“You got more?” Eleven said after swallowing the stone.

I might have refused to give him any more if I didn’t know he was 2 years old but now that I did it was really hard for me to refuse.

I took out 3 more goblin cores and fed them to Eleven.

He ate with relish and after eating looked at me with a look asking for more.

“I don’t have anymore” I said while showing my empty pocket to the owl.

“baah! After I am freed of my duties in this college I will go conquer the whole world and then eat Dragon cores everyday!”

I smiled at the stupidly brave dream of the owl.

“Can you not just do it now?”

“I… I cannot leave”

“Why?”

“Because as I am a spirit I am forced by the restrictions my ancestors put on their bloodline by taking a oath to always serve as the guardian of the mage academy. Edward decided that it was too harsh and decided to half the time but still…”

I felt pity for this creature, it was clearly so young and full of dreams but has been forced to stay as a guardian.

“Enough of this talk, What do you want to do?”

“Me? I want to cover the skies with fire” I gave an answer just as ludicrous.

“Why didn’t I think of that!” I noticed the owl’s eyes widening and had the thought that maybe my words had some unintended effect.

As we talked some more I noticed that despite the really young age of Eleven, except the dream he talked about he was really rational and filled up to the brim with knowledge.

“I think you would enjoy meeting my team mate Adiel”

I said after we had talked for a while.

“Why not meet him now” He said

I climbed down the tree and slowly started heading back home with the owl following behind me.

As soon as I entered the house Adiel came out of his room. I stepped aside and Eleven also flew in.

Adiel raised his eyebrow at the intrusion but didn’t say anything.

…

…(After 15 mins)

…

“What the ..” Delsa exclaimed after coming after her room.

Me, Adiel and Eleven all turned to look at her at the exact same time.

I was playing chess with Adiel while the owl was sitting on my head. While Eleven was not small, maybe due to being a air spirit he barely weighed anything.

“Another draw” He said after making his move.

“I will play against Adiel next” Eleven said as all the pieces started floating and rearranged in the air.I crossed my arms and sat with more comfort.

“What is a owl doing here?” she asked seeing that we had become engrossed in our game again.

“Why can’t a owl be here” Eleven’s voice rang.

“Aren’t you the guardian that woke us up?”

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“He is that owl, And now he is our friend” Adiel added while moving a piece, Classic london opening it seems.

Delsa looked at the owl, then at me me and finally at the chess board before shaking her head and heading back to her room.

After we both lost to the owl 5 times in a row each we decided it was enough for today.

“Are all owls this intelligent?”

“Not at all, First of all while I am from the owl family of the wind spirit species, Therefore it would be wrong to call me an owl. Secondly, not all wind spirits are smart, Its only the owl family of the air spirits that are called the spirits of wisdom, the sole reason we are rarely contracted by mages is that we don’t have much to boast of except intelligence, Even after contracting the sole way to strengthen us is to share our mana which no mage would do as it is solely a benefit of the wind spirit”

“Do you want to be contracted?” I asked

“Kind off, I would be able to leave much immediately if some mage or mage apprentice would contract me.”

“are contracts like master sla-”

“No! All contracts between spirits and mages are equal based on the oath took by our ancestors after the gods decided to gather on our planet.” The owl cut off Adiel in between, as if even thinking about such a thing was blasphemous

“Should we go sleep now?” I said after looking at the slowly setting sun in the distance. While I had access to well lighted rooms here the past 10 plus years of sleeping and waking up with the sun had become a habit.

“Good spending time with you Adiel, And thank you for the company Eric”

We both nodded at Eleven and the owl spirit flew away.

“Good night Eric” Adiel said and went to his room, He seemed a bit reserved but he is a good person, he will slowly open up. After all, if prison left scars in someone’s mind being subjected to slavery was a concept I could not even fathom.

But I could not and should not pity him, he fought for knowledge in a life filled with misery and that made him someone not to pity but someone to respect.

Thinking about such things I went back to my room and slowly fell asleep.

…

(The next morning)

I slowly opened my eyes and sat up. I drank a glass of water and saw a bunch of birds flying near the houses. One slowly approached my room but seeing that I was awake flew away.

‘It seems that a mild one was at duty today’ I thought, Eleven had told me that most guardians when assigned the wake up duty just run around screaming but a few do things a bit more mildly.

I heard the sound of wake up from the next room.

*sigh*

I went outside and found a disheveled Delsa standing outside her room. The Guardian who woke us up today was not that mild I guess.

Adiel was already sitting in the room, watching the outside through the window.

We slowly dressed up and retraced the steps we had taken yesterday to go to the classroom, while I wondered what wonders I will see today.

“Good morning everyone, From today onwards you all start your journey as mages. You will be taught for 3 hours everyday by me, which might be extended based on circumstances, and you will be spending the rest of the time as you deem fit after you do the work I assign to you daily. You all are smart kids and I would not be teaching you any maths except some practical stuff, what I will be doing is assigning each of you some math exercises. Now, any questions before we start?”

The boy who had asked quite a few questions yesterday raised his hand.

“Yes Theo”

“Why do we have to learn maths sir?”

“Do you not want to?”

“I never said that sir, its just that I wanted to know why we were learning maths before I started spending time on it.”

“This is good trait for a scholar but not for a mage theo, While we do a lot more than what our jobs ought to be the first and foremost duty of a mage is to strive for knowledge. A mage who thinks how knowledge about the world can be useful to them can never be a great mage.

Also, remember the name of Grand mage Thomas? There’s a very famous line he used to say, that is;

‘The future of mages is not written by grand mages, it is written through the hands of mathematicians’

In order to advance as a mage, to create a path that you will be walking for the rest of your lives as mages, you need to make many calculations.

In order to become a legendary mage, in order to figure out how to evolve your soul from the limits of a mortal to something beyond, You have to recreate a natural phenomenon in your soul, and that requires such a robust understanding of the world that nothing less then the absolute peak of what we have achieved in math has to be fully grasped.”

The boy, fully satisfied with the answer sat down and stopped talking.

“All the kids who don’t have the mana storage talent, basically everyone except from Delsa, will read this at home and do what is written” He tapped his staff and a sheet of paper titled ‘Initiate mage’ Appeared in front of everyone.

“Sir” Delsa raised her hand.

“Yes?”

“If entering this initiate mage rank can allow one to have one more spell and we will be taught magic at the same time why don’t the people with the talent enter this rank?”

“Good question, and it is also connected to what you will be taught today. Engraving spells has to be done with the help of mana and I will show you how throughout this week, One thing about engraving spells is there are limits, and what the limit is depends on the type of spell and the development of your soul. While I will teach about this today to answer your question, you cannot engrave a talent spell, spells that work without the need of a mage’s interference and improve the basic qualities of a mage, without a change in the soul. The initiate mage rank is the rank to grant everyone mana storage talent, but if you already have the talent the soul would not change and it would be meaningless”