It was then that Jason realized it was late. So, much to the disappointment of the people around them, they left. But the owner talked to Jason before he left.

“You can get free drinks here, anytime as well as a table, doesn’t matter how full we are”. Jason thanked him. As he left the bard caught his eye.

“You are a mage, no?”. Jason nodded, “How can you tell?”. “They type of music you were playing, it’s called mana-song, the Elf’s use it, or something like it”. Jason raised an eyebrow. “You’ve seen the Elf’s?”. The bard grinned and made a shushing gesture. He clapped Jason on the back.

“Well, see you around”. Jason muttered his agreement. The bard disappeared into the crowd. Alex finally had Jason’s attention. “How did you do that? I didn’t know you could play the harp or do that thing?”. He waved his hands around. It only remined Jason of his own aching fingers and he winced.

“Later”. He was very tired. Alex was not satisfied with the answer, but he could see Jason was exhausted. So, he let it slide for now.

The had just made it to the gates. They found someone standing in front of them. Fearing a teacher, out to stop curfew breakers they slowed. It was no use the person had seen them already.

“Hey, Jason”. The person called; the voice was familiar. It was Leo. He had a small ball of fire to give of light. “Leo?”. Jason was surprised that he was waiting for them.

“yeah”. He rubbed his hair. Like he was just now realizing how odd it was to be waiting for them. “Ah, come on the curfew is soon”. Leo took them into the tower and left them in their rooms. Jason collapsed onto his bed, but he had one more thing to do.

“Why did you do that?”. “I just wanted to play once more, that’s all” “Why was my mana like that?”. Jason wanted to know why his mana had reacted so strongly. “Well, your mana in general is odd. You have too much of it and it seems too easily manipulated”. Jason frowned, was it a bad thing, he did not know.

“Ok, what I really want to know is why you know so much about darkness spells, if you’re a lightning mage?”. The ring was silent, “Near the end of my life I was working with a darkness mage to make a ritual, do you know what that is?”. Jason shook his head, he had some thoughts as to what it was, but he wanted a better explanation.

“A ritual is a spell that takes much more time to cast, to prepare and to use. They are more versatile then normal high-level spells. Jason nodded; he got the gist. “I was making a new one with this darkness mage, and to do the one we were making, I needed to understand darkness, like they needed to understand lightning. So that is why I know some darkness spells, even though I can’t use them”. Jason grinned, he was happy with the answer, a thought struck him.

“How did you die, weren’t you a powerful mage?”. The ring somehow snorted. “No matter how strong you are you can still die, as for my death, I don’t know”. Jason found that odd. “You don’t remember dying?”. “Yes, it was probably a bad experience, in fact most of my memories leading up to the occasion are gone. You’re lucky that I remember any of the darkness spells at all”.

It was then, Jason fell asleep.

“Poor child, I’ll help you grow strong for the coming storm”.

It was the weekend and Jason had nothing to do. He had trained his short sword with the recruits, did his other magic training. He had no essays, nor did Alex. Leo had started following them around as well, which was good and bad. He could help them with their magical questions. But he was always asking Jason questions.

Alex had a bright idea. “Why don’t we go to the Dungeon, we could use more experience for the final”. Leo nodded, “Yes you do”. Jason sat there and remembered what had happened. His rage unbound, how his mana nearly destroyed his body. This time would be different.

“Are we allowed?”. He asked. “Yeah, there are no rules against it”. Leo helpfully provided. Jason nodded and placed his hand on the table. “Ok let’s go”. “Maybe this time we’ll get something good”. Alex was disappointed at the last time he had been to the Dungeon. He hadn’t gotten any magical items at all.

“If we make it to the first boss, we get something”. Leo supplied; Jason glanced at him. Sometimes it was good to have a second year. They gathered their thing, told James, who gave his assent. They asked the girls, but none of them wanted to come.

Some of the guards at the entrance of the Dungeon, gave them suspicious looks, but thankfully no-one could recognise Jason. They entered the Dungeon, taking one of the marbles.

