At breakfast tomorrow, I decided to meet up with Arnav and Chris. We were all excited to go to our first class.

Apparently Trotter was actually a large enough town that they had a resident mage, so Arnav and Chris had seen magic used fairly often. Talking with them made me realize exactly how little I knew about magic. While we did have adventurers pass through Windale every so often, they didn’t tend to use magic very often while passing through. Though I was a little worried about how little I knew about magic, I decided that it would be best to ignore those fears and learn as much as I could in order to catch up.

As it would turn out, our first class would quickly show that I didn’t have a whole lot to catch up to.

Class started as soon as Mrs. Genia walked through the door.

“Welcome to magic theory class. In this class, you’ll learn the actual workings of magic. I urge everyone to remember that an understanding of theory is just as important as your actual skill with spells. Now, who can tell me what magic is?”

One of the lesser nobles in our class raised her hand.

“You. What's your name?”

“Isabel.”

“So, Isabel, can you tell me what magic is?”

Isabel confidently replied “magic is the casting of spells that allows us to do more than humanly possible.”

“Okay. Now, can you tell me how to cast magic?”

“You say an incantation to trigger the spell, and then use a wand to–.”

Mrs. Genia had apparently been waiting for this moment, as she immediately cut her off. “Wrong. A common preconception of magic casting that people get when watching other mages is that it’s as simple as just saying an incantation and waving a wand around. If that were true, literally everyone would use magic. To use magic, one must truly understand what they’re doing. All of you, make sure to write this down.”

She paused for a moment as the sound of paper being unpacked filled the room.

“Magic relies on the manipulation of spirits, who are naturally found everywhere in the world. You cast magic by creating a link with a spirit, allowing it to take your mana in return for casting magic. Your wand is the catalyst for the connection, allowing mana to flow from you to the spirit. For now, there are four types of spirits that you need to worry about: earth, fire, water, and wind. Affinity for each type varies by person, which is why we use detection crystals at registration. The color of the light the crystal emitted when you were tested correlates with the type of spirit you have the closest affinity with- green for wind, red for fire, blue for water, and brown for earth.”

Remembering the green glow that had come from the crystals when I was tested, I determined that I had an affinity for wind.

Mrs. Genia continued: “Your roommate has an affinity for the spirit that you yourself are most removed from. This is so that the two of you can work together to overcome your shortcomings, and will be important further on in your career. I strongly encourage a partnership between the two of you, which will be helpful going forward. For your homework tonight, be sure to get to know your roommate enough to work with them well."

"Moving on, know that each type of spirit is slightly different, and thus requires a unique understanding to use. Furthermore, each spell also requires its own unique mastery, and many mages will spend their entire lives mastering a handful of spells. For your first week, we’ll be focusing on a very basic spell that summons a spirit. This is the foundation for all other spells, so make sure you master this.”

For the rest of theory class, we learned about the spell summon, as well as every little detail about what it did, how it should be used, and most importantly, the trigger word. It was different for each type of spirit- for wind it was setu, for fire it was agnis, water was deva and earth was evais.

Practical class was much more interesting. We were escorted to an open area next to the library, where we were introduced to our teacher, Mr. Donnel.

Mr. Donnel was a short, slightly balding man. The look in his eyes was much more welcoming than that of Mrs. Genia’s, and immediately made the class feel much more at ease.

Once we were all gathered in the open area, Mr. Donnel began speaking.

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“Alright class. I’m sure Mrs. Genia already taught you about the theory behind summon, but before casting, there’s some more you should know. The incantation for any spell involves first the spirit summoning, then the action. A very clear mental image of what you wish to achieve is also required, which is why most mages will put the spell name at the end of their spell. Is everyone keeping up?”

The class nodded- everyone was excited to cast magic.

