August had used the arcane since he learned how to walk. The first spell he created was a sphere of light. He hovered it over the table to save themselves from buying candles or oil and risk burning the hut down.

The second spell he learned was morphing that sphere into a flat plane. The hut was old, and it needed to be repaired. But Master Visentii refused to fix the hut. He ordered August to use arcane to seal it off.

August struggled in the first few weeks. When the rain started to seep through the cracks, he begrudgingly closed it up with arcane. He complained the beginning, but it had turned into a habit.

He was fourteen already, and having used arcane for a lot of different household things, he realized its true purpose: maintenance.

That was the very nature of arcane. A tool. Nothing more.

When rats and centipedes and insects populated this place, he thinned the flat sphere even further, turning it into a cloth. This was more difficult to execute. It bends, but it needed to possess enough arcane to keep it from breaking apart. And it had a special property: every insect that passes through it would be covered in these little films, like cobwebs, and he'd be able to manipulate the arcane to cripple or lop their little heads off.

It was very effective. At first, he only found one or two insects. But after several weeks, he realized that there were a lot of them. He just learned to sense them better.

Master Visentii had been surprised at his creative utilization of the arcane, and even more surprised that he did it every single day. August liked seeing his master happy, so whenever he was out in forest, he'd find himself learning to observe the insect wildlife.

As time passed, the strain of using the arcane lesened, and his proficiency increased. And when it turned into a habit, his arcane seemed to developed a mind of its own and dutifully carried out his desire even when he was asleep.

The cobweb spell, combined with the roof-fixing spell, drained him. But he adapted. He always had. Arcane was a muscle. It tears off but it heals itself overtime. And the more he did it, the more it bent to his will.

August started thinking artistically. He would create a box from these flat planes. Then, he'd construct the house. The trees would have a needle-like trunk with triangular shapes for leaves. Eventually, he started to construct them into smaller and finer details.

The smaller the better. It took several days to maintain the construction. Once, when his master banged open the door, he jolted from his seat and hours of his creation crumbled. He needed to control it better.

On his fifteenth birthday, he constructed a small patch of forestry around the hut. It was a 10x10 meter plot of land. It was very tiny, and it didn't even cover a part of the forest. He was very disappointed he couldn't cover the entire forest in a year.

There was a knock on the door.

August hesitated. He never had a visitor. It was only him and Master Visentii, and the master was not home at this very moment. He willed the art away, as he had done so over a thousand times. He could try again later tonight before he goes to sleep.

He didn't answer the door. He created a thin film from his fingers and slipped it under the door while he slowly backed out.

August licked his lips. He would treat this stranger like an insect would suddenly barge into his home. He had never met another person aside from his master.

He coated the stranger's boots with film, then, slowly and carefully, trickled it up and up until he reached the person's neck.

He inspected the outline of his arcane. It was a man. About six foot tall. Covered mostly in winter wear. Lean, calm, probably dangerous.

Another knock on the door. "Visentii?" The voice said. The accent seemed... refined. "I came to visit. I acquired the invitation from the Tower of Lords. Your letter. About the boy, August."

At this point, August had wrapped a thin film around the stranger's neck. He wondered what the man was talking about, and found that he was more curious than bloodthirsty. Quietly, he said, "Who are you?"

He heard a mutter. Then, the door slowly creaked open. The man was sharp. He wore a black fur over his leathers, and he carried with him no weapons to hunt at all. How was he supposed to survive out here?

The stranger looked around until he settled onto August. He seemed confused. He smiled. "I'm Orlan Arsheniama. Lord of the Flowers. Are you August?"

August gave a nod.

"Where's your parents?"

He shook his head. "I don't have parents," he said. "It's only me and Master Visentii. Are you a good person?"

The man blinked. "That depends. A good man can be an enemy to others. But a morally good person who acts in accordance to his soul--"

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Are you here to hurt me?"

"No!" The man seemed offended. "I'm here to deliver this." He pulled out a letter.

August stared at it. "What is it?"

"You can ask your dear master. Can you take me to him?"

August breathed in, and nodded. He lead the way to the back door until they reached the small garden. He had planted these all by himself. Sometimes, deers and foxes would visit, and he would coat them in arcane to follow them around the forest. It wasn't difficult to hunt them. But he preferred their company alive than dead, so he fed some of them and kept them as visitors.

Eventually, he was able to teach them not to touch anything in this garden without his permission. A prick in the neck or their belly was enough to convince them after several tries.

A deer and a fawn brushed through the garden. The stranger stopped and stared curiously. August harvested berries by hand and stretched out his hand with the other. The mother ate first. And then, the fawn. When they finished, they licked his fingers and followed him.

"You have quite the company," the man Orlan commented. "A deer and its fawn. A garden surrounded by the forest. I can feel myself healing in this beauty."

"I don't feel anything."

