—IEROS—

I woke up, although I didn’t get up, the bed was too warm. I closed my eyes again, almost going back to sleep when someone woke me up. I didn’t want to but the blanket suddenly disappeared, leaving me cold. Opening my eyes to see who it was, I saw the old man, the one who taught me how to fly, standing over me with a smile on his face. 

“Wake up Ieros, it is time to learn Magic.”

I rubbed my eyes, getting the small dry bits in my eye, staring at them for a bit before I flicked it away. I got out of bed and was about to follow the old man when something got in my way, a floating cloth. I tried to move past it but it blocked me again and I looked at the old man, about to ask for help when he said, 

‘Put that on Ieros, it is a symbol of a mage, you shouldn’t practice magic without it.“

“Oh, okay,” I said as I looked at the floating cloth again, wondering just how I was supposed to wear it.

The old man chuckled, saying, “Just hold out your arms and it will do the rest.”

I did so and the cloth suddenly moved, I didn’t quite understand just what happened but by the end of it, I was wearing it. As I twisted my arms to look at it, a mirror suddenly floated in front of me, allowing me to see it a lot better. It looked kinda cool, black and outlined with silver, although there were some weird symbols that were spread all over it. I didn’t quite like them, I felt like it ruined the cool look it gave off, it would be much better if it was only plain black with the silver outline.

Suddenly, the silver symbols started to disappear and as I studied my new clothes with amazement, the old man said, “So you’ve already made it your own...”

I looked at him questioningly but he just turned around, telling me to follow him. I did so, wondering if I was going to go to the training room to try flying again. I hope we are. I feel like I can fly now because I had a really real dream, it was about me flying. But it wasn’t at night, it was during the day and I could see everything, I could feel the wind on my face, the freshest air I could breathe and fluffy clouds that I could sleep on! I really wanted to start flying again, so I could sleep on the clouds. 

The old man said, “Well come along, let’s eat some breakfast and then I’ll have you try to fly again.”

I smiled and I hurried over to his side, wondering what I was going to eat today. If it was anything like the food from the ones I ate during the ride here, it was going to be very good!

Breakfast was good, with many things that I had never seen before, but they all smelled very good. There was something he called steak, I had to eat it with a knife and fork and it was covered with this brown-red sauce which made it taste very nice, sweet with something else that I couldn’t really describe. But it was very nice, I wonder if I’ll get to eat more of it later today.

———

Such thoughts soon fled his mind as he was taken down to the Fifth Floor once more, feeling again the mana which his body absorbed. Feeling the surge of energy, Ieros closed his eyes and sought to recall his dream, reaching deeper and deeper into himself. And then, something suddenly gave and his body was instantly filled with a familiar warmth, the ignition of mana.

Azorin, who had been watching silently, smiled as he saw Ieros begin to float, slowly rising to the ceiling. He let Ieros have his fun for a few moments, watching him push himself off the sides of the walls and gliding to the other, rolling around in the air and helplessly flapping his arms in an attempt to fly. 

Seeing that, Azorin finally spoke, saying, “That’s not how you fly Ieros, here, let me show you.”

Azorin too took flight, although far more controlled than Ieros, maintaining his upright posture. Ieros, who was poised on the ceiling like an upside-down cat, craned his neck downward watching Azorin, his eyes lighting up with excitement.

“How did you do that!?”

Azorin did not immediately explain, saying, “I would like you to take a deep breath Ieros and hold it until I say so.”

Ieros, slightly confused, did so. 

Azorin then said, “Push yourself off the ceiling, so that you are floating in the air with nothing touching you.”

Once again, Ieros did so and Azorin said, “Now, blow as hard as you can.”

And Ieros did so, beginning to move opposite the direction he blew, Ieros repeating this several times until he bumped his head into the wall. 

As he rubbed his head, Azorin said, “The air you were blowing out of your mouth allowed you to move, that is what I am doing but with mana instead. Mana is the air, and my body is the mouth. I ‘blew’ the mana out of my body to make myself fly.”

Ieros asked, “How do I do that?”

