Headmaster Blas really had come through with a gem. He had found some old notes from the last sorcerer in the archives kept by past headmasters. When she left, she had left a journal with some entries, almost like she was hoping to help educate future Sorcerers.

There wasn't a ton there, but when you start with nothing, it had felt like a gold mine to Lux.

"I can feel the magic flowing within me. I found when I let it go, I can expel it from my body. Explore this in the future. Can I manipulate it? Conjure? Weapons?"

"The real issue is trying to hide my powers while still using a wand. Trying to look for ways to circumvent this issue."

"I feel... lonely."

For every few scribbles dedicated to her explanation of magic, there were lines like that one where she described being alone, trusting no one. As he skimmed over the notes, this got worse, until the very end where it was really all she talked about. Being a Sorcerer, and hiding that fact, was incredibly lonely for her.

Lux sat in a new room, now armed with training dummies with fake wooden wands in a wide-open space. A table sat in the corner for studying, with a bookshelf next to it lined with first-year textbooks. The room was windowless but was lined with interesting paintings of scenes depicting battles throughout history. One, in particular, showed two wizards facing off, beams of magic from their wands connecting as they waged a war between the two. One wizard seemed deformed-looking, pale skin with little slits where his nose should be, while the other a student that was around Lux's age. The live-action painting always ended with the deformed magician losing, evaporating when the spell finally overcame him.

Lux had thought of a room where he could practice his magic on fake opponents, and the Room of Requirement obliged. It even had a book where students in the past had discovered the room and left notes of encouragement or things they had found out about magic. He spent some time searching for any secret Sorcerer knowledge but found none.

He took a breath and began to release his magic, letting it pool into a light blue mist in front of his feet. He was getting good at this now, able to expel it and manipulate it slightly. The previous Sorcerer had given up after managing to swirl it around, moving onto other theories. Lux, however, was intrigued with the idea of conjuring with this. Right now, without a spell to give it form, it was raw magic. It made it much harder to control and was definitely taxing on his reserves, but he felt like he had some potential there.

After a half-hour of causing it to swirl, rising and falling a meter or two, he moved onto the next part of his routine. He practiced spells without a wand. For Lux, this was incredibly satisfying. Having to be significantly below average during the day, he got to see dummies fly backward with stupefy or fake wands go shooting off meters away with Expelliarmus.

Satisfied with another thirty minutes of practice, he moved onto the next hour - experimentation.

This is where he dived into the notes of the Sorcerer in more detail, in particular, he was interested in one subject the most.

"First attempt. Over-ride the wand by coating it with my magic..."

"First attempt failed. Wand was angry at the intrusion, backfired the spell."

Lux saw no reason to attempt this again. He couldn't see another way around that particular issue. If wands really did have some sentience, it made sense trying to override it wouldn't work.

"Attempt two. Coat the wand with magic, but instead of over-riding it, see if I can create a "fake" wand, and cast the spell. It would look like it is from my wand, but really, a thin layer of my magic is the conduit for the spell..."

"Attempt two, partial success. The coating over my wand made it glow, something I don't know how to explain. Maybe I can pass it off as an anti-expelliarmus charm... will have to see if that is a thing. I was able to cast from the "wand", but it took a lot of my reserves and incredible concentration. Number of tries to succeed - 5."

Lux thought this was interesting, even though she gave up on it because she couldn't master it well enough for it to be practical. He decided to add that to his experimentation time.

"Attempt three. Cast the magic from my wand hand, maybe the effect would be subtle enough to seem like it was coming from my wand..."

"Attempt three failed. Magic made wand fly out of my hand with offensive spells."

"Attempt four. Use a fake wand in combination with attempt two..."

"Attempt four, mostly successful. It was easier to coat the wood, and my spells seemed faster than attempt two by itself. It is possible the wand was passively acting against the coating. The downside would be if anyone that knows wands sees it, they'll know pretty quickly. Could fake students easily, professors would be unlikely."

Lux stopped there, for now. He noticed future attempts became more complicated and probably outside his magical capabilities at the moment.

