Daniel sat in his office above the hole-in-the-wall tavern. It was late afternoon, and although the sun was out, the curtains in his office made it completely dark. Lamps in the corner of the room gave him enough light, but it wasn't enough to disguise the dumpiness of the room.

While Daniel sat at his desk, Jonathan sat across from him. They made small talk as they waited for everyone else to arrive, one by one, all of them with an overnight bag.

Elijah arrived first and waved to Daniel and Jonathan. Mandy and Elliot arrived next, and Patrick and Richmond came together.

"Before we begin this evening, I just wanted to congratulate our friends for graduating from Attleton," Daniel said, grinning. "I know most of you will say it wasn't a big deal and it wasn't that hard, but it still is an incredible feat, and it always deserves a celebration. Unfortunately, I couldn't be there because I shouldn't go out into the public eye, but if I could go, I would have been there."

"I appreciate that a lot, sir. Thank you," Mandy said.

No one else responded. The other three nodded, and Elijah said, "Congratulations."

"All right, I love how we are all dedicated to getting straight to business. Let's talk about why I've brought all of you here this evening. Are we all excited to begin our iox treatment?" Daniel asked.

Everyone nodded their head.

"I was hoping for a boisterous 'Yes!' from everyone, but that's okay. It's probably better that we stay reserved. Without further distractions, let's talk business. Now, I wanted all of you to commit to this group by doing something bold, and all of you have proven your boldness to me, but now it's time for the iox magic to decide for itself. If it were up to me, all of you would have passed the test, but now it's time for something else to determine if you're ready."

"You've got to be kidding," Patrick muttered.

Daniel flicked his eyes toward Daniel." And I'm glad you said that, Patrick. At least I know you are devoted to the cause. You're frustrated by another test, but this one, you will not have to prove anything with another bold action." Daniel reached underneath his desk and heaved out a durable gray bowl of resilient, smooth rock.

"What is that?" Elijah asked.

"It's the iox crucible. Give me one moment." Daniel put his hand inside the cylindrical container. It glowed white as Daniel's arm tensed up. He gritted through his teeth and then put the crucible on top of a table at the center of the room. "Elijah, you will go first. Put your hand inside the crucible, and we will see if you are ready."

"I feel pretty ready." Elijah stood up and approached the table, carefully putting his hand inside as if he was about to pet a snake. As soon as his wrist was about to enter the crucible, he jumped back. "Ow!"

Everyone widened their eyes, staring at Elijah's hand as it glowed a silver white. "What's happening! Is it supposed to burn?" He yelled.

"Please, keep your voice down," Daniel said.

"You didn't tell me I was going to be in pain! A little warning would have been nice!" The silver-white energy flowed from Daniel's palm to his arm until it disappeared.

"There, do you feel any pain now?" Daniel asked.

"Not anymore..." Elijah inspected his arm, amazed at how normal he felt. "It's like nothing ever happened."

"Marvelous! And everyone witnessed what happened. That is a good sign that the iox energy absorbed into your veins. That means I can start your training now. Not right this moment, of course, but we'll discuss more after we confirm everyone. Does anyone want to follow Elijah?" Daniel asked.

Patrick stepped forward.

"All right, Patrick is next." Daniel filled the iox crucible again with white light and took a deep breath when he finished.

"Are you all right, sir?" Mandy asked.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me. It just takes a decent chunk of energy to provide this test. Now, Patrick, give it a try."

Patrick stuck his hand inside the crucible, but quicker than Elijah. He winced and grunted before pulling his hand out, and the silver-white glow on his hand flowed up to his shoulder.

"See? That wasn't so bad. Congratulations, Patrick, the iox magic has accepted you."

Daniel set up the test for Elliot and Richmond, and both yielded the same results as Elijah and Patrick. Although Richmond yelped in pain.

"And now, we have Mandy," Daniel said.

"I'm a little nervous it's going to be painful," Mandy said.

