"Don't worry about it Cain, you just aren't used to it yet." Mason tried to comfort me.

Clin was slithering along the ground next to us, he had bailed on me the first time I fell into the mud under the course.

I wasn't the only person covered in mud but I truly thought I would have done better, not that I was an overly sporty person before, but the increased strength, endurance and dexterity beast affinity and the bond with Clin gave me I thought I would do better.

Those of us covered in mud ambled downcast towards the changeroom, desperate for a shower. It was a very pleasant fifteen minutes later that I got out, dressed and met back up with Mason. Haru and his friends were standing around Mason chatting excitedly, planning on getting some food before heading to their next lesson, our first elemental lesson.

During the walk back to the dorm to drop off our dirty uniforms, Haru suggested we head to one of the cafes in the recreation area.

On the way I finally got to meet his friends properly, the girl with green hair was Ivy Caspian, elements were Nature, Water and Air. Twin boys were Adam and Hadley, they never told us their last name, elements were Earth, Psychic and Space, being twins with Psychic, they were basically the same person. Finally the girl that looked like Haru was actually his twin sister Hoshiko, her elements were very similar to his, she had Poison, Fire and Beast while Haru had Nature instead of Fire.

We made it to a cafe before I even realised, I hadn't even paid attention to where we were going. We spent our time talking about nothing, Mason being surprisingly quiet considering his normal personality. I would have to ask him about it later.

It seemed like no time had passed at all when we realised we had to head to our first element lesson.

We walked back through the school, past the Ice Element building and started to split up. It wasn't long before it was only Hoshiko and me left.

Just outside of the Fire Elemental building I stopped, looking at a statue, I couldn't help but start laughing. It was one of the classmates that was with me visiting the experiment. I thought they had all died but apparently some had been far enough away to survive.

"Cain, why are you staring at the statue of Sir Leo Nabir?" Hoshiko asked.

I almost choked, that bastard actually changed his name to a Wheel of Time reference. When I knew him, his name was Leonardo Smith, clearly he changed it once magic happened.

"He just reminds me of someone I used to know. I have never heard of him before." I answered Hoshiko.

She looked shocked at my answer.

"You've never heard of Sir Nabir? How is that possible? They still tell the stories of how he saved Tokyo from the Ice Hydra, and when he leveled a whole city of Truth of Mist cult." Hoshiko stuttered out.

My old friend turned into a pretty big shot it seems, pity I couldn't tell her of the time he tripped into a wall when he tried to ask Mandy Sanchez out, or fell off his seat because he fell asleep in class.

We walked to our lecture room while Hoshiko told me the talk of the gallant hero facing off against the giant Ice Hydra alone. Five people had beaten us there, it wasn't a large room so we were mostly clustered together.

Over the next few minutes, no one else showed up, I was rather surprised as I was told Fire was a fairly common element. I guess there were more with Fire affinity in the other half of the year.

Suddenly a burst of fire appeared at the front of the room, a figure of a man made of fire slowly turned back into a human. He had deep maroon hair and red eyes, I think he only had one or two elements. Even being normal again I could feel a burning pressure against my whole body.

"Welcome all to our new year, you all have the wonder of wielding the most grand of elements. Fire, that which has led humanity to grow as a culture, life and light in our formative years, food and hygiene, all stemmed from this one defining element, FIRE!"

The instructor was very passionate.

"Fire may be a "base" element but it can demolish so many others. What water can't be turned to steam, earth baked into nothingness, poison broken down by the flames or Ice melted into nothing. I will show you how to cause destruction from the smallest spark and take control of the greatest inferno, all I ask is you put your trust in me as your instructor!" He was raising his voice throughout, almost yelling by the end.

I was a little shocked at both his entrance and his speech, apparently I wasn't the only one as no-one made a sound after he finished. The instructor was clearly expecting something as his face fell when none of us said anything.

"Kids these days have no sense of the theatrical...I am Ash Finton and I will be your instructor, call me Ash or Instructor Finton, I don't really care. Lets go to the library on the third floor to find you all a cultivation technique and a spell book. If you already have your own cultivation technique, you can either choose another or an extra spell book." Instructor Finton sounded very dejected after we didn't react to his opening speech.

Without checking who we each were, Ash left the room without looking back. We quickly followed so we didn't lose him. We were on the first floor, but it was only around the corner that we found the stairs.

A couple minutes later we entered a room with a counter to the left and a half dozen tables spread around the room.

