It took awhile to explain. I had to restart a few times having left out critical information, AKA information I didn’t want Nox to have. Eventually though, it all came out. My access to the Weave, how I met Wiley, calling all the basic elements. I did manage to keep out Wiley’s…. side business, though. Finally, I was done, and tired as hell even though it was still the morning.

“So?” I asked, metaphorically dying to know what had happened to me.

“Ahh, nothing much.” He said with a wave of his hand. “You just advanced a stage.”

… He buried that lead so deep it may as well have been in mandarin.

“That’s not ‘nothing much’ to me, Nox. Care to, oh I don’t know, explain?”

I swear when I find out this guy’s secret kink or phobia, I’ll screw with him ‘til the end of time. Assuming I don’t just murder him first. He sighed. I was definitely going to murder him.

“Fuckin’.... young prodigies and their horseshit. Right, listen up. To pass through a stage, only one thing is actually necessary. You need to have mastery over a stage of the elements you’re currently wielding. To ‘enter’ the third tier, you need to have a basic understanding of the primary elements.”

“Then to enter the fourth, you need to master the first stage of understanding. The fifth, the second. Then on to the secondary elements. To get to the sixth, you need to master their first stage of understanding. And so on, etc etc.”

“Power and mastery aren’t exactly the same thing. As a Seven, you and I can pump more power into spells then a lot of other spellcasters, but their spells are more efficient. At least… usually. I know Fives and Sixes who have achieved the 9th and 10th breakthrough, completely mastering the elements.”

“For official academy purposes, you still need to learn all the required spells and show mastery of a spell involving just a smidge of all the basic elements.”

“Now as for your sorry ass, you’ve shown some pretty good skills…. For a toddler. With the exception of this….what did you call it, a manaphone? Aside from that, your spellcasting is childish, your understanding of your capabilities is subpar, but the worst of your crimes is your lack of imagination. Don’t worry though, I’ll beat that out of you.”

I was baffled, angered, and excited, and I was happy he had inadvertently called me a prodigy. I know, confusing isn’t it.

“So, um, do I live longer now?”

Shut up, my newfound quest for immortality was important to me. He sighed again, wobbling his hand.

“Ehh, you’ll definitely make it to a hundred, aside from that the first breakthrough doesn’t do much physically. What I said before Charlie, I want an answer. What gives you the right to step into danger?”

I thought about it for a few minutes before replying.

“Danger is a part of everyday life, most people just don’t realize it. If I want to be in a position where I can save someone else, nevermind myself, I’m going to keep throwing myself into dangerous situations, if that’s what it takes. Inaction is just as much a choice as any other course of action.”

His usual smirk, broadened into a full smile, his eyes lit up, not literally, but it felt that way, and his tense demeanor relaxed.

“Good answer. And…. nice job with the elemental, the damage you dealt to it caused it to flee to the mountains, stopping it’s rampage.”

He got up to leave, but I stopped him.

“Ǟɨʀ.”

Using air to close the door he had started to open, I began to speak before he could.

“Nox, I need you to do me a favour. My family, they…. don’t know. About me. About…. my magic. They…. aren’t fans of magic.”

His face sombered. He put a hand on my shoulder. I wasn’t going to move it.

“I’m sorry.”

He put more kindness into those two words than I had ever received from my father. He simply…. cared. It felt nice.

“I won’t say a word.”

With that he turned away, and simply walked….through my door. Like fucking phased right through. He was right, I wasn’t being creative enough with my magic. Well, I had the next six days to get creative with my magic. I was going to wipe that smirk off his face permanently. Normally I have regular mental…. restrictions in place, to stop me from going down the…. unique roads my mind used to wander down.

Perhaps I’ll lift a few of them.

The days passed quickly. I had taken over my father’s toolshed, claiming a ‘project’ that I was working on. The first thing I had done was grab a few rocks and bang out a couple of small totemic figures, in the style of the Azteca, needing something to show my family for my project’s ‘results’. Then I got to thinking.

Odds were, I wouldn’t be able to master the other basic elements, so I was limited to the basics of Air and Water, but I could probably do something with my Earth and Fire mastery.

Finally taking the time to fully read through the book on mana, I realized how right Nox was. First things first, I created some quality of life spells.

Spells were to Macros what manipulations were to Keyboard shortcuts. You created a mana structure, added the Fire, or other element, then you focus that combination into a subconscious trigger, like a phrase or a word, or a physical action. It would still sound or look like nonsense to anyone of a non-arcane persuasion.

“Ⴆαʂιƈ ƈʅҽαɳʂҽ.”

I felt a brief flash of warmth as all the dirt and grime I had accrued trying to test this spell burned away. It was the same feeling as stepping out of a hot shower. It felt good to be a wizard.

