The Dining hall was rather ordinary looking. Tables were neatly placed around the room, and the first few children had already sat at them eating. My eyes wandered from the center to the left side of the room, where everyone else formed a line, so I walked over to join them.

After a few minutes of waiting, I got my food and started looking and quickly found the boy I was looking for sitting at a table in the back. Luckily, both seats next to him were empty. I went over and sat down on his left. He looked at me and asked in an annoyed voice: "What do you want? There are still many open seats left. Why’d you have to sit down next to me?"

"I want to propose an exchange. You give me some information and show me how to get stronger, and I will owe you favors. You heard the instructor, I have 6 cores, so once I train enough, I will be a valuable partner." I responded, putting on a friendly expression. He looked at me with the same dead fish eyes and answered,

"The Circles only help you, in theory. It’s really hard to even use 2, let alone 6, so this doesn’t really seem like a good deal to me, especially since you seem to have made some enemies already and—"

Still keeping up my smiley poker face, I quickly interrupted him. "You saw how strong my fireball was, so I definitely have potential. I understand why you’re concerned, so how about this? You only give me information for now, and we will act neutral towards each other, and if you need my help, I will act inconspicuously.

Since the instructors seem to eat in another room, sitting together shouldn’t be suspicious. The only people who can see us are the cooks and the other guys sharing our fate. The cooks didn’t treat me any differently, and I don’t think the others even care." He silently looked at me, contemplating my offer before saying: "What do you want to know?"

"You won’t regret accepting my offer. I’m 8028. What’s your number?" I asked, trying to sound cheerful, and quickly received a blunt answer. "7659." I followed up with another question "What other information our instructor didn’t already on elements that our instructor didn’t mention do you have?"

"First of all, there is a kind of magic our instructor didn’t talk about. It’s called common magic and is basically a weaker form of each element. However, it’s too weak to be useful in combat. At least no one was able to create a common spell strong enough to be practical in battle.

You just need a scroll with the desired spell and imbue it with mana or life force to use common magic. If you only have life force, then that scroll also needs a conversion symbol weaved into it. These symbols are very weak magic circles that allow a small amount of life force to be converted into mana. This mana is then used to activate the scroll.

If you possess mana and are more advanced, you no longer need a scroll. Once you understand the spell structure, simply reciting the correct chant is sufficient. Common magic contradictory to its name is not common, since you need rare materials and a mighty mage to create a functioning scroll. Once you have the scroll, you can use it however much you want without visualization. The only limiting factors are those mentioned above.

Examples are slave magic and other contracts solidified by magic. These are weaker forms of mind control belonging to the unique category, which I will tell you about later.

Nature is something almost entirely unique to elves and mainly involves plants. Summoning is precisely what it sounds like. I heard that there once existed powerful summoners who could summon creatures said to rival armies.

The only thing I know about the Dark element is that assassins use it to move around in shadows. Light, or how the church calls it, Holy, is primarily support-focused. Examples are the ability to heal and barriers. Lastly everything, that doesn’t fit in the other categories is called Unique."

Jackpot, this guy is a goldmine, I thought before continuing. "Do you know how you can use cast spells of these elements?" He answered lazily. "Nature was said to be done by a human, but not much is known about that. Summoners need special teaching, easily acquirable if you have enough cash.

Dark can be taught by an assassin’s guild member or someone who has the necessary knowledge and skills, but they rarely teach outsiders. If we’re lucky to survive long enough, we might get taught it here since some who are part of the bloody crows use it.

For Light, you need to be "chosen by God" or have enough money to build connections in the church. Not much is known about Unique. There are a few ancient records about a magician controlling people’s thoughts and such. At some point, people found a way to use the ancient records to turn them into common magic.

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This resulted in scrolls like the slave contracts I told you about before. There was and still is a lot of research down on unique magic, but besides the common scrolls, to my knowledge, nothing came of it." I wonder how he knows so much. Well, I might as well just ask him.

"My father was a librarian, and I spent a lot of time with him." He said with a depressed expression. I decided to not pry further and instead asked: "What tips can you give me on utilizing my circles and getting stronger?"

