Three months after Galilona’s destruction.

Gerrin holds back his frustration as Amara scolds him for not doing his assignment correctly. Yet again, she assigned a grueling assignment that took him hours to complete. (Last minute of course)

“You cannot keep slacking off like this!” His mentor’s calm but stern words awake him from his half-conscious gaze out the window, forcing him to lock eyes with her, in a form of half acknowledgment.

“If you keep getting failing grades, I’ll unfortunately have to quit mentoring you.” She continues. “And this time, I’m serious.” These words echo in his head. Usually, Mentor Amara isn’t serious when she threatens him like this, but it seems after yesterdays meeting with other mentors, his lack of progress really left a dent in her performance quota for her to do this. He’ll have to start trying. The thought is undeniable, when he started skipping steps on his assignments to instead bask in the peacefulness of Zorah’Khar’s vast gardens, he knew that he would, at some point need to start trying like in his first four months of mentorship, but with Amara’s widely-known forgiving, yet highly academic-focused attitude he didn’t think it’d last this long. But now, it was finally catching up to him.

“We are finished for today because I need you to get some rest. We will be working much more tomorrow... At least in comparison to today that is." She adds.

As Gerrin walks home, he thinks about how he should spend his last day of “freedom” before he would inevitably be forced to sit in his room working all day long. At least his room has a window… Before he joined the mentoring program, having have luckily gotten in through a lottery, he was warned that the first five or six years would just be mostly scholarly work to understand magic, but he overlooked that since it was either that or starving to death on the streets of Zorah’Khar. Now that he thought about it, it was possibly his last year of study before finally beginning to study magic and not researching random things assigned to me! But, problem is, there must be a point to researching all those things since they did have to do with the history of magic…

***

Five hours later Gerrin is sitting on a chair, next to a desk, under a lamp, inside Zorah’Khar’s widely-renown national library recapping his previous assignments. The library, being one of the structural marvels of Zorah’Khar, aside from the palace and cathedral, of course. Tall wall of sandstone complimented using varying metals, intricate carvings on the walls. On the inside, many shelves stand in a circle with desks in the middle, all made of beautifully carved acacia. Although he knows that he shouldn’t be studying this late, there’s nothing a nice cup of Kah’fee, (a drink with properties that gives energy to the drinker, made out of ground Kah’fee beans and brewed with hot water) can’t restore.

Reading through his previous work, Gerrin now understands why his Mentor is always so tired. Trying to even decode his scrip-like handwriting is one job in its own, looking as if a storm just passed over it, and then trying to put together his haphazard answers is another all together. An hour later, after finishing reading through his unfinished assignments, he began grabbing the books he would need to read to get caught up on his topics the next day. It was a big stack, towering a bit over his head, but at least his room wasn’t too far from the library.

His room is part of a larger building, more of a single-floor apartment. It is situated on a cliff with a large window and balcony, with a small bedroom on the side. It was nothing much, but Gerrin is content with it. Unlike the library, his house is made out of carefully sculpted mud brick, which is made out of baked mud compressed with reeds inside. Although it didn’t look as nice, Gerrin doesn't mind as long as it kept the heat out.

The next day Gerrin wakes up after the five to six hours of sleep he managed to get in, gets dressed, and goes straight to the cafe to get himself breakfast and a cup of Kah’fee. The breakfast is good, with Dune Oryx sausage, and a side of Oasis Warbler eggs. The Kah’fee, of course, was immaculate in flavor also giving him a greatly needed burst of energy to get him ready for the long day ahead. The walk to his mentor’s “office” wasn’t long but he wouldn’t call it short either. It is around half to almost a full mile but it doesn't feel like a mile because of the bustling city streets seemingly wicking away his boredom. Sounds filled the crisp early-morning air as laborers carried boxes to the corresponding market stalls, merchants advertising their products, and housewives bickering for a lower price.

As he got closer to his mentor's office (and home) he thought about what they were going to be learning today. Since they just recently finished the previous topic, the history of magic, and Amara was unwilling to disclose more info, that could mean only one thing. Was he finally going to start learning magic?

“Hello Gerrin, you are precisely twelve minutes and thirteen seconds late to class.” Over the years of being taught by Amara, he had noticed that she had a tendency to scarily be exact, given the fact that clocks are no cheap comodoty, especially percise ones.

“Are we finally starting to learn Magic today?” Gerrin asks in an impatient tone.

“And what makes you think that?” Amara replies in a confused, but amused voice.

“Well, for the past few years we have been learning the history of magic, and we finished that topic a few days ago so I thought that-” Amara cuts him off- “Nope! We are now learning, or should I say discussing the ethics of magic!” Gerrin doesn’t even hold back his frustration letting him hands fall down on the table. He thought today was going to be the day, but it seems that the day he was thinking about was going to be in another two years.

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“Anyways, Gerrin, take a trip down to the library and grab me these books, then, we will start with our lessons.” His mentor says while giving him a decently long list of books. The weather on the walk back is almost a bit more gloomier, seemingly reflecting his mood. Now, he thinks, that after this unit, he’ll probably be forced to discuss the many uses magic could have in the future, without learning the actual magic, of course.

The library is quite this morning, not that its usually loud, but the usual sounds of people working are gone. Probably because its a bit past dawn… Gerrin realizes. He enters the library proper and heads to the shelves where the first book is situated.