"It's all right, it might be painful, but it's necessary." The corner of Daniel's lip curled up.

"It's really not that bad, Mandy," Elliot said.

Mandy wrinkled her nose but stepped forward as the crucible was prepared. She took a slower approach, putting her hand in, she squinted inside the barrel of the crucible. Her arm trembled as it hovered over the iox magic swirling around. It looked like a smoky soup. Bracing herself for pain, Mandy still felt nothing as she reached lower inside. At that point, everyone else had the iox magic attach to them. Mandy kept moving her hand down the barrel, but nothing happened until she touched the bottom.

"Something isn't right. You haven't felt a burning or a pinch yet?" Daniel asked.

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"Not at all," Mandy said.

The iox energy circled inside the crucible faster and faster. The outside of the container grew so hot it was making the table smoke.

"Quick!" Daniel urged. "Pull your––"

Mandy was shoved off balance to the ground. Inside the iox crucible came a shriek. A white ball of energy shot out from inside and launched itself at Mandy. Daniel stuck his hand out and balled it up into a fist. The iox sample flew back and struck Daniel, blasting him against the wall.

Jonathan rushed over to Mandy on the floor. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Why are you asking her if she's okay? I'm the one that just got hurt the most here!" Daniel snapped. He took a few deep breaths, trying to recover. Standing back up, he studied the room. "What in the world just happened?"

"Don't you know? This is your magic, dude," Patrick said.

"Well, yes, I do know what happened. The iox magic avoided Mandy entirely. We could try it again. Maybe something went wrong."

Jonathan helped Mandy back up from the ground.

Daniel marched up to Mandy. "But to clarify, Mandy, you did use a summoning crystal for the hellion attack on campus, correct? You were the one that held the crystal in your hand and smashed it?"

"Y-yes, yes, I-I promise I did everything you told me to, and I d-did everything correctly," Mandy said. Her voice trembled.

"You're sure your sister didn't do anything to help you, right?" Daniel's eyes bored into Mandy's soul.

"I mean, I was there by her side, but I didn't break the crystal for her. She did it herself," Elliot said.

"Well, we have to do it again. Something must have gone wrong with the procedure. Just give me a moment to recharge." Daniel took a deep breath and paced around the room.

After a few silent minutes, Daniel grabbed the iox crucible and charged another sample of iox energy.

Mandy stood still, petrified.

"Well, come on! Let's try it again," Daniel said.

"Sorry, it just hurt last time, and it freaked me out," Mandy said.

"I don't want to waste anyone else's time!"

"Do you have to keep yelling at her?" Jonathan said, still standing by Mandy. "Relax. I think everyone plans to be here for the rest of the evening if needed."

Daniel rubbed his face from the top down." Fine. I'm sorry. Perhaps I lost my temper there, but this is very serious. Let's try it one more time. Whenever you're ready, Mandy. No rush."

Mandy waited a few seconds and took a deep breath before returning to the iox crucible. She put her hand in faster than before, and again she touched the bottom of the bowl. Another ghostly shriek came from inside, and an invisible force shoved Mandy away. She stumbled to the ground.

"No... Not again," Mandy groaned.

The iox sample floated from the crucible, spun in place like a top, and launched itself at Mandy. Daniel tried to pull it back like before, but he had no control. It was flying towards Mandy's head.

Jonathan stretched out his arm and shot off an iox bolt. They both collided in the air, exploding into nothing but a gust of wind breezed across the room from the impact.

The room was silent. Jonathan went to Mandy's side and helped her stand.

"Something is going wrong. We have to try again," Daniel said.

"Can I talk to you outside in the hallway for a moment?" Jonathan asked.

Daniel nodded, and they left the room while everyone else stood there without saying a word.

"Hey, what's your problem, man? Do you really have to yell at the poor girl?" Jonathan whispered. The two of them stood in the hallway.

"She's an adult. She can handle it," Daniel said.

