Harlan was exhausted, he spent hours training telekinesis and he ate nothing but cookies. He could go to the cafeteria and pick up premade foods but he lost track of time and didn’t realize how much he was burning himself out. He only realized the time when he heard the morning knocking telling him it was time to wake up. He took a quick shower and headed out to eat breakfast, finding Adelwulf and Tau waiting outside.

“Oh? Did you guys wake up late?”

“I thought I should answer your question from last night.”

“And Adelwulf?”

“Tau was absolutely sure I needed to be around for it.”

He had no delusions of what the answer would be.

“I would. The population of Reino grows and so does its military might, which has relied on numbers and their landlocked magic. The Border was pushed back when a seawall fell and things from the deep killed many. When Reino is strong it is everyones problem. Your question is not would I kill a million to save 2 million, but rather would I kill a million aggressors to save a million defenders. Life is not equal, there is right and wrong, good and evil. Suffering would be lessened if they were gone.”

Adelwulf was baffled, but he agreed.

“That makes a lot of sense. Though I don’t know if I think about it like that.”

“Why not? Do you not agree that to kill evil is good? Would you not wipe out every Fomorian down to the last man if you could in an instant?”

“Of course I would, they are-”

“They are people. What of Harlan? Is he not Fomorian? Would you put Amber through that sadness? Or would you rather he died on the side of the road, so you didn’t have to deal with her?”

“It isn’t the same.”

“It is. You condemn him to death because of what, and not who he is. He is not Fomorian, he is Amber’s brother.”

Harlan felt like he was being used as a pawn to teach Adelwulf. But oddly he didn’t mind much.

“Fine. I get your point. Harlan, I am sorry for how I acted before. It wasn’t right of me.”

“Let’s pretend it never happened.”

Tau smiled and they started walking, a small crowd had formed around them for their little argument but was dispersing as they moved.

“I should clear this up. But my honest answer to your question is no. I would not do it. I simply put on an act to make Adelwulf go onto the path with the best outcome.”

Harlan didn’t mind it at first, but then he started to think thoughts he didn’t like, he was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Do you enjoy acting? Theater and all that?”

“You are not quite as subtle as you think yourself. I have heard of your paranoia already. I am not acting as your sister’s friend, I am her friend.”

“How would I know?”

“You cannot. There is no defense I could ever use when you assume everything could be a lie. You must simply have faith in your sister, that she is smart enough to not fall for such a trick.”

“I trust her.”

“I am glad that you do.”

Tau had Harlan walk in between him and Adelwulf, leaving him unbothered during their walk to breakfast.

Harlan sat with his group and while the others sat at their normal spot.

Both Zella and Adina were being weirdly quiet which led to not much being said over breakfast.

Then it was time. They would finally be starting classes.

Harlan walked to the first class with the rest of them.

Basic elements.

The teacher was a fairly young man, late 20s. Brown hair, brown eyes, 5’10, average height, the academy teachers robes a mix of colors to represent each group which went to the school, though of course far less flashy than the headmaster.

Harlan thought he was a perfectly basic man for a basic class.

Everyone filtered into their seats and the man spoke after looking at his watch.

“Good morning, I am John, your teacher for basic elements. Now there is something I am going to clear up. Some of you might have noticed that your monthly schedule doesn’t have many of your chosen class for this first week, the reason is simple. Mandatory classes are not going to be running for your entire 5 years here. We are teaching you the basic things which you need to know to be able to perform in your chosen classes and to let us get a baseline for your abilities and aptitude so we can correct you before you make mistakes and end up behind in other classes. This is not true for soulwork however. It will be thrown in across the years as we feel it is needed. Much of that magic is changing day by day and it would be foolish of us to teach you for a week and then never again. When those changes happen you will be notified in your monthly schedule. We are not going to be tossing in a class in the middle of the month unless it is decided that such information must be learned as soon as possible.”

Harlan silently let out a sigh of relief that he wouldn’t be stuck with classes he didn’t care for his entire time here.

