Waking up just before first light is annoying, and not something I would wish on anyone with half a shred of dignity, with a day as long as it is, and the last day being filled with intense fighting, waking up to my first class in lumen was quite annoying.

As I entered the hall, it was with a staple of bread on a plate, everyone still eating as we silently watched the first rays of sunlight fall through the observatory.

To call it beautiful would be an understatement, our professor for today's lecture, the lord of light himself, appeared before us just as the entire room began to bloom in crystal coloration, prisms and mirrors making the eyes of all the gathered kids glimmer with a shred of wonder.

“Every one of my colleagues will call their expertise the strongest, and sure, the pure destructive capability of fire and necros are quite impressive, but lumen… lumen controls what we see. It can start fires if the beam and focus rune are combined, a mix most of you probably know by now. Some more familiar with it than others. A simple spell, taking out most non mages by simply landing in their eye, crippling them forever. It is the most beautiful of Arcana, because where the others display one set of scenery, we quite literally control the means they use to perceive the world.” A horse galloped through the hall at that, moving until it suddenly turned to millions of illusory butterflies. “We can disappear from their detection at any times, create line of sight through perfectly guarded cities, and take out their leadership with a few precise beams. We are tricksters and assassins, and in this class, I will teach you about the powers and responsibility that come with it. I will give understanding to those who need it, and I consider you ready once you reach the fifth soul refinement. Some will stay a year, others their entire life, but all of you will be one with the light when we say our farewells, and you will be offered to take the next level of education. In my class, you will become one with the light, and if anyone gives up, I will personally make sure they will regret it.”

The class fell silent, a state of silent agreement and a few trembling students in the back.

Lumen was a common Arcana to be born in, and the thirty of us in here proved that.

The professor continued on by explaining basic physics, the way light naturally interacted with the world around it, everything that high school would teach those who manage to not sleep during such lectures, everyone writing notes, captivated by his passionate speech to the point even I actively compared what he knew to the things I thought to know.

As he asked if any of us had questions, I raised my hand, doing so while simply focusing the radiant rune on it, so he would notice. A beam of unfocused light hitting my hand, dimming that glow as he looked at me.

“How do different colors come to be then?” I ask, asking I knew my old biology and physics teacher loved to answer, and one that would refocus the two people that were nearly dozing off to the far left, who came last and probably hoped he wouldn’t care.

“Light is like a wave, each frequency a different input for your eyes, and like keys to a lock, each wave will fit to one of the parts of your eye, and thus be seen as the corresponding color. Sadly, this is a very confusing topic to many, and only available to those who have both the vitus and lumen lessons, which fall short this year because of a lack of members. To some of you, however, the shadow mage course might be something you should look into, their order always looking for talented people. We, however, will focus on light in the concept of beams, beams that carry all the colors, before they interact with objects that absorb some of the colors the light carries. Fundamentally, light exists as thirty pieces red, thirty pieces blue and thirty pieces green, as well as ten pieces heat. It’s an easy way to look at it, and yet enough to understand anything you will need to reach your goals. The deeper art of lumen something I might teach more about once you have sworn yourself to the academy.” It was a lure, the kind of lure that would keep many of these people ted to this place for dozens of years.

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“So, you would say that light, upon impacting with a surface, looses some of these points?” I ask, curious to test his model, a challenge he gleefully accepted.

“If you take away all thirty points of green, you will get purple, take away red, and you get cyan, and if you loose blue, yellow remains. And there are many more parts that can be taken, intricate mixtures.” He continued, stopping at a crescendo, the anticipation hanging in the air, thick enough to cut.

“And the ten points of heat are a lie, because the only one who would be interested in light as a particle, and its interaction with fire, is currently sick because someone ran a boulder through his stomach.” I felt let down with this information, and as he dismissed us shortly after answering other peoples questions, I made the fastest way to the class on necros, one girl following me from the lumen class, a necklace decorated with thousands of runes drawing my attention whenever she came to close, distorting my arcane gaze and spatial detection, functioning as a knockoff version of the elemental trait.

“Didn’t notice you during the trial.” I said, our path long before we would reach the crypt used for necros classes.

Her face twisted into a forced smile, a mask that was set up just well enough for the necklace to pick up the intention and create the illusion of a real one.

“Had we seen each other, we probably would have killed each other, and I was placed second in the lumen trials.” She explained, prompting a respectful nod on my part.

“I don’t remember them all that much, I was talking about the necros trial, I see a pretty green soul, which, given that Vitus lessons are on the other side of the campus, probably indicate necros and lumen, with the first having been mostly a team effort. Also, why do you put on that smile? It looks painful, but at least the artifact seems to work on proper runes.” I say, grinning as I see a bit of her annoyance crack away, the smile still forced, but her effort to fake it lessening slightly.

“Call me shade, are you always this chatty? I liked you more when you stood in the center of that circle and became that glowing skeleton thing, had something worth writing a book about. Speaking kind of destroys that image.” She continued, and I suppressed a grin, my posture stiffening and my robes beginning to billow in a wind that only seemed to affect me, my body partially dissolving as I connected to the surrounding space, reappearing on her left side, rather than the right I was on before then.

“I assume you are a fan of epic power displays? Because I don't think most people would appreciate it if I gave up the imitation of normalcy and simply embraced my superiority.”

She gave me a look somewhere between disgust and respect, which I answered by cracking my broadest smile.

“Just kidding, I don’t usually show off unless it is necessary, or I might get a rise out of someone.”

For the rest of the walk, she decided to stay silent, a volume I quite enjoyed as we finally approached the ebonwood double doors, where we waited as the other eleven members approached, each of them having decorated their robe with some symbol of death, which made my bony stature a bit less noticeable.

“Hi bone eater, how was lumen? I heard some friends of mine talk about you having four affinities and a soul like a star, is that true?” One of them asked, his skin marred with signs of necrosis, many failed spells evident in his raspy voice and general movement.

“Four and counting, I just need to properly get access to all the others, and that can’t be too hard, right?” my commentary made everyone laugh, the fact that my truth was so surreal for most to be laughable stroked and wounded my ego at the same time, but their happiness would help me, and when I finished my other quests, these boys and girls might stand with me against the legions of possible foes.

Slowly, the doors opened before us, candles smelling of lavender served as the crypts lighting, and as the sarcophagus at the end of the room opened, we students began to gather around.