Monday, 9 am, 3rd cycle. Classroom.

Everyone was anxiously looking around. Today, we would show miss Ana how much we had progressed in using concepts.

Miss Darksky entered the classroom while looking at the excited students. They were eager to show how much they had learned. I, for a matter, also wanted to know if my evolution was average or not.

Talent matters when we talk about understanding concepts and although hard work could make up for it, it was harder to advance.

Everyone in this class, even if we were born in the countryside, had high-grade affinity with their concepts at least. To be accepted in this prestigious school, the student should at least posses a basic affinity, low-grade in other words.

Many rich students had high-grade mana and low-grade affinity. They were pretty talented in mana cultivation but had a hard time in getting enlightenment on concepts.

And my class had an easy time comprehending the concepts, but to truly embark on the path of cultivation was hard. To get to the second tier, we would have to work a hundred times what they would have.

We arrived at a training hall. Miss Darksky organized us in lines, and we began to show what we learned in these last few months.

Imir saw that nobody wanted to take the initiative to go first and stepped forward. Arriving in front of Miss Darksky, she bowed to her and began to demonstrate her concepts.

She had a good affinity for the concept of water. She released her mana and used the water concept to transform it, creating spheres of water around her. The spheres rotated for a moment and began to spin like drills. Imir began to sweat because of the great effort, and she turned toward one of the training dummies and attacked it with her water drills.

After a moment, the dummy was full of small holes, and a small smile appeared on the exhausted face of Imir.

I looked at her and saw that she was truly exhausted. The attack was powerful, but her mana was so small that she could only do it one time.

It looked like her comprehension of the water concept was leaning toward the destructive force of water…. I thought about what I have learned and remembered that my understand was more about nurturing and how water was essential to life.

Imir used the concept of water as her main concept, while I used it in a complementary form. My understanding only helped my own concept of wood. Even the books that I read about only talked about one part of the concept of water.

Just like many things in the world, concepts had many facets. The destructive power was one side, and the nurturing side was another.

I looked around and saw that no one wanted to go after her, so I stepped forward and stood before the training dummy.

I concentrated the little mana that I had and used my understanding of the concept of wood to make some branches of energy. I extended my hand and the branches wrapped the dummy, and slowly penetrated it with some thorns while squeezing it.

After the branches disappeared, the dummy was bent and full of holes. I nodded after seeing that my concept could do some good damage, and returned to the back.

I was truly exhausted after making that attack. My chest was heaving, and my face was pale. This was one of the things that the class had to work on. Getting our mana reserves to a good enough state.

The students stepped forward and began to show their concepts one after the other. The of this class were truly talented but were all one-time cannons.

Using your concept was a good thing, but only using one time and being exhausted was not.

After everyone in the class demonstrated their progress, Miss Darksky nodded her head and said: “That’s pretty good, but not good enough.” She looked around at the students. “Let me ask you a simple question. After attacking only once, what will you do? stand there and wait to die? The students from other classes don’t have the talent in concepts like you do, but at least they can hold longer in a fight.”

Her words reached the class and smashed our pride like a hammer. “Train harder, and meditate more. From now on, great things are expected from you guys.”

After saying this, she began to say some tips about how to use our mana with more efficiency and did some exercises that would help us in managing it.

One of the exercises was to form a sphere of mana, and rotate it to the right, and suddenly trying to reverse the direction to where it was spinning.

The exercise looked simple, but each time the mana sphere stopped abruptly, the mana dispersed due to our lack of control. We did the exercise until the end of the class, and she helped us with mastering it faster.

The months passed quickly, and we followed the routine. I studied about runes, alchemy, biology, literature, history, and mana control. The subjects were diverse but would serve as the base for the following years.

I enjoyed studying about runes and alchemy the most. Using everything in the world to create a potion that could kill or make a big explosion was every men dream.

The subjects of biology, literature, and history were passable. Although I didn’t enjoy studying them, I still had to work hard.

One month after beginning to train in mana control, Miss Darksky paired us up, and we began to train with each other while using our concepts to fight.

My pair was Imir. She looked like a pretty girl, but she could use the soft concept of water to cut better than a blade or to smash someone harder than a club.

Imir was truly a genius in fighting and controlling mana. She could wield mana with such finesse that I was speechless at her talent. She was the first one to master the first exercise that Miss Darksky thought us, and she began to learn more advanced ones ahead of the class.

The days quickly passed. My understands of the concept of wood was slowly advancing. I had gotten the water and earth concepts to the mortal level. But training with the concept of life was much harder.

I understood that life was one of the hardest concepts to understand. Although it was all around us, we couldn’t grasp it properly.

Life was in everything, and all depended on it. However, how could I truly understand it? I could see earth and water, and even feel them. But life was different.

It was already June, two months quickly passed. I was seated in my chair and studying hard about alchemy while doing some mana control exercise with my other hand.

Miss Ana said something that made the whole class focus on control. The other students had a bigger mana reserve, and the affinity couldn’t make such a big difference in one year. So, the only way to defeat the other classes was to have better control of your mana!

The smaller the mana, the easier it was to control. An example would be, is it easier to control a horse or to guide a herd?