“Now, I am going to ask some simple questions and those who want to answer simply raise your hand. For starters. Fire mana represents fire.”

A girl with red strands in her otherwise black hair was picked.

“Yes.”

“Wrong. Fire is heat, it is movement. This is something you will learn if you figure out imbibing magic, but for now simply rub your hands together and feel what happens.”

The class felt a little foolish but did as asked. Everyone knew what would happen but did as asked anyway.

“When you move things quickly together they make heat, fire magic isn’t making fire per say, but rather it moves things against each other in such a way that fire is the result. Fire also needs fuel, but fire magic ignores this by changing things, turning the air you breathe into a proper flammable gas. This process, like most magic is very automatic, the mana cost for converting air into flammable gas like what is something tapped into when mining is actually higher than a simple fireball, this is one of the very many mysteries of magic which most simply throw their hands up and say ‘must be the will of the gods’ and I am one to agree. Next question. Water magic, what is it to you?”

A boy raised his hand hesitantly, he was sure he knew the answer, but now he was questioning himself.

“Does it mean cold and liquids?”

“Be confident when you answer questions. But before I answer that. How many of you have tried to move mud or liquid metals?”

Only a handful of students raised their hand, Harlan among them.

“Sir Fomoria. What have you found when trying to do this?”

“Metals, even if you melt them, take pure earth mana to move. Mud is half and half, if you just try to move the water you won’t be able to move it smoothly and you risk separating the water from the mud itself.”

“That is correct. Water magic works on most liquids, from wine to blood. But not all liquids are water based, but even those which, are receive this seemingly divine help. Healing a blood borne affliction with light magic works, but, if you implement some water magic into this the treatment will be more effective. But back to the original answer. Much like how fire is movement, friction causes heat. The slowing of things is what cold is. The examples I like to use are how ice does not flow, or if you could rub your hands in reverse and instead it would pull heat out of your hands. Now, next question, do you all know about elemental dualism?”

Almost the entire class raised their hands.

“Alright. I will explain this for the few who don’t know. At its simplest form, all mana is neutral but has an alignment somewhat like the soul does, water and fire, air and earth, light and dark, these make up each side of a coin. Now, why is it dualism? Each mana should be 6 sided instead of two sided? Simply put, you can flip part of water to fire with the right spellwork, but you cannot flip water to air. The reasons for this aren’t really known. This is why I say somewhat like the soul has, instead of saying they have an alignment like a soul. Many things I’ve just said are simplified explanations of things. You don’t need to know how everything works to cast each spell, but knowing too little leads to issues. For example, if any of you tried to make a spell to create unburning, or cold flames as they are sometimes known. But you simply thought heat was removed instead of simply lessened and held, you wouldn’t make a cold flame, you have made a timed explosive.”

Harlan raised his hand.

“I have time. But please make it quick.”

“Where did you get that example for cold flames?”

“A messenger for the academy told it to me as a good example of a failure which is easy to avoid but is also very dangerous if the person is ignorant of dualism.”

Harlan wasn’t sure if he should be glad that he technically helped with the lesson, or annoyed that he is being used as an example of a failure.

“Now, back on topic. Air magic. What is it?”

A Maetus girl raised her wing. Harlan had been stealing glances at her as he could, her front was white with black speckling from her neck down, her back as far as he could tell was a dark brown. But what interested Harlan was that she was, compared to Ibery, big. He assumed since they were both first years that they were close in age but she was as large as Ibery and more bulkily built.

“Air is movement but without friction.”

“That is almost correct. Air is movement with reduced friction. There has been cases where past a speed limit that heat is still there, leading to an upper limit of what flight can be without extra equipment to deal with such issues. Honestly there is less I can say about air compared to the others. The unique aspects of air magic really come out in how it effects other elements when it is mixed with them. So let us move to earth magic. What is it?”

A Minos answered.

“Earth is earth, it is solid and unmoving, it is physicality.”

