It was a tired Rowan that slumped over the pork and lentil sandwich he had been served, his energy drained. Not enough to prevent him from eating the sandwich, of course, that could never happen, but definitely drained.

Biting into the sandwich, Rowan’s eyes fluttered dangerously closed. It was only the first day, but he was already exhausted. His lack of sleep the night before combined with the fatigue from combat and the struggle to understand anything in History of Medanas had drained him of what little energy remained, and only the deliciousness of the sandwich in his hands kept Rowan going.

The only positive that Rowan could see was that the final remaining class of the day was Intro to Magic, the class he had been looking forward to the most. So long as he could learn magic, all of this struggle would have been worth it.

To street rats, mages inhabited another world, their arcane abilities clearly setting them apart from other mere mortals. While merchants, guards, and even nobles were all similar in some ways to the gutter denizens, mages were something that no one from the streets could ever hope to be.

If it meant he could be a mage, he would take a hundred history classes, and a thousand sparring beatdowns, Rowan swore, before quickly revising the numbers in his head. A thousand fights the likes of which he had gone through this morning would leave him dead before dinner, probably best not to tempt any gods or goddesses that might be listening in.

Polishing off his sandwich, Rowan checked his satchel to ensure that he had everything he would need for Intro to Magic. The ring he had bought sat firmly on his right index finger, glinting dully in the light of the cafeteria, while the book for the course had been provided by the academy.

Satisfied that he had everything, Rowan joined the stream of students leaving the cafeteria, headed for the class he had never dared to dream he would one day be a part of.

Intro to Magic was held on the third floor, several long sets of stairs up through the castle, and it was with a slight shortness of breath that Rowan found himself standing outside a door along with twenty-one of his fellow Draigwyns.

A few hushed murmurs could be heard, as students theorized about what the class would be like, who would be teaching it, and at least one girl hoping the professor would be hot. Morgana shot a glare at this last speaker, though it seemed to go unnoticed.

“Everyone here?” a deep voice asked.

As one, the Draigwyns turned to behold a tall man, his long robes swishing behind him as he approached. Two fluffy ears emerged from the top of his head, similar to those of the beastmen from the southern house, but the rest of his appearance was that of an ordinary human with dark skin, a shrewd look, and a scar that ran from his nose down to his chin.

“Draigwyns?” asked the man once more. Someone nodded, which caused him to smile, a broad, toothy grin that shone brightly. “Good, get inside the classroom. Class starts in one minute.”

With a wave of his hand, the door swung open, allowing entrance into the classroom at last. Slightly nervous, the Draigwyns shuffled in, taking seats at the desks within. Behind them, the fox-eared man strolled in, seemingly unconcerned that he as the teacher was the last one inside.

As the man made his way to the front of the classroom, Rowan took in the surroundings. Several rows of desks faced a chalkboard mounted on wheels, its surface white with chalk dust after its last use. Posters and diagrams lined the wall, depicting bodies with lines running throughout, runic circles that Rowan could not make heads or tails of, and a map of Medanas.

For his part, Rowan grabbed a seat near the middle of the class. Although he had wanted to sit at the front, where it was easier to pay attention to the teacher, he did not want to draw too much attention to himself. So far, Kanna was the only one who knew of his background, and he planned to keep it that way.

Unfortunately, he could not hide himself away at the back of the class either, as the seats there were commandeered by several others immediately upon entering, just as they did with the seats by the fire in the Draigwyn common room whenever the higher years were not around. Thus, it was in the middle that Rowan found himself sitting, watching as the fox-eared man strode towards the front of the room.

“Good afternoon, class. I am Professor Typhandrios, though you may call me Professor Typh.”

Jolted out of his observations by the start of the class, Rowan leaned forward, paying rapt attention to Typh as he started to lecture.

“Magic,” Typh began, “is the reaction between mana and thought. That is the most basic definition, and you could all spend the rest of your lives trying to figure out the equation that proves it. Fortunately, we won’t be going over too many equations in this class, that’s Professor Soreth’s domain.”

An audible sigh of relief swept through the class at these words, though Rowan did not join his fellow Draigwyns in their jubilation. Kanna’s class was tomorrow for him.

“Before you celebrate,” Typh continued, “this class will still be a lot of work. Magic has many applications, some practical, others less so, and we will be studying a lot of them.” Pausing, he looked down the rows, settling on the girl in the back row who had nodded at him outside the classroom. “You, Miss…”

“Tianna, Professor,” she responded. “Tianna Caleigh.”

“Any relation to Foren Caleigh?”

“He’s my father.”

