When Nathan woke up in the morning he felt a slight, dull pain in his head, but in no way comparable to what he had experienced four days earlier. He looked out of the window at the nearest clocktower. Seeing that he still had nearly an hour before his first lecture started, he left his room and went downstairs to shower and get some food. Thomas already stood in the kitchen, munching on a piece of dried up apple.

"Mornin' Nathan. Ye want some of the apples?”

“Yeah, why not. Where did you get them?”

“Ricky made them for me. One of the second-years 'pstairs.” He happily took another piece.

“He dried them with some combination of fire 'nd wind magic, quite the sight.”

Nathan tasted one of the apple slices. It was surprisingly good, it lost none of its fruity sweet taste during the drying process.

“Pretty good, they should sell rather well, if you aim for that.”

“I know, right? That's what I was thinkin'.”

A few minutes later, Terran also arrived and they went up to the castle. In the first two weeks, only the mandatory lectures were held, and on this particular day, they had a single long lecture in magic theory. Nathan was excited for it. Finally, after experimenting by himself all the time, he would have something he could refer to. The lecture was held in one of the bigger halls, not far from a side entry into the castle. Nathan guessed, that more than a thousand students would comfortably fit in, but on this morning, only the 91 new students gathered in the hall. When the lecture was about to begin, a loud gong could be heard echoing through the halls and corridors of the castle. A small, corpulent man, with similar greenish hair as Alina, entered the hall and walked up to the stage.

“A relative?” Terran whispered jokingly.

“Probably also a native of Arkanda, we have quite a lot of people with that green tint.”

“Ah, ok. Didn't know that.”

“Good morning students.” The Magister had a surprisingly deep voice. “My name is Elrond Wonderpond, I will teach you in the basics of magic theory for the next two years.”

“But before we start, I want to get to know you a little better. How many of you have used a magic tool before? Not those, which are activated by pouring mana essence, no, real tools, where you have to move the mana yourself. Just raise your hands please.”

Nearly everyone raised his or her hand.

“Great, on that occasion, can anyone tell me what the significant difference between both types of magic tools is?”

From one of the front seats, the voice of Erina resounded, “The former need to be horizontal set up, because the mana essence wouldn't flow properly otherwise, while the latter ones can be carved in any direction.”

“Very good, exactly right. Magister Garus Redbeck will teach you the details of that. What's important for us, is that the ability to move mana is required to properly cast spells. Did anyone of you already cast a spell?”

Nathan looked at the other students, he didn't want to be the only one to stick out. When he saw, that a few other students also had cast magic before, he raised his hand.

“Five? That's actually a good ratio! Which kind of spells?”

He pointed at each one of the five students successively.

“Water accumulation.”

“I can also cast water accumulation.”

“I learned heating.”

“Water accumulation”

“Illumination”

“Water accumulation, heating, and illumination. These are some of the most useful spells for everyday life.”

Magister Wonderpond turned around to the chalkboard, that covered nearly the whole wall in the back of the stage, and started to draw the mana circuits for all three spells. Nathan was intrigued, while he already knew the circuit for water accumulation, he never saw the heating one. He copied the patterns as accurate as he could on his paper.

“These are the mana circuits for all three spells. They alone, however, are not enough to cast the spell. Be it with a magic tool or by yourself. The important thing, which actually is responsible for the spell, is the movement of mana. The mana circuits themselves only serve to define the direction, in which the mana is moving.”

The Magister drew some arrows on the patterns.

“Each type of movement, including expansion and compression, has its own effects on our world. That's why for spell-casting its important to get everything right. Else you might trigger an unwanted effect. Every year we have cases of students hurt in accidents, like burning their hands with heating magic, just because they didn't get the angles right. So please be extra careful when you experiment with new spells.” He had a stern expression when he said that.

“Who can tell me another reason why a clean shape is important?” He looked around... “No one?”

After seeing no student raise his hand after a few seconds, he continued himself.

“It's mana efficiency. To cast a spell, you extract magic from any object that contains it, be it mana ore, as found in crystals, metals and some woods, or mana essence as found in water. Whenever you move mana along the circuit, some of it will dissipate without taking effect, we call this mana breath. It is omnipresent in the air but has a far to low density, to be used with even the best patterns. The amount of mana that evaporates, depends directly on the quality of your patterns. Casting magic with a badly drawn circuit will take magnitudes more mana for a worse effect than a decently executed one. This is one of the main limitations for magicians, that can only be overcome through training, training, training!”

Magister Wonderpond took a small mana crystal in each of his hands. Within an instant, over his left hand hovered a tiny wisp of flame, while his right hand held a bright, blazing fire.

“I'm using the same mana circuit for both spells. The one in my left hand is drawn poorly and takes a lot more mana than the one on my right hand.”

A student raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“You said there were accidents with burnt hands, why aren't you hurt by those flames?”

“Very good question, that is because I cast a vertical circuit with two different patterns above each other. The lower pattern is a cooling pattern to protect my hand, while the upper pattern creates a high temperature.”

The flames in his hands vanished. Walking up and down he continued.

“So the basis of all spell casting is the pattern. It is very hard to create a perfect pattern with an untrained mind, that's why many people will use some form of help. The most basic help are magic tools, where the caster only needs to accelerate the mana through the carvings. I wouldn't even call it real magic, but the tool magicians themselves tend to disagree with my opinion. A more advanced way of self-help is drawing with a staff in the ground or tracing the circuit with a wand in the air while channeling the mana. The most powerful magicians, however, just need to imagine the circuits in their mind to channel the mana along a perfect pattern. That should be your goal!”

