A day into my weekend, I received permission to begin studying the Treatise of Atypicality by Cipper Glen Sufferson and The Compendium of Internal Projections. The former comprises five published journals, in which I uncover only three references to similar cases. The first two are a set of twins that can breathe fire. The only other related reference is that of a child named Joanne, who was found dead in an alleyway next to the body of a man with a hole in his chest. Guards found no blood at the scene. Joanne is uninjured, and further examinations of their body point to a malady known as depletion sickness.

The first case gives me an idea of how I can manipulate mana. The issue of Joanne is more troublesome, but there is something there. Possibly, an attack on their life revealed some latent destruction magic. It's evident magic is involved; it is less apparent how exactly it is. I note the case for further review.

Laterally, there is the Compendium, the sheer size of which makes me weary even to open it. The first thirty pages index the following four thousand. It overwhelms all of my expectations and suspends my indecision. What do I need, a safe place to experiment, a way to study more? The ethereal plane seems a good starting spot.

Flipping the first few chapters, I concentrate on absorbing the words as efficiently as possible. Each magic has an accompanying plane called a sym-cosm. The understanding of these phenomena lacks cohesion, explaining it as a web of interconnected planes forming a distinctive surface that consciousness inhabits. I move on to different crafts interspersed with magic effects recorded under the categorization. There are schematics for an engraving station with no runes and several accounts of successful rune crafting inside a mind palace.

After that, I spent a few hours studying, trying to keep up but still falling behind. I worry that I will not be able to pass, that my lack of practical ability will ruin my chances, and that even if I did pass, I would be useless as a mage. The further I get, the harder it is to see the way back.

A clatter interrupts me as I read the second book on internal elemental magics, books falling to the floor, and then a fury of foreign syllables that sound like curses. I stand from my table to investigate the sound. Across a few bookshelves, a pile of robes sprawls next to a turned-over cart. The person is indistinguishably ordinary with no defining characteristics. Their clothing has no stitch or seam; they cover them all the same, but the effect makes me squint.

“Are you all right?” I fret, moving to help them up.

They chuckle a baritone before responding, “Oh, me? Well, not so much,” -Click— standing with my assistance and clicking their teeth, “What an awful time to be leaving a cart around.”

“When would’ve been a better time?”

“Thank you. You can let go of my sleeve— well, clearly— earlier or later than here,” the stranger admonishes.

“I am Vesh’dan.”

“Yes, it is nice to be at our first meeting. You haven’t learned my name yet. You may instead call me Erudite.” —Click—

“Okay, Erudite, it is nice to meet you.” I indulge, assuming this person to be an eccentric High mage.

“I should say, only a time wizard can teach you time manipulation.”

“Time wizard?”

“Right— You call them Mage now? It has been a while since I have been now. Can’t say I missed it.”

“Okay? Can we walk this back a bit? You’re a time mage and wish to teach me time Magic?”

“Teach is a strong word. I am here to provide the shock your system needs to see yourself. Firstly, I must figure out what exactly you are here.” Erudite prescribes, walking up to me and then touching my head before I can react.

“Whoa, Whoa there.” I react, smacking for their hand but finding only empty air.

“Yes, internal; white balance, too.” —Click— “Intriguing.”

“Yes?”

“It seems you are an internal wizard; these were rare in most of the times.”

“Most?”

“There is a time, about five billion years ago, in which internal wizards are more common. Though then is better than now. Before the Fall, things were always nicer even when they aren’t, you know?”

“Before the Fall? How old are you?”

“I stopped keeping track of it because the number will be pointless.”-Click-

“You travel through time?”

“In a way, I experience nonlinear time. The soonest I have been to now is about thirty-thousand years. I wish to come now to reflect on our first meeting.”

“Why do you care about meeting me?”

“In a way, you are an important person.”

“Huh?”

“No answer I give you will affect you, and no one can give you the answers you seek. Can we instead move to a useful topic?”

“Uhh— I guess so.”

“I am the first and only time wizard there has ever been. I was born to a couple of farmers who lived in an easterly region. That world would be completely alien to you, yet home to me. Shortly after my sixth-teenth birthday, I experienced my death. It is the first time I have gone forward. Eventually, I came to terms with my death. My searches are fruitless for me but will lead to a better understanding of magic.” Erudite pauses, seemingly for effect. “Time magic is internal Magic,” they relent, finding no humor in me. “That which one can gain from it can only be found. Instead, I will teach you the principles I have learned. Time operates on a closed system, meaning you cannot change anything. Call it predestination or destructions’ will, though I see it differently. Time is unalterable due to the will we all express. Those things will always be the same here because they are ours. Do you understand?”

