I stared at myself in the mirror and took in a deep breath.

Malachi – was I sure I was committed to that name? My brother had said it was too edgy, though personally, I was a fan of it.

To me, at least, it conjured up the image of a mage with solar and lunar mana, throwing a fireball while blending into the shadows. Or maybe someone using desolation mana to level a building with one stroke of their hand.

Powerful. Strong. Maybe with an exceptionally powerful legacy well, like Liz’s. Her legacy – Tidal Twin, inherited from her late mother – was even more powerful than Ed’s, and probably the strongest one I knew.

But all of Liz’s family had powerful legacies that were suited for combat.

My own dad’s legacy allowed him a powerful resistance to infection and disease. It was useful, certainly, a life free of sickness. But it wasn’t exactly going to qualify me for a job with the Wyldwatch.

My brother, Ed, had a powerful legacy, though I wasn’t sure who, if anyone, he’d inherited it from, since I wasn’t aware of anyone in the family with a legacy like Ed’s.

Maybe I’d be able to get lucky, too. It was possible. New, spontaneous legacies appeared every day, even if it was more likely to inherit it from one of your parents, or else blend theirs together into your own.

I realized that I was letting myself focus on legacies and magic in order to avoid having to think about the day ahead.

I looked back up and stared at myself in the mirror again, trying to clear my worries out of my head.

I was too small, not even five and a half feet. My wavy black hair was wild, and my eyes were a bright green.

My shoulders were too narrow, though I’d been lucky enough for them to be fairly broad, just not filled out.

The suit that I was wearing – raided from the depths of Ed’s closet the night before – was far too large on me.

I must have been thinking too much about Edward, because my brother chose that exact moment to stick his head in the door next to me.

“Hey,” Ed called, his voice a deeper rumble than my own. “Dad said that breakfast is ready.”

He glanced at me and raised an eyebrow.

I wasn’t sure if it was over the fact that I’d stolen the suit from his closet without asking, or if Ed hadn’t even noticed that and was instead focused on something completely different.

“Feeling nervous?” Edward asked.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“Don’t be,” he said with the wave of his hand. “You go up and put your hand on a crystal, have a few spells cast, do some paperwork, and that’s pretty much all there is to it. You’re probably better at ungated spells than I was at your age. You’ve got nothing to be worried about.”

“You’re telling me that you weren’t nervous when your test came?” I asked skeptically.

“Well… I knew that I’d always be able to work in the bakery, even if I couldn’t join the Lightwatch.”

I grumbled. My brother was correct… technically.

But I didn’t really want to spend the rest of my life working at the family bakery. It was fine, and I didn’t actually mind baking that much, but… it was boring.

And even though our dad catered to a lot of wealthy clients, the profit margins of a bakery were always thinner than people expected, so it’d have me living the exact same life, forever.

I needed a powerful legacy. More than that, I needed good mana types.

Life would be preferable. Most of the monsters that the Wyldwatch was called in to deal with were biological, and many prowled in the thickly forested mountains around Mossford, which meant that trees were abundant.

Death wouldn’t be too bad. The Spiritwatch was always accepting people with death mana, and they would be better than the Lightwatch.

Even though becoming an ordinary civic guardian with the Lightwatch didn’t interest me as much as the other Watches, I didn’t hate the idea. They’d take any mana type, after all.

But the pay of the Lightwatch was worse, the hours were longer, and I’d have to deal with petty criminals all day.

Not to mention, both the Spiritwatch and the Wyldwatch would give me more privacy and independence than the Lightwatch would.

I checked myself one final time in the mirror, turning to make sure that the new binder I’d put on was fitting well, then turned and headed downstairs for breakfast.

When I came downstairs, my nose was filled with the smell of eggs and bacon, and I blinked, surprised for a moment.

I probably hadn’t had a distinct breakfast in… months.

Most mornings, we just had some leftovers that hadn’t sold the night before, and my dad would be so busy working to have the shop ready that he wouldn’t be able to cook.

Today, however, dad was standing behind the grill, and he traced a quick ungated spell in the air to dispel the flame as he slid the last strips of bacon onto a platter. He smiled when he saw me coming downstairs.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Morning, Malachi. You look… nice,” dad said.

Ed was already seated at the table, and he’d somehow piled his plate with two slices of bacon, an egg, and a piece of toast in the time it had taken me to get downstairs.

“Thanks,” I said in response as I piled my plate with breakfast. I was so nervous that I could barely taste the food, nor pay attention to the small talk that my father and brother were making.

Once I was done, my father clapped me on the shoulder.

“So, how are you feeling?”

“Nervous,” I said honestly.

“Don’t be,” my father said. “You’ll be fine. Even if you manifest a gate for a useless mana type, like abnegation, you’d still be able to work in the shop. I almost only use ungated magic anyways.”

I made yet another noncommittal noise and ate some more bacon.

I actually wouldn’t mind abnegation mana. Though joining the Wyldwatch with abnegation mana alone was a more doubtful prospect, abnegation’s powerful defensive spells meant that plenty of adventuring guilds would take me.

Liz could probably even get me into her guild.

Once I finished breakfast, I rose and gave Dad a hug, then gave Ed one as well.

“Want me to walk with you?” Ed asked as our dad walked into the shop.

I flushed with embarrassment and shook my head. My older brother escorting me for my mana check? That was beyond embarrassing.

“I can walk,” I said. Ed gave me a nod and a thumbs up.

As I exited the house, I heard Ed call out behind me.

“Wait, isn’t that suit one of mine?”

I swiftly shut the door and darted away. There was no need for Ed to know about that.

