Jason woke. He sat up, clutching at his burning heart. He looked around. He was in a white bed, surrounded by curtains. Was he in the infirmary? He felt a sharp pain in his chest and grabbed his mouth. He started coughing up blood.

Quick footsteps could be heard coming towards him. His vision blurred, but he could make out a woman talking to him. No, casting spells of healing. The darkness greeted him again.

He could hear voices, parts of conversations. “Demonic…. Influenced….”, one voice sentence stood out to his pained mind. “The kid has got a dark side, push to far, you’ll see”. Was that James voice?

Jason woke, properly this time. He slowly opened his eyes. James was sitting next to him, head in hands. Jason’s moving alerted him. “Oh, thank the Gods, you’re awake”. James looked relieved.

“Wh… What happened”. Jason’s voice was sore and crackly. Like he had not used it in a while. James leaned back. “You don’t remember?”. Jason grunted, not trusting his voice not to brake.

“Well, we’re not entirely sure but, something happened then you went to the Dungeon and trashed the first floor”. Jason mummed it amazement, he had trashed the first floor.

“Yes, I have to cast some spells on you later, to test for somethings, it’s been a week, the healer said you would be fine now”. A week, Jason would be behind in work.

Not that he could do much work, he could scarcely move for a day. But the healer cast a couple more spells and he was able to work. James took him into a special room, with a pentagram carved into the floor. He was made to sit there while a multitude of spells were cast over him. The results were bad.

“I was wondering why you didn’t use that many lightning spells, but I still don’t now know”. Jason asked what the bad thing was. “I thought someone, or something has placed a demonic spell on you, but I was wrong”. Jason blinked

Finally, Jason was left alone. He looked at the obsidian black ring.

“I know you’re there, and I’m alone”. He spoke to the ring softly.

We meet properly, greetings boy. “Who, what are you?”. The ring somehow sighed. I was a powerful mage, then I was killed, and my soul was transferred into this ring. Jason snorted. “Did you make me go crazy?”. No, if I had that much influence over you, well you get the idea. “Do you know what happened?”. It probably has to do with your soul, it’s very odd.

“What my soul?” Yes. Jason remembered what he was talking too. “Do you have a name?”, the ring warmed. Yes, but you can call me Falcon. “What can you do then”.

Apart from telepathically talking to you, not much else. “Nothing else”. Jason was disappointed, he thought the ring would make the world bow to him. Though I can only talk, I was an old and very experienced mage, back in my day, follow my teachings and you’ll be able to smack that smug look right off Lucas’ face. Jason clenched his fist; he had not forgotten what the Noble had done to him.

“What element are you?”. You are lucky, lightning is mine, moreover I have some knowledge on darkness spell.

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“Let’s get started then”. Jason rose from his bed and placed a foot on the floor. He fell.

Your body hasn’t recovered yet, stay in bed, there are things to teach you that don’t require moving.

“Fine but tell me the spell I will learn”. It is called Shadow Surge. “So why don’t you teach me it now?”. You would not be able to cast it. “What?”. The spell requires much more mana manipulation then you currently possess. There is also something I will teach on the way. “Ok”. Jason nodded and got back on the bed.

Do your meditation. He began. Open your mana. Jason let a sigh out when the mana rushed into his body, the energy healing the small wounds in him.

But the mana start gushing into him, too much, he was like a single piece of sand in a sandstorm. Lost in the storm.

Control it. The mana didn’t want to be controlled, in fact Jason felt the mana overtaking him. CONTROL IT. The voice brought Jason back. The mana wanted to go in all directions, Jason started to exert his will over it.

Rotate it around your body. The voice suggested. Jason frowned and pushed against the raging mana. Slowly it started to bend. The mana started to rotate around his stomach. The more mana he rotated around his centre the more followed, drawn into the flow.

The mana still pushed and pulled at his body, but it was contained into a vortex centring around his stomach. Good, very good start.

He sat there for long time, just focusing on moving the mana. The uneven maelstrom ever so slowly began to curve. It started to be suppressed. The vortex changed. From a patchy flow into a clear-cut circle. It became a band of flowing mana.

Jason could feel on his stomach the warmth of the mana glowing and busting through his skin. The brats better then I thought, making a clear circle band on his first go. The voice was not worried about praising the boy, he was too deep in the flow of mana. Maybe he can even do that.

Jason finished with the meditation he at the insistence of the voice held his hands out in front of him and place them about five centre meters apart. Now get some mana stretch it across and form stings. Jason pushed the mana out of one finger and then stopped. It was much harder than he thought. Stretching it across the gap was very difficult. The mana would almost immediately disappear. He practised this for more time.

The days in the infirmary passed like this. He was only in there for two more days before he was let out. The voice continued to make sure he did his new training exercises, as well as his old ones. He gradually got better. A highlight was going back to class and talking to his friends, they asked him what happened, as they knew something had happened. Jason told them he remembered nothing.

It was at the end of the 8th week when he managed it. Casting his lightning spell without a word. With the voice as a guide he could now create the spell easily. The voice also taught him some neutral spells as well, mostly minor spells that could tell him the time of day, what direction was North and a mana sensing spell.

He shot off another bolt of lightning at the training dummy. He could do this all day. It was cool to casually throw a bolt of lightning around, like it was nothing. But he thought he could do better and had an idea. What if you could throw multiple at once? He had seen spells like fire bolt being casted like this, so he went to James.

He found him predictably in his classroom. Entering he said hello. “Hello James, I have a question for you”. James nodded and raised a finger, he had nearly finished writing. Jason waited. “Ah, the crazy one returns, what can I help you with?”. Jason sat down, not wanting to be rude.

“I’ve been practising this spell, and I’ve masted it, but I want to cast multiple of it at the same time, got any ideas?”. James thought for a moment, “what spell is it?”. Jason told him. “Volt Wyrm”. James nodded, Jason was surprised at James’s knowledge of spells, generally one would have little knowledge of another element.

“I see what you want to do, the thing you want to do is split your mana into many different stings that follow the same patten”. He then showed Jason out quickly.