Kyrion ran into the room to help the old man up.

“Are you ok?” Kyrion asked. Getting the old man to his feet.

The old man held Kyrion’s left hand. “That’s one strong left hook you got soney.”

“I didn’t hit you.” Kyrion tried to take back his left hand, but it didn’t budge.

“Oh I know, just checked the structure of your limb. Quite sturdy, in some places, but shoddily built.” The old man poked Kyrion in his arm, and his ulna bone snapped like a twig. The man then poked the boy on his clavicle, snapping it with a simple touch.

“Oww!” Kyrion threw a punch at the old man in an attempt to get him away. Sadly the old man dodged the blow with ease and poked Kyrion in his sternum. While not breaking any bones outright, it broke his posture and left him open to a sweep, forcing the boy to fall on his back.

“Hmmm… Quite uneven, very bad, you need some basic instruction. Have you been skipping classes?” The old man eyed Kyrion before taking a step back.

“Who?” Kyrion coughed.

“You need to work on reinforcing your body, you’re saturated with mana but it isn’t reinforced. How to put it for you to understand…Do you know anything about blacksmithing? You’re built like a blacksmith.”

“Is that the one where you beat metal with a hammer, until it becomes a sword?” Kyrion asked.

“A carpenter?” The old man asked, examining the muscle density of the nine-year-old. It wasn’t anything overly bulky. If anything, he seemed to resemble a statue when stationary. Nearly perfect by artist standards. A near-perfect example of symmetry and grace. Which was odd for someone of his age.

“I’ve built some buildings. But I mostly just have animals and monsters do the building part.”

“Professor Willow also has you so… Do you know how seeds and soil work?”

“Of course.”

“Then we’re done here.” Exac turned around.

“What does it have to do with seeds?” Kyrion asked.

“Let’s say you have a bunch of seeds planted in the ground. Then you flood the seeds with an overabundance of water and or use special aids that increase the plants’ growth speed. What happens to those plants when you force them to grow quickly?” The quack asked while he turned back to face the boy.

“They get stronger quickly but have weekspots in places where there shouldn’t be?” Kyrion nodded as though he had figured something out.

“Your body looks like it was forced to grow recently. So the mana saturated in your body is just sitting there being wasted. You haven’t reinforced your body enough. Those gaps may be small now but when you get stronger those gaps will get you and others killed.” The quack stated.

“I see. My body has all this mana, but it isn’t reinforced. So I’m wasting the mana I have?

“The reinforcement process is slow and arduous. In fact, I highly recommend taking your time. The process will make you hardier, before you reach practitioner, and you will need to grow used to that state before augmenting it with the full practitioner package.” Exac replied.

“Does everyone reinforce if its so powerful?”

“No. It require that you have tons of mana already in your system to even start. You are enhancing your body with mana. Rolling out all the kinks.”

“Do I even need to be stronger? I just want to help people.” Kyion said honestly.

“You’ll help your enemy by getting yourself killed. A healer is a target in any situation. So if you can’t at least defend yourself, how do you expect to save anyone else. At most you’d doom two people.”

“But I don’t even want to fight anywhere on a battlefield, I don’t want to kill anyone. I want to heal people.” Kyrion said.

“One day, you may find yourself burying your friends and family because you were too weak to save them. Too slow to catch them. Too scared to say no when captured. Instead of going on a rampage in those situations wouldn’t it be better if you were prepared to act.” Exac said while slipping off a slipper.

“And reinforcing my body will help with becoming better at using magic?” Kyrion squinted.

“It will make you stronger physically. Any natural endurance is good endurance. It wall make you faster, your body will become a better conduit for mana. Meaning you could dump more mana into attacks without damaging your body.”

“I don’t pump out that much mana.” Kyrion defended.

“You have multiple times. You even did it yesterday. Using mana to speed up your perception as well as raise the oxygen levels in your blood to make you faster. I’m sure you felt terrible after all of that. Heck you’re still a bit sluggish from”

“I see. Thank you for your guidance.” Kyrion scowled. How did this man know that psycho did all of that? He didn’t even know the specifics. But, on the other hand, it did clarify quite a few things.

“No need. Now focus you mind and the places I hit you with the slipper will need to be reinforced.”

“Can you help me with this first?” Kyrion pulled out his small box with the eye replacement inside.

“Do you know what this is?” The teacher stated.

“An eye replacement.” Kyrion replied.

“Do you know what abilities it will give you?” Exac raised an eyebrow.

“Nope. Does it matter? I just want my death perception.”

“You mean depth perception.” The nutty professor stated.

“Did I stutter?” Kyrion did not admit his mistake.

“Well it’s your funeral.” The old man kicked Kyrion in his knee, bringing him to a kneel. The orb was placed where the eyepatch and bandages used to be. As light passed through them.

Kyrion was surprised to see how effortlessly the eye thing turned out. The iris was a kaleidoscope of colors, silver on the outer layer followed by green, blue, brown, and black. Kyrion could see again for a moment, and then his head started pounding as his sight was suddenly returned. After a while, the colors in his iris fused into an emerald green that mimicked his left eye. The boy, of course, promptly passed out.

“I really hope he doesn’t do this often.” The teacher sighed as his head rotated 180 degrees, locking on to an owl perched above the door to the room.

