Year 1023 of the new calendar, Month of the Sun, 8th day

I started to walk home, the day was boring and the memory of it left my mind the moment I walked out of the school building. The street was the same as ever, nothing outside the building was being changed in any sort of way. There were less people out on the street, though, and every person on the street stood out just that little bit more. Color me surprised when I met that woman I saw the other day again on the street, she was conversing with a man of large stature. He had distinctive glasses, floral patterns were weaved throughout them that stood out on his pale face. The suit he wore had a distinctive air around it, definitely an expensive piece of work. The woman looked at me for a second, before turning back to the man that now had a golden pocket watch from the front pocket on his suit.

She must have just moved around the area, but many people did and, though we ran into one another on more than one occasion, the desire to converse with her has stayed at nill from the beginning. Her black hair, eyes were common, but the outfit she wore was unique against the backdrop, current fashion standards are now on the side of more bright and colorful colors, but it was not my concern what she wore. My internal dialogue was interrupted when I saw the woman walking towards me, guess she did want to converse, eh whatever, I had the time so I didn’t disregard her.

She started the conversation with me, “Hello, I saw you in the magic academy, you’re a student right?”, I don’t know what she wanted with me, but it would be rude to not answer her back, “Ah, yes. Hello, my name is Mike, I attend the academy, your name is?”, she answered back smoothly, “Sorry, I was too hasty, please excuse me. My name is Victoria, nice to meet you.”

Smiling, I answered back with “Likewise, is there any reason for you to visit me on this fine day?” The day was pretty bad, clouds blocking the sun and the prospect of rain looming, but it doesn’t matter, I don’t expect this conversation to last longer than a few sentences.I have a request, but it's too soon for that, don’t you think? Would you like to join me for a cup of tea?”

An interesting request-one i'm not opposed to and have the time-, what is the worst that could happen anyway, I should be able to get myself out of any sticky situation. “Sure, we can talk as we walk, lead the way.” She nodded and started walking to a small, family-owned coffee shop down the way, starting to speak again as she went.

“You have surely heard of the dreadful murders, right? Awful business,” I nodded and she continued, “There was a new one just 2 days ago, right up on Sea Street on the 65th, horrible. A young girl's life full of possibilities ended,” A barely noticeable frown formed on my face, that was quite close to my house, and right near the meeting point for me and Ava, she did not seem to notice, though, and kept on talking. “Thankfully, the official mages are on the case, they should have been on it since the first murder if you ask me, but better late than never.”

I nodded, and she finished talking as soon as we entered the small shop. There were only 4 tables and one was occupied by a man with the same distinctive glasses as the other, guess some new shop for the rich must have opened around the area. She sat down, and so did I, we both ordered some plain black coffee. She also asked for some creamer and sugar.

“So, what was it that you wanted me to do?”, she did not answer straight away, opting to wait until the coffee arrived in front of us, a minute later, the daughter of the owners brought us our cups and went on her way, Victoria took a sip and started to speak, “Thank you for coming here, I would like to ask you to tutor my daughter” An unorthodox request, but not unreasonable, one must have some magical talent to get into the Academy and it was a prestigious school, many parents would want to get their children inside at all costs.

I took a sip of the coffee, savoring the deep and complex flavor, before sighing and answering “I can’t guarantee I can give her the best experience, but I can try my best.”, I had the time anyway, nothing major was going on and any extra money would be nice, she seemed to be overjoyed by the statement, radiating a smile. “I can’t thank you enough, how does 1 pound and 5 austral per session sound?”, a fair price, one could likely get someone better but me being in the Academy is a bit of a reassurance. I nodded, and then she told me “Good, come visit me at George Boulevard, 13621.” Smiling, I reassured her that I would and started to walk outside, intending to go home.

Thankfully, it seemed like lady luck was on my side as I got to my house without incident, a light drizzle formed which did dampen the good mood I was in by a bit, but it was not anything huge. Walking inside the small abode, it was the same as I left it yesterday. The leftovers from yesterday are going to be my dinner tonight, no reason to cook up something new.

As they were heating, I picked up a small novel on dimensional magic to study through, it would be nice to finally train it up a bit. I have neglected it a bit compared to other forms of magic, and now is as good as time as any to do it. I went to the leftovers and started eating. The flavor of the stew was a bit worse than yesterday, but still good enough to heartily eat. Looking down at the small book, the uses of dimensional magic was far more utility based and less damage oriented, though that's not to say that there were no damaging spells, they were just very hard to learn.

The first one was as simple as it gets, injecting a bit of the dimensional mana, shaping it in a certain way and then trying to go through a wall. Changing the dimensions ever so slightly around you so that you don’t hit the physical object in front of you, it gets harder when it comes to mystical objects, but that can be saved for later. I tried shaping the design first, but that proved to be difficult.

The mana inside me felt like a giant boulder, pushing it and moulding it into an intricate shape was sluggishly slow. The strain on my body was immense as well, the muscles in my body began to ache with a burning pain, it distracted me enough that the minuscule amount of mana I was controlling stopped, and before it was set to become an unstable piece of mana inside my body, I had already surrounded it with a large amount of Earth Mana, but even that could not save me from its effects. The purplish mana inside me turned unstable, exploding with a shockwave that damaged my internal organs enough that they started to bleed, making me cough up blood in the process.

Cleaning myself up, I tried it again many more times, but the result was the same, perhaps there was something I was missing when it comes to this. Sighing, I cleaned up all the blood around me and decided that today was not the day, there had to be a better way than trying to brute force the mana. Besides, it was almost time to meet up with Ava anyway so I changed back into the outfit I first wore, and started to go to our agreed upon meeting point. The night sky was beautiful outside, but I caught out of the corner of my eye something moving, and from the looks of it, it was a star in the sky.

Shaking my head, I put it to the back of my mind, I must be really tired if I were seeing stars in the sky moving. The walk to the alley was uneventful, one beggar stopped me for money but I couldn’t spare him any money, so I keeped walking to the destination. When I arrived there, Ava was already waiting at the spot, holding what looked to be a little purse. She looked my way meekly, the air around her was hardly different from when I first met her, shy as a newborn child.

I nodded, reaching for the purse and counting up 1 pound, 7 austral and 5 tine. A smile crept on my face, this was a truly worthwhile investment. What bothered me was that it felt like someone was watching me, the feeling had come the moment I met up with Ava here. Nothing came up on my spell, though, which reassured me a little. I did not intend to converse with her, the lower the contact the better when it came to such things, or else the guilt may just explode inside of me, Ava, it seemed had other ideas when it came to talking which came as a surprise to me.

“Si-Sir, can I please stay with you? Uh-It would save you money, I could give more.” She did make a fair point, but I would rather not be seen with her lest the buyers know it was me, this would be enough for me to be permanently expelled from the academy. I shook my head and planned to keep walking, but she held onto the end of my coat and said in a weak voice.

“I-I know you don’t want to be seen with me, bu-but I can just stay in the same apartment complex, I think”, she seemed to be choking up at this point but eventually said it, “I think there is someone following me around, it would be better for me to stay with you. As protection, you paid for me aft-”

I ended her sentence with a wave of my finger, I just heard something move. Then, a gigantic cracking bolt of lightning shot out at me, one I did not know if I could protect both me and Ava. It was getting closer by the millisecond, but indecision struck me. Should I protect myself and be assured or try and protect both of us, but time ran out and I made a hasty decision.