Typh grinned. “Glad to hear it. The two of us went on quite a few adventures back in the day.” Tianna blinked at this, clearly unaware of her father’s wild youth, but it seemed Typh was not about to indulge it. “Now then, Miss Caleigh, do you know what mana is?”

“The stuff we use to cast spells?” Tianna responded, sounding slightly unsure.

“Yes, but not as complete an answer as I am looking for,” Typh told her, hunting the room for another victim, a boy in the front row wearing glasses. “You, do you know?”

“Energy.”

“Exactly!” Typh replied excitedly. “What’s your name?”

“Droon Glynsen.”

“Well answered, Droon! Mana is a form of energy, left behind by the gods after they finished creating the world. It permeates the air, the ground, and the seas. All living creatures contain mana inside them, and can use both their own mana as well as the ambient mana in the air in order to cast spells.”

With a flourish of his arms, birds of golden light sprang into being around Typh, swirling around him before disappearing into motes of light that winked once and were gone.

Impressed, Rowan quickly jotted down what Typh had said, doing his best to get the words on paper before the professor continued the lecture.

“Now, unfortunately, when it comes to mana not all beings were created equal. This goes for both the differences between races and between individual members of each race,” Typh explained, taking on a more reserved stance as he grabbed a piece of chalk. “We measure mana using what are called manaleths, which are commonly referred to as points, the average first-level spell costing one manaleth or one point to cast, which is where the term comes from.”

Hands moving as he talked, Typh drew a detailed picture of a bird on the chalkboard, its wings outstretched. “Small creatures such as worms, mice, and sparrows might have less than five mana points within their mana pools.” Beside the bird, he jotted the numeral for five. “While humans have an average of fifty points. Anyone with more than a hundred points has the makings of a good mage, though there have been famous magi throughout history with mana pools of less than a hundred points.”

Another drawing appeared beside the bird, this time a diagram of a human, beside which the number one hundred had been added. Turning, Typh glanced at the class. “I won’t make you memorize the base mana pools of every race, but since you’re all from Tirsiog, the base values you should remember are sixty points for halflings, eighty points for Fae, and ninety for Elves.”

Glancing around the room, Rowan saw that Typh had given them the numbers for every race present. Apparently, Tirsiog did not have many orcs or beastmen. Filing this information away for later, Rowan did his best to concentrate on the lesson, Professor Typhandrios now in the process of drawing what appeared to be a dragon on the board.

“As the most powerful magic-wielding creatures in the world, dragons have enormous base mana pools, several times that of a normal human or any other sapient race,” Typh explained. “Would anyone like to guess at the size of the average dragon’s mana pool?”

Several hands shot up, though Rowan noticed that similar to himself, Morgana had opted to keep her hand down. Unconcerned with the fact that the two highest scorers on the Test of Potential in the class, and thus the two with the most mana, were not participating, Typh pointed to the girl sitting next to Tianna.

“You, your name and guess?”

“Feinne Westmarsh,” said Feinne. “And three hundred?”

“More than that,” Typh responded, turning to another person, a boy with a muscular frame that had trounced Rowan on the dueling ground earlier. “You, name and guess? Little hint for you, it’s not higher than a thousand.”

“I’m Davis Merrow,” the boy introduced himself. “Is it seven hundred?”

“Overshot by a little,” Typh replied. “The true number lies in the middle of the two answers. The average dragon in Medanas will have a mana pool just shy of five hundred points.”

At this revelation, Rowan’s mind went blank. If he remembered correctly, the screen that the crystal tablet had shown him had said he had a total mana capacity of four hundred and seventy five points. At the time, he had dismissed it as he had no knowledge of what a normal number looked like. The results of the Test of Potential had shown him that it was a larger number than others, but having not seen anyone else’s mana pools, he had rationalized that his own must only be slightly larger than those of Morgana or Enkhchuluun.

Even earlier, when Professor Typh had been going over base mana pools, he had thought his sounded large, but told himself that others must have comparable, albeit slightly lesser pools. After all, Faebrook was an academy for people of exceptional talents, how could their mana capacities be so much worse than his own?

But if dragons had base pools of less than five hundred points, that meant that his mana capacity was comparable to that of a dragon’s, those mythical creatures that even street rats knew to fear. Dazed at the enormity of this revelation, Rowan was totally unaware of what was happening around him, his eyes blank as he stared off into space, thoughts of his body covered in scales filling his head.

“You there,” Typh called out, pointing directly at Rowan. “Are you okay?”

“Ah?” Rowan replied, doing his best to formulate an answer. “Uh, yes, I’m fine. Just in awe at how much mana dragons have.”

Typh smiled indulgently. “Isn’t it incredible? Your average mage might never gain the ability to cast spells of the fifth circle, and yet dragons are born able to cast magic of the seventh circle.”