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“I think so— Even if you try to affect events, your effect is in the event you intend to change. Even attempting to change things fails to understand the underlying momentum.”

“Correct, though your abilities will probably manifest in a way completely dissimilar to mine. I imagine you cannot shift your perspective in time as I do. Most likely, you will be able to manipulate your perception of time. How you do this and why must be entirely up to you.”

“Are you suggesting that I experiment on my own time?”

“Of course, this ability will come to you. Its manifestation will be and is a part of the core functionality of your being.”

“I am having trouble in all of my practical lessons. Do you know anything that can help me pass my exams?”

“You are thinking far too small, Vesh’Dan. All the resources you need are in front of you. They could no more kill you than excise you the second you entered their test. They will all be nice while trying to deter you from your true purpose.”

“Which is?”

“Choices we make shape reality, the choices you make. Focus on your goals, not how they rate your progress,” Erudite encourages.

“I will consider that.”

“I don’t stay now much longer; grab this book while we are still frozen.— Yes, that one. Place it in your bag.” They instruct, pointing to a bland, untitled black book.

“Thank you,” I thank, packing the book in my bag.

I return my gaze to an empty alcove. Nothing remains showing that anyone was there except the cart. I wonder to myself, for a moment, if Erudite had been here. The meeting is as strange as the figure, which is hazy upon recollection. A runner gave me a parcel informing me that the spatial Mage had arrived and a class schedule with attendance information accompanied it. There is something at the back of my mind that I was considering, a vital thing hanging beyond the tips of my fingers, but it is lost. How am I supposed to add space magic into a too-full schedule? Shannai sits in the small classroom. Her posture stiffens before relaxing as quickly.

“Hey, Vesh.”

“Hey. This place is small.”

“It is for sr classes.”

“Hmm. Did your mother also mention I’d be your classmate?”

“Yeah. It’s just great to be here,” Shannai lies.

“You have me sold.”

“I wish I didn't have to put up with this facade,” She notes, relaxing in her chair.

“I can relate; out of place farmer here.”

“Yeah, thanks—”

“Yes, I am your instructor. I will be instructing you, so let us get instructed.” A mage shouts after appearing in front of the lecture podium. “Since this class is so small, I will determine your ability before teaching you accordingly. Let’s start with the abnormal pleb so it doesn’t feel bad.”

“I’m right here,” I gape.

“How convenient; now, please tell me or show me your spatial magic skills.”

“None,” I mutter.

"Oh? You're a disappointing pleb; who could'a? Honestly, you have no reason to be in this class. However, that is not my decision. For the time being, try to keep up. And you?" the spatial Mage asks Shannai.

“Yes. I can move about a kilometer at most. I can also hold a small spatial pocket for about a minute,” Shannai admits.

“Very promising. All right, for today, you two will be reading these books, and hopefully, by next week, the pleb will have more to shit out of its face.” The insult accompanies a finger pointing at me, prompting a stack of books to press down on my head.

“Any question? No? None at all? Great,” then poof, they are gone.

“They are a delight,” I comment as I unstack the books.

“He is High Mage Phylius. He kills people for a living. So yes, he is a dick. Shall we?” she agrees, gesturing to the pile.

“After you,” I implore.

Phylius wrote the top two volumes, Spatial Magic for the Untalented. Below is a textbook covering practical external techniques and a thin journal on internal practices. Shannai admits she has read all of the books there. After I begged her to stay, she relented and helped me through them. Her understanding of magic is invaluable in parsing the texts.

Our workload starts at our current understanding of space and how magic manipulates it. Space is a surface that we can bend or pocket. Next, the few known ways of controlling this surface require external magic. The latter half of the second book talks about the few internal users recognized, if only from second-hand accounts. The next book discusses practical techniques for external manipulation, so I skim it.

“I connect my will to the place where I want to go. Then I am there myself. But I’m in both places for a moment. Some people need an anchor, but I can go anywhere in the empire within my range,” Shannai attempts to explain.

Her experience sounds external, but it may further my understanding. I release Shannai with my gratitude before diving back. The showers of Bach break up as Lak creeps in, and I trudge on under the weight of all my classes. The addition of space magic slips me into a frantic routine.

