After the tournament has ended, it was time for final exams. Right now Leo was taking his mana manipulation test for the first time. Till now they were learning how to move mana through their bodies and only this year they moved to waving spells.

To pass the test they were required to cast grade one spell. For a spell to be considered grade one they needed to be released outside of the user body. So making his hands glow or burn them like he did in the past wouldn’t count.

He still remembered the pain, Miss Anna told him to not use fire in the same way as with light but he did it anyway and on his own when he was alone in his room. Fortunately, the damage was low and after use of regeneration gel enchanted with water element there was not even a scar left.

Leo was the last in his class to take the test. Everyone else has already passed.

He stood in front of the class and started gathering mana of light from inside of him. Slowly he focused it on a single point between his hands and a ball of light appeared in there. It was flimsy but it was there.

“Good job Leo. Now use your fire mana.” said Miss Robinson. “Just don’t strain yourself. Take it easy.”

Leo just nodded but he knew it wouldn’t be easy for him. Every time he tried to use his fire mana, light mana seemed to mix in and separating it was a very difficult task.

He thought it may be a problem with his image when he activated his mana but it seemed that he was already used to it and nothing else he could imagine would make his inside pool vibrate how the sun he imagined did.

He closed his eyes and focused. It seemed to go quite good, the fire mana listened to him today. Still, he had days like this before but it always ended in failure.

He did the same as what he did with light mana. Slowly it gathered between his hands. He opened his eyes and noticed there was a small ball of fire between his hands. It was even smaller than the light ball he made but it was there.

Unfortunately, in this moment his concentration broke and the light mana entered the fireball making it collapse and it exploded in his face. His head was covered in a ball of smoke for a second before it dissipated.

“Leo! Are you alright?!” shouted the scared teacher.

Leo tried to say something but all that came out of his mouth was a cough. The teacher went to him to make sure he was okay. After he calmed down a little. He said, “I’m okay, I lost concentration at the last moment and some light mana entered the fireball.”.

“You know you should be more careful with that, enchanting mana has the power to enhance the effect of other spells but without balance, it ends up like that.” Explained the teacher.

Mr. Milles who watched the lesson as homeroom assistant teacher went over to Leo and placed his hand on Leo' head. Mana moved out of the teacher and said: “He is alright, there is nothing to worry about.”

“I’m sorry.” Apologized Leo.

“Don’t worry about it, but you did well at first, I will mark check on your light element for now but next week you need to show me your fire element again. Now go and sit at your desk and rest. If something is wrong say it to me right away.” said miss Anna.

Leo moved back to his desk.

“I’m sure you will get it next time.” Said David to comfort Leo.

Both boys trained together with their mana control from time to time, but while Leo was having problems but David’ wind gust was already reaching grade two spell in output power.

“It was my best try till now.” said Leo.

“Don’t worry about it too much, I’m sure you will get it. On the other side, my parents said that they will let me join the combat class next year! I will train hard and make sure to catch up. I hope we will be able to spar together!” said David excited.

Leo looked at him with wide eyes and smiled at his friend. “Yes! I can’t wait. But don’t expect me to go easy on you.”

“I wouldn’t take it any other way!” Both boys smiled and talked excitedly what weapon would David use.

“Where are Mary and Max?” suddenly asked their homeroom teacher.

Now that Leo looked around the class he could see both of them. Strange he was sure he saw Mary before taking his test.

“I will go look for them.” said Milles and walk out of the classroom.

After the day of the tournament, Leo didn’t get to speak too much with Mary, she seemed to be avoiding conversations even more than usual. The more he thought about it, he got worried. He would make sure to talk to her on the first occasion he got.

The class continued seamlessly with miss Anna explaining what their next school year would look like. She spoke about the 6th-year final exam and how they would be assigned to classes based on it results.

“How will we be segregated?” Asked one of the students.

“It depends on which test you write the best. If your best subject is math you will go to class with extended math profile. Still, we don’t want to force anyone so in the end, you will be able to choose. Just the better you write the test of a subject that you want to take an extended class of, the better your chances are of getting into that class.” Explained the teacher.

“So we may not be in the same class in two years?” said David, worried.

“We can always make sure to pick the same class, but I think I won’t have much of a choice.” Said Leo. Outside of basic combat class, his grades could be considered to be average at best.

“Don’t worry I will make sure to pick the class you will go to.” Said David with a smile. His grades were quite good compared to Leo.

Suddenly out from nowhere the door to the classroom was smashed down. Everyone watched the occurrence with a silence not knowing what was going on.

A big furry head poked up out from the remnants of the door, for a second Leo thought it was a dog head but it was too big to be one.

Then the whole body came out. It was a big black wolf with red flashy eyes. Just in hight alone, it was bigger than Leo. The wolf had blood on its face.