Turning to the rest of the class, Typh motioned to the chalkboard, where he had completed his picture of a dragon, its mouth open in a soundless roar. “Incidentally, their innate magical abilities are what make equipment made from the corpses of dragons so valuable to adventurers. Focuses and weapons made from dragon bone or with dragon’s blood will channel magic far more effectively, while armour made with dragon scales is highly resistant to magic. Keep that in mind if you ever find yourself facing someone who has taken down a dragon.”

“Have you ever fought a dragon, sir?” Davis asked excitedly. The rest of the class perked up at this, even those sleepy looking students in the back paying attention as they awaited Typh’s answer.

“I have,” Typh confirmed, earning himself a chorus of ooh’s and ahh’s from the class. “A juvenile, many moons ago when I was an adventurer, braving the dungeons of Nuxiong for artefacts. A young dragon followed us inside, and waited for us to engage in combat with one of the guardians of the tomb before making its move. I lost half my party that day, but we succeeded in taking down the dragon, and made haste to escape with its body before the denizens of the tomb could overwhelm us. Regrettably, we were forced to sell the corpse to pay for the failed dungeon run, so I do not have any dragon bone equipment to show you.”

“However,” Typh continued, “dragons are not the topic of today’s lecture, and time is ticking on, so let us begin!”

The lecture that followed was the first class that Rowan could confidently say he managed to follow along with. Though he did not understand everything that Typh said, the lesson focused on the basics, which allowed Rowan to pick up the majority of what was taught.

His quill scritching away, Rowan grabbed another piece of parchment and placed it in front of himself, setting the one he had been working on to the side in order to let the ink dry. It had been roughly an hour since the class had started, and Typh showed no signs of slowing down, the man energetically working away at the blackboard in between spurts of explanation.

As he finished explaining the history of mana measurement techniques, Typh clapped his hands together with a smile. “Enough theory. Magic is a skill best learned through practice. Does everyone have their magic rings?” A chorus of affirmations swept through the room. “Excellent.”

Raising his hand, Typh flashed a pair of his own rings at the class, one made of silver while the other was made of a dark metal that blended in with his skin.

“First, I’ll explain what it is that we are about to attempt. Magic rings are the most popular type of focus in the Valendian Empire and their former territories. They act as catalysts, transforming the mana injected within into spells based on how the user arranges the mana.”

Grabbing a piece of chalk, Typh quickly drew a picture of a circle, a line intersecting the middle. “This is a fairly innocuous formation. It neither converts the mana into another element, nor forces it to take on too complex a shape. Give it a try now. Focus your mana and force it into your ring, then shape it as best you can into the formation I’ve drawn here.”

Around the classroom, students took on looks of fierce concentration, staring at their hands as they attempted to do as Typh instructed.

Glancing around surreptitiously, Rowan could see that a few of them looked bored, clearly having passed this stage of magic training years ago. Those, however, were in the minority. Most of the class wore scrunched faces, their expressions amusing to watch as they attempted to perform the task set before them.

Looking at his own ring, Rowan began to do the same, reaching inside of himself as he did his best to reach that strange place he had entered during the Test of Potential. Unlike with the test, however, there was no orb to pull the mana out, and Rowan was thus forced to do it manually, mentally grabbing strands of mana as it swam around within his mana pool.

Like eels, the mana proved slippery, constantly slipping from Rowan’s mental grasp and plunging back into his mana pool. Again and again, he grabbed for the mana, and time and time again, it evaded him. At last, gripping only a single strand within his tenuous mental grip, Rowan withdrew it from the pool, pushing it towards his arm.

The best way Rowan could describe the feeling he had as he guided the mana was that of a ferryman on the water, directing his little mana boat forward towards the destination. It was not easy going. Harsh waves rocked his little mana boat, threatening to send it toppling into the current that flowed quickly back in the direction of his mana pool. Twice he lost his boat, forced to sigh sadly as he felt it slip from his grip, but eventually, on the third attempt, he succeeded.

Forcing the mana into his ring, Rowan felt the focus accept it, the metal warming slightly as the mana entered. As soon as it was inside the ring, the mana stopped fighting, the current sensation that Rowan had felt earlier fading.

Now what? Rowan considered the matter for a moment, relaxing slightly now that the mana was no longer attempting to escape back to his mana pool. Professor Typh had instructed them to form the mana into the shape on the board, but he had not told them how.

Resigning himself to more trial and error, Rowan began the arduous process of shaping the mana, which once more began to resist his efforts as he attempted to impose his will upon it.