The trip downtown wasn’t too far, and I quite enjoyed the warmth of the Petal-Bloom – the spring months were always my second favorite, after autumn. By the time Suns-Birth or Summers-Heart rolled around, it’d be too hot for my tastes.

Mossford was never too warm – even in Summers-Heart, it rarely got hot enough to need shorts, so my suit jacket was definitely not necessary. Even though I didn’t need it, I didn’t want to take it off, even if it made it a bit hard to breathe under the binder and the suit.

Instead, I tapped into my mana-garden and cast an ungated spell, drawing mana out into my fingers and tracing a simple pattern in the air.

It was a common cooling spell, the kind that most people used to cool down drinks. Casting it over my entire body did mean that it drained my mana-garden to nearly empty, but it provided excellent relief, and I wasn’t too worried about draining my mana.

It took me about ten more minutes to arrive at the testing site, only to see people had formed a line stretching outside the college already.

As I entered the line, I glanced around to look at the other people my age. Some looked to have just turned eighteen, probably literally today, whereas others had surlier expressions – probably those who were about to turn nineteen and felt cheated that they’d had to wait so long. But even among those who were almost nineteen, there were plenty of excited and nervous faces.

The line slowly chugged along, and I eventually came to the front of it, where I was directed to one of the testing chambers.

I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

Like Ed had promised, there was a set of silver crystals floating in midair. The centermost one was about the size of a fist, and there were nine smaller ones floating around it in a semicircle, each about the size of a fingernail.

Behind the crystalline apparatus was a middle-aged woman with a severe ponytail, but a gentle smile.

“Hello,” she said, reaching out to shake my hand. “My name is Elicia Dee, knowledge mana Spellbinder. I’ll be the one getting your identification card sorted. Now, what do you want your full legal name to be? Are you fine with your birth name, or would you prefer to change it?”

As she asked, she gestured towards the crystal. I put my hand on the crystal and felt it slowly begin to suck mana from my mana-garden.

I’d spent most of my mana on the spell to cool down earlier, but in the time it took me to finish the walk, it had recharged a little bit, and the crystal only needed a drop of my ungated mana to identify what my mana gates were.

“I’d like to change it to Malachi Roth Baker,” I said after a moment of hesitation.

She nodded, and after a series of standard questions for my identification, she raised her index and middle fingers to tap the crystal I had my hand on.

“I’m going to be testing your legacy and mana gates now,” she said. “They will be added to your ID, but it won’t be publicly available. Are you ready?”

I nodded, and the woman sent a pulse of mana into the crystal. Abruptly, two of the smaller crystals lit up, glowing a soft silver color.

“Two mana gates,” she said, then frowned at the silver. “Undetermined mana type. Interesting. Did either of your parents have the ability to choose their mana types as their legacy?”

I shook my head, and she shrugged.

“Well, it’s not unheard of. You probably inherited it from an ancestor, or maybe manifested your own. Let’s look at the specifics of your gift, then.”

She cast another spell into the crystal, and I felt a strange sensation as the spell scanned me. Her eyebrows rose, and she consulted her clipboard for a moment.

“Your legacy is called Mana Mirror. It’s not one I’d heard of before, but it did come up as one that we have recordings of. Do you want me to call the details for you?”

I nodded, and she lifted her hand from the crystal, then began to trace her fingers in the air.

A complex spell drew itself out, and then a moment later, a powerful surge of mana poured into it. Third gate at the very least, maybe even fourth gate mana.

She spoke some sort of passphrase into the spell, and after a few more moments, she raised her eyebrows as the knowledge spell came to an end and a sheet of paper appeared in her hands. She read it, then passed it to me.

“Mana Mirror,” I read aloud. “This legacy was last recorded by Arcanist Lorkum Sratz in the year four hundred and seventeen of the Mossford calendar.”

I’d never heard of them, but it was possible that Lorkhum had been a relative of mine. Arcanists were powerful, exceptionally so, and I wasn’t aware of being descended from any of them, but three centuries was more than long enough for the records of something like that to be forgotten.

“This gift allows the user to decide upon their mana type,” I continued. “They open the gate of their chosen mana type, as well as its inverse mana type. Spells cast using a mix of opposing mana types are more efficient.”

My eyes widened as I finished reading.

That was a good legacy. I didn’t have two mana types, then.

I had four of them. And opposing mana types at that…

“I advise you to choose your mana types with a lot of care,” she said.

“I already know one of the ones I want,” I said. “How do I transform my mana-gates from unspecified to the type I want? I need life mana, and that’ll also grant me death mana, too.”

As I said that, I felt something deep within my mana-garden stir. Energy began to swirl, and abruptly, one of the silver crystals dimmed. It went dark, and then light shone from two of the stones, one green and one purple.

She shook her head and sighed.

“Not the choice I would have advised on, but I’ll record it. Do you know what your second choice is?”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her as I considered what other mana types I may want, then shook my head.

“No,” I said. She nodded and added a few notes onto her clipboard.

“Alright. I’ll record your other as undecided, and once you select it, just swing by any Mossford records building, and you’ll be able to update your ID.”

I nodded, and she cast another spell. A few moments later, a thin wooden card appeared, printed with my name, picture, mana types, and date of birth.

“Just go through there,” the official said, pointing at the back door. “There’s a career fair going on in the gymnasium, and there are even a few mages who are looking for apprentices.”

I nodded and pushed through the doors. With life and death mana, I should be able to join the Wyldwatch or the Spiritwatch.

Maybe a mage would even take me in as an apprentice, though that was doubtful.