“ʂԋαʋҽ.” Does what it says on the tin, really. Combination of Fire and Air.

“ƚҽɱρҽɾαƚυɾҽ ƈσɳƚɾσʅ.” This was one I was proud of. It used a line of mana to measure the vibrations of the air to determine how hot the surrounding temperature was and then used the body covering mesh I had created for basic cleanse to heat me if necessary.

I was a bit miffed I couldn't use fire to cool myself down, but I managed a workaround by rapidly swirling Air across my skin.

Now it was time for the good shit.

I figured I would need:

A combat spell for single targets, something like my fireball on steroids. Another one for incapacitating single or multiple targets. Some kind of crowd control. A haste spell of some kind….and maybe a slowing spell for the future. A spell to replicate simple telekinesis, probably using Air. A….shield of some kind, that didn’t rely on my advanced connection to earth. Some kind of listening in/ whisper to a single person spell. A basic alarm system of some kind. If I was gonna be a cop, some kind of tracking spell? Slow falling? A repulsion spell, maybe an air blast? A spell to attach me to the earth? I really want to walk on walls. Turn my ‘Earth Wall’ from before into a real spell. Finally, some kind of trump card. Something that I could pull out when I needed to win.

Doesn’t sound too hard, does it? For most of the combat ones, I’d probably use some kind of physical action to trigger them, no sense in telling whatever or whoever I’m fighting what’s coming. And if I was going to make these spells, I was gonna make them right.

You know what the book doesn’t tell you? Testing spells is miserable, humiliating work.

By the end of the week, the shed stunk to high heaven with the smell of smoke, and not all of it was from cigarettes. Let me tell you, it was hard work. To be honest, I only got a few of the spells done, but they were doozys.

The spell I affectionately named fire bolt was my first creation. It had everything. Fire to produce the biggest and hottest ball of flame I could, Air to condense it into the shape of a slender bolt and keep the tremendous heat contained. I made the structure so it was summoned by snapping my fingers and then I could designate a direction using my first two fingers.

The bolt glowed blue with a white core, the flames so hot they almost produced plasma. I burnt several holes through the shed roof testing it out. Maybe I could make some kind of plasma blade using similar manaforms?

The second spell I got working was a shielding spell. I had read somewhere that hexagons are the most stable shape, so I started by making a hexagon of pure mana, weaving it so densely it became visible to the naked eye. This failed spectacularly after throwing a single ball of flame at it, cracking it into pieces.

Determined that science still had ground on which to stand in the world of magic, I created hundreds of tiny hexagons of pure mana, and made a lattice of interlocking hexagons that curved around me. It almost looked like a barrier shield that the Romans used to use, but curbing on the top and bottom as well.

This one could stand up to fireball after fireball, the tiny hexagons spreading the damage out to those nearby, and in turn being reinforced by the ones around them. Hell, the shield could even stand up to a couple of firebolts before breaking down.

Unfortunately, the shield in its current state was next to useless with regards to stopping purely physical attacks, a thrown rock would literally pass right through it, any mana inside being left behind. We couldn’t have that now could we. Though the mana stripping capabilities will have to bear further studying…..

Once more into the breach, then. I thought about what I needed to happen. I needed to keep something out. As my mind wandered, my eyes landed on the shed window, which was double paned. Of course! I quickly recreated the large mana hexagon from earlier, alongside another, and used Air to compress some…..well, air, between the two hexagons as I joined them on each of their sides.

Now I had a mana….packet? That I could use to block physical and mana attacks. Hell yeah. With a bit more work I managed to recreate this effect with the lattice of small hexagons, now the semi transparent shield had what appeared to be a bumpy surface, as each packet of mana was slightly bent to accommodate the air.

It almost looked like a floating blue quilt.

I did use the word shield for this spell, but that’s because it was so complex it required a trigger deep in my subconscious. I could ‘aim’ the shield with my hand, or just summon it in front of me.

The only other spell I managed to create successfully was a basic form of telekinesis. It involved a targeting component that took forever to get right, it had to ‘scan’ the shape of the target and then form a shell of solid mana around that shape. I knew how 3-d scanners worked, and I based my solution off of that.

You make a cube of mana around the target,made of hundreds of tiny squares, then have each side compress inwards until they impact a physical object. You get what amounts to a low polygon outline of the thing, but I couldn’t manage the mental strain of more than a hundred or so squares to a side.

It was actually very good at small objects, but the more empty spaces inside the mesh, the more energy loss there was. This spell I set to be used by pointing at the target with my first two fingers, and touching my thumb to my first finger joint. That way it was unlikely I would wake up to things floating around in my room.

