The castle had a name. Nathan learned of it, when he entered through the tall wooden gates for the first time, half an hour earlier. A gigantic statue, of an old wizard holding a massive book, stood at the entry. The text inscribed into the pedestal of the stature read: 'In honor of Dimir Goldwing, the first Dean of Scuma Castle.'.

Now Nathan and his friends sat in a large meeting hall, in one of the most prominent buildings of Scuma Castle. Nearly 300 students were present, but the hall still seemed empty to him. It was obvious, that the castle was made for a far greater number of people. Still, it didn't fail to impress Nathan. The hall was a fusion of ancient architecture and modern magic technology. The finely ornamented metal-gates at the backside of the hall were enormous. Each wing was at least five meters high and two meters wide, but a single, soft, push could move these massive gates. Rows of large windows, that reached from the bottom of the hall up to the point, where the ceiling bent towards the middle. Inexplicably those windows didn't show the outside of the hall, but the outside of the castle itself, as if the hall stood solitary on a hill. Opposite to the gates was a stage, with seven luxurious chairs, and above those, on the left and right side of the hall, were two galleries, each holding at least two dozen more of those chairs.

The gates to the hall closed and a loud gong echoed through the air. From a small door hidden behind the front-stage, seven ancient-looking Magister entered. They strode with lofty steps towards their chairs and sat down. A booming voice filled the air as the Magician in the middle chair moved his lips.

“Dear students of the Gilsbeck Magic School. I welcome you all to our annual ceremony, to send our graduates on the way, into their bright future, and welcome our new students, taking their first steps.”

He made a short pause, while his voice still reverberated in the hall.

“I am Magister Ludwig Roheim, the 8th dean of this esteemed institution. I will be hosting today's ceremony together with six of my dear colleagues. The heads of the faculty for magical engineering, Magister Zeros Minnoren, and Magister Ferales Mandos. The heads of the faculty of science, Magister Clara Taunos, and Magister Julianus Parenis. And the heads of the faculty of magic theory, Magister Lissa Fae, and Magister Ral'khan Wolftooth.”

One after the other, the magicians on the six prominent chairs, rose up when the Dean called their names. The second-year students started to cheer, for each of the Magisters, and the new students soon joined in.

“Being a magician is a privilege, as well as a duty. The ability, to channel unimaginable powers, enables you to fulfill your wishes, to live your dreams! But it also comes with responsibility. The responsibility to not abuse your power. To support your fellow humans. To improve our civilization. You stand on the shoulders of those, who came before you, and thus you shall become the shoulders, future generations can stand on. Today I have the pleasure, to announce, that 57 young men, have chosen to take on these duties.”

“Aaron Clefthoven, please step forward!”

A young man in the front rows stepped up, shivering from excitement. He slowly walked up to the stage and knelt in front of the Dean's chair.

“Due to your great skill and talent in the field of compound 3-9 patterns, I am pleased to call you an official graduated mage, of the Gilsbeck Magic School!”

The dean raised his hand in front of the new magician. Nathan saw a weak glow coming from the Magister, but the distance was far to much, to discern anything else. A split second later, a mark appeared on the back of the Aarons hand.

“I congratulate you Aaron, may the mana never leave you.”

Aaron stood up, bowed deeply, and went back to his chair.

Nathan leaned closer to Terran and whispered.

“Your dad is an alumnus, right? What is this mark on the hand?”

Terran answered in kind. “It's the three colored star. My dad told me it's not real magic. They just use magic to accelerate a special ink towards the hand, implanting it under the skin. Whenever the caster uses magic, an iridescent star will appear there.”

“What? Why would they do that?”

“Officially as a mark of honor, but my dad thinks it's to identify rogue magicians. If they graduated from here, then they will send a team of headhunters after him.”

“Oh...”

While they were talking, another graduate had received his mark and was walking back to his seat. Within the next hour, all 57 graduates stepped forward and could, from now on, call themselves magicians. After the last graduate had gone back to his bench, the dean looked towards the rear seats.

“I'm especially pleased, to welcome the 91 new students to our school, and I am hopeful, that each one of you will follow in the footsteps of your alumni. I'm sure, by now you are all very eager to know how exactly your everyday school life will be organized. Therefore Magister Lissa Fae will enlighten you.”

After a wave of applause, Lissa Fae stood up and came to the front.

“Many of you already have a rough understanding of life in our school. The education is divided into mandatory and elective lectures. The mandatory lectures are a history of magic, magic theory, mathematics, physics, chemistry and basics of magic engineering. A good wizard needs to master all of them! For the elective lectures, you have to choose three out of a multitude of available lectures. Following my introduction, the Magisters,“ she pointed with her hand towards the galleries, “will introduce you to their respective fields of study. The elective lectures have to be chosen by Friday next week.”

Lissa Fae went on about the school rules and other organization related things.

Two hours later, Nathan and the other students were finally able to exit the castle.

“That was far too much information there,” Terran complained. “Do you know which lectures you want to choose?”

Nathan glanced at the castle longingly. “I wish I could just do all of them. Everything seems so interesting.”

Thomas looked at Nathan with pity in his eyes. “Ye heard them, right? If ye don't specialize, ye will 'lways just stay mediocre and master nothin'.”

“Yes, I know.” Nathan's face was the definition of sadness. “Aaah, damn, I don't know. I tend to micro-acceleration studies and light transformations, not so sure about the third one yet. And you guys?”

Alina answered first. “I'll join you in light transformations, it's quite practical. And I want to take water control and micro-deceleration.”

Revar looked astonished. “You want to become an ice mage? They said that's an extremely hard thing to do.”

“I know, I still want to try.”