“Each part is important: without the summoning or action, nothing happens. Without the spell name, the result is unpredictable. Now for summon, we don’t have an action, so the incantation is simply your spirit’s trigger word, followed by summon. If done correctly, you should see a ball of your element in front of you. I’ll give a demonstration:”

Mr. Donnel proceeded to turn away from us, and then chanted “agnis- summon!” A small ball of flame appeared in front of him, lasting for a second before going away. Mr. Donnel then allowed us to try casting the spell ourselves.

The sound of students chanting summon soon filled the space, but I didn’t see any sort of reaction happening. I decided to try it myself: “setu- summon!” I thought I could feel something in my arm, but it was extremely faint. Other than that, there was no reaction. Surprised, I tried again, with the same result.

Mr. Donnel clapped his hands loudly, stopping us. “As you’ve probably seen, nothing is happening when you cast the incantation. This is perfectly normal- it takes time for you to get accustomed to casting any spell. Keep trying!”

By the end of class, nobody had managed to successfully carry out summon. However, Mr. Donnel still assured us that this was normal, and that usually nobody would get it until the week’s end. I still didn’t feel good about it, but that was enough to clear my worries about myself for the time being.

The non-magic classes cycled over a 3 day period. On the first day, practical magic was followed by history class. A lot of people thought it was a pretty boring class, but I found it to be very interesting. Not being able to move much had resulted in my mother spending a lot of time telling me stories about famous adventurers, great kings, and other things of such nature. History class was basically ordering those stories chronologically and giving them some context, which I found really fun.

The end result of the class was that as I was heading to dinner, I found myself in a much better mood than my peers.

In the dining hall, I decided to sit at the same spot as last night. Arnav and Chris came as expected, but I didn’t expect my roommate to appear either. He didn’t talk much, but I hoped him sitting with us was part of the “coming around” that Arnav was talking about.

Me, Arnav and Chris eventually started talking about the events of the day.

“What did you think about classes?” I asked

“Confusing” said Arnav, while Chris said at the same time “pretty simple.”

They looked at each other for a second, as if surprised.

As it turned out, Chris seemed to have gotten the best understanding of magic of the three of us, and was able to help us clear up some stuff from theory class that we still didn’t understand.

“Thanks man. If you ever need any help with history, I’d be happy to help!” I told him afterward.

“Sounds good.”

“Moving on, did any of you feel a tingle in your arm while trying to cast magic today?” Arnav asked.

“So it wasn’t just me? Anyways, yes- is that good?” I responded

“It’s what everyone feels, from what my brother told me” Arnav responded. He continued: “apparently, nobody has ever gotten it on the first day. My brother told me about some guy in class A that got it in three, though. Usually it takes around a week, maybe two."

“Alright, that sure does make me feel better.” Chris said.

“Definitely.”

My roommate was already in my room when I came back. I expected the same cold treatment as I had gotten so far, so I was surprised when he introduced himself.

“I’m Mason. You’re Alric, right?”

Surprised, it took me a second to reply. “Uh, yeah. Can I ask why you’re suddenly talking to me?”

“For the homework assignment. It’s done now, so we can stop talking now.”

“Oh. Well, are you sure just exchanging names is enough?”

“What else could she want? I’m from a small town on the northern border, just south of the northern mountains. I had a dog, sister, and two parents, who were both farmers. Is that good enough?”

“Yeah, okay.” I responded.

I paused for a moment, but eventually just asked the question that was on my mind.

“Mason, why are you so unfriendly?”

“I came to the academy to learn as much magic as I can- I don’t need friends to do that. If I was partnered with you, I guess I can’t just ignore you. Just don’t hold me back.”

My roommate, or should I say Mason, quickly returned to reading the textbook. Even though we weren’t assigned any pages, he looked quite absorbed.

As I laid on the bed, I wondered about Mason. If he was from the north, he would’ve been in an even more remote and dangerous place than I was. Windale wasn’t nice by any means, with cold winters and the occasional low-class monster sighting. Still, the stories about the northern border were frightening. I wondered what it was like up there, and what Mason’s childhood had been like. It probably had something to do with his attitude right now. Still, that encounter had given me confidence that he would eventually open up more, so I gave it some time.