Let me be clear, I could still snap my fingers, and say basic cleanse without casting spells, I had to actually want them to be cast for them to do anything. Or at least I hoped so.

This was it. My first day as a wizard. I had no idea what to expect. I was somehow more nervous now than I was my first day of highschool. Packing a satchel bag with my laptop, Mana for Idiots, and the 7 azuralite shards I had, plus the orb of azuralite I had made myself.

I walked into the police academy in Elysian park, having said hi to Lira on my way in. We hadn’t kept in touch much, she was preparing for winter and was sleeping a lot these days.

At the front desk I met with a receptionist who directed me into a room with perhaps 20 young people, ranging from slightly younger than me to mid-twenties. As I entered the room there appeared to be some kind of argument going on, which stopped as I opened the highly creaky door. Somehow Nox is behind this. I just know it.

“Oh wonderful, another fucking plebian. Why father sent me to this rathole city I shall never know.”

This from the guy who had appeared to be at the center of the argument. He was wearing a floating crown-halo thing, that appeared to have a small shard of azuralite stuck in the front of it.

“You’ll probably want my focus crystal too, won’t you. Like all the rest of these dregs, they hate me for my talent and riches.”

A guy in the front with real ‘british stiff upper lip’ vibes spoke up before ‘the king’ could continue.

“No, we just hate you because you won’t shut up.”

The ‘king’, whose name I still hadn’t gotten, gaped at him like a fish out of water, as though he had never been spoken to in that way before in his life. Then he turned back towards me.

“You, cretin, are you going to allow him to accost me in this manner? Remove him from my sight and I shall allow you to call me by name, and even gaze upon my crown.”

I pretended to think about it for a few seconds, as everyone turned to look in my direction, enjoying this game.

“You know what? I’m actually fine thanks….. And do you want to know why?”

He gasped, and then frowned, unable to fathom why someone wouldn’t do something for him.

“Why, you filth? What could possibly make you not want to follow your rightful better’s orders?”

I pulled out a few of my azuralite shards from my bag each one easily three times the size of his.

“Mine are bigger than yours.”

Hey, what can I say, it’s a quote after my own heart.

Not only the recently dethroned ‘king’, but nearly everybody in the class gasped. Apparently they didn’t know how easy it was to actually get your hands on azuralite, and I sure as shit wasn’t gonna tell them. Not when there were profits to be made. Suddenly, and with a loud bamf, Nox appeared in front of the group, in what I thought of as the classic Oxford professor attire.

“Hello there Recruits. Today is the worst day of your life. Or something. I am here to teach your sorry asses how to combat a magical creature. Now I suppose usually, you would want a lecture on the types of creatures that exist, their weaknesses, tracking them, etcetera and so on.”

“I however don’t really go in for that sort of thing. Instead you will be fighting magical creatures, right from the outset. Ooooo, Isn’t it exciting? You don’t know what you could be facing, it could literally be anything on earth. Well not literally but you get the idea.”

“I want you to form into groups of 4, these will be your groups for this exercise.”

I was immediately surrounded by people trying to ask me to group with them. Therefore I did the only sensible thing.

“Ɛǟʀȶɦ.”

The ground for a few metres around me shook and toppled over most of the people crowding me. “No magic in the classroom Charles!” Nox berated, before continuing to hum away like nothing had happened. There were 3 people that stood out to me. The british guy, a girl with huge muscles, and a girl who looked like a bit of a goth.

Using a thread of mana, I tapped on their shoulders and tugged them in my direction. They all came over, though it took the goth several minutes.

“This is just the team for now, and everyone else seems like a jackass, so what say we team up?” I asked, my social skills not really the best for these situations.

They all agreed, the british guy with enthusiasm, Goth girl with a sombre nod, and Muscle chick with a grunt. I’m sure they had names, but we didn’t have any time for that.

“Well, it seems everyone has formed into groups, now let’s go see what you’re fighting, shall we?” Without waiting for a reply, Nox clicked his fingers and suddenly we were all in a field, a good half the class puking into the grass. I’m not ashamed to admit I was one of them. Looking around hesitantly, I couldn’t see any magical creatures to fight. Unless, of course….

“Yeah, I lied about the group thing, that was just for shits and giggles. But congratulations, each of you has found a potential 19 magical creatures to hunt. That’s quite a number. Oh and one more thing. Everyone must fight at some point, but if someone has already fought, they can’t be made to fight again. If anyone attacks someone throwing up a peace sign, I’ll blast them into the stratosphere.”

Before I could even react I heard that nasally, irritating voice. “You, with the focus crystals you probably stole from your master, I challenge you to a duel!”

Oh well, at least I get to test my new spells in real combat.