“OK. Now, what do we do in magic theory? In the coming two weeks I will fist introduce you to all the different types of patterns, so you can make an educated decision about which lectures you want to attend. Afterward, we will learn how to increase the mana efficiency of your patterns, how to link different types of patterns together, and the most common forms of vertical patterns stacking. By the end of your two years, everyone should be able to somewhat proficiently cast combination spells with three different types of patterns.”

“Any questions so far?”

Again, no one raised his hand.

“You know, most of the information I present can also be learned from books. The most valuable part of lectures is to ask questions. If you don't use this chance then don't regret it later.”

Wonderpond shook his head when still no one asked a single question.

“Alright, we're done with the introduction then. Let's start with the real lecture. Beginning with the letter 'A', Acceleration. As some other spells, acceleration is divided into micro and macro. Micro-acceleration individually increases the speed of the small particles, which are the foundation of our world, in a specific direction. In contrast to macro-acceleration, which is used to accelerate a large amount of those particles together, micro-acceleration is more versatile, but therefor a lot more complex and mana intensive...”

Magister Wonderpond went on with describing the effects, advantages, and disadvantages of different spell patterns, how they were commonly used and which patterns would make a great combination. By the end of the day, they reached the letter 'F', talking about fire control patterns.

“That was an amazing lecture!” Nathan was delighted.

“What exactly was so great about it? He just explained some general stuff and didn't teach us anything.” Terran answered.

“Not anything? I know now why my illumination spell was so dim, and I-”

“Right, what was that about? I never knew you already know a spell.”

“Well... I didn't want to stand out, sorry for not telling you guys.”

“Show it to us.” Alina eagerly said.

“I can't, I don't have any mana stuff.”

“No problem,” Terran grinned and handed him a small marble, “I got you covered. Prove, that you're not just a braggart.”

Nathan looked at the marble, it was the size of a small bird's egg and had the color and texture of wood.

“Wow, where did you get this? Doesn't look like some low-quality rabble.”

Terran smirked. “My father gave me a few of those before I departed, he hoped I'd train more if he gave me mana items.”

Revar came closer to Nathan and inspected the marble.

“That's rosewood I think, it's a tree that grows near springs with high amounts of mana essence in it and stores mana while growing.” He said.

“Can be, I didn't listen to what he said when he gave them to me.”

“It's a present from your father, I can't use them. Take them back.”

“Don't sweat it, I want to see your magic. Just think of it as teaching me the illumination spell.”

Nathan looked at the marble in his hand. Then he closed his hand to a fist and pointed the index finger into the air. He drew a small amount of mana from the rosewood, accumulated it at his fingertip and began to draw the illumination spell. Due to the practice, he had during the night, it wasn't very hard for him to get the shape right. It was far from perfect, but when he drew the final line, a ball of light, about as bright as candlelight, hovered over his finger.

“Wow, you really could do it!” The other four were astonished.

Slightly insulted Nathan grumbled. “Why would you even think I lied?”

“We didn't, we didn't.” Terran laughed it off. “Guess that's just what I'd expect from you. Keep the marble as compensation.”

Nathan didn't say no to that, and the rosewood marble instantly vanished in his clothing.

“Ye did that drawin' with the fingers thin', can ye do it without?” Thomas asked curiously.

“I tried it a few times before, but it didn't work. Maybe I'll be able to, later.”

Terran patted his back. “If not you, who then? I'll rely on you for my studies, best friend.”

“I see no reason to refuse using your mana marbles.” Nathan jeered.

A little bit later, the little group sat around the table of the meeting room in Alina's building. Nathan had just explained the process of gathering mana into a sphere above their fingers to them. Alina succeeded in casting a hazy light on her fourth try, while the Revar and Terran only played around with the sphere, not planning to learn light magic. Thomas tried it a few times and decided his time was better spent raiding the kitchen.

“Hey Nathan, you drew a picture of that heating circuit, right?” Revar asked, after becoming bored a bit.

“Yes, why?”

“Give it to me for a bit, would you?”

“Sure.” Nathan got his notebook and gave it to him.

Revar took out some paper and copied the circuit. Then he held it in front of his face and stared at the lines. Aside from Revar, only Nathan could see how a stream of mana flowed out from his sleeve, condensing into a reflection of the drawing. After the circuit was completed, the mana started to move along the pattern, as the Magister drew it on the chalkboard.

Terran and Alina were startled when they felt a warm breeze coming from the paper.

“Woah, did you just manage to cast the heat spell on your first try? What the … !” Terran grimaced.

Without hiding his elation Revar answered, “It's actually quite easy if you have it drawn somewhere, just need to remember how to move the mana.”

“Knowing how to move it and being able to really move it are two different things.” Terran exclaimed.

“My father had to try at least a dozen times to control the mana properly when he learned magic spells by tracing pictures. You must have monstrous mana control.”

“Yeah, the recruiter from the school told me my control is pretty good when he discussed the stipend with my parents.”

Now it was Nathan's turn to be surprised.

“You got a stipend? I was recruited too, but have to pay tuition.”

Alina enlightened him, “The school has different kinds of recruitment, especially talented students get a scholarship, above-average talented students can join for free but have to pay tuition, and average students can join, but have to pay a fee to do so. And of course the tuition as well.”

“So you guys all have a stipend?” Nathan asked.

“No, I don't have one either, I count to those above-average ones.” She answered.

“Me too. Guess that makes Revar the most talented guy in our group.” A hint of envy could be heard in Terran's voice.

“I got a stipend too, ye know?” Thomas shouted from the wall.

Terran blankly stared towards the kitchen, before wordlessly continuing to play with the mana sphere.