Jason placed a hand of the wall. The last time he had been here, he was acting strange. He felt hi mana react to the memories. Leo looked up and feeling something happening. Jason’s shadow started to rise. It had formed a hand, reaching for his shoulder. Jason took his hand off the wall and the hand fell back into his shadow.

“Come on, let’s just go past the first couple of rooms quickly”. Alex nodded; Leo was talking. “Fine, guys go first, I’ll save my mana”. Jason and Alex had no problem with this. So, they went into the first room.

The single wolf was stopped easily with a lone firebolt. Alex placed a hand to stop Jason. “Let me take care of these ones”. Jason nodded; the last time Alex had been here he had killed a monster for the first time. Now, he was carefree in killing the monsters.

They made quick work of the first five rooms, then in the sixth room Jason joined in. While the last time he had just walked through this room, so the monsters where still new to him. Five wolfs attacked them while several monkey-like monsters came down from above.

Jason dipped his hands into the shadow, while casting, “Armour me so I can vanquish my foes, Shadow Bracers”. He had successfully shortened the chant. Cutting down the casting time. He grabbed one wolf and throw it into the others path. Stabbing both with his dagger, he shot two bursts of lightning at the monkeys. He finished them off with a slash of his short sword.

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Alex had also killed his monsters, making them rush into a wall of flames, while firebolting the monkey that had attacked him.

“You guys are good for first years”. Leo’s voice made them both remember that he was there. He had been almost completely silent, and with their attention on fighting. He had slipped into the background.

“Are we?”. Jason wanted to know what the standard was. “Yeah, we should be able to take at the first boss”. Jason didn’t mention that he had already fought and won against the boss before. If Leo knew, who could guess what his reaction would be. They made their way to the boss

Jason had only been slightly cut by a wolf’s fang. Alex had been bruised some, but they were good to fight the boss. Leo made the plan. “Ok, you know what the boss is?”. Jason did have some idea. “A werewolf, bi-pedal, covered in iron armour and has a spear”. Alex was the only one who did not know this. “Yeah, got any ideas?”.

Leo only grinned, “You could say that, the boss is weak if you know the trick. Being covered in the armour makes it very easy to cook it. If you can bind it, then we can bomb it with flames”. They nodded; the plan made.

They came around the corner and saw the boss. It saw them and rushed towards them. Jason cast, “Shadow Binds”. His spell had gotten stronger and the werewolf was unable to dodge. The others ran to the sides of him, Leo going left, Alex right. The bindings weren’t enough to completely stop the werewolf, but enough to slow it down.

It lunged at Jason who made eye contact with its feral eyes. Its eyes widened. It stopped and pulled away. It turned around and strained against its bindings. It was then the boss was bombarded with flames. Alex had cast a wall of flames, and Leo had gone all out. Duel casing Fireball. This time he had better control the flames and the circled around the boss.

Jason shot off some small bolts, for overkill. Soon the flames were finished and evaporated. It left a gruesome sight. The werewolf’s armour and started to melt from the intense heat. it had gone from an intimidating sight to a pathetic lump of soft metal, melded to the floor.

He had come far. The last time the boss had stabbed him, this time they had destroyed it. Sure, he had help, but he could take it on himself. Alex’s cheers sounded from across the room. “We did it”.

He yelled. Leo sat on the floor; the two Fireballs had taken a lot. Jason guessed that the quick fight was mostly thanks to him. Jason was thankful of his presence. But something about the boss was odd. The way, when it made eye contact with him, why had it jumped away? Was it because of what happened last time.

“I know why”. The ring offered. “What’s the answer then?” he asked it. “You offered its body and soul to Demon, and the Dungeon doesn’t want that to happen, so it made the new one afraid of you”. He had offered the bosses body to a Demon. He shrugged; it was something to think about later.

Now was the time for the loot. Where the Boss and been standing a large wooded chest now sat. Leo and Alex had both noticed it. Alex rushed over, Jason and Leo followed. Alex quickly throw open the large chest. His dreams of magical items were again destroyed. And he sat back. Jason looked inside the bulky chest. Inside was only three gems. Two red ones, probably rubies and one black gem, that might be a black opal.