He arrived at a tree and pointed at the ground. The man shifted his attention to the large rock. Carved into that rock was an inscription: Master Visentii.

Orlan paled. "He's dead?"

"Since last winter."

"That's impossible. He was murdered. He has to be." Orlan shot him a glare. "How did he...."

"He left me a letter and told me he died. And then he disappeared. So I placed a gravestone and pretended he was dead."

Orlan sighed. "Enough of your jest. So, he's abandoned you."

"He'll come around," August said.

"Why would he--you're just a child."

I frowned. "I don't understand. Is him leaving a bad thing?"

"Alone in the forest for a year!"

"Then tell me what's good and what's bad."

It was only August and Master Visentii. Whenever he thought of his master, his heart ached. But he didn't have anything else to base his life on.

Orlan kicked the grave and spouted a litany of curses, He stepped inside the hut, sat down, and explained the nature of the letter.

Visentii had requested Orlan to help August enter the Tower. That the boy was ready. That he could survive inside the Tower. That master Visentii had taught him enough to spit on the face of a pretentious mage.

August wasn't convinced. Arcane was a tool to hunt animals to feed yourself. To maintain the quality of your home. It was the same as an axe or a pickaxe, with a lot more versatility. It could be used to assist a hunt, but never to hurt a person.

Orlan told him he could find everything he ever wanted in the Tower of Lords. Wealth, women, fame, power... all of it. Warriors and people from different worlds all converge within this tower for a chance to leave a lasting mark in history.

August wasn't interested. "I have a wealth of fruits, vegetables, and meat. I am famous with female deers, foxes, bears, and wolves," I said. "I happen to be very popular with them as well. And I'm powerful enough to feed bears by hand. They all like me."

"Have you seen..." Orlan made a lot of gestures. "A woman before?" Before August answered, the man waved him away. "Forget I asked. You think like a peasant. I would have left you alone, but Visentii entrusted you to me. Tell me what you want but don't have."

August thought about it. He had everything he ever wanted. Anything that he couldn't obtain, it was because he lacked the skill necessary for it. But what does this stranger know about him?

"I have this problem with arcane," he said with a scoff. "But you can't help me. I haven't been able to solve this problem for a year."

There was a glint in that man's eye. An unshakeable confidence. Orlan straightened up and gestured to the other side of the table. "Take a seat. Do you want to make a deal?" He smiled demonically.

August frowned. He asked what kind of deal it was.

"If I can solve your problem, successfully, you'll enter the Tower. But should I fail to solve it, I'll concede and leave this place and never return."

He crossed his arms. It wasn't a difficult decision for August. He accepted the offer and told the stranger his problem.

It had been a year since August started experimenting with color. Sometimes, he would be able to create a red hue in his creations, but it was inconsistent and very random. When he wanted green, he'd get blue. When he wanted blue, he'd get white. Or some other color entirely.

He felt like he was molding the arcane blind. He could never create the color he wanted.

"And it's been a year?"

August sighed. "I tried everything."

Orlan raised an eyebrow. "Everything?"

"I'll show you," August said. He bit his lip and stretched out his palm. Over it, he conjured a simple flat plane. Then, he voiced out the colors he wanted. But the colors within the flat plane shifted and morphed out of order.

Orlan stood up, strode outside, and returned with a fistful of soil. Without so much as a flourish, a flower sprouted. It was white, and bloomed beautifully, and that caught August off-guard.

"That's not--"

"Tsk-tsk," Orlan stretched out his other palm and conjured a similar, flat plane. Then, the flower wilted and died, and its soil slipped through his fingers. But the arcane on his other hand shifted from white to green and the back to white again. "You can't create colors from a vacuum. It's within the field of arcane but under a different branch. It specializes on an entirely different set of skills."

He took August's hand and placed the soil. "I've left some life from the wilted flower. Take the color from it and display it with the arcane."

August focused. He didn't knew where to start. He tried expanding his arcane outward, but it only wrapped the flower instead of... whatever Orlan did. When he tried to feel the flower, he felt nothing.

He shut his eyes. He didn't know how long it had been, but he felt a trickle of life from the flower. Feeling elated, he took its life and felt it pass through his arms, his chest, and onto his other hand. His place gave life. A single dot on a wide, flat plane.

Orlan peered closer into it. "Well. Um." He seemed at a loss for words. Then, he smiled, and that smile was painful." "t's been fifteen minutes. You did it. I think?"

"I did," he said. He brought the plane closer to his face. "It was just a dot, though."

"Coincidentally, this is one of the methods we use to gauge the potential of a person to be a mage. Like your master Visentii."

August looked up at Orlan.

"And, well, I'm sorry. I'll still take you to the Tower. I'll honor my word. But to be a mage, you must be able to succeed this test in under a minute. This is only an elementary test to measure how well you can interact with living things. Plants, animals, insects, people. We call that anima. To be quite frank, August--you don't have what it takes to be a mage."