“Excuse me Brandon, but you have a visitor from the Mage guild.” Clarence caught me as I was relaxing in the workout area at the back of the house. Well, I say relaxing but I was honestly just bored. After the meeting I didn’t have anything to do, and I wasn’t about to risk annoying Volgan anymore than I seemed to have already.

“Thanks Clarence, go ahead and send them in.” I said, grateful that Farris had sent someone so soon. The person who came around the corner with Clarence had to be a relative, as they had the same shocking red hair and green eyes.

“Hello! I’m Brandon, nice to meet you.” I said, extending my hand.

He took it in a strong grip and replied, “Devon. Pleasure to meet you as well. Do you mind if we sit inside at a table for the majority of this? It will make things a bit easier.”

“Not at all.” I said, looking to Clarence to guide us. While we followed him, I asked a burning question, “I’m sorry, but do you mind if I ask you something a bit personal?”

“It’s the hair, isn’t it?” He chuckled, smiling at my reaction. “Don’t worry, it’s something we get a lot. First, yes Farris is my mother. As for why is our hair red and eyes green instead of the traditional black and brown hair and eyes, well. The family legend is that at some point in the family tree there is an elemental. Our affinity to fire is so strong that it is reflected in our hair. My theory is that someone had an affair with a passing merchant caravan, and it just pops up from time to time.” By the time he had finished explaining everything, we had sat down at a table, him across from me.

“So. Before we begin, I need to know your affinities. If you would, take one rod in each hand and hold tight for about a minute. The enchantment will read and rank your magic power, and give us a bit more accuracy than the orb method.” I did as he asked, and felt a slight tingling as my magic actually left my hands for a change. As I held on, I saw several things sliding around on a chart that Devon had added. The top was a slide that had both colors and numbers added to it, though they weren’t evenly based. The colors started in red and went up through purple, while the distance between the numbers increased drastically. The bottom of red was at 100, orange at 250, yellow at 500, green at 1,000, blue at 2,000, and violet started at 3,500. When it stopped, my bar was deep into the violet territory and a glowing 4,116 lit up. The next four bars had zero reaction, which wasn’t surprising considering the elemental symbols next to them. There were six bars below that, but they were blank at first. Once my magic started flowing, three gained symbols of their own. The first was a drop of red water, the second was the symbol of Solaris, and the third was the symbol of Solaris, only colored in black. As my magic stopped flowing, they displayed the following numbers: 4,116; 3,552; and 2,998. Below these bars was a circle with two numbers, one inside and one outside. The inner one displayed 166, while the outer was a zero.

“Right, so you are probably wondering exactly what is going on here. The first bar is your overall magical ability, we just gave them numbers as well as colors so that we can compare people. The next four bars are the traditional elements, and it looks like you have absolutely zero talent with them. That may change, but it isn’t important for now. It looks like you are strongest in blood magic, followed closely by holy and finally curse. The numbers with the circle represent your interior and exterior mana control. I’ll be honest, there aren’t any mages out there that can teach you about blood magic. After the purge, most books on it were burned or destroyed, and the knowledge lost. What wasn’t was put into restricted areas of libraries. Now, what I can do is help out with your holy and curse magics, but first we have to know where your knowledge of magic ends.”

I nodded, following his explanation so far. “Well, not much other than stories of magicians blasting away at their foes with the fury of the elements. I know there are different names for different things, but what they are I have zero clue.”

“Alright, that’s not bad. You know very little, but the fact that you know how little you know helps us out. It’s always helpful to know where your limits are, so that you never overestimate your abilities. That has killed more mages in the past than anything. So, are you ready for the Magic for Beginners class?”

“I am.” I nodded, smiling. Devon had a way of making people relax, and I was mentally thanking Farris for her sending him my way.

“Excellent. So, the most common class of mage is the Evoker. This is what your stories like to portray, as a lot of our magic is flashy.” As he explained, a small fireball took shape over his hand. Without moving, it started shifting shape until it resembled a small cat grooming itself. “The better the mana control, the more intricate ways you can shape your spell. To be honest, it isn’t that much of a benefit for evokers, but we still practice it as we are far more concerned with the amount of mana that goes into each spell.”

“Opposite the Evoker is the Augmenter. While a lot of evoker work is exterior, the augmenter uses interior magic. They can make their skin as hard as stone, let their body flow around strikes like a stream around a rock. One on one, there is no more dangerous opponent in melee range than an augmenter. I’ve heard you managed to heal yourself somewhat?”

“Yeah. Nothing major, just wash away fatigue.” I said.

