Kyle would be turning 8 years old in just one more month, and then he would be able to officially use magic. Kyle already knew plenty of magic, so when his birthday came around he was going to use the library membership he had to get the magic books from the library and take them home.

Elena could not read, Dave was pretty bad at it, Fred was not that great at it. For that household, Kyle would be the only one who knew what the book said. His plan was to take the book home, opening it up while Elena was near and exclaim "Wow, this book has so much about magic, I don't think I even need to go to mage school to learn more spells!" and then Elena would stop her attempts to convince him to go to mage school.

In the one month preceding his birthday, Kyle spent most of the time with Claire and Dave like in the old days. Kyle got fed up with not being able to play outside, so he used the wind spell [Blade] and cut the grass. That was just about the end of the uses for the spell [Blade] though.

With the grass out of the way, the 3 of them were able to play in the back yard. Sometimes someone would come from one of the other houses and yell at them while they got water from the well, but once they went inside the kids continued.

Even though Kyle would not be seeing Ms. Helen anymore, she was not the one he missed the most.

"Happy 8th birthday Kyle!" For his second birthday party, everyone was there again. Kyle's father mother and brother, Paul Kathy and Claire. For the most exciting part though...

'Fake cake! Die you impostor!' Elena had gotten another loaf of bread and called it a cake. Kyle was grateful because he had only eaten this on one other occasion in the last 8 years, but he wanted people to call it bread.

Kyle blew out the single candle that was stuck into the bread, and Elena took it out and placed it back into it's holder on the table. The candle was only taken out for this one occasion, and otherwise it lit the room at night.

"Now open my present!" Claire yelled while she held out a cloth to Kyle. The cloth was plain and white, and it could not have held anything larger than a pebble in it with the way it was crumbled up.

"I wonder what it is?" Kyle said as he took the cloth. Kyle slowly unraveled the cloth while looking at Claire as if he really wondered what it was. In side the cloth was... a string. It was a piece of string tied back onto it'self, about 20 inches long and red in color.

"It's so that if you ever leave you can find your way back to me." Claire was still a child, and believed in such things that her friends at school told her.

"Well I'll just have to always have it with me then." Kyle said as he put the red string around his neck. It was not tight on him, and if anything, it was too big.

'This might make her not need me around all the time.' Kyle hoped, but he was not going to rely on it.

"Open mine next!" Dave presented another cloth, but this time it was longer and had something hard in it. Kyle took it into his hand and felt it. It was slightly bendy.

"What's this Dave?" Kyle asked as he bent it a little.

"Don't bend it, just open it and look!" Dave wanted Kyle to hurry because he had already opened Claire's gift so quickly. Kyle opened the cloth and inside of it was a stick. It was just a long and straight, brown stick with most of the bark still on it.

"It's a magic wand!" Dave was proud at getting the stick for Kyle, but it was definitely not a magic wand. Magic wands were seldom used by mages in Kyle's first life because of how rare good ones were.

A wand could come from two sources. One, the bone of a monster, and two, ancient trees. Monster bones were plentiful, but many were not the right length to hold or were too difficult to shape. Ancient trees needed to have grown for 10,000 years before being classified as ancient. Only after 10,000 years would the wood be able to be used to create magic wands from.

Good wands came from ancient trees and easily broke if dropped. The broken was was then impossible to put back together, and if two mages with ancient tree wands battled, one wand was usually destroyed.

What Dave had though, was an ordinary stick.

"Oh cool Dave!" Kyle held the stick in his hand and slashed it at the wall.

"Pew, pow, fush!" Kyle made sounds with his mouth as he swung the stick, and Elena was a little relieved at him not actually using magic.

By this time, Fred and Paul of course knew about Kyle knowing magic and teaching Claire. Fred and Paul worked with the guards and were obligated to report underage magic, but since Claire also used magic if Paul reported Kyle, Fred would be able to report Claire. They had no reason to betray each other.

"And this is your final gift Kyle." Fred had a small chest in one hand and placed it one the table. It rattled a little bit when he placed it down, and it probably had something expensive in it. This worried Kyle because he knew the family did not have much money.

"Oooh, I wonder..." Kyle said and then opened the chest. Inside of it was 20 bronze coins, equivalent to 2,000 coins, or two silver coins.

"What is this for?" Kyle knew money was tight, and 2,000 coins was food for over a month.

"That is to get you and Elena to Vegaville to get your magic card." Fred said, closing the lid to the chest when Kyle took his hand off it.

"Yep, Dave will stay with us during the day so that the two of you can go to Vegaville for 2 days and get your magic card." Kathy was ready to watch Dave so that Elena would not have to worry about him while she was in a different city.

"I already have the plans made to get there, and we leave in 3 days." Elena made the plans a while ago to travel with a group of merchants who go from Thornberry to Vegaville on the 15th of every month. After a few days in Vegaville, the merchants would come back to Thornberry.

'What's a magic card?' Kyle heard the last thing Fred and Kathy said, but was confused. He had never heard of a magic card before, so it was be a recent thing.

"It's what ever mage needs to have so that they can practice magic outside their home or for a business." Paul spoke about it like it was common knowledge. Elena was not sure what the magic card was used for, just that Kyle would need one if he wanted to use magic when not at home.

'That's stupid. Not only can kids not learn magic until they turn 8 years old, they need to get some card to use it when not home.' Kyle did not like the system that was in place. It might have been effective at one time and for a certain group of people, but the way it was currently set up was a detriment to the creation of powerful mages.

"Wait, Kyle is leaving?" Claire was not happy with this turn of events, and after she figured out that Kyle going to Vegaville meant leaving her, she became upset.

"It's okay Claire, I have the red string right?" Kyle said while pulling on the red string around his neck. It was a thin string, so he could not pull it too much or it would break.

"Um... if you wear it all the time, then it's fine." Claire would be happy with Kyle just wearing the red string, so with that remark from her, Kyle got her permission to go to Vegaville.