Elsa walked from one end of the long board to the other, her hands folded behind her back.

"First things first, what is the difference between a mage and a sorcerer?" Elsa asked loudly and clearly.

She sounded stricter than she did when I had my introduction to the advanced mana lesson, whether it was because there were more people here now or because of something else I didn't know.

In the corner of my eye, I could see a nerdy-looking boy, looking to be around seventeen or so, raising his hand. I could sense some mana from him and at the base of his neck, I saw a small part of what I assumed was a magic mark.

"Yes, mister Servil," Elsa said, looking directly at the black-haired boy.

"Mages make use of magic marks, which can awaken through a multitude of ways after the mana-awakening. Magic marks always appear on the back, along the spine but if it is a second one they will appear on another body part. Sorcerers on the other hand use the power of spirits and do not necessarily need to have mana of their own. A person that is both a mage and a sorcerer is referred to as a wizard," the boy explained, standing up with his hands behind his back the entire time.

He sat down, looking satisfied.

"Correct! Mages use magic marks while sorcerers make use of the powers of spirits," Elsa confirmed. "Can someone tell me the three types of sorcerer techniques?"

Servil's hand shot up so fast that he nearly hit his ear. Elsa looked around the room for a few seconds but after seeing that no one else was raising their hand she once again picked Servil.

"There is conjuration: which uses the spirit's power and mana, or the mana of the sorcerer if they can use it, to cast a long-ranged spell. There is augmentation: which uses the spirit's power and mana, or the mana of the sorcerer if they can use it, to cast a spell on themselves or others, this can be either a positive or a negative effect. Then there is integration: which allows the sorcerer and the spirit to merge, allowing the sorcerer to directly make use of the spirit's powers!" Servil said loudly.

"Correct!" Elsa once again confirmed. "Now, can anyone tell me the types of contracts one can make with a spirit?" Elsa asked. When she saw that once again only Servil had raised his hand she added, "Besides mister Servil!" with a loud and strict voice, shutting down any whispering that had begun after there was silence for just a few seconds.

I leaned back a little, moving my legs from the chair to the table since it had become a little uncomfortable. Those that saw gasped and quickly looked from me to Elsa but she had either not noticed or was very good in simply ignoring the fact that I was disrespecting her like this. I shrugged at my own thoughts and laid back my head a little, looking up at the stone ceiling. A beautiful pattern consisting of many elegantly swirling lines was engraved on it.

Eventually, I heard Elsa say another name.

"Ah, miss Evergreen," Elsa said.

I looked down to see a young woman, just a little older than me maybe standing up. She had dark blue hair, unusually pale skin with a dark blue tint and pointy, far too long ears similar to mine, although hers were rounded instead of sharp. Her hair was swirly and when she turned a little I could see that her eyes were the same colour as the moon when it was glowing all alone in the night sky. At the end of her fingers were almost claw-like dark blue fingers nails and I could swear that her shoulders had slight bumps, similar to how my antler beams looked before growing.

"There is the master-servant contract. To establish such a contract the spirit must be bested in combat or in some other way after which the contract can be made. In such a dynamic the spirit must obey all commands the master gives them but the master cannot access the spirit's own mana reserves, which means it is impossible to use this contract if you don't have mana yourself. There is the equals contract, which is the rarest type of contract. In this dynamic, the sorcerer and the spirit make rules and are equal. This is the hardest contract to make so not many even attempt it. Then there is the forced contract which can be accomplished by imprisoning the spirit with Spiritum, a metal named after its purpose, incapacitating and weakening spirits. In this dynamic, the spirit has no choíce but to obey and the user can even use the spirits mana freely to the point where the spirits often die quickly. This is the most... common type of contract," the woman, Evergreen, explained, sounding a little sad towards the end.

Elsa nodded.

"Good, very good. It would seem I have a few students that already know what they're doing here," she said with another fake smile on her face. "Now, our first big goal in these lessons will be for each one of you to summon a spirit of their own, whether or not you actually try to make a contract is your choice but I want everyone to be able to do it," Elsa explained. "Now then, let us begin with a few more things about spirits!"

For the remainder of the lesson Elsa just wrote things on the board we were supposed to copy onto the sheets of paper that had been prepared on our table. At first, she just repeated the answers the students had given in a more concise form and such which I didn't write down, just like the rest, I only listened and sometimes read for the rest of the lesson. She then went on to tell us about the spirit world, which was supposedly a massive underground chamber with its own ecosystem and such but the location was unknown. Then she went on about different types of spirits. Power, defence, elemental, unspecific, coloured, aristocrat, king and emperor. Aristokrat, king and emperor were just three high classes of power, consisting of the strongest spirits, all of which had already established names while the other types were what they could do. Power meant they had great physical strength, defence meant they had great durability, elemental meant they could make use of element-based magic, unspecific which basically meant every type of magic that didn't fit into the other types and coloured meant they could make use of coloured magic, whatever that meant. I was too lazy to ask and no one else did. When I asked Ira she told me that coloured magic was basically the basis for all kinds of magic.

To boil it down, it was just really, really strong magic.

After that Elsa went over the basics of spirit summoning. Basically one needed a summoning catalyst, something filled with mana, something that would serve as a connection to the spirit world and a special herb that could for some reason attract spirits. After that, it all depended on the one who's summoning the spirit. They can usually feel the aura of the person, even if they can't use mana and only have a minuscule amount of it.

Once she was done talking about that Elsa ended the lesson and everyone left the room taking multiple pieces of paper with them. I got a few strange looks when I jumped from my chair and walked down the stairs, both hands in my pockets and with not a single piece of paper anywhere on me. I felt sick, just like I had after my first lesson but I could still bear it. The next thing was the sparring lesson I had with instructor Laura. On my way out I was stopped by Elsa.

"Do you feel alright?" she asked me, this time with a genuine smile on her face.

I changed the look on my face from one I assumed looked bored and in general just done with everything to one that I hoped would look a little happier.

"I feel great now, just had a little trouble with my stomach, nothing major," I said.

I got a few looks, among the people looking at me strange were both Evergreen and Ivory, the only two people I had found to be slightly interesting. Ivory because she was strong and Evergreen because she was an elf as well, although a different kind apparently. There was something akin to jealousy in their eyes.

Is Elsa some kind of role model for them?

'I mean she's like the grand sorceress or something like that isn't she?' Ira said.

'Right, I completely forgot about that,' I responded.

"Well, if there's anything you need help with just ask... since you seemed to have forgotten to take any notes," Elsa said, a tiny slither of annoyance managing to sneak through her otherwise genuine sounding words.

I smiled.

"Don't worry, I'm quite good at remembering things," I said as I turned around and began walking out the door. "One could say I have twice the amount of brainpower."

I heard Ira groan.