“Hello everyone and welcome to your first lesson in magic.” Mage Warren stood at the front of a large classroom. Everyone sat at a desk, holopads ready to take notes. Most people typed on them, but Ascelmo preferred to write manually with a stylus. “Now before we begin, does anyone have any questions they’re dying to know about?”
A cadet raised his hand, it was someone from another group that he didn’t recognize. “If we all have this magical essence in us, then how come we’re only just finding out about it now?”
Warren looked at him. “Excellent question. For reasons we are not aware of, the only way to reveal this magical essence is through a special magical ritual, the same one you all underwent during initiation.”
Elenaire raised her hand. “But if the only way to discover magical essence is through magic, how did the first person to have that essence discover they had it? Isn’t that a paradox?”
Warren smiled. “Another excellent question.” He turned to the board behind him and began writing something down. “In order to wield Magic, you must first know its history.” He stepped to the side of the board to reveal a heading at the top titled The History of Magic. “Where the first Magi came from has been the debate of religions for centuries.” He started writing again. magic has existed for millennia, yet we haven’t even discovered a fraction of its possibilities. It’s a shared goal of all civilizations to allow our understanding of magic to reach its maximum potential.” He looked straight at Ascelmo when he said this, although he barely realized it, he was busy jotting down as many notes as possible.
“In 6535 A.U, every major government, including the Coalition, signed a document called The Magic Development Pact. This stated that every government that signed it agrees that the furthering of our understanding of magic is to be prioritized over all else, even this war with the Coalition that you’re about to fight, is secondary compared this.” Warren was writing all the main points down as bullet points.
“Now let’s move on. In order to be able to use the magical essence you possess the way Magi do, you first need to harness all of it and be able to control it. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” He moved to the center of the room. “This is what you’re going to do. Close your eyes and clear your mind of any and all thoughts you might have. And then concentrate on the magical essence coursing through your veins, feel its power, welcome it, accept it, picture it in your mind. You’ll know you’ve succeeded when you experience a feeling that I can’t quite put into words, you’ll just have to experience it for yourself.” Ascelmo followed Warren’s instructions, focused and concentrated, but after a minute of nothing happening, he was started to get discouraged. It didn’t help that you could clearly see other cadets getting it by the looks on their faces.
“You haven’t completely cleared your thoughts.” He could hear Warren’s voice in his head, but when he looked around he saw him still standing at the front of the room. “Your thoughts dwell on your fear of failure, you don’t want to let your squad down. I know you’re scared about these powers, but in order to learn how to control them, you need to not fear them.” Ascelmo sighed, he knew Warren was right. He tried again, truly clearing his mind of all thoughts. He dug deep down into his soul, feeling the power embedded in his soul. And then it happened, a wave of euphoria washed over him. Ascelmo felt stronger, lighter, all around better, his senses felt heightened. Warren was right, it was a feeling he couldn’t quite put into words.
Warren’s eyes wandered up and down the room, inspecting the eyes of every cadet. He smiled with satisfaction. “I can feel significantly stronger energy in the room. It seems that everyone has succeeded. Let’s move on shall we?” He turned back to the board. “It’s time for you to bring out your vitality, as a Magi this will be your most important asset. Your vitality is, among other things, what’s used to cast barriers and basic attacks. It’s different for everyone but its appearance is decided by two things. The color is decided by your personality and-”
A cadet didn’t even bother raising his hand. “Wait, are you saying that this magic essence inside of us is sentient?” Warren nodded. “Exactly, as I said, there’s a lot about magic we still don’t know yet. Now as I was saying, the color is determined by your personality and the element is determined by the strength of the magical essence inside of you. There are three elements vitality can be. In order of least to most strength are ice, lightning, and fire. Now, casting magic is mental, what you need to do is think about the vitality in your hands, picture it in your mind.”
The room lit up with a vast array of colors. As Ascelmo concentrated, his hand lit up with a deep green ball of energy.
Within a few seconds, Warren was already at his side, holding a holopad. “Incredible! You seem to have so much power that your vitality element is one we’ve never seen before.” He was furiously typing away.
Ascelmo inspected the energy in his hand. “What is it?” Warren looked closely at it. “It must be aether, there’s nothing else it could be.” Anselmo moved it around in his hands, he contracted and expanded it, he made it float up and down. It felt right like it belonged in his hand. He extended his arm and it shot forward, hitting a wall. Warren spoke to everyone. “I want you all to spend as much time as you can practicing and getting used to your vitality. Both as a projectile and as a barrier. He raised his right hand and shot yellow lightning at a wall, he raised his left hand and a barrier appeared. Not a bubble like he had used to protect the cadets yesterday, but more like a shield. “Someone send their vitality at me.” One of the cadets stood up and sent dark blue flames at the mage. However, as soon as they reached the barrier he was holding in front of him, they simply dispersed. “Continue practicing this and we’ll pick up again tomorrow. Class dismissed.” He walked over to Ascelmo. “Bradford’s class starts in 10 minutes at the firing range, we changed up the schedule a little bit to make things easier for you.” Ascelmo looked up at him and smiled. “Thanks, Warren.” He quickly ran out the door.
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Ascelmo arrived a minute early. He went over to join the rest of his squad, who were standing near the front. He slipped in between Aranail and Talen-Ra. Commander Bradford stood at the far right side of the range on a hovering platform. “Hello cadets, welcome to your first day of training. Today is the beginning of a new chapter of your life. So let’s get started.” He pulled his pistol from his holster. “This is the A-5 laser pistol. When you’re backed into a corner, this will be your best friend.” He pressed a few buttons on the control pad at the front of the range. “Now yesterday we had a bit of an issue with the firing range but that got all worked out.” Like yesterday, 3 training bots emerged from the floor, this time their eyes were light blue. Within seconds, they were all on the floor. Bradford turned back to the cadets. “That’ll be you by the time we’re done, mark my words.” He set the pistol down on a table next to him. A large screen came down from the ceiling, and as it turned on it showed a bird’s eye view of the pistol on the table.
