Vance was struggling to decide whether or not "Evaluations" was a misnomer.

As it turned out, they were a set of publicly administered tests orchestrated by the masters of the college to assess the progress of their students.

At first, Vance found this strange. With so few students, it would be simple to keep track of their individual progress if the workload was split amongst the masters.

Vance was quickly reminded that the college was enduring something of a rough period at the moment, so it wasn't too strange that they'd be looking to refresh their intelligence on their students.

The evaluations also served a few secondary purposes. Foremost amongst them was to allow the older students to display their skills in front of the younger ones. This was supposed to serve as a form of encouragement for the youngsters, showing them what they can achieve if they work hard. As a direct consequence, it encouraged the older students to work harder to avoid being outdone by their classmates in a public setting.

Secondly, it provided younger students with a chance to display their skills to their superiors and potentially get a little advice on their weak points. With so many excellent Arcanists gathered in one place, the event was a treasure trove of information.

Lastly, it allowed the masters and their guests to search amongst the students for promising talent in particular areas. According to Thomas, performing well in evaluations was a great way to find yourself recruited into service for the empire or larger private enterprises once your stay at the college came to an end.

This knowledge lit a new fire under Vance. While he was interested in prospects of employment, he was more focused on the identity of these guests. Chances are, these would be influential people that could well have a hand on the pulse of the magical world. If nothing else, those sorts of people could be useful contacts.

Vance and his friends wasted away the rest of the day chatting in the McKinley gardens. Largely, their conversation turned towards the evaluations. Of the gathered friends, most disliked the idea of having to perform in front of their peers when the older students were so much further ahead.

After the group left for the evening, Vance and James went about their practice routine and eventually, the day came to a close.

Another handful of days passed after that with little to no information regarding the demon fiasco making its way back to the McKinley household. Rumour suggested that the college expected to be back in action in the next week or so.

Vance was pleased that there was little news on the demon front. The common opinion was that if it hadn't reared its head by now, it was probably far away. More than once, Vance had tried to get some information out of Nathaniel, but he'd only ever let slip that the situation was in hand. Nathaniel spoke with confidence on the subject, so Vance became more inclined to believe him over time.

Since he'd learned about the evaluations, Vance had been trying to work out new methods of practice that would leverage his strengths. He wanted to make as much of an improvement as he could in the time he had. He knew that he could use the feather construct to constantly work on his mana control by increasing the amount of fire mana he was keeping at the ready, wherein laid his first problem.

Vance had been constantly increasing the amount of fire mana in his core over time, little by little. He hadn't done so in a handful of days now due to circumstance. Now, he had time.

This time, he made an unexpected leap forward in progress. Namely, he found that he could finally maintain control while letting the feather construct fill his mana core to the brim. The moment he felt the mana reach the edges of the core, he clamped down his will and stopped the feather constructs perpetuation in its tracks.

For a few seconds, he focused his entire will on his fire core, taking in the sensation. Before, his fire core was a constant source of warmth in his mana sense. In terms of power, he'd never really been able to quantify it because he'd never been particularly willing to start burning things to the ground.

In its current state, he felt the usual burning heat of the fire core in his mana sense but there was something new. It took him a few moments to sort through the feelings and put them into words. While it was full, his fire core felt like a bow that was drawn tightly. The sensation told him that all he had to do was let go and the arrow would fly.

It was a sensation of power that he found extremely gratifying as well as a little concerning. While Vance was contemplating this, something occurred to him.

He thought about what he'd learned so far. He'd learned plenty about mana control, shaping, shifting, manipulation and the sorts. He'd learned about various types of mana and their properties and he'd become pretty good at using the things he'd learned. He'd even picked up a handful of useful constructs.

All of this, yet he felt something was missing. This being the case, he visited the person who he thought was most appropriate at the time. With the college closed, he went to the most practised Arcanist he had easy access to.

One night, when Nathaniel was home, Vance found a quiet time to approach him. He managed to catch him alone around the back of the house. Nathaniel was quietly pacing in short, perfect circles on the paved island in the centre of the grassy garden. His footfalls were gentle but his weight gave his position away.

"Lord McKinley?" Vance put on his most polite tone as he got close. It was immediately obvious that he was here to ask for something.

"Good evening, Vance." Nathaniel's footfalls came to a sudden stop and he turned to face his visitor. "I keep telling you to call me Nat. You really don't have to be so formal."

"Thomas told me I should start thinking more like a nobleman. I think he's right. If I'm going to be representing your family, even in a small capacity, I should try to act accordingly." Vance squared himself as he delivered his practised line.

"Well said. I shan't deny you your practice, then. What can I do for you tonight, Vance?"

"I know you're busy, so I'm sorry to interrupt, but I wondered if I could ask you some questions about magic while the college is closed?"

"Consider me at your disposal. What do you wish to know? Bear in mind, I won't tell you anything the college would deem dangerous for your age."

"Like compression?"

"Precisely like compression." Vance could hear a speck of surprise in Nathaniel's voice even though his answer was instantaneous. With a sigh, Nathaniel added, "Please tell me you're not trying internal compression."

"I'm not. I've barely even tried external compression."

"Good. I don't want you setting yourself on fire at such a young age. So, what secrets do you intend to pry out of me?" There was a little chuckle in Nathaniel's voice towards the end of his sentence.

"I wanted to ask you about magic, real magic. You know, the sort of things they talk about in the stories. Flying, things like that."

"I wondered when you'd ask this question. From what I'm told, it hasn't come up at the college with you. Not properly, anyway." Vance could swear Nathaniel sounded excited.

