There was no sign of my roommate anywhere inside the men’s area, so I took my time in the showers.

After standing in the hot water for a while, I decided that I’d been in there long enough and finished up.

Sundays were a kind of rest day for students, but not for me. Sundays were the days that the Theoretical Magic classes met. As the smallest class group in the College, they had less time and space available to them, so they had to schedule around the other classes. As such, they usually met very early or very late during the weekdays, and for long periods of time on Sundays.

Losing the free time on a Sunday should have been the biggest thing to sigh about, but I found that out of all the classes I attended, this was the one I liked the most. If I had come here for solely academic purposes, I probably would have taken this class. Not only that, the entire class had dedicated themselves to helping me figure out how my abilities as an Elementalist work.

With some time before the Theoretical Magic classes started, I decided to spend some time going over the notes I had been given. After heading to the room where the first of the classes being held would be, I took the papers out of my Storage Ring and started reading through them.

With how she had acted, I had expected some very skin deep notes, but I was surprised at how in depth and descriptive they were. It was like every one of my flaws had been drawn out and dissected, with a detailed explanation on just how to fix it.

Face-palming, I scolded myself for doubting Avery. He had never let me down even once. He was someone I could always trust.

Without realizing, enough time had passed that students had started filtering into the room, each one greeting me as they entered.

With everyone worried about seating themselves, I quickly stored the notes away for later and waited for class to begin.

The Theoretical Physics class was by far the coolest of the classes I had attended so far. Many students often talk about how they attended classes like Battle Magic because they thought it would be an opportunity to play with magic. Instead, Battle Magic was more theoretical than Theoretical Magic, focusing more on how well a certain spell would do in certain scenarios and other strategic things like that, not to be confused with Strategy and Battle which was more like playing a game of chess for hours. Theoretical Magic, in the class itself and the view of the people were polar opposites.

The class began with a typical lecture on what was included in the textbook, which was understandably sub-par. It had likely been written several years ago, with some of the “theories” inside having already been proven true. With that, the class moved on to the hands-on portion. This hands-on portion was an excuse for each student to experiment with magic however they wanted. They, of course, had to come up with a question and hypothesis to follow, but there was so much unknown with magic that every student was eager to explore.

Students often worked in teams, providing different points of view, as well as different magical abilities and ideas. One such team had set their sights on me at the start of my service and had slowly grown to receive input from every other group to the point that their own research started suffering from neglect. In the end, the teacher had allotted a specific time for the class to work with me aside from their own research. During this in between time, I talked with the teacher.

Thinking back to what the copy had shown me in my dream, I had a question burning a hole through my mind. “Do you think it’s possible to grow beyond a red aura?” I blurted out my question, startling the teacher.

“Where’d that question come from?” She asked.

“O-Oh, I just thought of it.” I stuttered.

Leaning back in her chair, the teacher thought for a moment before answering. “Of course I think it’s possible, but nobody’s ever managed to make it there. There were those that tried, but…” She paused.

“But, what?”

“In history, only two have ever tried to go past red.” She started, a frown growing on her face. “In both instances, at the moment that it seemed that they would make it past the trial, they both collapsed dead. At the same moment in the trial, at completely different times and places, they both died from a heart attack.”

“A heart attack?”

“That’s what’s recorded. If I remember correctly, it said that the organ was deflated when they examined the body.”

How strange.

I pondered on what she had spoken of for a moment. What kind of barrier was there to that final push. It must be some kind of unexpected variable for them to fall to it. Nobody would ever try to push like that without thoroughly preparing. It was obviously possible to go beyond what we knew as our limit. What was the most intriguing, though, was that their hearts had ‘deflated.’ The heart was, funnily enough, the heart of a sorcerers ability, pumping mana through the body with the blood. Everything starts from that one point. Usually, when a person is not ready to go past the barrier to the next level and attempts to do so anyway, their heart is unable to contain the increased potency of mana and explodes. It shouldn’t collapse.

“I believe I know where to find the record if you’d like to learn more.” The teacher spoke, seeing my puzzled expression.

I shook my head. There was no point learning more about this right now. I didn’t need any distractions. This would have to be set aside for later.

Turning my attention to the class, I looked over their experiments. All of them had some aspect to it that drew my curiosity, none more than one in specific. One group of two students was researching the eyes. I’d already asked them about their idea and received an hour long lecture about the depths of what they were digging into. In short, they were trying to discern the cause of the auras showing through eyes for both mages and warriors.

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Mages cast magic by using the mana flowing out from their hands to summon a Magic Ring which then has the caster’s will engraved onto its surface. Warriors utilize mana by flooding the body with it to the point that it leaks out of the skin, forming a kind of shield that can be altered. In both of these, however, the aura is always strongest around the eyes.

Though their experiments were odd, I felt the sense behind their idea. That there was some kind of power in the eyes that we had not yet come to understand. Even after having magic for as long as history records, humanity learns something new every day.

“Alright everyone.” The teacher called out, pulling me from my thoughts. “It’s time for us to work with our guest.” She spoke with a bright smile shared among all the students. Within seconds, every student had put away all of their research notes and books and was sitting at attention. “I’ve managed to reserve the burn yard for us today, so lets get up and all move in an orderly fashion.”