He figured he would mess around with attempt four, get that down, and try to move onto his own wand once he got the hang of using the fake wooden one.

He took a wand from one of the practice dummies and began to train. Step by step, he slowly learned to coat the wand after a few failed attempts. Lux was attempting to just imagine a thin layer resting on the wood, keeping the magic tethered to himself rather than attempting to detach and imbed it into the replica.

Then he tried to cast Lumos, but with no success. He felt the magic stir, but it didn't jump to his tether. Lux attempted again, this time, trying to concentrate on the movement he felt. He wanted his magic to include the tether, rather than sustain it. To involve it like it was an extension of his limb. When he tried the spell again, he focused on this, and it began to respond after a few failed attempts. The light was a little stronger than with his wand but required an extreme amount of effort and concentration. He had to actively think for a second before beginning the cast, something that was not applicable in anything outside of a controlled setting. The wand still lit up like a blue Christmas tree too, so he needed to figure out that issue as well.

Lux perused through her notes, jumping to the parts again where she discussed her thoughts on being alone.

"I've almost told a few people. Anyone to help me. I told the headmaster, and he's been helpful. The troublesome part is -

Her notes ended abruptly, pages being torn out before continuing.

"I want to include them... I do. I just worry for their safety... and how much our friendships would change with the information... I don't know what to do."

It was interesting that there were a few torn pages. Clearly, it was not her doing, as the sentence structure didn't make sense when it continued on the next whole page. Either she tore the pages out herself later, disgusted by what she wrote. Or someone else tore them out after she left... like the headmaster at the time.

Lux sighed and closed the book. He felt the issue she was had. He had contemplated the idea of talking with Caleb about everything, or at the very least, his score on the aptitude test. Lindsey, he wasn't so sure about. The revelation about her family being so involved with the UW, with her grandfather being the president, was definitely concerning. He needed to do research about them, and see if it was even safe for him to continue a friendship with her.

With that, he picked up his wand and got back to work.

"Did you give him the book?" the man asked.

"Yes, just the other day." Gembol Blas said, sitting in a chair across from the man's desk. The room was over the top - a fireplace with gem-encrusted symbols of enchanted runes lined the trim. Candles that lit the room were in extravagant candlesticks, their flames a brilliant white, like a lightbulb. The chairs were animal fur, which was from a magical beast whose hide emitted a faint warmth, causing no discomfort when seated. It would turn cool if the user began to overheat, keeping a fluctuating temperature that was appealing. The cost for these kinds of luxuries was extraordinary.

"And?"

Gembol smiled. "He took it and ran straight into the Room of Requirement. He has practiced nightly since I told him of the room."

"Good." The man responded, turning in his chair and smoking some substance that expelled a red smoke which took different shapes of animals as he exhaled. "He needs to get strong, as fast as possible. When can we approach him?"

"Give it some more time. We made a mistake with the last one... chess rather than checks, so they say."

The man nodded, taking another puff of the bizarre substance. "You'll continue to counsel him?"

"Of course," Gembol replied, "I won't make the same mistake as my predecessor."

"Undoubtedly, Gembol. The UW has the utmost faith in you."

Headmaster Blas smiled and nodded, "The trust is appreciated."

"Stay Pure," he said.

"Stay Pure."

"There was extreme controversy in the change of curriculum at the request of the UW back in 2145. Students began to be heavily trained in the arts of battle-magic, rather than the main focus of defense against the dark arts. As our numbers depleted, and our powers weakened, many would argue that the need for well-rounded wizards was in demand. Rather than specialized wizards such as Aurors or Bodyguards being the only ones that could hold their own in a duel, even your local botanist could put up a decent fight, if the need ever arose.

Others argued this only created more conflict within the wizarding world, that the need for a militarized magical community was overkill, that the muggles could not and would not overwhelm them. History shows that in modern-day society, we wizards were the biggest threat to ourselves, not the muggles.

The decision was still made to support a more aggressive curriculum, and we have made drastic improvements to spells and engineering, as well as involved dueling as an official sport, surpassing quidditch in ticket sales as of 2164." - Multiple sources inside the UW, an excerpt from The History of Magic ed. 3.