"Vance, would you permit me to perform a simple act of magic upon you to demonstrate? I think in your case, this will be the simplest way for me to explain. I promise I won't harm you."

Vance shifted for a moment, then squared his shoulders, his excitement rising to match his mentors.

He nodded.

In the next moment, Vance felt a new sensation. At first, it was like his mana sense was being squeezed. It was hard to describe, but it was like something was pushing his willpower inwards, forced back as if it was a physical force, confined closer to his body.

Nathaniel's voice broke Vance out of his surprised state.

"You can feel that, can't you?" Nathaniel asked, curious.

"Yes."

"Interesting. What I think you're feeling is the force of my will. Right now, I'm using it to seize all of the ambient mana around us. My willpower is much, much stronger than yours, so I expect you're experiencing some kind of constriction. Ordinarily, Arcanists can only tell they're outmatched after the battle for mana begins. In your case, it seems you can get a little forewarning when you're up against a superior Arcanist. Anyway, I promised you a demonstration."

The next second, Vance felt an absurdly powerful shift occur in the air around him. The ambient mana within several meters was instantly shifted to wind mana. Then it flooded inwards, towards Vance. He flinched but did not feel the razor sting of the wind. Instead, the mana gathered low, by his feet.

"Take a step, Vance. As if you would climb a staircase."

After a moment's hesitation, he did as he was instructed. His foot raised into the air unobstructed, then he lowered it again as if to climb a single step. His foot met resistance before it hit the ground. When Vance checked below, the wind mana had concentrated below his foot and was flowing upwards, licking against the sides of his shoes. He felt that where the sole of his foot met the surface of the mana, it reacted strongly and pushed back against him, hard.

The result? He was standing on the wind mana. Vance began to see where this was going and his face lit up.

"One more," Nathaniel had a smile in his voice.

With much less hesitation, Vance took another step and lifted his back foot. He almost lost his balance for a moment but the wind corrected him. He placed his other foot down.

Vance couldn't believe it. He was standing on thin air. Essentially, he was flying.

He felt that strange consistent pressure pushing up at the bottoms of his feet and whenever his balance would shift the surrounding wind mana would respond, moving him back into an upright position.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came to him. Instead, he just smiled with his mouth open roughly in Nathaniel's direction. He knew he surely looked like an idiot, but it really was the only way he could express this particular emotion.

"I hate to burst your bubble, Vance. There's no big secret. There's no divine mandate dictating who can and can't perform incredible feats of magic. Simply put, the better your control over mana, the more you can do with it. The most important aspect is your willpower. For someone with a strong enough will, and a little control over wind mana, doing this sort of thing is as simple as breathing."

Vance listened carefully while slowly walking around, hovering about half a foot off of the ground.

"I think that's enough of that for now," Nathaniel spoke as he slowly reduced the strength of the wind mana, letting Vance gently return to the ground.

Vance felt the surrounding wind mana begin to flee outwards.

"So, anyone can learn to do that?"

"In theory. Vance, you have superb mana control for your age but I must impress upon you that you are young and ultimately, new to this. Even if you're ahead of the curve, I don't think you're quite ready for something like that."

"How will I know when I'm ready?"

"For something like that? When you can do this."

Vance heard no movement. Suddenly, all of the ambient mana around him for several meters reacted instantly and flooded to Nathaniel, where it clung to his body. It covered him entirely.

Vance focused on his mana sense and noticed something familiar. The mana around Nathaniel was pulsing gently. He'd seen this phenomenon once before, in Ervis.

"We call this an Arcanists mantle. It's essentially a shell of ambient mana which you condense close to your body. Raw, ambient mana can be excellent for dismantling hostile mana assaults so it acts as a form of armour beyond the bodies natural defences. It also functions as something of a notice to other Arcanists that you're not a pushover. The pulsing is a result of matching the compression rates of the mana to our breathing or heartbeat, depending on the Arcanist. It's symbolic of our control over mana having approached an instinctual level. In other words, if you see one of these, you're not dealing with an apprentice, you're dealing with a master."

Vance could tell right away that conjuring this mantle was immensely difficult. The ambient mana gathered was more than he'd ever controlled by a long shot, the compression rates were higher than he could achieve at all, not to mention it seemed like there might even be a few constructs in Nathaniel's mantle which he'd constructed in an instant. Vance couldn't quite tell what they were for but no matter their purpose, it was impressive.

"Where do I start?" Vance was fairly sure his voice had just raised an octave, but he decided not to address it. Currently, his excitement ruled his mind.

"There's no discouraging you, huh. Good, I like the ambition. Most Arcanists attempt the mantle once they can affect enough mana all at once like I just did. Therefore, I recommend you start by increasing the amount of ambient mana you can work with at once."

Vance said his goodbyes, he wanted to get straight to practise after all of this. He remembered that sensation of being free of the ground and he had to admit, it was addicting. He wasn't precisely sure about how well he'd be able to fly without being able to see, but honestly, at the moment he didn't care.

If he wanted to try and fix his eyes, he'd probably need incredible mana control anyway to have a shot at working with life mana, so he could consider all of this preparation. He returned to his room, luckily avoiding James.

Had he ran into James, he might've exploded with excitement.

In his room, he sat in his usual position. He reached out to the ambient mana around him and pulled, hard. Then, once he'd gathered as much as he could, he let it go. The mana lazily wandered through the air in the room, spreading out to the corners and leaking through the walls in tiny, imperceptible wisps.

Then, he pulled again, harder. Then again, then again, then again.

Like this, Vance lost the entire night.