He was still on time as he sat down next to Niyla; Red hadn’t arrived yet. His classmates had stayed the same over the past two years, making him look at familiar faces. He looked to his right and saw Niyla’s smiling face. She was starting to grow into a beautiful girl. Even though a lot of childish traits were still visible, it gave her a cute look. They wished each other a good morning and waited for Red to enter. For some reason, Red started most of his classes late.

Keith started talking to a few of his classmates around him. Over the past 2 years, he had come to know them a lot better. He might have been focused on different things, but he was still a young child after all. Seeing that Red still hadn’t arrived, he had left his seat and sat with a few others around Vaeryl.

“Wow, Vaeryl did you already manage to convert mana?”

“Hmph, why are you asking him, I have also converted mana.”

“I can’t wait until we’re also twelve years old! Only 2 more weeks!”

They chatted a little until a flustered Red entered the classroom. His forehead was glistening with sweat, but it seemed like he had his breathing under control. “Ah,” he said as he noticed all the children in the classroom. “You’re all here, good! Please go back to your seats so we can start.”

Everyone went back to their seats and the lesson commenced. “Alright, so these classes don’t really have a specific program… do any of you have questions you want answered?” Red said as he sat down in his own seat.

"Well, my brother and I will turn twelve after 2 weeks, but we were wondering about chants…” Merin said. At the front of the classroom, the two twin brothers sat next to each other. The younger brother was quite shy, but the older brother, Merin, was social enough for both. They both had opposite affinities, water and fire respectively, almost representing their personalities.

Red smiled and inquired: “What’s vague about chants? They help with focusing the mind when casting spells.”

“But some people cast spells without chanting! If you can cast spells without chanting, why would you still use them?”

“Good point,” Red said. “Can anyone else answer that maybe?”

The girl who had become good friends with Niyla raised up her hand. She was wearing red clothes again, just like most days. She had the habit of answering all the questions Red would ask. Keith wasn’t sure if she just liked to show off, or if she was trying to maintain her family’s honor. She was the granddaughter of the Grand Spell Caster Julian after all.

“Chanting is only an additional tool that helps you focus your mental energy on casting spells. If your control is high enough, you don’t need to chant. But, even though most of the time chanting makes the process of casting spells quicker, it may also alert the enemy of what spell you’re going to use.”

Red smiled and looked back at Merin. “That’s true. Another thing is that chanting at first may help you to control the spell without chanting later.”

They continued talking a little more, until all questions were answered. The class ended early, leaving everyone some time before they went off to their elemental classes.

Their progression within the school system, didn’t depend on the amount of years they stayed at school. Everyone who had reached twelve years of age was called a novice mage. They would be judged and graded on their proficiency with casting elementary spells. Most children would master the elementary spells of their respective elements somewhere between 12 and 17 years of age. Every time a student would increase his mastery, he would be promoted to a higher class.

At the end of each year, a test was held for all the students. The novice mage stage held three ranks, beginner, intermediate and mastery. Each rank had multiple groups and teachers. All the new students who had just turned twelve would be split among the beginner groups.

When students could show that they were able to control their elemental energy nimbly, they would be promoted to the intermediate rank. Then, when they would finally be able to almost cast elementary spells, they would be promoted to the mastery rank. Within this rank, they would finalize their control over the elementary spells. When they finally mastered their spells, they would be promoted to a new stage, Apprentice mage.

Keith walked to his lightning elemental class. He had gotten a lot of knowledge regarding the lightning and darkness elements over the past two years. He had already formed some ideas of how he would try to combine the two of them. His goal for today was to acquire the method to convert mana to lightning elemental energy. He had gotten to know how he could convert darkness elemental energy, but he didn’t know if the same method applied for different elements.

Because his class ended early, he immediately went to the elemental class. He hoped he could find Elena, the teacher of the beginner lightning classes, before the class started. When he reached the designated classroom, he saw her standing there while staring out of the window. No one was still present, so they were the only ones there.

“Teacher?”

Elena didn’t seem to respond.

“Teacher!”

“Huh,” she turned around, seemingly broken out of a trance. “Oh, it’s Keith, what’s wrong?” She thought that something must’ve happened for him to arrive so early.

“Tomorrow I’ll finish forming my mana core, so I was wondering if you would tell me about the conversion method.”

“Have I never talked about that before? Hmm, that’s not good.” She frowned for a moment, before shaking her head and continuing. “Most of the time students come to me when they are ready to convert anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. Sit down, I’ll tell you how to do it. In the future, if you want to convert other elements it has the same principle.”

