevilia twitched a bit.

He stood still for a second, he didn’t said anything nor any movement could be seen from him. Then suddenly, I can saw the air around him is distorted, something is about to happen and I could faintly sense it. Four fireballs poof out from nothing, two fireball on his left and another two on his right, floating freely undisturbed by anything.

“Chant, gesture, magic circle were all means to aid the spell you are forming. As your skill, Mana control increased, you are able to grasp and understand the energy source you had been using more . Of course, raising this skill is no easy task.” While explaining his lesson, he raised his index finger and pushed up his glasses bridge, the circular lens gleamed as it reflect the light.

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“Unless one have strong magical talent itself, one may not be able to use chantless spell for all his life.” As he finished his explanation, the fireball disappeared with it. He walked toward his table, and crouched down, disappeared from our sight. When he appeared again, his hand grabbed a fancy looking purple box.

He placed the box down to the table with a thump. The class became noisy again, anticipating what was in front of them, its seem they known what was going to happen next, while I remain clueless here, wondering what he would show us. I sat idly and contemplating the magic he performed before.

Chantless is a rare skill that not everybody could done it even they practiced with all their life. Yet, I who had no knowledge of magic or whatsoever, managed to made a tiny flames alive without any chanting at all. Does that means I had a ridiculous magical talent? While my face still maintained my usual poker face, my heart thumped slightly, excited by the prospect of my future. I imagined myself summoning a flamethrower or even a tornado. My imagination is running wild right now.

“Now, as I had said yesterday, today we are going to test your affinity element, whether you are blessed by the spirit of four basic element and its divided family or even the high element, using this crystal that I had prepared before.” Cirdan talked to all of us while opened the box lid. The lock opened with a click and slowly opened up, revealed what was hiding inside it.

Its a beautiful transparent crystal, it was round but with thousand of flat edge in the surface. The crystal is tennis ball sized, its rested snuggly at a comfy looking cushion placed in the bottom of the box. It was shining brightly, reflected by the light in this room.

“Now, each of you will came to the front and place your palm at the crystal, imagine your Mana inside your body, flowing directly into the crystal. Quick please, we don’t had time for all days.” He explained it in one breath, and immediately ushered us to move.

Starting from the first row to the right, one by one the students walk to the front desk. The first one is a human boy, his freckled cheek flushed in red, whether from excitement or shyness. His walked jittery until he was in front of the crystal, he took a deep breath and raised his right arm, his palm hovering right up at the crystal. He closed his eyes, for a moment nothing seems changed.

Then, the supposed transparent crystal glowed slightly. A tiny ball of light glowed in the center of the crystal. It was dull blue in color and the tiny speck of light resided inside floating calmly. The boy opened his eyes and looked at the crystal, then raised his head higher and looking at the teacher. His eyes shined with expectation, waiting for explanation.

“Hmm, congrats Dony, you had little affinity with water, but your Mana capacity is so low that even if you cultivate it diligently, I doubt you will be able to cast advanced spell in all your life. Next.” Cirdan ruthlessly smashed his expectation with his short words. The boy opened his mouth, hanging it open with a blank look in his face. He then walked back to his seat with hunched back, a disappointed expression plastered on his face.

Wow, he really didn’t pull any punch isn’t he?

I raised one of my eyebrow, Cirdan clearly didn’t think to beautify any of his words at all. He was harsh with his students and said the ugly truth directly to them. Not masking it with consoling the boy or pitying him. Its seem being a mage isn’t something that easy to attain.

The next one is a human girl, who is clearly more nervous because of her predecessor. Sadly, it seems she isn’t any better than the boy. This continued for a few times until is Cevilia turn. In contrast with the nervous students, she excluded with confidence and walked with her back straight to the crystal.

She does the same motion with other students, and the crystal glowed bright immediately. Its have a cool mint green color, and the light inside the crystal swirled circularly like a tornado. Somehow, the light had this calm but pressing aura feel to it. The ball of light is bigger than any of the students before.

“Cevilia, congratulation, strong affinity with wind and upper level in mana capacity. Next.” Cirdan fixed his glasses again, his face betrayed no emotion, his word is short and curt, even when Cevilia clearly got different result than other.

Cevilia walked back to her chair, her head tilted down, her hair casted a shadow to her face, but I caught a glimpse of her biting her lower lips, looking unsatisfied, before she sat down and turned her back to me.

Her reaction was a bit different than what I had imagined. For sure I think she will be prouder of herself and her smile will become smugger. What’s with this mild reaction? Clearly there are something must be going on with the result, or maybe…

I observed the teacher who stood in front of the class, Cirdan had an emerald colored hair, his hair grew until to his shoulder, slightly brushing his collarbone. He had the same emerald colored eyes and a mole adorned beside his right eyes. His appearance excluded ambiguity in gender. Age wise, he looked around twenty years old, but his race made me doubt it. In games and comic, elf is a long lived race after all. I should find some book about race in this world later.

While Cevilia and him had a different hair color, they had the same bright emerald eyes. Maybe they are related. Maybe they are father and daughter. Maybe they are brother and sister. I won’t know it for sure until I asked someone I guess.

While different thought invaded my head, the student keep continued taking turn to test their affinity with the crystal. Some of them were good, some of them were bad, some of them were affinity less, which I came to known later. But none of them made a big impression like Cevilia, I guess she was one of the special.

Now on the last rows, the last student walked to the crystal, which is me. All eyes were focusing on me. I was a bit excited, wondering what was my affinity. I stood in front of the crystal, with Cirdan nodding his head as a confirmation, I raised my arm and does the same thing as everyone else. I closed my eyes and imagined an energy, what they called Mana, flowing inside of me. That’s where something strange happened.

I felt a bottomless void, resting inside of my tiny body. It was like a black sea engulfing me whole, pure black with nothing in sight. At the bottom of the blackness, I can faintly sensed it, a faint brilliant golden sphere, it was small and faint, as if will disappear in any moment, but it was there, glowing amidst the darkness encircling it. The golden light somehow feel warm, different with the cold hard darkness.

Is this what they call Mana? I didn’t felt anything like this when I called forth the tiny fire before.

“Is there something wrong?” Cirdan asked me as I stood there motionless for a while. I immediately shook my head and focused on my current task. I flowed a bit of the pitch dark thing into the crystal. There, everything went wrong.

The crystal instantly went dark, the transparent color before gone. Small crack appeared on top the flawless crystal, the crack traveled into all of its surface in alarming pace, eerie black light leaked out from the chipped black crystal. For a moment I saw Cirdan eyes widened like a saucer, and immediately raised both my arm up in front of my body, a feeble defense. I known something bad is going to happen next and I won’t be able to run from it in time.

As I expected, the crystal exploded in a magnificent explosion.

BOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!

Or its supposed to be.

My tightly closed eyelid quivered a little. Awaiting for the pain that will eventually assaulted my body. I waited and waited, but the pain didn’t came to me. I slowly opened my eyes and what greeted me was an out of ordinary sight.

The explosion indeed happened, the loud booming sound I heard weren’t a trick of mind. My eyes widened, surprised by what I saw. A thin film of red enveloped the box with a perfect sphere, my mind instantly thought it was a barrier or some sort of it. Still, the barrier was badly damaged, crack appeared on the surface with pieces of crystal stabbed from inside. If the explosion was a little bit stronger, the barrier is doomed to break.

The class was silent. All of them was confused and flabbergasted. The explosion happened in a matter of second, no one was able to follow what was happened. No one except Cirdan, the one who deployed the barrier, and me, the reason the crystal exploded in tiny bits. Cirdan stared at me intensely.

And I can only stood there stupidly.