“I'll take something safe.” Terran grinned. “I will do advanced magical engineering, fire control, and structure manipulation.”

Nathan asked Thomas, “And what about you?”

“I dunno. Somethin' that 'arns a bit cash I guess. Maybe I'll join Terran in the craftin' stuff.”

After having heard what most of his group wanted to do, Revar still seemed to struggle with his choice.

“My country is pretty hostile to its neighbors. I'll need something I can fight with, but I'm definitely not good enough for something as fancy as ice magic. I think I'll just go with the macro-acceleration, macro-deceleration, and gravity manipulation.”

Nathan face lightened up. “Oh, gravity manipulation, I completely forgot about that. That'll be my third one.”

“I wonder how the lectures are held.“ Arlina said.

“We'll see tomorrow mornin' I'd say.”

“Yeah, that's true.” She agreed.

On their ways back to Apprentice Village, Alina, Revar, and Terran had a lively discussion about the speech of Dean Roheim, while Nathan and Thomas only listened, nodding from time to time. Due to the late time, the group parted ways soon, after reaching the small town.

Nathan planned to go to sleep right after showering, but his mind was occupied by the content of the presentations from earlier. They only gave rather broad information about their subjects, with the reasoning, that the students had to learn about general magic theory first before they would understand the details. From what Nathan could understand, micro-acceleration covered the type of patterns, that increased the movement speed and direction of tiny particles, that were supposed to be the basis for all matter. Gravity manipulation was a somewhat elusive term, but the Magister said, that one of its uses was to increase and decrease the weight of objects or levitating them, which Nathan found very practical. Light transformation caught his interest because the Magister described different kinds of light, that could be created or detected with this magic. Not just the illumination spell he already knew, but also something like seeing in the dark or seeing invisible colors and objects. While he lay in bed dozens of ideas came to his mind, how he could use these spells in his fights against his mysterious enemies, until he fell asleep.

The screeching of hundreds of black-robed humans resonated in Nathan's mind. He had to do something. Fast! Far below him was the barren earth, where once Scuma Castle stood. It was obliterated by the three airships, which now hid somewhere in the thick clouds. Nathan raised his hands. Six of his ten rings evaporated, as he channeled every speck of mana he could muster into an enormous circuit, that surrounded him like a sphere. Tiny spiral patterns formed on the surface, connecting and intertwining. When the last pattern was linked, the sphere flared up. A blazing radiance brightened the moonless night. Then, it flashed. Once. Twice. After the third flash, white blades of light erupted from its surface, cutting through the black figures, like a hot knife through snow. A rain of limbs and blood rained from the sky, and the screeching stopped. The mana circuit dissipated, revealing an exhausted Nathan. But he still had something to do. Another ring disintegrated to form a small circuit under Nathan's feet. In the next second, his body penetrated the dense cloud cover. There they were. Three dull black monstrosities, hovering in the air, barely visible in the pale moonlight. Nathan closed his eyes. He was determined to end it once and for all. One after the other, each of his garments, accessories, and items transformed into a stream of pure mana. A gigantic circuit, stretching hundreds of meters across the sky, formed above Nathan and the airships. With a whisper, Nathan said a single word.

“Fall!”

In that instant, his body felt a thousand tons heavier, and together with the airships, he plummeted towards the ground.

Nathan jolted awake. Within seconds, the details of his nightmare blurred in his memory, leaving behind an unpleasant feeling of loss. Breathing heavily, he looked around. He was still in his room, illuminated by the bright light of the full moon, shining through the window. Guessing from its position on the sky, it was still deep in the night, but he felt wide awake. Without a clear thought, he sat on the bed, staring out of the window. In the past, he loved the calm nights, when he had time for his thoughts and fantasies. Now, every thought he had brought only pain and sorrow. Over and over again, his thoughts wandered back to the terrible night. Nathan shook his head. He needed to distract himself. Buried in thought he started to gather the mana surrounding him in a small sphere, in front of his chest. The mana formed rough patterns of the oven circuit, which shortly after vanished without effect. He focused his mind on the scattering mana, when he realized, that its density was a lot higher than in the Kingdom of Aruth. He had a daring thought. His eyes focused on his hand, while he willed as much mana as he could to gather into a sphere above the index finger of his right hand. All the mana from an area of two meters around him concentrated on his fingertip. With slow but steady movements, he drew the illumination spell pattern. He didn't dare to hope, but as soon as he finished, it really happened. A barely visible glow emerged in the center of the circuit. Nathan stared at the light. His sister was right. Every book he read agreed with her. No magician could influence the mana of a large enough region, to form actual working circuits. Yet, there it was.

He rubbed his eyes with the left hand, to make sure they didn't deceive him. But while the glow grew weaker, it was still visible until the mana was completely used up or diffused in the air. The light vanished. He had to try again! Once more he wanted to gather the mana around him. But when he concentrated on the mana, he saw that the region around him had a noticeable smaller mana density, that slowly increased as the mana from the rest of the room replenished it.

He stood up and moved into the corner for magical experiments, sat down, and repeated the procedure. Again, a very weak light hovered over his finger. Following a spontaneous idea, he tried to move the mana circuit away from his fingertip. In the first few moments, it looked successful, but then the pattern became shacky. More and more mana escaped the circuit, and after moving it just a hands width, the circuit completely dissolved.

“Phew. Wow. That's incredible!”

Afterwards, he experimented with it in the other corners of his room, always getting similar results. A while later he stopped. He still remembered the splitting headaches he had a few days earlier. And this wasn't something he needed to repeat, he felt pretty tired already. He crawled back into his bed and fell asleep within minutes of closing his eyes.