Wilt was going to be late for his class. He had gotten distracted in the library and was struggling to find the right room. The institute was too large, and the hallways seemed to have absolutely no order to them. At first, he thought it had been ordered well, as it had been easy to find his first class. However, he was certain after his second run-through of the first-year rooms that the schedule had the wrong room listed. It simply wasn’t there.

He had even gone so far as to write down the room numbers he passed, only to realize that the arranged room didn’t exist. Even asking the other students didn’t get him an answer and he was quickly growing frustrated. Finally, he decided to check with a teacher and walked into a room for a class that was not his own. It was his teacher from the first class, so he felt a little more comfortable talking to him.

Unlike his class, the teacher had arrived early for whatever class he was currently teaching. He walked up slowly, and the raised eyebrow of the teacher told Wilt, that the man didn’t know why he was there.

“Um, sir do you know where room 211B is? I can’t seem to find it.”

Wilt felt incredibly uncomfortable bothering a teacher with such an inane question, but he hadn’t seen any other adults in the building. It was strange, but he guessed they didn’t want to further crowd the already full hallways.

The teacher’s familiar laugh caused Wilt to relax a bit. At least, he didn’t seem mad.

“That room is in the second-year section, lad. You should know where that is, and don’t worry about being late. With whom your teacher is, I think you will be fine.”

Wilt nodded gratefully to the man’s words and turned to leave after a quick “thank you”. As he was leaving, he heard the teacher’s voice one more time.

“And don’t forget to check your Ein levels. I’m expecting you to have them by tomorrow.”

As Wilt walked through the halls, he considered why the teacher cared so much. Was something happening tomorrow, or would he go out of his way to find him? Either way, he would make sure to get it checked once his next class ended. Even with his teacher’s insistence that being late wouldn’t matter, Wilt didn’t want to have a bad impression on the teacher.

He barely even considered what he was doing as he entered the second-year section of the building. The institute was designed in a weird way, where the further into the building you got the older the students would be. The first-year classrooms were all by the entrance, and the second years were in the middle of the building. The final section was meant for the third-year students, and it was filled with the most experimental rooms. There was one other section, but that was mostly labs and offices. The colors on the walls shifted between the sections, and he knew he was in the right place when he saw the blue walls. The first-year section was red, and the third year's walls were green.

Finding his room was easy now, as the room order followed the same structure as the first-year section. After a quick flight up some stairs, he had no trouble finding the correct room. Thankfully, the hallways were empty at this point, as most classes had already started.

He was doubly pleased to see that the room he was supposed to go to was still open. Quickly slipping inside, he tried desperately to not make a commotion. He had slid on his feet rather than stepping loudly, though his concern proved unwarranted. The teacher wasn’t even in the room, and he could only see seven students sitting. They looked up to him, but nobody said anything.

Deciding that the second-year students probably knew best, he took a seat near the front. Normally he would choose a seat somewhere in the middle, as that felt the most inconspicuous. However, doing that now would involve walking past several students, and he decided that sitting at the front wouldn’t be such a big deal. Everyone else was idly doing something on their own, so Wilt did the same.

He pulled out one of the books he got from the library. It was a book on the basics of wards. The topic wasn’t usually broached till the end of the first year, but he wanted to be able to finish the vehicle by the end of the month. He didn’t want something as complex as the man from earlier, instead just wanting it to move forward. All he really wanted for speed was it to be faster than a person could run. That should be plenty for his little sister. The book was interesting enough to get him thoroughly distracted.

Being so close to the front had its advantages, and he noticed as the teacher walked in. It was councilor Janette as the schedule had listed, and she was wearing the same uniform she had before. She stopped in front of the table, quickly setting down a stack of papers, before turning. Her eyes seemed to scan the entire room.

“Good, everyone is here. We will get started right away.”

She spoke quickly moving to the board and beginning to write down one of the basic chants. With how the previous teacher had made the chalk write for him, he wondered why the councilor was writing by hand.

“These are the basic chants of light and fire. I believe everyone should know these to some degree. However, how many of you understand the purpose of the chants in truth. Let’s look at light first. The light chant is meant to release your Ein while changing it to produce light. As many of you already know Ein will naturally appear as a light even without taking this step. So, then why do some people use the chant?”

Wilt had already considered this question. In fact, it had been the first thing to come to his mind when he arrived at the library. It only took a quick search of the library to find the answer, but he hesitated to respond. There were second years here, and he didn’t want to look like a fool by answering incorrectly. Thankfully someone else took his place.