Kyrion woke up a bit later. Left alone in the room, Kyrion decided to replace his eyepatch and head on out. It would take time to adjust. Assuming it was time for his next class, he made his way out the door.

Kyrion arrived at the G courtyard, looking at his map and finding that no one was there. “Why does this thing even exist?”

The only person there was a green-haired man with hair flowing down past his feet and big, extremely bushy eyebrows that seemed to take away from his closed eyes. Kyrion didn’t want to bother the strange old man. Kyrion corrected his thinking. Strange middle-aged man.

“Child. Why did you come here?” The man asked with a melodious voice. His eyes stayed closed, and despite that, Kyrion could feel the man’s attention.

“Well Mr. Strange Middle aged man, I come looking for Gus.” Kyrion stated without a hint of rudeness in his tone.

The man furrowed his bushy brows, and it looked like two islands crashing into each other. “I am he. If you’re a student, then go play. I do not teach on days that end in Y. Wind is something you need to learn the flow of. It can’t be taught.”

“Then why is it a class?” Kyrion asked.

“I don’t know actually.” The man blankly looked up at the sky, his eyes still closed.

Kyrion thought about it and sat down, mimicking Gus’s pose. After ten minutes of meditation, his stomach rumbled.

“The wind tells me that I need to go eat some lunch…Or breakfast….Brunch time.” Kyrion brought out a nice blanket and began arranging the plates of breakfast food he procured by perfectly fair means. The next thirty minutes were spent eating. Much to Gus’s distraction.

“Hmmm… Next is Professor Willow, the plant teacher. I have another thirty or so minutes….” After that, Kyrion decided to get some training done. Procuring a fallen stick, Kyrion drew a line in the dirt. He leaped from that position and landed twelve feet away. A second line was left here he landed. Kyrion then practiced jumping back and forth from one side to the other.

Within minutes Kyrion began to gain in speed to the point where he couldn’t stop himself, so he tried to slow down a bit by using more wind mana. But, of course, he missed his target altogether and crashed into a boulder. Leaving a rather impressive imprint on the stone. Kyrion fell backward, his vision fading. That boulder did a lot of damage to the reckless boy.

Gus was still in deep meditation when Kyrion woke up. A welt on the boy’s bald head that hadn’t been healed properly could be seen. Head injuries had to be dealt with delicately. Healing them while passively could do more harm than good.

“Hmmmm… I think its time for my next class.”

“You’ve been out for over an hour.” Gus said melodiously.

Kyrion’s jaw dropped.

Packing up his stuff, Kyrion ran, finding his way to the fifth garden. He was forty minutes late, but he made it.

A good number of students were sitting in front of the Auburn-haired professor in loose-fitting green robes. There was a blackboard behind and in his hand was a white rock.

“Ah yes Kyrion glad you could join us. Would you like to learn the basics of gardening or get right into the dirt?” The older man asked.

Kyrion looked at a tool rack that held various farming and gardening implements. They seemed to be slightly different then what he was used to.

“Are these tools magic?” Kyrion asked.

“Yes, maily for high durability. Use the plot with your nameplate on it and grow whatever you want. That will be your plot of land for the year. Every now and again I may come and make suggestions and teach when I see that you’re lacking. The easiest way to learn is by doing after all.”

Kyrion started by plowing the field in preparation. After adequately preparing it, he began to plant a tangerine tree in the center. Around the tree, he planted a few plots of corn.

“This is enough for now.” Kyrion watered the plants with a mix of water and life mana. Enough to nurture them but not enough to force growth.

Willow looked at the growing field in interest. “So you aren’t forcing growth this time around.”

“Trying something new. Apparently by forcing growth I’m doing more harm than good. Not growing them to their full potential. This is just a te….” Kyrion stopped and scowled.

“Experiment works as well. I see that you don’t like the T word.”

“Something about it stirs something up in me.” Kyrion stated.

“Perfectly normal, its also good that you came to this on your own. Saves me from having you start over tomorrow.”

“Wait that’s an option?”

“I want you to learn how to properly grow plants. Speed growth may be good in a fight or for villages of magicless humans but spirit masters require more potent food to satisfy them. I’m sure you noticed when you force an apple tree to grow. The nutrition is lost in the apples that are produced. Eating them doesn’t restore much mana if any.”

Kyrion’s eye widened. “I see.”

“Well enough of that. Take this.” Professor Willow passed Kyrion a notebook. The Chronicles of (Blank).

“What is this?” Kyrion asked.

“Plant growing can be quite boring if all you do is sit around. This is to help you pass time, write in this journal during your free time, marking the growth of your plants along with your own experiences. Let it become a good habit.”

There was a pen on the inside that seemed to hold its own ink. The boy wrote his name on the cover.

The Chronicles of Kyrion.

Kyrion didn’t know what he needed to learn about plants, but he did know that what Professor Willow was teaching was part of the bare basics. Most of his initial writing in his notebook were badly drawn doodles followed by an organization of memories that were starting to contradict when he wrote them down and thought about it.

“Something is wrong, but I don’t know what.” Kyrion stood up when he noticed that some of the students were leaving. The sound of something snapping went off behind him.

Kyrion turned around and noticed a set of charred footprints on the ground before he left. With so many powers, it could be anyone, so the boy didn’t know who it could be just yet. He’d only been here a day. Can’t have too many enemies.