"The books on the table are reference books, read them, first half is cultivation, second half is spells. When you have made a decision, go see the worker at the counter. Get at it." Ash said before he left the room.

Hoshiko and I looked at each other for a moment before diving towards the table closest to us. I just barely managed to grab the book detailing the spells first. Getting a pout directed at me for my trouble.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

It was more accurate to call it a pamphlet that a book though, a quick look had only a dozen spells that were tier one. I assumed that tier two spells and higher were deeper.

The tier one spells that drew my eyes were Burning Ember, Fireball, Fire Arrow and Fire Wall. The rest were either very similar or hybrid spells that didn’t work for my elements. I read the small blurb about each spell, gaining a basic understanding of them, Fireball exploded, gaining a wider area of effect, Fire Arrow had a greater penetrative power, Fire Wall was both a shield as well as a utility spell and Burning Ember sat somewhere between Fireball and Fire Arrow, a small explosion but it was directional.

I had a quick look at the cultivation techniques and was interested in reading about some of them. There were plain fire ones like All Consuming Flame or Phoenix Fire, which made me think they were named by nerds, some hybrid techniques, my personal favourite was called Rebirth of a Fallen World that was a Nature and Fire hybrid and finally some general techniques like mine.

I spoke to Hoshiko for a few minutes, talking through the spells we liked before we both made our decisions. We walked up to the counter together and had to wait in line for a few minutes.

“Dude I am totally getting Fireball, how cool will it be to blow manabeasts up with it.” one of the people in front of us said to his friends.

“I’m getting the All Consuming Flame technique and Burning Ember, they will go great with my other elements.” his friends replied, clearly not listening to each other.

Hoshiko and I shared a smile at their enthusiasm. It was finally my turn and I quickly got Burning Ember and Firewall and tucked them away before heading back to the table. It was only a few minutes later we were headed back to the classroom, or so I thought.

We ended up going the other direction, to a series of rooms that looked quite narrow.

“These are cultivation rooms, you can use these at any time you like, they have a higher concentration of fire mana inside to help you cultivate. If you are using a hybrid or general cultivation technique I advise you not to use them as they will unbalance your mana. Instead you can use the rooms down the hall to the left for practicing spells. I will be in this first room if anyone has questions.” Ash explained before entering the first room.

Since Hoshiko and I only got spells we followed the direction and went to find the other rooms. After I entered the room, I immediately noticed that the fire mana in this room was concentrated making it much easier to sense.

I took out the Burning Ember skill book and started reading.

Burning Ember

Tier:1

Element: Fire

Spell Chant:

That which begins with a spark

grows into a flame

and destroys that which

stands in my way

Burning Ember

The rest of the book told the history of the spell but didn't give me any more information. I was really confused by it but decided to try anyway.

"That which begins with a spark,"

I could feel a resonance from my mana, I didn't know if I was capable of "watching" my mana flow while casting the spell but I thought I'd give it a try anyway.

I didn't want to fail the cast so kept speaking as I tried.

"Grows into a flame,"

I saw a strand of fire mana separate from its circuit aasit passed my root chakra, entering the next one up, the sacral chakra.

"And destroys that which,"

It started weaving itself into a sigil, I didn't know what they called them but it was the first word that popped into my mind, but my sight was too fuzzy to truly grasp what it looked like.

"Stands in my way,"

The full sigil exited my sacral chakra and moved down my arm, I raised it quickly, the sigil exited my hand.

"Burning Ember!"

The sigil collapsed and a dense flame the size of my thumb burst away, about the same speed as throwing a ball. It hit the back wall within a second and exploded, I felt a small force from the twenty metres I was away from it. Fast enough that it wouldn't be considered slow but also not fast enough to be dodged.

From what I saw, even if I had gotten Fireball it would have been dangerous to cast it inside these rooms.

I opened the Firewall spell book to find out it's chant.

Firewall

Tier: 1

Element: Fire

Spell Chant:

Pulled from a land of fire

A bulwark to protect

To shield those behind me

A curtain separating from my enemies

Firewall

"No time like the present to try this one," I said to myself before trying.

"Pulled from a land of fire," I could feel the same reaction from my body.

"A bulwark to protect,

To shield those behind me," I looked at the sigil that was being drawn in my body, it looked different than the Burning Ember.

"A curtain separating from my enemies

Firewall!" Instead of the sigil leaving my body through my arm, it travelled down my leg and into the ground.

I could feel a connection to the spell still and nothing happened at first, I thought about moving the sigil into the middle of the room. It moved but still didn't activate, I realised it could be used as a trap because I had to activate it myself.