Azorin said, “Your body is feeling warm right now, right?”

Ieros nodded and Azorin continued, “Try to concentrate it at your palms and point them the opposite direction you want to go. Try to imagine that your hand is getting warmer and warmer, and the rest of your body is getting colder and colder.”

Ieros obeyed, closing his eyes as he focused on his hands. He could almost feel them getting warmer until he opened his eyes and found that he was indeed moving. He laughed and almost instantly, the warmth fled his hand and spread itself back throughout his body. Ieros once again tried to focus, but it was harder this time, he was too excited to be calm enough to focus. Seeing that, Azorin flew over and put a hand on his shoulder, slowly guiding him down. 

He said, “Take a moment to calm down, once you have, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

As Ieros struggled to keep his excitement down, Azorin said, “Something that helps me focus is by staring at something, it could be a stone, your thumb, anything that’s small enough to lock on to. Then I let it fill my mind, I focus on it alone and use it to push out other thoughts.”

Ieros, looking around for anything to focus on, eventually did settle for his thumb, specifically his thumbnail. He followed Azorin’s advice the best he could, trying to let the thumbnail encompass all his thoughts, although he only managed it for a few moments before his mind began to wander. He shook his head and tried it again until Azorin told him to stop.

He protested, “But I’m not done!”

Azorin smiled.

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“But you have calmed down, right? Good, now, this time, try to fly upward. Focus, like you did before, on the bottom of your feet and your hands. Use your feet to go up and your hands to keep yourself upright.”

Azorin alighted down on the ground once more, his face a tad more pale than before but Ieros didn’t notice, too busy focusing on his hands and feet, trying to do what Azorin had done. But, splitting his focus in two was not an easy task, he was getting the hang of pushing out in one area but the moment he focused on the next, the one he had been working on ceased. Finally, he gave up, pouting as he glared at Azorin.

“It’s impossible!”

Azorin, having recovered due to the thick ambient mana, smiled, saying, “It isn’t, you just have to find the proper method. Perhaps you should think of it like this, you’re sealing up your entire body except for your hands or feet. It’s a harder method for me but you might be able to pull it off.”

He then laughed at Ieros’s blank look.

“Perhaps I should rephrase, right now, you are trying to push out mana from your hands and feet but what I’m saying now is keep your mana in except at your hands and feet, like a suit of armor that encases your entire body except your hands and feet.”

Ieros frowned.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

Azorin rubbed his chin as he muttered, “Well, you would have to imagine, think as your skin is like cloth. You can still blow air through cloth, so you need to make that cloth even tighter so it keeps the air in. You must imagine that your skin becomes tight enough to keep mana in.”

Ieros frowned as he stared at his skin, suddenly noticing the small pores that dotted it. He pointed this out to Azorin who just shrugged.

“How does that help?”

Ieros thought again, “Um, if I block up the pores, then maybe the mana will stay inside!”

Azorin said, “Then give it a try.”

Ieros nodded and returned his attention to his skin, staring at it as he willed for the holes to close. But, after a few moments, nothing happened. Ieros wasn’t sure what to do next but he was unwilling to tell Azorin that. He felt that he had asked too many questions. So he just continued to try unsuccessfully to close the pores, trying to sense any sort of change. Finally, he sighed and shook his head, once again trying to clear his head.

He opened his eyes and stared once more at the pores on his arm, sitting down cross-legged as he thought to himself. Seeing Ieros so earnestly try to solve this problem brought another smile to Azorin’s face and he silently withdrew from the floor, he of all people knew better than to disturb someone in thought.

Ieros hardly noticed Azorin’s disappearance, too busy trying to solve his quandary. And as he continued to work perhaps uselessly towards the solution, the shadows of two men appeared on the wall, although they weren’t connected to a body, lamenting the current state of things.

Hmm, such latent potential but a pitiful teacher.

Indeed, he needs to be guided properly, lest such potential be irreversibly denied.

They nodded in unison.

We must guide him.

