He was woken by a loud clap, whereupon he saw that the same Sister that had told them to take a bath yesterday was there.

After Goras had been shaken awake, the two boys changed into their new clothes as the Sister waited outside the room. As they exited, El could see that it was still dark outside, and he would have guessed that it was around five in the morning.

He was not used to waking up that early, and most people did not either since that would have required the usage of lamps, and fuel was a scarce resource. He concluded that the master magician was a very respected person, especially upon seeing that they had lit up the hallway leading to the main room, which had never been done before since it required too much oil.

Even though they were just walking down the hall, El felt that it took them forever to walk down to the room.

As they entered, they noticed two figures in the room. There were two chairs in the room instead of just the one chair that would normally be present. The Mother was seated in the chair behind the table, while a man was seated in a chair a few feet away from the chair. The chair that he was seated on was dissimilar to the other chairs.

It was decorated with what El could only guess were runes. They did not have the religious symbols that all the other chairs used by the church did.

In fact, the chair itself was not particularly eye-catching, but the rune added an interesting element to it. In the chair was a short man, El estimated that he was around five and a half feet.

There was not anything particularly eye-catching about him. He was normal looking, like any other person El had seen, yet there was an air about him that couldn’t be ignored.

The mother, while usually an intimidating figure, did not seem as intimidating in front of him. The man was wearing low heeled, leather shoes. The shoes were black in color, coming up to his shins. His trouser was also black in color, while his tunic had brown hue. His face was not particularly pleasant, but it was not unattractive.

All in all, he was average looking and yet there was a pressure around him that could not be explained. El did not know if this was magical, as it seemed to affect everyone, including the mother and he reasoned that a magician using magic on a member of the Church would probably be frowned upon.

El noticed that like the first time they had been in the room, there was a circle with some symbols in a circle in the floor. The chair and the man were in the middle of that circle and El could see that the four legs of the chair had patterns spreading to four different points on the outer circle. As they entered the room fully, the Mother instructed them to go to the center of the circle as they had done before.

El and Goras were both about to enter when the magician said, “Enter one at a time”. El wanted to observe how the unblocking went before participating, so he pushed Goras forward a little bit. Goras looked back at him with an angry expression on his face and it seemed as if he was about to cry, but he did not want to anger the magician, so he made his way to the center of the circle.

Once he got there, the Mother said, “Master Magus, his name is Goras.”.

The magus, which El realized was the correct way to refer to a magician, nodded his head and motioned for Goras to sit right in front of him in what was an empty square. Goras quietly followed his instructions and sat down.

The room was silent.

It was so silent that you could hear Goras’s breathing as he sat down.

The magus, after waiting for a few seconds took off his boots, and threw them outside the circle, and sat in a cross-legged position on the chair. After seeing this, Goras also changed to sitting in a cross-legged posture, and waited for the magus to instruct him.

Without saying anything, the magus closed his eyes. As he closed his eyes, his lips started moving. El could not hear anything coming out of his mouth but the magus never stopped moving his lips, and a few minutes passed as he recited what El perceived as a chant. After a few minutes of this, the magus stopped chanting and opened his eyes, and some seconds later, he was holding a wooden vial in his hands. This was a very exciting development as it showed to El that there was either storage magic such that individuals could use it to store random supplies or that there was some sort of enchantment that allowed the magician to store his supplies.

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He did not have enough information to decide if it was a spell or if it was a storage device since he had not seen enough about the outside world to speculate. The magus removed the stopper, and taking a small needle from his hands, poking Goras in his finger.

Goras looked like he was in pain, but his fear of the magus was such that he did not dare to even whimper from the pain. The magus collected only three drops from the wound and added it to the potion, after which he mixed and dropped one drop of the potion on Goras’s head. He dropped the rest of the potion on the floor and in a few second, El could see some sort of light emanating from the circle.

The light from the circle got brighter with each passing second and after a few seconds, the light, in the shape of the circle, lifted from the ground. The circle was still present on the floor as the light traveled up and stopped once it reached the tip of Goras’s head. After a few seconds, it could be seen that Goras started to breathe faster and he had started to sweat.

The expression on his face twisted in such a way that you could guess he was in terrible pain, and after a few seconds of this, he let out a scream and passed out on the floor. The magus stopped reciting as Goras passed out, and the Mother instructed one of the Sisters that had come in the room to take him back to the room. As El was about to walk towards the center of the circle believe it was his turn, the magus put up his hand and said,

“We will have to redraw the circle”.

The Mother, understanding this, stopped El and had a Sister wipe the circle until the floor was very clean. After a few seconds, El saw that the magus had a pouch in his hands, and he was taking some powder from his hands. The magus took the powder and started to draw the same circle El had seen on the floor before.

He finished drawing after a while and retook his position on the chair, and the Mother motioned for El to finally move towards the circle. The magus repeated the same steps as he had with Goras, and he pricked El’s fingers and took some drops of blood from hit. As the magus dropped the liquid on El’s head and started to chant, El started to feel some discomfort.

It seemed as though the room was getting hotter and hotter such that he began to sweat, and he started to experience some kind of pain in his legs. As he saw the circle move up, the pain also travelled up his body. Once it reached his stomach, it started to get unbearable, and even though he tried to withstand the pain, it was so excruciating once it reached his heart level that he passed out.

The Mother, seeing this, instructed yet another Sister to take him to his room and spoke to the Magus.

“Master magus, are they able to use mana?” she inquired

The magus, after thinking for a while replied, “Not to worry, both of them are able to utilize mana.” The mother looked like she had lost some of her stress and thanked the magus.

“However, only one will be a true magus” he added after a few seconds. Hearing this, one could see in her eyes that the Mother was happy, but she did not show that in her expressions. She said, “Which boy is it, Master Magus?”

“The second one.” he replied and started to put his shoes back on.

“Do you require anything for the rest of your journey, master magus?” the mother inquired again, to which the magus nodded his head and said, “I will need transport to, Rine.”

The Mother, frowning after hearing this, suggested, “Will you not rest here for a few days before undertaking such a vast journey?”.

The magus seemed to consider it for a while before answering.

He replied, “It has taken me far too long to come here. I would have sent one of the Journeymen, but their presence at the academy is required.

It would also not be appropriate to skip this event, since the emperor has required that all mana openings be operated under the presence of at least a magus of the Journeyman rank. There are urgent matters that need to be resolved waiting for me. Please arrange the transport as soon as possible.”.

The mother, unable to refute this statement, nodded her head. “It will take some time to find someone willing to drive that far.”

The magus, looking at her, spoke in a stern voice, “Regardless of that, I will have to be underway at the end of the day. Good Day”. After this exchange, the magus strode out of the room while the mother started to call some Sisters into the room.

El awoke up back in his room, feeling what he assumed was the side effect of the ceremony. His whole body was aching, but it was not as extreme as when the ceremony was actually occurring. Goras was already awake when he woke, but neither wanted to talk with each. Goras was angry at El since he had pushed him to be first. A while, later a Sister arrived to take them to Mother.

They saw that the magus was no longer in the room, and that mother was the only one there and asked her, “How will we learn to use mana?”.

The Mother replied, “Every action you take will automatically generate mana, however it takes a lot of mana to level up. The gods will only tell you when you level up and what skill you get, or in the case of spell or level, they will tell you that. There is no other way to know it otherwise.”

El asked her, “If just doing things make mana, shouldn’t everyone be the same level? And how can you tell other people’s levels?”.