“Before we get started, you’re gonna need to learn everything about this weapon.” He flicked a switch on the bottom of the grip and a small cartridge came out, inside it was a small black crystal. “First and foremost, this is the most important part of any of our weaponry, the void crystal. This is what powers our weapons.” He put the crystal back into the cartridge and slid it back into to gun. He then pointed to a small switch on the sit of the barrel. “And this is the safety, this stays on until you’re ready to shoot something.” He then went on to discuss the inner mechanisms of the pistol. He disassembled and reassembled it showing off every part.
“Now luckily for you, you won't have to know how to disassemble and reassemble our weapons, but it’s important that you know how they work so if something goes wrong during combat you can fix it on the fly.” A panel on opposite walls of the firing range lowered revealing rows upon rows of pistols. “Now it’s time to see how your aim is.” Dividing walls rose from inside the firing range. “Now you’re going to divide up by squads and we’re going to see how you all do.”
Everyone grabbed a pistol and stepped up the range. Training bots rose from the floor. “Hold your fire until I give the word,” Bradford instructed. Ascelmo focused on a single target. With his magical essence harnessed he feel like he could focus better.
Aranail stood next to him, he grinned. “Sure you’re ready for this hotshot?”
Ascelmo looked over at him. “You know it.” He returned the grin.
“Fire!” Ascelmo instantly squeezed the trigger. The recoil almost caused him to miss, it wasn’t too bad, but it would still take some getting used to. He quickly locked on to another target and shot again. He was about to shoot the last one when another plasma bolt sent it to the ground. Ascelmo looked to his right to see Aranail smirking at him.
“Now let’s see how you do when you’re getting shot at, don’t worry, they’re using training guns so they won’t hurt. They’ll just knock you on your ass.” More training bots rose from the floor, this time with pistols. Ascelmo once again readied himself, sending a quick glance at Aranail. “Fire!” Ascelmo once again downed a bot within the first few seconds. He was about to shoot another one but he had to dodge a plasma bolt. He quickly focused on the target again hitting it square in the chest. This time he got the final bot, he turned to Aranail and gave him a smirk.
“Now how about some friendly competition, we’re gonna see which of you among your squad can last the longest, and each wave of bots gets progressively harder.” Ascelmo readied himself and waited. As the bots once again rose from the floor he focused on a target. “Fire!” Again the bot was on the ground in seconds. He quickly shot another one and dodged a plasma bolt. Harnessing his magical essence definitely heightened his reflexes. He turned to another bot and sent it to the ground with a shot to the leg which he almost missed. In the corner of his eye, he could see the final bot turning to shoot him, but a plasma bolt landed square in its head, he traced the shot back to Orokas who looked at him and nodded. Ascelmo looked at some of the other squads. A few cadets had already gotten hit, but nobody from his squad. He prepared himself as the second wave of bots rose from the floor. “Fire!” The cadets once again opened fire on the bots. Ascelmo was starting to get used to the pistol, it felt comfortable in his hands. A plasma bolt hit Talen-Ra right in the center of the chest, sending him flying backward. By the end of the second wave, there were significantly fewer cadets still standing. The next two waves went pretty much the same, about half of the cadets were left. The end of the fifth wave resulted in Orokas on the ground. A few waves later Cydum was down and it was just Ascelmo and Aranail left, as well as a few others from different squads. By the tenth wave, it was just the two of them, a large crowd had formed around them. They carried on for three waves until finally, Aranail went down. Cheers erupted from the crowd. Ascelmo offered Aranail a hand, but he just stood up and skulked off.
After getting his uniform off and putting his fatigues on, Ascelmo stretched as he sat down in his bunk. As he sat there, he weaved a small ball of aether between his fingers. At that moment Aranail stormed in and sat down on his bed.
Talen-Ra shot him a glare. “Are you really that upset about it?”
Aranail returned the glare. “That’s not what my problem is.”
Cydum sighed. “Then what is? I’m sure talking about it would make you feel better.”
He spoke with an exasperated tone. “It’s none of your damn business ok? So just lay off.”
Ascelmo looked over at him and spotted a small bruise on his right cheek. He was going to say something about it but decided not to as to make sure the same didn’t happen to him. He laid down and pulled the sheets over himself as he slowly drifted to sleep.
Ascelmo awoke in a dark place, it was cold and black. He looked around and observed his surroundings. “So we finally meet at last.” A man’s voice said behind him. Ascelmo quickly spun around, a shield of aether in his left hand and a ball of aether in his right. He turned to see a man standing behind him, he was abnormally tall with a stocky build. He had long black hair down to his shoulders and small beard to match.
The man smiled and laughed a little bit. “I mean you no harm, lower your defenses.”
Ascelmo cautiously obeyed. “Who are you? Why am I here?”
He disappeared and reappeared behind Ascelmo. “I go by many names, The Dark One, The Void Master, Satan, but most commonly I go by Xenos. As for why you’re here, I just wanted to meet you, I mean you are the first Sage to appear in over a millennium.”
Ascelmo sighed with impatience. “Well you’ve met me, so I’ll be going now.”
Xenos reappeared in front of Ascelmo. “Not so fast. Before I send you on your way, I wanted to let you know something.” He leaned in closer. “You’re the way that you are for a reason, and that reason is approaching sooner than you may think.” Ascelmo was about to ask him what he meant by this, but a wave of black engulfed him. He woke up in a cold sweat, he looked around to see that everyone was still asleep. He let out a heavy sigh and laid back down, trying to go back to sleep for however long he could.