The world around me slowed down as I focused on the three beads of metal in front of Unice. Her fingers stretched out towards them, and the mana inside reached back to her. I’d felt it react the same way when I was close to attuning, and the mana had called to me.

She frowned, pulling her hand back, and the moment was lost.

The mana retreated, and the connection she had formed was broken. The mana returned to its original position, dormant once more.

I opened my eyes and Unice’s face was marred with disappointment. Ouros had wide eyes and they had both stopped emitting mana into the environment.

“Good job.” My words resounded through the room. “Did you attune?”

My curiosity was rising within me. I couldn’t remember the exact moment when I’d attuned. Too much had been going on at the time. I had seen the mana reacting to Unice’s actions and feelings. That alone might have been enough for her.

Unice shook her head.

A small wave of disappointment spread throughout my heart. It would’ve been amazing to be present at the birth of a new metal magician.

“You’ll get there soon. Your progress today was amazing.” I looked at Ouros. He was still shocked. “I think you broke your cousin.”

“Your progress is insane. Three days ago, you couldn’t tell the difference between metal and rocks.” Ouros broke out of his stupor.

“You didn’t have to throw both at me at the same time.” Unice rolled her eyes. “And I… Hesitated. It felt so strange, so new.”

Ouros and I gazed at each other. The green-haired boy lifted his hand and I saw a wave of dirt fly into the air, and it showered over Unice.

His cousin shrieked as the dirt scattered into her hair and over her clothes.

“How are you going to build a connection if you’re scared of the basics of the element you’re trying to connect to.” Ouros frowned. “No wonder it feels new to connect to metal, you haven’t even connected to earth properly.”

She hadn’t connected to earth?

I stared intently at the dirt around her. Ouros was right. It was sitting there, inches away from her body, but not under her control.

I’d already felt it was strange that she hadn’t wanted to sit on the dirt, but she didn’t want to connect to it either. I knew that she could manipulate it, but there was a difference.

She was only manipulating the dirt when she had to, not because she wanted to communicate with it.

“I’m not scared. It’s dirty.” Unice’s arms shot out towards Ouros and the dirt flew to him. “You know I hate getting it on me.”

I raised my hand and intercepted the dirt. The two of them looked at me in surprise, but I was staring closely at the earth in front of me.

“This dirt is clean.” I let it fall to the ground. “You don’t have to worry about any contamination.”

Sometimes dirt wasn’t just dirt. I’d gotten laughed at by Indra when he had mixed in oil with the dirt in the cultivation room.

I’d gotten it all over my clothes without realising and my mum was furious. It had taught me the lesson that even if I thought I was only lifting earth, other things could get caught as well.

“It’s not about that.” Ouros shook his head. “She just doesn’t like it in general. That’s why we booked out these rooms, to try and get used to earth materials slowly.”

I heard a grunt to my side and saw Amanda opening her eyes. Her eyes showed her surprise at Ouros’ words. I knew how she was feeling. Both of us were people that were close to our elements.

My room was filled with dirt and my bed was made of it. Amanda’s dad filled the house with fire mana that followed the occupants everywhere they went.

I couldn’t imagine being scared or disgusted by the element I was such close friends with. There was more to manipulation than control, I had a bond with the earth and the mana was a constant companion by my side.

Ignoring and pushing away that friend was counterintuitive.

“Tell her how crazy she is.” Ouros looked at me.

“I’m not touching that.” I smiled. Family squabbles were nasty business. “But I will say that I do find it better to be close to my element. My room has a lot of dirt in it, including the floor.”

Ouros nodded and Unice looked thoughtful.

Amanda shot me a look and I shook my head. I wasn’t going to tell everyone I met that I slept in a dirt bed. I would leave that piece of information for my good friends

“Doesn’t it feel strange?” Unice put her hands together. “I’ve never really felt the comfort that Ouros describes.”

“It never has.” I said truthfully. “I thought it was a bit dumb at first, but then it grew on me.”

I remembered my first reaction when my parents had decided to cover my room and bed in dirt. I had wanted to smack my face, but I couldn’t move my body at the time. My mum had been doing what she thought was best for me at the time.

The memory brought a smile to my face.

“I’m not going to say that you should slather yourself in dirt every day but meditating on a boulder can help.” I nodded towards the nearby stones. “And if you’re already making a connection with metal, then what you’re doing is working.”

“You’re right. It is working.” Unice smiled. “I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.”

Ouros groaned. “Man, I thought you were going to be on my side, Andross.”

I shrugged. Unice was connecting to the metal mana, and soon she would attune to the element. Her habits were strange, but they were working for her.

I heard a bell in my ear and the others' heads perked up. The break was ending.

I stood up, but the Destins shook their heads. They wanted to stay until the end of the break and take advantage of the room.

It was understandable. Unice had gotten close to a breakthrough, and she might be able to attune to metal if she recaptured that feeling. Amanda and I left them to their meditation and walked out of the dome.