His face returned to the expressionless look from before, and he said: "You need to improve your life force capacity, which will happen over time. There are some meditating techniques that help with that. I read about them but forgot the exact execution, so I developed my own, which works decent enough.

Concentrate your life force on a circle. Then convert as much of it as possible into mana, and after you’re done, try to force the mana back through the circles to transform it back. The result is a lower total amount of life force than before, but your maximum capacity also increased.

Repeat it as much as possible. Just be mindful not to run too low, or you will feel fatigued, and if you don’t stop and run out, you’d just die. Ideally, do it before sleep because your body recovers a lot of life force while resting. Also, just in case, do not condense mana in one place, like what you first had to go through when creating a circle. You don’t have enough mana for it to be a problem if you try to currently, but it might become a problem later on. The procedure needed to create circles seems simple, but it’s not.

Moving on to magic. The only useful advice I can give you is to practice, experiment, and strengthen your concentration. Using multiple circles is pretty easy in theory. Just mirror what you do with one circle to however many you want to use.

The first problem arises when trying to gather life force. This might still be relatively easy when you have 2 circles nearby. However, it becomes insanely hard as soon as they are far apart, maybe even in opposite directions. Then the 2 circles are working against each other, slowing each other down. This wouldn’t be much of a problem when you have an infinite amount of life force everywhere, but unfortunately, our supply is rather limited.

Doing one first and then the other would work, but is not much faster than using the same circle again. However, there is an easy way to make use of multiple circles. Convert mana and store it where you need it beforehand. This way, you just need to use it once you cast your spell.

Why not just always store mana at every circle all the time? The answer is simple: your body has a limited capacity. Mana and life force don’t mix. Once life force regenerates, and mana still takes space up, it will get tight in your fragile body until it can’t withstand the pressure, causing it to explode.

You should be fine if you use up some of the mana when your body feels tight. Just don’t store mana overnight, and you should be fine. 30 minutes are almost over, so one last piece of advice. Soon you'll have to train with weapons. I recommend picking a short sword since it’s easy to use with small physiques. But for now let’s hurry don’t wanna be late."

"You’re a life-saver. I will make sure to repay you." I proclaimed before quickly getting up. He spewed out facts like a waterfall, I thought while running, but he sure knows his stuff, and if I can gain his trust, he will be a dependable ally.

I arrived back at the training room and seemed to have made it in time, since our instructor was nowhere to be seen. So I just followed everyone’s example and joined their military-looking line. After a bit of waiting, the instructor, Okada, arrived. Everyone instantly tensed up and tried to straighten up as much as possible, so I did as well. He seemed to be in a bad mood and said in a pissed voice.

"We gonna continue with more sparring, and the failure 8028 will join you. But first, hurry the fuck up and pick a weapon. Look to your right, and you will see your options."

I walked over to the arsenal of weapons, weighing my choices. I did some archery back in the day, but picking a bow for close combat sparring didn’t seem like a good choice. After looking at different daggers, chains, and such, I followed 7659’s advice and picked a short sword, since it seemed to be the safest option. I walked back, stepped back in line, and got shouted at by the instructor.

"Sure took your sweet time. You don’t seem like the smartest person, so it makes sense that you take ages to do a simple task. Everyone besides 4514, go pick your weapon and get ready for sparring." Everyone quickly did as told, and soon after they were done, he continued: "4514 you’re gonna spar with 8028."

My comrade, who had given me many tips, gave me a strange look before partnering up with someone. Something was up. My opponent was most likely known for being brutal or something.

I had no other options. After standing only a few meters away, I readied myself. He was bigger than me and seemed to have a lot of muscle mass for a child. But he really needed them because his sword was a large broadsword close to him in size. He was dragging it on the ground, so it seemed it still was too heavy for him.

"Listen up, 8028. You might think this is unfair and that I should have taught you how to wield a sword before dropping you in a fight, but there is no better way to learn something than to experience it yourself, and if you can’t even survive one spar then your completely worthless."

This might be dangerous even though I showed my worth. This lazy excuse of an instructor was trying to get me killed. I began gathering some mana in my right foot as a backup plan. "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, Fight!"