Controlling smaller quantities was always easier. If we took our time doing the exercises and improving both the quantity and the control we had over mana, our advantage would soar.

I finished the chapter about reagents and closed the book. I straightened my clothes and headed toward the dining hall. I could see many students coming and going through the streets, but most of them ignored me and kept walking.

The seniors didn’t care about our existence. however, the same was not true with the students from the same year as us.

Arriving near the dining hall, I heard a noise coming from the garden near it. I looked around and saw that most of the students were seated and eating, segregated in groups like always.

I walked toward the noise and saw an interesting scene.

A young man with an aquiline nose, blond hair, and gray eyes were looking directly at Imir while being surrounded by a group. He said. “So you’re the famous prodigy of the shabby class… not so bad.”

Even though she was surrounded and being intimidated by these thugs, she stood her ground and answered. “What do you want? I’ll not waste my precious time with scum.” With a somber look in her eyes.

The boy’s face contorted and he said. “Pretty fierce, aren’t you? Here is the deal. You stay out of m way and out of the competition, and you can have a good life at the college. I can even show some kindness to a pretty girl… however, defy me and you’ll suffer consequences.”

Imir smirked and said. “Ohh, so the nobles are scared of the scum? very funny.” She looked around at the people surrounding her and said. “You’re so scared that you don’t even have the courage to confront me on your own. What courage do you have!”

A hateful look appeared in the boy's eyes and he said. “Even though we can’t use mana to attack you, as per the rules, the same does not apply to our fists.” He said this and punched her in the gut.

Imir bent forward and she opened her mouth while trying to breathe for air.

“Let’s give her a lesson boys, but don’t hit her pretty face. I don’t want to damage her pretty looks.” He said while looking down at her.

The other boys rolled their sleeves and stepped forward to assault her.

I looked at what was about to happen and made up my mind to stop this madness. These were young children that only knew how to depend on their parents. I couldn’t only look and do nothing.

“HEY, I CALLED THE TEACHERS! THEY ARE COMING.” I shouted while approaching them. The boys fearfully looked around and began to disperse after hearing what I said.

Although they were kids, I was also one right now. Even if I knew how to fight with my fists, I could do nothing against so many people, the best option that I had was to use my wits to get the girl out of this situation.

The leader looked hatefully at Imir and left the place together with his goons.

I walked to Imir and offered my hand. She took it and got on her feet. She kept a calm face and straightened her clothes, taking the dust off.

“Thank you.” She said.

I looked at her eyes and saw that she was trying to keep a calm face, but deep down, she was raging.

“It’s nothing.” I answered. I saw that she needed a friendly shoulder, but I couldn’t offer that to her. “Let’s go to the dining hall.” I gestured for her, and we entered the place.

The supper was silent. Nobody said anything. She was a genius in what she did, too great, and because of that, she was persecuted in the college. I finished my meal first and said to her before I left. “We are the minority here. We don’t have the number nor the money, but we must have the wits.It’s the only thing we can rely on.” I got up and went to my room.

John didn’t look back, because if he did, he could see her clenching teeth and determined face.

***

My room was a mess. Many papers were over the table. My revisions about runes and formations, and many researches about alchemy.

The year passed quickly. I finished the spinning exercise, the division exercise and the combination of both. The division exercise was basically dividing you mana into as many parts as you could, and controlling them, to not let them disperse. It was a difficult exercise, but I had already mastered it and took the next step.

The many mana spheres around me were spinning in different directions, they suddenly stopped and began to spin to the other side. Many dispersed, but the majority was still there.

Controlling mana to this level was very, very hard. The only person that completed the exercise and was doing an even more advanced one was Imir. From the day that she was ambushed, she began to practice and act like a machine. She only focused on her studies and even some of her friends in class were not so close anymore.

We were already in November, and the class tournament would happen in two weeks. during this year, some talents appeared in our class. They were Oberon, a boy who had a rare star affinity, Namur, a boy with blue fire affinity, and Lilac, a girl with a rare Light affinity.

Besides me and Imir, these were the students that had shown most talent in the class. All of them had advanced their concepts to the high stage of the mortal realm. and Imir had advanced hers to the peak of the mortal realm. Of course, she was ahead of everyone in many aspects.

During this year, I also had advanced my concept of wood to the high stage of the mortal realm, but I was stuck in here. Both the concepts of water and earth had advanced to the peak of the mortal realm, but the concepts of life was stuck in the high stage.

Something was stopping me from advancing further, nothing that left me behind my peers. I could use the concept of water and earth very well in combat, but nothing compared to my wood one. I specialized in it, and even if I used both of them, I couldn’t even compare to what Imir could do with water.

I had already learned many things about alchemy, runes and formations, however, the comprehensions of the ten primordial concepts were still behind. I had already comprehended three of them to the mortal realm, and there were still seven left.

This was stopping me from progressing in my studies of runes, not that this was a problem. After all, only the students that were 16 years old or 15 in rare cases could have the basic requirements to learn runes.

The laws of space and time were easy for me to understand, just like light and wind. They were on the cust of breaking to the mortal realm, however, the concepts of darkness, death and fire almost had no progression. They were the antithesis of my affinities, and because of that, hard to comprehend.

“It is only a matter of time until I can comprehend them!” I thought with determination.