‘Oh,’ Keith thought. ‘This is a waste of time.’ He already knew how it worked for the darkness element, so it seemed the lightning element would be converted in the same way. He knew it would be extremely rude to simply walk away now, so he still sat down and started listening attentively to Elena.

“You haven’t formed your core completely yet, but it should still be possible to experience how conversion will work. Alright, close your eyes.”

Keith closed his eyes and darkness descended around him. He heard his own breathing along with Elena’s. He questioningly tilted his head, waiting for more instructions.

“Now try to sense the mana around you, clear your head like you’re used to and sense your surroundings.”

This was still normal for Keith. All of the students were able to sense the mana around them by now. Keith’s meditation practice had also borne fruit as he quickly entered his meditative state. Soon, he started becoming aware of all the little things around him. He sensed the heat of the sun shining through the window, the birds singing outside, the rustling of Elena’s clothes. A few moments later, he started noticing even more. He became aware of a strange but powerful energy around him. Keith knew this was mana. The energy was a transparent purple and swirled around in faint amounts. He could also sense another kind of energy, but it was much denser outside the room, so he was unable to fully inspect it.

After a while, Elena spoke up again. She had given Keith enough time to sense the mana. “Alright, now try to slowly focus on the mana around you. Only sense the mana and look at how it moves, how it behaves.”

Keith did as he was told without breaking out of his trance. He stopped paying attention to everything, except for the mana around him. He focused on the faint wisps of purple mana in his surroundings, making him sense its energy even more. Even though there wasn’t a lot of mana inside the classroom, there was enough to make Keith feel the enormous power that it contained. ‘How grand it must be to control all this mana,’ Keith thought to himself as a small smile appeared on his face.

“When you have a clear feeling for the mana around you, try to hold on to it. Then visualize the element you want to convert. I always visualize a storm with big amounts of lightning. The more you start to visualize the lightning, the more you will be able to sense that element inside the mana.”

Keith thought about the lightning that had left the deepest impact on him. It had to be a spell Elena once casted, making him remember how that lightning had looked and how he had felt. When he started visualizing how the lightning had created a booming thunder and had then struck its target, he started noticing some changes. From inside the mana he had been paying attention to, little bits of lightning elemental energy could be felt.

“When you notice the right element inside the mana around you, you can forcefully try to drag it out with your mind. Your mana core will help you attract the elemental energy. When you do this, you have to direct the elemental energy to your mana core without lingering, because elemental energy is still very harmful for your body!”

Keith then slowly came back to himself. Sweat had started to appear on his forehead, because he was technically doing three things at once. He had sensed the mana, visualized lightning and had to listen to Elena’s instructions at the same time. He wouldn’t be able to convert the mana anyway, so he simply left his state of meditation after sensing the elemental energy.

He wiped away his sweat and looked at Elena. “Thanks!”

“No problem,” Elena smiled back.

Right at that moment, other children started walking in. The class had become somewhat larger than the previous year because there were multiple children stuck at the beginner rank from previous years. When everyone had entered the classroom, Elena led them outside and started lecturing on the elementary lightning spells.

After the class ended, Keith walked back to his dorms to pick up his sword. He was so impatient to start converting that he knew he wouldn’t get a lot of sleep that night. He might as well just move his body until midnight arrived. He would then be able to try and convert some lightning and darkness energy immediately before going to bed.

He then moved towards the edge of the forest, and picked an open field of grass that would allow him enough movement. He did some footwork and swordplay drills and continued practicing in this manner. A few hours later, the sun’s light was slowly being replaced by the moon’s light.

Keith finished his movements and looked up to the sky. He smiled as he was amazed by the countless stars. One of the reasons he liked to train in the forest was because there was no light from the torches at all. This way he could enjoy the stars and moon even more. ‘It should be time,’ Keith thought to himself.

He grabbed his sword in reverse and threw it into the ground. He then sat himself down right in the center of the field and closed his eyes. He didn’t feel too cold and his body was in a good condition. He let go of his frustrations, anger, nervousness and excitement, completely emptying his mind. He then started to sense the surroundings around him; the trees and their branches, the wind that was moving the grass around him, the leaves on the branches that were moving along with the rhythm of the light gusts of wind. The more he connected to the nature around him, the more the mana around him became visible to him. The amount of mana inside the forest was already a lot more compared to the small faint wisps he sensed inside the classroom.

He locked on to the mana he could sense and started visualizing magnificent lightning. He could start to imagine the flashes of blue and white energy crashing into the ground. Enormous claps of thunder were being produced, almost blowing away everything in their wake. The more he visualized the lightning, the more he could start to sense the lightning element inside the mana around him.