“That is a good answer. There isn’t much I can add on, so I will go into an example of how magic automatically simplifies itself when you use it. If any of you have ever made stone from dirt it isn’t really that hard right? Wrong. Stone is, in simple terms, compressed dirt, but if you ever tried to, for instance make a hammer and press dirt into stone it is very very hard, and very very mana intensive. But doing it with a spell? Well that is quite simply, most of you should be able to do it without issue. This is the one which I throw my hands up and say it is divine work the most, to create a diamond with heat and force takes a lot of time and energy. But a specialized spell? I could make dozens every day, granted they would be worthless because there are also spells to know if a gem is fake or not. But that is beside the point. We will get into light and dark tomorrow. I used too much time and you all have 10 minutes to get to your next class. Have fun.” John walked into a room near the large chalkboard, but Harlan was very sure there shouldn’t be anything but another classroom past the wall.

Harlan got together with the others and walked to the next class. Despite the words of the teacher it wasn’t actually very far at all.

They walked into their next class with 5 minutes to spare, and their teacher was… John.

He was shuffling papers and looking over a stack of books until he checked his watch again to let him know the class should start.

“Good morning, I am John, your teacher for spellcrafting. Most of you should already know how to make spellforms and those who can’t can memorize spellforms through repetition. It is a fairly simple and safe process. Think about the effect you want, then move your hands and say words until a rune starts to form in your mind. Once it starts to form, simply change up words and movements until it is clearer and clearer. If you made the spell right and you cast it enough times, it will stick in your head, if not, keep trying. This class will not be for guiding you to making spells, that will be the proper spellcrafting class on another day. Now for starters. What is a spellform? The answer is it is a recipe, with the right amounts, mixed properly, and then cooked in the right way, you get a cake or a loaf of bread. So, imagine this dough inside a bowl, you put in too much yeast and it is going to overflow and make a mess, but imagine if instead you had a collar on the bowl and a spout so it overflows into another bowl. You don’t make a mess even if it fails. This is what spell safety measures are. Everyones spellforms, which are more like mental images, are going to look different, runes are what cause things to happen but they flow through that mental image. Another way to think about it is how rivers flow into lakes, and then people dig trenches and ponds so if there is an influx of water it just flows into these back ups. I only use these examples because you visualize what you want the spell to be, and a clearer mental image leads to some more of that automatic magic influencing your words and movements, you can also get this feeling more easily if you actually understand how and why it would cause such an effect. A test was done using a group of 10 soldiers who knew the basics of magic, those who were told how mana worked and why the spells they were told to make worked at lowest made the spell 4 times faster than those who didn’t know this. Back to safety spells, imagine what would happen if you made the spell wrong as the starting step before you imagine making it right, another name used for this is an anti-spellform. Now, you don’t need to do this, and it does take more time since it can be like making two spells instead of one, but you will mess up a spell, and you will hurt yourself or others, that is IF you live through it. I can’t force you to do this part, but you are an idiot, not ignorant, an idiot, if you don’t do it. Now, everyone, try to make a new spell, or even replicate a spell you have already seen or heard of with the remaining time in the class.”

He sat at his desk and started reading books.

Harlan had been meaning to make a spell for seeing souls more easily. His normal method was good, and over the years he could do it very easily, but it still required near touch range on it.

His first part was to think, what could go wrong? Could it hurt someone? Unsettled the soul? Pull parts of it randomly? Explode inside them? But also what did he want it to do? How could it work? And WHY does it work? It resonated with a soul and let him imagine it in his head and see it as it was actually there in front of him, but it didn’t actually make the soul visible to other people, they had to cast the spell on their own. What was a soul? Why does it resonate? What about differently shaped souls? A fire aligned person didn’t literally have a ball of fire in their chest, the soul had no physicality. He thought about these things for so long the class ended without him even starting to make a spell.

He got a tap on the shoulder from Adina and awoke from his train of thought.

“It is time to go.”

“Right. Sorry.”