Agni and Gold weren’t in view, but I knew that the puffer would want to join the symbol class after lunch. He would probably drag Agni along with him.

As for the upcoming classes, he was as bored in language studies as I was.

Amanda had a spring in her step as we made our way through the garden path. I thought she’d be bored in the cultivation room, but it was the opposite. Seeing Unice so close to breaking through had invigorated her.

Maybe she was going to try and attune to her middle-ranked element.

“What comes after fire?” I realised I didn’t know. “We have met, but what do you have?”

“It’s this.” She raised her hand and a small flame appeared.

I stared at it. “I thought you couldn’t use fire creation.”

“I can’t.” She giggled at my expression. “Fire doesn’t have another element that we can attune to directly. Only composite elements that require us to attune to two basic elements first. Instead, we have different ways of improving our abilities. We’re like air magicians in that regard.”

“You’ve probably noticed me making these.”

The fire shifted to reveal a small bead in her hand. It was the one she had created in our class from the fire mana that had been hovering around me.

Thankfully the effect had worn off during my last class.

“Your brother made it impossible for me to not notice.” I gazed at it curiously. “What do they do?”

I could see that they held fire mana, but I didn’t know how she was using them to strengthen herself. I didn’t have anything remotely similar for my earth manipulation.

“That’s a secret.” She winked at me.

Her lips parted into a smile and the bead disappeared from her hand, the flames dying down.

“You’re going to leave me on a cliff like that?”

We made our way through the doors of the academy.

“Absolutely.” Amanda grinned. “The fun never stops with me around.”

She laughed at my expression all the way to our language studies class. The lessons themselves weren’t boring, but I didn’t find myself drawn towards the subject. It was the opposite of symbols. Our normal language didn’t do anything special. It was used for communication and nothing more.

The class passed by quickly, and soon it was lunch. To my surprise Amanda dragged me to the dome again.

“I thought you booked us for after school?” We walked through the corridors inside the dome.

“I did, but I found out the faculty isn’t going to let students beat the crap out of each other even if it is safe. We have a limited number of activities we can do for now.” Amanda was holding a map the dome’s staff member had given her. “It’s over here.”

She turned sharply around the corner. “We’re getting a compulsory introductory lesson on safety.”

She pressed her hand against the door and a symbol lit up. I had seen it before.

Roughly, it translated to ‘safety’. There was a second symbol overlaid with it. It represented the same concepts, only it focused on different aspects of them.

It was closer to ‘caution’ than ‘safety’ in meaning.

The symbols lit up at Amanda’s touch and the door opened. Inside there were a variety of instruments that I hadn’t seen before. Statues, balls that glowed and a pair of rackets caught my eyes. Then I saw there was someone else here.

Tago of the earth stood in the middle of the room.

“Amanda, Andross.” His stone head turned towards us. “You are on time. Good.”

“Professor.” I nodded my head at him. “I didn’t realise you would be helping us today.”

I hadn’t known anyone would be helping us, but he didn’t need to know that.

“You are not authorized to engage in battles or practice before going through a safety course.” Tago responded. “Due to lack of time, I will be teaching you only two activities.”

Tago’s hand moved forward and one of the glowing balls I had spotted floated towards me.

“The first activity’s instrument. I have chosen a ball that matches your elements. Please do not attempt to pop it. We will know and we will be forced to halt all of your future dome activities.”

The ball hovered in front of me. On the inside I could see a bright flame that looked solid at the same time. I could feel Earth mana inside it, and something else.

“Is that lava?” I stared at the contents inside the ball.

“It is.” Tago responded. “Please catch the ball.”

“Wha-”

My words stopped mid-sentence as the ball of lava flew towards me. I held my hands out and it stopped in mid-air. My earth manipulation had activated.

I could control it. Sort of.

Part of the ball fought against my will. It raged inside and I drew away from it. It was connected to the earth inside the lava, but it felt entirely different.

“That’s what fire feels like.” A hand grabbed the ball. “Lava is a mix of earth and fire.”

Amanda was beside me, her palm resting on the surface of the orb. Her expression was calm, and I realised that the ball was safe to touch. I tapped it with my finger tenderly.

“You have to give it a real dunk.” Amanda grabbed my hand. “Or you’re going to be scared when we’re practising.”

She placed my palm onto the ball and the surface was cool to the touch.

The mana raged within it. It felt like I was meeting a friend and a stranger at the same time. The mana itself was constantly shifting in different patterns. I stared into the depths of the ball, and I saw the reason for the activity.

There were symbols carved into the inside of the material that imprisoned the lava.

“This is a regent.” I held it up.

Could I make something like this?

It looked like a simple container. All I would need to keep inside of it was earth, not something as dangerous as lava.

It was a magical item, and Tago had fed it the mana it needed to activate.

“This is the instrument you will use to practice against each other.” Tago gestured and the ball returned to him. “The academy has designed and perfected a method for two or more students to combat each other in a way that is safe and that will refine their abilities.”

He raised his hand and two more of the lava containers floated in front of him.

“We call it dodgeball.”