When the lightning element within the mana started to become clearer, he stopped his visualization to try and extract the elemental energy. He willed the elemental energy to leave the mana and move towards himself. This took a lot more effort than expected, but after a while, a small sucking force was created from his chest. It seemed that inside his chest, something resembling a black orb was present.

Small strands of lightning elemental energy started to leave the bigger threads of mana around him, effectively moving towards his chest. The rate of movement was fairly slow, but there was movement nonetheless.

After a while, strands of lightning elemental energy could be seen swirling around Keith. The other threads of lightning, that were further away, had stopped moving towards him and no other energy was moving towards him. It seemed that this was his limit for now.

Keith could barely contain a grin from appearing on his face due to his excitement. ‘Here goes nothing!’ He then willed all the elemental energy around him to enter his chest and follow with the pulling force from his mana core. The elemental energy followed along with the force and bore through his chest. When it reached the black orb inside his chest, the elemental energy stopped. The orb started to make miniscule vibrations, somehow interacting with the elemental energy.

The elemental energy then circled around the mana core, until the black orb’s gravitational force suddenly disappeared. When the elemental energy wasn’t restricted by the pulling force anymore, it scattered through Keith’s body.

Keith’s face turned pale and his eyes started to grow wide. ‘What just happened?!’ He could feel that the elemental energy was spreading throughout his body. Different threads of elemental energy were rampaging on their way to wherever they were going. Keith bit on his lips to withstand the huge pain he was feeling. A trickle of blood even appeared where he bit too hard. He balled his fists and clenched his eyes together, until finally the pain and the energy slowly started to disappear. All the different strands were constantly entering different cells within his muscles and organs around his body, until they had all found a place and there was no left over moving elemental energy.

Keith couldn’t hold himself any longer and spit out a mouthful of blood. His eyes had turned blood shot somewhere along the process. He was still dazed as he looked at the ground in front of himself, where a small crimson mess had appeared. ‘What was that, where did the energy go?!’

Normally, the elemental energy would immediately enter the mana core of the practitioner, but somehow, something had gone terribly wrong.

Keith was feeling far from good, but he was too anxious to check where the energy had gone, instead focusing on his health. He didn’t want to be a crippled mage, that would leave him nothing else to gain power. He crawled to his sword and grabbed its handle, supporting himself with the sword as he stood up. When he was completely standing, he took a deep breath and tried to calm his aching mind.

He then closed his bloodshot eyes again and tried to inspect his body. He had to know if anything was different and if the elemental energy somehow might’ve still been absorbed by his mana core. He tried to sense everything about his body. It seemed like his mana core was still completely empty, but his body felt slightly different. It felt like a lot of his muscles were uncontrollably spasming. Although it was only slightly noticeable, it felt very weird. It also felt like he had more energy than normal, as if it could explode forth anytime.

He finished his inspection and opened his eyes. They shone with a very bright determination. Keith knew how people would normally summon the elemental energy from their mana core after they stored it. He was about to attempt the same thing.

Keith suspected that the elemental energy had been stored within other parts of his body. He didn’t know why, but he also didn’t really care at that moment. He simply had to know if he could summon forth the energy. If he could, then he might be able to continue on his road to a grand spell caster.

But if all his energy had disappeared... he didn’t want to think about it.

He lifted his right arm in front of him and stared at it. He then started to focus on his body again while closing his eyes. Normally people would sense the elemental energy within their core and then will it outside their body in the form of a spell. This was what Vaeryl had done this morning, although he hadn’t willed the elemental energy in a certain form, but kept it in its pure state. Keith was about to do the same thing.

He sank deep into his own mind and body, carefully scanning the condition of his whole body. He then visualized a big explosion of lightning coming from his whole body that gathered around his arm.

He felt a huge amount of energy suddenly leaving his body, making him drop to one knee. When he opened his eyes, he finally let out a huge sigh. He eyed the small snakes of lightning that appeared and disappeared around his right arm and finally something resembling a wry smile appeared on his face. The lightning flickered everywhere along his arm, appearing and disappearing at random places, casting a faint glow on him and his surroundings.

He didn’t know if he should feel happy for not losing the chance at becoming a mage, or if he should feel very angry for having to suffer so much to accomplish the same as everyone else.

The lightning elemental energy slowly disappeared from his arm, making Keith slowly lie down before he closed his eyes. He was too tired after everything that happened, making him sink into a deep slumber.

While he was asleep, small strands of mana gathered around him. They would swirl around him before different, smaller strands of their energy parted and moved towards Keith’s body.

As they entered his body, Keith’s face regained a bit of its color. A peaceful look replaced his previous expression while he was deeply sleeping. Somehow, he didn't seem harmed by what was happening at all.