“It is because there is a difference between the light created from the chant and one created of pure Ein. For example, the light created from Ein doesn’t have to be bright or have any color.”

The teacher gave a short wave of her hand, stopping the student from going further.

“Very good miss Rudall. Yes, what she said is the most basic reason for the chant, however, it goes beyond just its appearance. There is fundamentally a difference between pure light and Ein. For example, let’s say that I made a solid wall out of Ein. It wouldn’t have the same properties as a stone one I could summon. They are different at the most fundamental level.’

She gave a brief pause at the end of her sentence, before continuing. Wilt was struggling to keep up with his notes, as the teacher was quite fast in her explanation. It was strange like she was giving him exactly enough time to keep up with his notes, but no time to slack.

“The root of each chant can be boiled down to that aspect we want for our Ein to take. In the case of the light chant, it is the light itself. However, for stone we want our Ein to become a different material entirely. Do not misunderstand, however, emulating an element itself is worse than imparting only an aspect of it to your Ein. Does anyone know why?”

This was a question that he did not have the answer for, however, he did have a guess. He was tempted to give his answer but was too slow and someone else beat him to it.

“It is because Ein can go beyond the limitations of what it is trying to emulate. Not to mention that it will remain pure if done that way.”

The voice told Wilt who was speaking, and he didn’t need the teacher’s confirmation.

“Correct again miss Rudall. As we have some first years in the class, I will briefly describe what she refers to as purity. The more of a singular element you chant the more naturally your Ein can take that form. However, this makes it significantly harder to make it take other forms. Most people can mix their Ein with two similar elements. Such as wind and water, or fire and light. People often believe that these people are weaker, as everyone on the council remains unmixed. This however does not imply purity, for that is not actually possible. Any usage of Ein, even in summoning itself will make you stray from the so-called purity. Mine, for example, is heavily skewed towards warding, making me almost incapable of offensive chants. In fact, chants in general are annoying for me to complete. Not impossible, but horribly inefficient.”

She gave a longer pause after this. Most of the class seemed stunned by the implication of weakness from the councilor. The councilors were considered the defenders of their country, and he did not like hearing that one of them was bad at offensive chants.

“I can tell from some of your faces, exactly what you think of my words. Do not think for an instant that I am weak though. If you choose to take my warding class, then you will be able to find out just how dangerous they can be. That is not for now though. We will come back to this topic at a later point, for now, we will work on finding what aspect of the fire chant we want to imbue our Ein with. From the words on the board, which do you think is the most important for our Ein?”

Wilt thought that he knew the answer for this one and spoke before he fully thought it through.

“Heat. Just summoning something like fire won’t be any better than fire itself. It would be much better and more effective if we could just make our Ein hotter.”

The teacher gave him a small smile and a nod. It made his heartbeat quicken a bit, but he managed to keep his emotion from reaching his face.

“Good, mister Wilton. That is correct, and there are two reasons for this. The first is obvious, it is more efficient to simply make something hotter rather than try and make it have all the aspects of fire. The second is because your Ein can become hotter faster than fire, making it far more effective. You may be wondering if there are any advantages to using fire and the simplest answer is that it’s easier. For example, making Ein both hot like fire and spread like it, is difficult and requires a high level of control and understanding. However, just summoning fire and making it hotter will still allow it to spread like normal flames. That is why most who wield Ein as a weapon, simply summon fire.”

Wilt looked a bit confused at that. It sounded like the chanters who simply summoned elements were lazy. The other students must have had similar expressions.

“I can see your doubts, but don’t look down on chanters who are highly specialized. Everyone in the royal family of Larkin, other than the king himself, is completely specialized on a singular element. The third prince is only able to use Ein for manipulating and summoning stone. This devotion is what allows him to make and destroy mountains on a whim. It is also the reason he is known as the world breaker. Even the council is highly specialized, though not to any specific element. Like I am narrowly focused on wards, several of the council have other focuses. I want you all to practice imparting purely heat into your Ein. I will give you the most basic chant to do so and expect to see you succeed by our next class.”

She went on for the remainder of class explaining how to impart heat into our Ein and ended by writing the short chant upon the board. The class had been going great and he loved learning so much about Ein. He was also surprised by how much information about Larkin she had, making several references to specific people among the royal family. They were truly a horrific family. He had copied the chant down, though that seemed unneeded. It was easy to remember. After all, it was only a single word.

Heat.