Jason frowned. “Is the loot tailored to us?”, it wasn’t hard to see who the gems where meant for. Leo nodded, “Sometimes it is, usually is you do something particular noteworthy”. Alex was still mad about the lack of loot.

“Is this it? We fought throw ten rooms and a boss to get one gem each”. Leo nodded. “Yep, the first floor is not the best place to find treasure, even gems are hard to get”. Alex’s face fell.

“Don’t worry, the gems are most definitely real and even the chest can be sold”. Jason knocked the chest seeing the hardness of it,

“You can sell this?”. Leo reached in a took a ruby and got up. “Yeah, Dungeon chest are better quality wood then you think, and there is the fact that it came from a Dungeon”. Jason was happy with the answer and took his black opal and storied it in his pocket. Alex glumly took his ruby as well. Being in a wealthy family was showing.

Leo and Jason picked up the chest grunting, it was quite dense. They slowly made their way over to the blue magic circle which would teleport them out. The odd sensation came, and the world blurred and twisted.

They popped back right at the entrance. Seeing the light, some of the guards made their way. They saw they were only young mages and not a large party. So, most of them left and went back to work. But the captain came.

“Congrats on your first clearing”. He stretched his hand out. Jason placed the chest down and shook it. “Thanks”. He was happy to talk.

“The first floor I guess”. The captain looked impressed. Jason nodded, “Yep”. The captain nodded. “Ok, I have to tell you some things”. The man cleared his throat and began. “We will buy any loot you have found at a ten percent reduction, if you are to sell it at the city you will have to pay a tax. It is illegal to sell Dungeon items without a license”. The man finished.

Jason took it in. He looked at the others, “Can we sell this chest then?”. He didn’t want to carry it all the way back to his rooms. The captain nodded and pulled out a purse. “The normal price is ten silvers, so minus the tax, that’s nine silver”. The man took out the silvers and offered it to them. Jason looked at Leo, he didn’t want to be scammed. Leo nodded. He took the silver from the captain.

Jason gave out three to Leo and Alex each and pocketed the leftovers. “Anything else you want to sell”.

The captain asked, the chest had to have something in it, so he wanted to know. Jason shook his head, so did the others.

“Yeah, want to keep your first loot then”. The man guessed; it was what he would have done. Jason smiled and nodded. “Yes, thanks”. They then went back to the city.

Jason sat in his room. Admiring the gem. He had no use for it. And he didn’t have a proper place to keep it.

“Why don’t you give it to me?” The ring supplied the answer. “You can store stuff?”. “Yes, I can”. Jason realised what the ring meant, “Does that mean you’re a spatial ring?”. Spatial rings could store many things, having many meters of space inside them, only some Nobles could afford them, and also mages. Jason knew that they could hold most things inside them and without the weight.

The ring cut his vision off. “Yes, I have a small space that you can use, it’s only about a half-meter cube”. Jason was still impressed. “Just think of the gem going into the ring”. Jason did so and the black gem disappeared into the ring. He pulled it out. Then put it back it.

“Stop playing with it”. He sniggered, “Why didn’t you tell me before?”. “Because you didn’t need to know then, that’s way”. Jason was annoyed that the ring had kept something from him.

“Ok, I’m asking one last time, is there anything else you can do?”. He didn’t mentally speak his anger rising. “No, you know all my uses”. Jason sighed and laid back down.

“Ok, tell me what is the thing that you’re going to teach me”. The ring answered meekly, knowing that it had no choice in answering. “You are going to learn, Imbruing”. Sensing the coming questions, the ring continued.

“It is the act of changing your mana into lightning mana inside your body. It then gives your body new powers. In your case, lightning increases you speed and strength”. Jason was amazed. Magic usually couldn’t do such a thing. He couldn’t wait to learn. The final week of the term was coming up. Tests for every class and one more unsupervised Dungeon run. He clenched his hand into a fist, making the opal go into the ring.

He would be ready.