35 days until christmas.

We made it back to the academy with the slave girl. She stayed very close to Ariel, and as far as she could get from me. She told Ariel that her name was Kori, and that she was kidnapped months ago. They were getting along well. I stayed further behind them as we walked to the dean's office. I was thinking about what Ariel had told me. “That man may never be the same again.” I felt bad. If I knew that would happen, I would’ve never done it.

“Me and Kori will head in, you stay here Kage.” Ariel said once we reached the office. I had no problem with it, I never did like the dean, he was strange. I took this opportunity to speak with the ghost. “I’ve been meaning to ask.” I said, “What’s your name?” She seemed kind of shocked when I asked, I don’t think she expected it. “My name’s Akai.” She said after a moment. “I have a question.” I said, “What was with all the pain when trying to give me the mana body?” I asked, it had been on my mind for a while. “I’m not entirely sure about that myself.” She said, it sounded genuine. “I’ve never had that happen before. It’s like there was another energy in your body rejecting it.” I decided to let it go.

After a few more minutes of waiting, Ariel and Kori came out. Ariel was holding a bag that had a small uniform inside. “She’s going to be staying at the academy until we can locate her parents.” Ariel informed me. “She’s going to have to stay in your dorm until we can get her one for herself.” The last bit of information was a bit surprising, I didn’t think I would have to share my dorm with anyone, there was only one bed. I looked at Kori, and when I noticed how malnourished she looked, I couldn’t help but feel partially responsible for her, as one of the people who found her. I agreed to let her stay in my dorm.

Once everything was sorted out, Ariel decided to show Kori around as I headed back to my dorm and got it ready for her. I figured I’d let her use the bed, there was a padded chair I would use to sleep. “It’s still better than the ground of the Labyrinth.” I thought to myself. I also thought that the bed would be nice for someone who was just a slave. “She probably didn’t have a good place to sleep.” After I finished cleaning up the room, Ariel and Kori showed up. I showed her where she would be sleeping, and the bathroom, the two most important things. Since classes were going to start the next day, and it was already dark out, we decided to go to sleep. Since I was already sitting at the desk, I decided to read some of the first volume of Basic Black Magic.

“Curses - Curses are probably the most commonly known use for black magic. There are curses such as blindness, fatigue, and paranoia. These are the non-lethal types of curses, and the most used. There are lethal types such as, Madness, bleeding(If not treated), and death. Most of the lethal curses are forbidden to use, and they will not be covered in these books.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Blindness - Using dark magic, the user temporarily blocks the connection of the eyes to the brain. The chant is “§Ö▌Þµ ╢ÿφ§¤.” This stands for blindness in the dragon's tongue.

Fatigue - Using darkness magic, the caster increases the target's weight, lowers their stamina, reduces their magic, and lowers their strength. The chant it “⑄⏗⏌⍥⍝⍾🜁🜳🝍🝊” It stands for weaken in the dragon's tongue.

Paranoia - This is a nonlethal version of madness. It uses dark magic to induce hallucinations and other maddening things, such as voices, eyes peering from shadows, along with others. The chant is “☧☥☟☠☫♱⛬” This stands for Hallucinate in the dragon’s tongue.”

I felt stupid. If I had just read the part that said madness was forbidden, I would have never used it. I decided to stop reading once I got to paranoia, It had taken about half an hour to read all of it, but I had an idea I wanted to try out. “Akai, am I able to cast one of these on myself?” I asked her a weird question. “Yeah? Why?” She answered, I could tell she was confused. “Blindness.” I chanted quietly. My vision immediately vanished. “What are you? Stupid?” She asked, bewilderment and amusement in her tone. “I need to get better at controlling the amount of mana I use in these spells.” I told her. I tried to use as little mana to blind myself, but it was the same amount as earlier.

After a few minutes the blindness wore off, and I tried again. This time, I didn’t put enough mana into it and the spell didn't work. I continued this for a while, but for some reason it was just not working, maybe that's just how hard magic is. Deciding to call it a night, I slowly drifted to sleep in the chair.

The sky was dark, and my body was heavy. I was standing in a large field near a creek. I walked over to the creek and looked down. My face was obscured by a strange mask, and I was drenched in blood. My left arm was missing, which was strange, I still felt it. “Hey.” A woman's voice called out to me. As soon as I turned to look, I woke up from the strange dream. The memory of it faded as my eyes opened.

Ariel was walking into mine and Kori's dorm. “I'm going to help her get ready.” She said, pulling the small uniform out of her bag. I grabbed my uniform and walked into the bathroom. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and changed into the uniform. As I did, I noticed my reflection looked strange. Once I glanced up, whatever was different went back to normal, I blamed my lack of sleep.

“Akai, are you awake?” I asked the ghost, there was no response. I finished getting ready and walked out of the bathroom. Ariel was brushing Kori's very long brown hair. I got a chance to see where normal human ears would be, but there wasn't anything there, she only had the wolf-like ears higher up on her head.

Once they were ready, my first day at the academy started.

34 days until christmas.