Ten minutes later, a mentally exhausted Rowan stared hatefully at the ring upon his finger, or more specifically, the strand of mana inside it. Although it was easy enough to flatten the mana into a line, curling that line into a circle had proved to be beyond his capabilities. An almost complete circle, like a pie with a slice missing was the best he had managed so far, and the act of concentrating was beginning to wear upon him.

Around Rowan, several of his classmates had already succeeded, the bored looking ones having evidently decided to show off a little as they flashed the results of the spell to their peers: a tiny ball of violet light that glowed brightly above their palms.

Walking around the class, Typh offered words of advice and encouragement, helping those students who had not yet succeeded, and giving pointers to those whose spheres looked less than optimal.

“Don’t focus on making a perfect circle,” Typh advised Rowan as he passed, somehow seeming to know exactly where he was stuck. “A rough circle is fine, so long as the shape is mostly right.”

Putting Typh’s advice into practice, fifteen minutes later, Rowan at last managed to form a circle of mana within his ring. There was no line in the middle, but it was still a minor accomplishment, which he celebrated silently but happily. Perspective was important, Darm had taught him that.

Two months ago, he would never have even dreamed of using mana, let alone attempting to cast a spell, and here he was among a class of twenty other would-be mages doing exactly that.

Thus cheered up, Rowan renewed his efforts, and was rewarded with a shaky looking orb only three minutes before class ended.

“Alright, make sure to practice that spell as your homework,” Typh called out over the clatter of chairs being pulled back. “I want everyone to be able to at least cast it by next lesson.”

Waiting for the others to filter out, Rowan waited behind, intent upon clarifying something that had been bothering him for the last hour.

“Sir,” Rowan said to grab Typh’s attention.

Head swiveling, Typh glanced at Rowan, taking in the empty class behind him as he checked for any other stragglers. “Yes? You had a question, Rowan?”

“You know my name?” Rowan asked, his original question somewhat forgotten at this revelation. Unlike many of his classmates, he had not told the professor his name during the day’s class, so for Typh to address him by name threw him off.

“Best score on the Test of Potential in ten years—of course I know who you are,” Typh replied. “I also know who Enkhchuluun and Morgana Lunythe are, as well as a few of the other students who tested earlier than the three of you did. As a professor, I make it my business to know who the top performers are each year.”

Here, Typh paused, before offering Rowan a small smile. “To be honest, even if I didn’t bother to check the new students for talented ones, I’d have known who you were. Professor Soreth is pretty happy to have found someone with your level of mana pool. But I digress, you had a question?”

“Yes, sir,” Rowan responded. “I wanted to know a little more about base mana pools. You said that the average was below a hundred for most sapient races, but that’s just the average, right? How much mana do most adventurers and mages have?”

Typh grinned at this, seeming to understand exactly what it was that Rowan was getting at. “Your normal everyday adventurer has somewhere in the region of a hundred to a hundred and fifty manaleths. More powerful ones, as well as strong mages, are in the realm of two hundred to three hundred, while those with truly exceptional scores can surpass four hundred.

“I myself have a base mana pool of three hundred and four, for example, which I’d imagine is around the level that Enkhchuluun and Morgana both have, given their scores on the test. But—” Typh raised a cautioning hand. “Don’t think that mana is everything. Plenty of the most powerful mages in history have had mana pools well below two hundred, and there have been countless ‘prodigies’ with enormous mana pools such as yours who have amounted to nothing simply due to a lack of skill or dedication. Hard work is the key to success, not mana, understood?”

Rowan nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Was there anything else you wanted to ask?”

“No, sir, that was all.”

“Then be off with you,” Typh told him, directing him toward the door.

With a quick bow, Rowan left, dwelling upon what he had just learned. Fortunately and unfortunately, it seemed that his mana pool was not quite as outlandish as he had first thought. At the very least, he did not have a mana pool ten times the size of his classmates’.

Rowan had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, having an enormous advantage such as a mana pool ten times the size of anyone else’s would have definitely helped to level the playing field between him and the other students. From the other two classes he had attended, as well as his scores on the tests of knowledge and combat, it was obvious that he would need all the help he could if he wanted to catch up and eventually surpass them.

On the other hand, as an urchin, Rowan knew full well the fate of those who showed signs of promise. ‘The nail that sticks out gets hammered down,’ and Rowan did not want to be that nail. It was clear that both Morgana and Enkhchuluun at least already resented him for upstaging them in the Test of Potential; he did not need to make enemies simply by existing with a single advantage.

Lost in thought, Rowan retired to the dormitory, eager to unwind after a long day. Unfortunately, schoolwork beckoned, and it was not until late that night that he finally collapsed into bed, hoping that tomorrow’s classes would be easier.

Asleep before he hit the pillow, Rowan slept fitfully, his brain incapable of further thought after the day’s rigours.