“Box, huh? I don’t think whatever she has is some sort of connate magji or talent.” A tanned-skinned man smirked as he closed a small journal in his hand.

“ ‘ey, we’re here!” The taxi driver parked in front of the ordinary residential house.

“Thanks.” Victor already paid and tipped the man through the mobile app he used to call him here.

Victor made his way out of the car and to the front door of his newest student and first apprentice. As an experienced magjistar, even someone like him had no choice but to teach the next generation. It’s an integral part of the magjistar culture that cannot be rejected. Those from the older generation would pass on their wisdom and knowledge to make the current generation even more powerful than they were. This was how magjistars grew now in modern times.

There was once a time when magjistars hoarded all of their knowledge for themselves or those close to them. Their rigid ways didn’t stand the test of time as their hoarded knowledge was robbed after their death, lost, or destroyed. It just wasn’t as efficient as the current system of free knowledge and sharing wisdom by multiple mediums. Victor didn’t have a real issue with it fundamentally, just that it was a pain in the ass sometimes.

He knocked on the door and waited a few moments before a man’s voice came from the other side.

“Who is it?” Zoey’s father or older brother asked.

“My name is Vic. I’m your daughter’s current magjistar teacher.” He explained upfront.

“Magji, what?” A woman’s voice whispered from beyond the door.

“It’s a long boring explanation, and frankly, I'm pissed that I have to be the one to do it.” Victor was upset that Zoey’s immediate family wasn’t informed already by someone from the OM (Organization of Magjistars) about their daughter’s current situation.

It didn’t matter that Zoey was a bringer, had no magji potential at the time, or that she was a gully. Everyone introduced into the magji world needed to be informed of its rules and customs. Including the immediate guardians, if said newcomer was underaged. It has been months since Zoey was brought to the magji side and the last time he checked, the OM branch in this city wasn’t swamped with work or destroyed by daemons. So, Zoey was purposely ignored for some reason, and Victor would make them pay for making him do this bullshit.

“You’re not one of those people from the internet, are you?” The woman’s voice asked.

“Internet? Is Zoey caught up in something on the internet?” Nothing in her journal said anything about that, and he couldn’t get past her lock screen on her phone to find out more about her.

The door slowly became ajar as a man’s face came through the crack. He took a good look at him up and down before gulping.

‘What the hell kind of teacher looks like this?!’ Bruce inwardly cursed. That was no man but a damn bronze god!

“We can talk about that later. What kind of teacher did you say you were again?” Zoey’s father coughed to clear his throat.

“Her magji teacher.” Victor didn’t hold any information back.

“Magji? Do you mind explaining what that is for me? It’s been a while since I've been in school, but I've never heard of such a class before.” Zoey’s father politely asked, still guarded and ready to shut the door at a moment’s notice.

“I’m not seeing anything on the internet about magji or magji classes... It keeps asking me if I mean magic and magical classes.” The woman’s voice from before whispered.

“Is this some sort of extracurricular activity that she’s signed up for at school? Like workshop class or wood class?” The man asked a reasonable question.

“You could say they’re similar.” Victor didn’t say no, but he needed to explain everything to these two fully. “If you could let me in for a moment, I can explain it all and answer any questions you two got for me.” Standing out here explaining to these two the dangers of the magji world isn’t something he wanted to go through. Victor would rather sit on his ass and talk rather than standing outside their door chatting.

“Do you think we should let him in? Zoey didn’t tell us about a teacher coming...” Zoey’s mother or sister kept her voice low, but at Victor’s level, he could even hear the young boy’s voice upstairs talking to himself while tapping on a keyboard.

“She also didn’t tell us about her friends coming over Friday.” Thanks to this statement, Victor finally identified them as Zoey’s guardians.

“I don’t think he’s a bad person...” Zoey’s father opened the door completely. “Come on and have a seat on the couch...” He had a baseball bat behind his back. The mother had a kitchen knife tightly clasped in her hands.

Something about this situation wasn’t right from the beginning. Now that Victor saw that her parents were ready to defend themselves from some sort of threat to their family or daughter, Victor needed to know what was happening online about his new apprentice. He walked to their couch without reacting to the sight of them holding weapons. It looks like both of them had a story to tell.

“You can call me Victor. Like I said earlier, I'm Zoey’s magji teacher. She’s my new apprentice. It’ll take me a while to explain everything and I won’t feel like doing it again so, I would suggest that the child upstairs be brought down to hear me as well.” Victor took a squat on the couch. He had a feeling that the boy upstairs was Zoey’s younger brother, Everette.

She wrote about him in her journal about using the Box to help him play video games better. Victor was still completely lost about this Box thing, but he will figure it out eventually. It’ll be hard to hide something from his eyes once he knew what he was looking for. He was looking forward to teaching the little firecracker.

“Everette! Come here!” Zoey’s mom yelled.

Victor was a little surprised to see that Zoey’s mom was black and her dad was white. She looked identical to her mother, if you don’t add how out of shape the woman was. Nothing about the father looked similar to Zoey. Maybe he was added to the family later.

“And what are your names?” Victor asked. He couldn’t just keep thinking of them as Zoey’s Father and Mother.

“Bruce.” The father introduced himself.

“Alicia.” The mother did the same.

It only took a minute or two before a short boy that barely resembled Zoey and resembled more of the two in front of him came downstairs. Victor smiled and waved at the boy as he took a seat on the couch’s armrest.

“I am a magjistar and this is magji.” A brilliant display of mahna flowed out of his body and out of his palms.

Of course, just this display wasn’t enough to convince a regular person. So, he added on some more by moving their furniture across the room simultaneously without moving from the couch. Everette’s reaction was a lot more unrestrained than the parents'. He excitedly jumped around and screamed at the sight of it before yelling something a little bit interesting.

“I knew magic was real! I trusted Zoey! See, mom! Zoey was telling the truth, and you didn’t believe her!” Everette shouted.

It turns out Zoey did try to convince her family about magji, but they didn’t believe her? Well, that’s something, but it still doesn’t make up for the OM not doing their damn jobs. They had protocols and demonstrations for stubborn people that refused to accept that magji was real. Victor was forced to work as one of those magjistars who had to visit regular families and inform them about the magji world in the past. Those old bastards at the top loved punishing geniuses in annoying ways.

“Zoey did what...?” Bruce looked lost.

“...” Alicia didn’t seem to know how to respond.

From what Victor could guess, Zoey tried convincing her of the existence of magji, but she didn’t believe her. Thus, both of her children believed in something that she refused to believe in—possibly putting a strain on the kids’ relationship with their mom. The way Everette said it and how Alicia was reacting was what he could glimpse from the situation.

“Yes, magji is real,” Victor repeated the boy’s statement to get it through the heads of these two. He’s heard stories of some really stubborn people before and hoped that his apprentice’s family wasn’t like them.

“Our Zoey can do something like this too...?” Bruce stammered.

“Not right now. She’s too weak and has a lot more studying to do before she can do anything like that.” Victor answered. “But I'll answer questions at the end. For now, let me explain to you what kind of world your daughter and sister have been living so far.” Victor began to tell them the basics of the magji world.