I cast the spell another three times and set them out into a box before activating all four at the same time.

I could feel Clin was oddly pleased with the heat that was radiating from the four firewalls creating the box, I was very pleased at realising we could use this to trap Manabeasts.

I checked how much mana I still had in my core, I really needed to cultivate a lot more it seemed, five spells took almost half of my mana. I guess I was six months behind people like Mason but I was also a bit ahead of a lot of the students.

I repeated the same process and almost bottomed out my mana. I felt a little woozy from the experience. It took a few minutes before I felt better and thought I could ask Instructor Finton where the best place to cultivate a general technique was.

Knocking on the door to the room he claimed, I stepped back and waited just in case there was another student in there. It was only a few seconds later that the door opened and I entered.

Ash was seated cross-legged on a small design on the floor and I could sense fire mana spiraling around his body.

“Instructor Finton, I practiced my new spells a bit but used up almost all my mana in the process. I cultivate a general technique because of the combination of affinities I have and was wondering if you could tell me the best place to cultivate was?” I said in a rush.

“Considering all general techniques purify the mana as you cultivate, it doesn’t really matter where you cultivate, but I understand why you would find it harder to cultivate inside the building with its heavy focus on fire mana. I will excuse you for today to go back to the dorms, in case you weren’t told, there are cultivation rooms in the basements of the buildings. You can use them for up to six hours a day without payment but anything over that will either contribution points or money.” Ash answered.

It was nice to know that I could cultivate anywhere, I hadn't noticed that my technique was purifying the mana as I absorbed it but it did make sense that a general purpose technique would be able to.

I hadn’t heard of contribution points before so thought to ask. It did remind me of some of the Adventurer books I had read before though. I imagine it would require me to create items, kill manabeasts or collect mana filled items.

I asked and it was exactly as I expected. Since Essie had given me Advanced Weapons Training and Manabeast Hunting as my electives, I figured I would be getting some contribution points once we starting actually hunting them. I could probably hunt a couple now together with Mason, the combination of Firewall creating chokepoints and new shadows together with his chantless shadow spells would make us a good team against weak enemies.

I left the building and made my way back to the dorms, I knocked on Hoshiko’s door to let her know I was leaving, it turns out she went the path of multiple different cultivation techniques because she decided to only even get Poison or Fire-type familiars. This meant she only needed two techniques because she could duel-cultivate with her familiar on that affinity.

As this was a revelation for me, I barely noticed the short walk back to the dorms. If I made the decision to only get Fire or Void familiars I could have followed her lead, it would have restricted the familiars I could gain though.

I went to walk through the door into the dorm when another student strutted out, running full into me as he was looking backwards towards his friends. He fell back into the door frame, hitting his head on the way down.

"Cage!" One of his friends yelled out as he rushed forwards.

As a golden glow sprung up around the teens hands I studied the group quickly. The person I ran into had the green hair of a Nature affinity and looked eastern European, the teen that rushed up to him had the golden hair of a light affinity and could have been the first ones cousin.

I started to look at the others but the guy on the ground opened his eyes, I could see the anger in his eyes that resembled mine.

"Sorry man, honest mistake. We didn't see each other and…" that was as far as I got.

My collar was grabbed and I found myself thrust up against the wall with Cage's group of friends surrounding us. I wasn't hurt, just surprised, without magic I didn't think these guys could hurt me.

"Just because you rocked up with Prince Mason don't think you're some type of King shit around here. I guess we will have to put you in your place." Cage just about snarled in my face.

No one was paying attention as suddenly someone was clearing their throat by the door.

Cage thrust me into the wall and let go.

"This isn't over freeloader." He said as they all walked away.

I looked towards the door to see who cleared their throat and it turned out to be someone I didn't know. A middle aged woman with brown eyes and hair looked at me with pity. She turned around and reentered the building, I decided to follow to find the cultivation rooms as well.

"Mr Herondale, I advise you don't get on the wrong side of Cage Aegis. He is the pride and joy of his father, Duke Aegis, their first descendant with Void affinity. His whole group grew up together and learnt to fight from a young age. You will lose, badly." She said as she entered a doorway further down the hall.

I was following but she closed the door behind her, the sound of the lock being turned signified she didn't want to talk anymore.

Fortunately for me, I saw a sign further down the hall that was a sign pointing down. I descended deeper into the building to find the cultivation rooms, spending the rest of the afternoon, until dinner, cultivating and considering who I just pissed off by accident.