"No, she still is a kid. They all just graduated, except for Elijah. If you want to yell at someone in frustration or whatever, yell at me, but don't do it to them. They've shown their devotion to this cause."

"Yes, but we need seven people. We'll need another person because I don't think Mandy will cut it."

"What do you mean? Just give Mandy another chance. Let her perform another task or something."

Daniel shook his head. "I'm not going to wait around forever for something to happen. I've been waiting for years already. I'm not about to wait again on some flakey girl."

"Calm down, will you? She knows too much. We can't just cut her loose. Mandy is committed, isn't that all we need? She did the hellion summon on campus. That's about as bold as it gets. It worked for Elliot."

Daniel scoffed." You don't understand. The iox crucible determines if someone is ready or not. She must have had a change of heart or something recently. She's not going to be able to go through the necessary training. I don't have a say in the matter. Do I want her to stick around? Of course, I do, I think she's dependable, and like you said, she has shown her commitment, but the iox disagrees." Daniel sighed. "That's why I'm so upset. We've done so much work recruiting everyone in that room, and now we are about to start from the beginning."

"I think you're exaggerating." Jonathan shook his head. "We are not starting at the beginning. We have four people ready to go. We just need one more."

Daniel broke eye contact with Jonathan and zoned out at the corner of the hallway floor, rubbing his chin while contemplating ideas. Then Daniel's eyes bugged wide open. "That's it. The visionary I met with and trusted, the one who told me about Rollie and how he is a part of my destiny. Perhaps this is it, perhaps I will be able to talk to Rollie about replacing Mandy, and he will join us. When I first spoke with him, he wasn't too interested because he was coming from the Nomagi world and was still trying to figure things out and carve a path, which I respect. I probably was a little too eager to meet him, but he didn't seem against it in any way. Perhaps I could contact him again now that the school year is over. What do you think about that?"

"I don't know. I still think he's too young to have that conversation. I've spent a lot of time with Rollie."

"So what's your analysis then?" Daniel leaned against the hall. "Do you think Rollie's capable of joining our group? Would Rollie do something to commit to the iox magic?"

"It's hard to say."

"What do you mean? He's either a good kid, or he has a different side to him. Which is it?"

Jonathan thought about it. "Rollie has done things that show signs of both. But if I had to guess, I think he's a kid that tries to do the right thing. But if he gets bored, he might misbehave. You see what I mean?"

"Yeah, I guess I understand."

"I think we should give Mandy another chance."

"No, no, no, the more I think about this, the more I like it." Daniel's lip curled up. "Rollie might be toting the line between a path of the iox or a path for a boring, self-righteous mage. This might be our perfect chance to strike while the iron is hot."

"I guess we could try, but he still hasn't had much experience with arcane magic. I think asking him would be a waste of time because I think the answer will be the same."

Daniel leaned closer." Are you really sure about that? Can you please just try and ask?"

Jonathan sighed. "You know, I think there might be someone else who would be interested in joining us."

"Is it another recent graduate?"

"No, they're older."

"Do I know them?"

"I think you might."

Daniel rolled the idea around in his head and wrinkled his brow. "I want to ask Rollie first, and then we'll go from there."

"But Daniel, that's a lot of time for me after I've already worked a ton preparing and handling graduation."

Daniel shrugged. "The way I see it, the faster you can help me organize a team, the faster we can move on from our mundane lives of insignificance."

"I'm not a machine." Jonathan scowled. "I need some rest and a break."

"Fine. Do whatever you need to. Just talk to that boy and see if he is interested."

"I'm telling you, he's too young. Give him more time. He'd be the youngest one here by a long shot."

"Hey, I can't control what the visionary says. If they're right and Rollie is, in fact, a crucial part of my future, that must mean Rollie will join us, right?"

"I still think it's too early."

"Well, I don't have the patience to keep on waiting! The visionary said the time was coming. We're almost there. So just go and ask him."

"Give me a few days and I will take a boat to visit Rollie."