The first book’s title reads: ‘Is magic worth it?’ Its a leather bound volume around four hundred pages in length. Well, that’s a pretty banal title Gerrin thinks. The next book’s title is slightly better, but its still not the best: “The Codex of Conjuring Conduct” This time, the book’s a lot thicker, being only one volume. The final book, or should he say books is a serious of twelve books under a general title of ‘A Magus’s Moral Compass’ This one is much more interesting, since by the looks of the cover and by flipping through a few pages, it looks like more of a guide for beginning mages rather than discussions on the ethics of magic.

***

“Well, that took you longer than expected” Mentor Amara notices. Probably because you gave me a couple dozen pounds of books to fucking carry. Gerrin thinks to himself.

“I mean, it was a bit heavier than I though it might be… And it took a while to find all the books.” He says with an explanatory tone.

“Well, we might as well get started, no point in drawing out the inevitable, right Gerrin?” She asks

“Yeah, we might as well.” Gerrin says finishing it with a sigh.

The following hours are spent reading the books, which are leaps more engaging than the history books he was forced to read, but still are boring when compared to other genres. Then, another hour is spent discussing the information and notes taken from the texts. Alas, it is time to go to lunch, and then an hour later, complete his homework, which is to start reading the first book of ‘A Magus’s Moral Compass’.

At lunch Gerrin meets up with his friend, Enric, at a cafe with a nice view of the sacred Ra’Hara river which flows through The Sunbaked Expanse giving the area around it varying levels life. It is because of it that the people in Zora’Khar can survive, giving them water, which is unsurprisingly greatly needed in the desert.

“Enric! Long time no see!” Gerrin says while slapping his hand on his already seated friend’s back.

“Hey man, no need to do that! You scared me! Thought the authorities were coming after me for some reason.” Having piercing blue eyes and midnight black hair, Enric was an easy person to mistake because of the many other locals with similar appearances. And because of that he had and easy time getting away from the law; but with his lacking skill at stealing, he often got caught anyway.

“So, what you been up to, anyway?” Enric asks him lightheartedly.

“Not much, we recently moved onto the ethics of magic, for one.” How about you?

“Finally started learning magic- check this out!” Enric summons a palm- sized orb of light that leaves his palm and starts hovering the room.

“Dang! Well, tell me about it, is it hard, did you use any of the knowledge they taught you?” Gerrin asks.

“It wasn’t that hard, I just spent around a day trying to notice mana, and then I just learned to summon light by thinking about it! Although, be warned that if you try casting something that takes more mana than you have, you will die!” Enric answers.

“Well, then how do you improve your mana so that you can cast more complex things?” Gerrin asks in turn.

“You practice Dumb ass!”

“Oh… Yeah…” Gerrin replies.

***

Opening the most likely century-old book, spine crackling, the smell entering his nose, Gerrin feels relaxed. After a long day of studying those god-awful books the Amara forced him to read really took a toll on him. Maybe if he worked instead of slacking off in the past he wouldn’t even be tired… Pushing aside his annoying thoughts thoughts he takes a deep breath and starts reading. The book is a recount of the adventures of Aetherwyn, a mage and scholar of long ago, giving his thoughts and advise to young mages.

A bit into his reading, there is sudden banging at his door. Getting up, slightly annoyed at being disturbed at his reading, Gerrin heads toward his door. Although he’s surprised that someone is needing something of him this late in the night, he realizes that it must be urgent and pushes on. Almost to the door, there’s another banging. It must really be urgent then.

“Open up! We know your in there!” A gruff voice yells from outside. Muggers, great. just great. Gerrin is paralyzed with fear, not knowing what to do. A few seconds after, there’s a loud noise as something crashes against the door, then again, and again. They’re kicking it open. Shocked not knowing what to do, he quickly runs back to the furthest corner of the room and barricades himself in the corner. Well, it seems I’m dying today Gerrin thinks to himself as with one final kick, the group of burglars kicks in the door.

Gerrin can see them through a gap in the barricade. The robbers are all cloaked, big, and carry some sort of weapon; an axe, a dagger, a short sword, pretty much anything that can kill.

“Come on out, we all know your behind the table, no need to be a hero” One of the cloaked figures says. Gerrin starts thinking. What should I do… What should I do! Suddenly he feels something around him. Energy, buzzing, he can see energy. Mana. its mana. His conversation from earlier in the day comes back to him, ‘all you have to do is think of what you want to do, and give the idea energy’ All he had to do now was to think of something that he could do…

“Times ticking!” The burglar yells using his damaged vocal cords that have seen too much smoking. Gerrin keeps thinking. Jumping out of the window and trying to cushion his fall with magic? Automatic no. one hundred plus feet is way too much to fall even with magic assisting him. He needs to fight his way out. Alright, working metal, probably too hard. Think of elements. Ice, wind, fire… Bingo! Fire… Okay, what can he do with fire…

He suddenly hears boots stomping on the wood floor coming towards his barricade. I’ll just have to think of it on the fly. Gerrin thinks. He leaps out from behind the barricade ‘fire, kill.’ he repeats in his head as he focus’s at the cloaked figures. Suddenly, the world around him lights up, heating, nearly buring his face. Then, darkness.