Studying, homework, and then classes leave me hardly keeping up with theoretical work. My pace keeps due to efficiency, allowing understanding to supersede memorization. Of course, I still have to memorize certain things like formulas and affinity percentages. Yet, I must run harder against the information flooding my world. My classes progress, as you can expect when taking seven of them. The only one I’d manifested in was internal mental magic. That accomplishment gives me hope for my next practical lesson.

Practical elemental magic occurs in a room similar to destruction magic, making me realize that the three foundational runes are the only ones ever visible: transference, barrier, and inductor. This room can only fit a third of the elemental class, leaving the rest spilling into the hallway. Struggling to get a good view of the few receiving instructions attracts the attention of a younger instructor in green robes.

They are guiding an internal metal mage who successfully transmutes both arms. The younger instructor gestures me over, my attempt for visibility making me a target. My trembling hands sink into my robes as I pass over the lead barrier rune. My smile at the Mage meets malice in the lines of their sneer.

“Well, get to it, pleb,” they grumble, muttering the slur.

The vehemence of their remark enrages me. I disassociate all but that one thing: the feeling of willow bark as my fingers brush a trunk, following the course divot in its swirling path down the tree. Protection, bark embodies that one universally relatable desire. A familiar sensation opens my eyes to the tip of my middle finger, which is no longer shaking. A ridge of flaky bark, the length of my fingernail, has formed. I smear a crooked smile across my face.

“And you are proud of that?” the instructor belittles, “You get half marks, the epitome of the bare minimum.”

I hate those malicious marbles divulging distasteful mirth. However, the bigotry remains with me until my next practical lesson in soul magic. Mage Rainer sits in a room similar to that used for mind magic. A single difference sticks out as I approach: a second barrier rune around the cushions, and a third one isolates Rainer’s spot from mine, inlaid with a foggy white crystal.

“Good afternoon, Mage.” I greet, sitting on my cushion.

“Yes, today has also allowed for positive cultivation on my part.”

“Cultivating?” I gauge, knowing Rainier to be the tolerant sort.

“It is all that you feed.”

“Hmm— Like soup?”

“Say you face suffering; how do you respond to that? What, of all the emotions you experience, do you give the most attention to? Imagine a garden with all the possibilities of you, every reaction you can or should have, every emotion and inclination that composes what you consider a self. Which fields do you actively tend?”

“At first, I will say save them if I can, though I rarely can. Is that bad? I think it is okay to want to help people. Do what you can and leave the rest to governance, isn’t that the saying? Yet I can't help feeling that we are stuck...” I continue after a silence. “I cultivate my inadequacy, I cultivate greed and vanity with a fixation on the future,” I summate, hoping this will qualify further instruction.

“Questioning one's motives is one of many processes in cultivating.”

“Is it good to cultivate?”

“Good, bad. It is what it means to you, what you can derive from it.”

“And these other processes are?” I relent after a few moments of them smiling at me.

“We only know a few. But you can look into that once permission is granted by showing proper aptitude. We begin by trying to focus on our bodies. Distinguish every sensation of your skin, hair, and blood flowing through your veins. Once this is in place, try to slow your thoughts and detach from your sense of self. I will be probing your aura...” they instruct before trailing off.

I ignore their inability to sense whatever an aura is. Considering I know that a mage can't create magic inside someone or on their person, then they can't feel me. My internal nature precludes the average external emission. Strange that they wouldn’t have deduced that. Instead, I try sensing every part of myself, which comes easier than disconnecting from my sense of self. What does that even mean? I am not me. Who am I, then? No one is anyone and everyone? Is that sad?

“Even stranger still, we are done, for now. I thought you would emit, even faintly, yet you have no aura to sense, and I can think of no other way to test you.” They admit defeat, standing abruptly.

“Does that mean I cannot receive the permissions?”

“Unfortunately, it does because there are no other practices I can properly test you on if this does not work.”

“If I were to connect to you, what would you be able to do?”

“Many things, but as we have no way, I must research it.”

“I might have a way, but it wouldn’t be conventional…” I test, stopping their exit.

“Yes?”

“I’ve got to test it alone first; I have some time in the experimental room scheduled. But after that, could we try it? I have the appointment coming up soon.”

“It will be a month before I can book a proper place. How about the 3rd of Singh?”

“That works for me.”