“Excellent! Oh, a lot of people will overlook that, but that is honestly a huge achievement. And it explains your interior mana control. You used a bit of holy magic to help you keep fighting, so I can officially call you an augmenter. If you manage to master this branch, you could easily become a paladin. Let me tell you, there is nothing a vampire fears more than a holy warrior that can heal his own wounds and fight for hours on end. Make sure you tell Volgan this.”

“Oh, he already knows.” I said, nodding along. “He seemed really excited for it, though I don’t understand why. It’s not like I can wash away the fatigue of everyone around me.”

“Are you sure?” Devon asked, smiling. “There are spells for it, and if you already know how to do it to yourself, how hard is it going to be to do it to everyone around you? But even if you never master that, you can be a linchpin. Soldiers get tired in battle, and need to be switched out. But there are areas where the fighting is so thick that you can’t afford to switch out everyone. Having a soldier positioned at the right spot can literally make or break a battle. Evokers make up nearly 60% of magicians, and augmenters make up 35%. The rest are incredibly rare. Summoners can call different entities to battle. They need the highest amount of mana control, but they have a major weakness. If you kill the summoner, the summoned entity is sent back. Their counterpart is the Channeler, who basically summons entities into themselves to increase their power. Everything else falls under the specialist category.”

“Wait, that seems a bit off. Are healers really that rare?” I asked, confused.

“True magical healing, yes. A lot of priests can do things through their faith in Solaris. But enough of that, how about we get down to actual training?” He gave a mischievous grin, as if nothing would make him happier.

“Well, yeah!” I agreed with a chuckle.

“Excellent. To start, I want you to start channeling your mana, and see if you can create a ball of mana over your palm like this.” He said, and a blue orb instantly appeared over his hand. I started to do it, but I kept running into the same issue that I had previously. No matter what I tried to visualize, the mana simply wouldn’t leave my hand. As my hand started to take on a glow, I cut the mana off and watched as Devon shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it, I was expecting this. With a lot of specialty magics, they have one of two issues. First is that they can’t externally manipulate their mana at all. I doubt this would be your case, as curse magics are very limited if you can’t curse anyone but yourself. The other thing that happens is that they need a special condition to summon their mana. Close your eyes, and envision your mana flowing into your hand again. This time, instead of the mana leaving your hand and forming a sphere, I want you to imagine mana infused blood leaving your hand and forming a sphere. Slowly.”

It was odd, imagining my blood moving out of my hand, but something different was happening. There was resistance, but it wasn’t the absolute rejection that I had felt earlier. It was like trying to wring the very last drops of water out of your shirt.

“Go ahead and open your eyes.” Devon said, and to my surprise there was a small sphere hovering above my hand. While Devon’s was the size of a melon, mine was barely large enough to be considered an apple.

That didn’t matter to me one bit. “I did it! I DID IT!” I cried, laughing as I stared at the ball of blood magically hovering over my hands. “How? Never mind the how, just thank you Devon!” I said, smiling at him.

“You’re welcome. I wish all my students got this excited over a small success,” He chuckled. “And now comes the hard part. For the rest of the afternoon, I want you to manipulate that blood mass. Change its shape to something else, and hold it for at least five seconds. Then return it to a sphere for five seconds, then back to a new shape. Start out simple, but be constantly pushing your limits. I also want you to pay attention to how you are feeling when you do this. If you start getting light headed, or feel like your arms and legs are weakening, stop immediately.”

“Got it. Work hard, but don’t overwork yourself.” I said, focusing on the sphere. I glared at it, imagining it turning into a knife. I saw the slightest deformation of the surface, but that was it.

“Good luck. Oh, and before I forget about it.” He said, and I stopped focusing on the sphere to look at him. “Have your guide tomorrow take you by the Mage’s Library. I’ll have a special pass waiting for you, so that you can enter some of the restricted areas and hopefully find a book or two to teach you about blood magic. The downside to this is that practicing in the restricted areas is limited to night time only, so you will have to do it after dark.”

“That’s fine, I can get by on only a few hours of sleep. Thank you for all your help Devon, especially for helping me unlock getting this magic to work on the outside.”

“You’re welcome. Now, get back to practicing. I’ll see if I can stop by the day after tomorrow, and I expect to see some improvement in your form. Understood?”

“Yes sir!” I happily chirped, immediately going back to practicing as Devon left to do whatever he needed to do. I became a man obsessed, much like I thought Devon expected. I ignored the warnings my body was giving me, and had just managed to turn the sphere into a crescent blade when my vision started tunneling and I lost control of the magic. “Oh. That’s not good.” I muttered before passing out.