But upon reaching such a conclusion, they wondered how. After all, they haven’t been able to speak to the living, for how could the living understand the words of shadows. It took some time to understand their manner of existence, but they were all previous Headmasters of the Tower, one of them being Zofiar himself. Well, not exactly. As far as they figured, they were not the ghosts of their respective originals, rather, they were a bundle of memories concerning their originals, a bundle of memories that gained sentience. 

And with there a century worth of debate as to what exactly was the nature of their existence, they were pretty confident that they were correct, they were sentient shadows. After all, now that they were shadows, they could—in a manner of speaking—communicate with other shadows too, more of an exchange of memories but still a form of communication. 

That is why they became so sure of their form of existence, for all of their memories were limited to the confines of the Tower itself. They were sure that they had other memories, but since this Tower had not actually witnessed the events leading up to those memories, they did not possess them. Things such as being raised up by family, early adventures, all things that were somewhat alluded to inside the Tower with various offhand comments but no real experience. 

Their identities were solely based on the memories their originals made in the Tower, and, after time, they were given sentience and incomplete versions of their originals’ personas were created. And another thing that was rather unfortunate was that they as shadows could not communicate with the living, they attempted to talk to Azorin multiple times but there simply was a gap that they could not cross and they have since given up trying. 

That and there wasn’t an incentive for them to talk to a living person other than boredom itself, that is until they beheld Ieros. They marveled at his talent and lamented the fact that they were unable to train him and thus the incentive to communicate was born again so that they could train him. But a problem whose solution has eluded them for so long was not going to be so easily solved, which was why they began to talk to one another with great excitement, discussing possible solutions until Ieros’s voice spoke.

“Who are you?”

They stopped and turned to look at Ieros, well, as well as two-dimensional shadows could turn to look which was not at all. But that wasn’t necessary, for Ieros could now feel the attention of the shadows on him, reminding him of his friends back home. They weren’t as talkative as these shadows but they still told stories, ones that Ieros could listen to for hours even though he couldn’t always remember them. 

Perhaps these shadows had interesting stories too, which was why Ieros reached out to them first. Perhaps they would be his new friends. Meanwhile, the two former Headmasters were in shock, how had the boy heard them? 

Just to be sure, Zofiar asked, You can hear us?

Ieros nodded.

“Mhmm.”

Zofiar exchanged a glance with his successor before they turned back to Ieros. It seems that their problem was solved, no, there never was a problem to begin with. Not men to waste time, they immediately went to the point.

We would like to be your teachers, Ieros.

Ieros tilted his head curiously.

“But I already have a teacher.”

The two nodded but Zofiar said, But is he teaching you right now?

Ieros shook his head and Zofiar insisted, Then let us teach you. I dare say that between the two of us, we have more to teach you than Azorin.

Ieros pondered on this, asking somewhat shyly, “Um, could you help me?”

The two nodded.

Of course, we can—wait, can we?

The two turned to each other, they had no problems sharing memories with one another since they were both shadows but they wondered if they could do so with the boy. Just because the boy could hear them talking didn’t mean he could receive their memories. It was then that the curious matter of Ieros’s capabilities came into question.

This time, Atarum—the Second Headmaster—asked Ieros, How is it that you can hear us? We have tried to speak with others before but you are the only one we can talk to.

Ieros shrugged.

“I don’t know, but I do have friends like you back home.”

This time Zofiar inquired, Friends?

Ieros nodded.

“Mhmm, they were shadows although they don’t talk like you, they send me images of things. It was like... uuuuhhh, like it was me there instead of them... it’s hard to explain.”

Atarum said, It was like they gave their memories to you, right?

Ieros thought about and nodded, with slight uncertainty.

“I think so...? But why?”

Zofiar said, Well, it is because we intend to share our memories with you. Everything we have learned, we will share with you.

Atarum interjected, But a few memories at a time, it wouldn’t be wise to teach you everything right away.

Zofiar seemed to glare at Atarum but Atarum ignored him, asking Ieros, So, you want to learn how to control your mana, right?

Ieros nodded and Atarum said, Zofiar and I will both share our memories with you, perhaps then you will understand.