"There are two forms of magecraft commonly referred to as 'anti-magic'. The first is the one most people are familiar with, modulated energy packets designed to disrupt, destroy, or tamper with spells cast by other mages. This method is common, versatile, and reserved for those with immaculate control over their magical capabilities. It is also so far beyond any of you here that the idea you will ever manage it is laughable at best, and depressing at worst.

No, you are here today to learn the second, rarer and far more interesting type. You are going to, over the course of this program, learn to invert your magic, core, and pathways to create a highly unstable form of energy that the universe as a whole does not like. This is true anti-magic, volatile, dangerous, highly destructive, and of course it can cancel out nearly every spell ever concieved. Of course, there are spells and formations that make use of both magical and anti-magical energies, teleportation, time dialation, and spatial manipulation to name a few well known examples. These are difficult for the best mages, and the need for such diametrically opposed energies only drives the difficulty up further.

You will never be able to cast normal spells, form normal arrays, or act as a normal mage if you continue down this path. Any external magic will disperse into energy, annihilating the mana it contacts in often explosive fashions. In exchange, no spell can harm you, any spell you wish to fail you need only direct a small portion of your energy to disrupt, you become in essence a perfect mage-hunter. These possibilities await those who complete this course, though it may cost your life in some instances. I wish you all the best of luck.

-Magus S'Fic Kiln, adressing the 495th class of the Vodrial Anti-Magic program.

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 Jonathan's problem had never been the amount of magical energy he could throw around, he had a significanlty larger than average pool to draw from after all. No, his issue had always been control. Lets say you have a tub of water, and you need to pour it into a series of small bowls through a pipe. The lower the water level or smaller the tub, the easier it is to fill the bowls exactly the right amount, not over or underfilling any of them. The larger or more full the tub, the more difficult it gets as the water pressure increases. The optimal mage would have an excellently balanced tub compared to the pipe, someone with massive pipes but a small tub would dump all their water very quickly, and someone with a massive tub but small, or even normal pipes would have terrible control. While Jonathan had a massive pool of energy (his 'tub'), his channels (his 'pipe' you could say) were decidedly average, even a little on the smaller side. That was to say, he had practically no control over his own energies, and unlocking them in the past had often led to disaster.

This all leads up to the primary reason he was almost always an anti-mage; an anti-mage did not require fine control, just a good deal of power and a lot of luck. 

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I would like to point out, that as my primary source of food, I don't think you should be risking this. I need to be supplied with energy and if you die I'll have to start leeching off of an alien, which is weird to me on so many levels." Complained the vaguely person-shaped robot following the lone human.

"You do realize that we are the aliens in this scenario, right?" Jonathan countered.

"Fucking irrelevent, also semantics. I say it will be weird, so it will be." Shae replied, asking, "What are the odds of you exploding into giblets by the way? There could be some interesting data if you do." 

"Low, probably one in twenty at best, more likely one in forty." 

"Awfully quick response there, has it happened before?" A mix of concern and excitement filled the humanoid robot's voice.

"Yup. Now come on, we need to talk to a dragon before class starts." Deadpanned Jonathan, hoping she would take it as a joke. It was always funny when people thought he was kidding.

"K, does he breathe fire?" Shae responded as they walked around a building, its massive marble walls split by priceless stained glass windows.

"Nope, doesn't work like that sadly." He lowered his voice as they entered the administration building. "Be polite, he will be abrasive and rude at first, he doesn't know me yet." He turned and adressed the secratary sitting at the large desk in the center of the room, rainbows of light falling softly around the chamber, and perfectly paterened stone floors reflecting beautifully.

"I need to speak with Professor Rigs. Is he in his office at the moment?" Jonathan was as polite as possible when speaking to the secratary, over his lives he had learned to be nice to those near the ones in power, it helped to gather information if he needed to destroy them.

"Yes he is, may I have your name please?" The secratary appeared almost human at first glance, before shifting his images slightly, his eyes spreading out and rising up his forehead, resting more than two inches higher than they had been, to better meet the human's.

"Jonathan, please tell him it falls under his Jotun Principle. He will want to see me right away." Everyone who lived long enough had informants, and every one of those informants would know certain phrases that meant nothing to anyone but the intended recipients. Very few had code words they gave out only at the end of their lives. Rigs had whispered this phrase to Jonathan on his deathbed a very, very long time ago. 

The secretary leaned and pressed a button, privacy shields springing up to temporarily block cight and sound from escaping her desk.

"He will see you now, Office 3B."

With a slight smile and a pointed not-quite-finger they were dismissed, and headed up to the third floor. Upon reaching the massive entryway to the office, Jonathan knocked twice on the frame before entering. Shae, following closely behind, nearly jumped out of her body when she saw an actual, fifteen foot tall dragon curled up on one side of the office. 

"Professor Rigs, I'm sure you have some questions. I'll answer all I can but I do need you to sign off on my education, mark me as tested out if you need to. I have to be back on my homeworld soon."

A deep rumble filled the room as the reccessed door slammed shut, nearly clipping a table as it did so.

"Questions you say, well, lets start with how I die, yes? The dragon's mouth did not move, his words conveyed thought to thought, sharing a deep caution, and burning curiosity.

Well, Jonathan thought, at least it can't get worse!

But it did.