The already bright smiles on the elated students somehow got even brighter as they all gathered their supplies and stood, waiting by the door in an odd order. They organized themselves by age, but the height difference between some of them was staggering. Though this was normal since there was no set age one had to attend the College at. In this class alone, there were some in their mid to late twenties and some as young as me.

The burn yard was the large dirt field that all us new students had gone to when we first arrived.

I could still see the show that they had prepared for us in my mind. The way the ball of fire collapsed once it reached too far into the sky, destroyed by some kind of spell prepared around the school.

The students all gathered in an impressively straight line not far away. They all looked about ready to burst from anticipation. No doubt they had all prepared for an opportunity like this. Before any of their experiments, though, the teacher had given instruction for all of them to help me find the location of the other elements located in my body. Aside from metal and lightning, I had no clue where to feel out for my third element.

Seemingly just as prepared for this exercise as they were for their own experiments, they all pulled out their notebooks and frantically flipped to pages before, one at a time, they came forward, explaining what they had researched. There was a record of just where each of the elements was located in the body, but they were all vague and brief. One such was how the element of darkness was “just in my gut somewhere.” However, with the combined efforts of all the students in this class, we were able to find the general area of most of the elements by cross referencing all the accounts.

All together: I’d already found the metal and lightning, so we didn’t have to worry about those. Fire was somewhere around the shoulders, water was in the mouth, earth was near the center of the spine, air was on the bottom of the feet, ice was in the knee joints, light was behind the eyes and darkness was around the bottom of the ribcage.

Seeing all the knowledge that these students had gathered and organized in just a couple of weeks was baffling. Every one of them had no doubt spent hours searching through documents just to help me. If it were Faria instead of me, I knew that she would probably convince them all to do whatever research she had for her. And seeing how much they enjoyed doing this research, they wouldn’t complain.

Breathing deeply, all of their instruction fresh in my mind, I summoned my aura. Feeling the familiar energy rush through me, I had come to realize just where my constant fatigue was coming from. Magic was like a muscle; the more you used it, the stronger it became. The brighter a color, the stronger it was. All until you hit a kind of block and need to go through a trial to push past it and into the next level.

The image of the fireball collapsing appeared in my mind once again. It was clearly the wind that had done the job, and wind just so happened to have the most detailed location of all the elements.

Focusing all of my attention on my feet, I was surprised by how immediate the response was. In the center of the arches on my feet, I felt the familiar tingling sensation. Raising a hand, I summoned a Magic Ring and watched the white disk take on a color that perfectly match the color of the sky.

The cheering and applause from nearby broke my focus and the Magic Ring disappeared. I couldn’t help but feel a little awkward at being the center of attention and tried hard not to blush.

Over the next several minutes, I went through each and every location that had been given to me, but in the end, aside from wind, I had only found one. In the roof of my mouth, I found the location for water.

Next, one at a time, every student came forward and pitched their idea to me. Most of them were experimenting on how the elemental charge would alter how a spell was cast. We quickly found that if a spell was cast with an element that could not accomplish the task, the Magic Ring would simply fade. Likewise, if it can do what is asked, then it does so in whatever way the element can do that. So I couldn’t start a fire with water, but I could with lightning.

Finally, one student came forward with an interesting idea. What if I tried to use two elements at once?

Seeing nothing wrong with this idea, I held out my hand and summoned a Magic Ring and felt for the water and air elements and watched as the Magic Ring turned into a splotchy mix of aqua and sky blue. However, the moment I tried to prepare a spell, an intense pain seized my chest. It was like someone had just punched me in the ribs.

My aura disappeared as I struggled to breath, the pain slowly fading from my chest.

The student who had asked me to do this exercise stood close by me and was staring intently at my face.

“Acute mana deficiency.” The student stated bluntly. “Though you seemingly still have much to spare.”

Struggling to take a deep breath, I spoke. “Then what… what happened?”

“At first glance, it appears that the merging of multiple elements requires a great deal more mana than normal, rather than less.”

“That may not be the case.” Another student piped up. “What exactly did you try to cast?”

Thinking back, I answered. “I just tried to create a breeze.”

The closer student then nodded his head rapidly. “You may be right then. We know that a spell fails if the element cannot support it, so perhaps that collapse becomes harsher with the mixed elements.” Turning to me he continued. “A simple breeze may use wind, but there is no apparent aspect of water in your spell. Try a spell that would equally use both elements.”

Hesitant, I activated my aura and was pleased to find that the pain had not returned, though a sizeable portion of my mana was gone. But I didn’t have to worry about that as long as I got some rest. Regardless of the level, a full night of sleep was enough for the body to replenish its mana.

Thinking harder of a spell that would work like the students have suggested, I decided to try to form a cloud of fog and, to my pleasant surprise, it worked. The water from a nearby puddle rushed into the air and exploded outward, forming a ball of thick fog that hung in the air. It was big enough for a person to hide in, though the sun’s heat was quickly dispersing it.

Seeing this success, there was another outpouring of praise and excitement.

The next couple of hours passed as every student, despite this opportunity for new experiments, continued with their previously planned tests.

Finally, I was released from my duties and immediately headed towards the cafeteria. I had two hours before the ceremony and celebration for the first tourney bracket and would not forgo my supper. Otherwise, I would probably pass out from starvation during the event.