In horror miss Anna didn’t know how to react and started gathering mana to release a spell but before she could do anything the wolf rammed her into the wall and she lost consciousness.

All of the kids looked at the occurrence in horror, some even started to scream and cry for help.

“Shut up!” shouted someone. It was a woman wearing a black robe, she was over six feet eight in hight. Because of a hood covering her head, it was hard to see her’s face. One thing could be told even trough the hood, she was an elf!

Elves usually hated mingling with humans so most of them stayed in their forest territories on different continent simply named the “Forest” as it was just one big forest. Because of their natural born nature mana that was impossible for a human to gain, it was a ground where they always had an advantage.

Everyone stared at her, scared. “Now each of you will listen to me or else I will kill you!”

One of the girls in the class started crying again.

“I said shut up!” The elf walked over to the girl and smashed her head on the desk, making her lose consciousness, bleed was leaking out of her forehead. Leo could just stare at the elf, there was a smile on her face.

The class fell into silence. “Now that you are nice and silent, let’s talk. All I want you to do you is to sit here until our boss calls your parents and they pay for your release.”

Then she looked at the teacher. “He didn’t say anything about the staff. So it should be alright, right? One less human to take care off.” The wolf moved to Miss Anna as if responding to the will of the elf.

Leo without thinking did what his body wanted to do, despite fully knowing it was the worst thing he could do. He put on his necklace he always had with him and took out his axe out of a bag he carried it in. He asked his parents for one so he could also train back at home.

He jumped at the wolf and used his full force to attack the wolf with the weapon on a shoulder.

It surprised everyone and he landed the blow on the target. Leo smiled for a second but then looked at the wolf. It didn’t even as much as stager from the blow. Just looked annoyed at him.

“Stupid human kid!” shouted the elf. Then before the boy could react the wolf attacked him with a frontal paw, pushing him back and making him fall to the floor.

The cross only flashed once before the light died down. Leo’ body was in pain. It was the first time anything got past the barrier. Still, it seemed that the barrier took the worst of the damage.

Leo tried to pick himself up but before he could he was smacked by the wolf and hit the wall at the front of the classroom. This time it hurt much more than before.

“This is what you get for not listening!” shouted the elf.

The wolf this time jumped at the boy with its mouth wide open and claws out. Leo was scared, he couldn’t move but he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to lose.

Suddenly as if remembering something his mana surged through him, without knowing why he now had the energy to move, he did his best to jump away from the wolf but still his shoulder got cut by a claw of the wolf.

Leo didn’t feel pain, he stood up, his body was shining and his skin was red. It was hot but despite the steam coming out of him but somehow he didn’t feel discomfort.

The elf looked shocked. “Fast, finish him!” The wolf jumped again, but something got in its eyes. There was strong gust of wind coming from a side. Leo looked in the direction and noticed his friend, David was standing with tears in his eyes, his hands outstretched.

Leo wouldn’t waste the chance his friend gave him. He jumped at the wolf and attacked with his axe again. This time it did something, the wolf head was pushed into the ground and it yelped but his steelwood axe broke.

Without any other weapon Leo jumped at the head and started pummeling it with his bare hands. After fir hit there was blood started coming out of his knuckles but he couldn’t feel the pain so he continued. After the fifth hit, he broke the wolf skull and smashed its brain making it together with blood splash all around him

The elf screamed, holding his head and blood started coming out of his nostrils and eyes. Afterwards she fell to the ground, unconscious.

Leo relaxed and with it came the pain. His whole body hurt, there were burn marks all over his body. Still, his body seemed to heal fast and the pain subsided a little. He didn’t understand anything but he could stand up, he was tired.

“Are you alright!?” David jumped to Leo. Worried about him not caring that they were standing in blood.

“Yes… I think.” The blood covered boy answered slowly.

David hugged him. “I was scared.”

“Yeah, me too…” said Leo patting his friend on the back.

The rest of the class was still in shock at what the hell happened.

“Thanks…” said Leo. David just looked at him. “For the help, I would have died without you.”

David just looked embarrassed. “I didn’t do anything great, still how did you get so strong?!”

“I don’t know.” Answered the blond haired boy. “We should go and find Mr. Milles. We need an adult help.”

“I will go with you.” said the black haired boy.

Leo nodded then walked to the teacher desk and took one of the crosses that were in it and handed it to his friend. Then he turned to the class. “We will look for help. Please look over the class and miss Anne, Alex.” He said to the class president. The boy just nodded still shocked.

Leo and David moved out of the classroom. The corridor was silent with no one in it.

“Which way should we go?” asked David.

“I’m not sure but I think teacher went right. Let’s try this way, just let’s be careful.” said Leo.

Both boys moved slowly as they get to the stairs leading to a higher floor. Infront of the stairs, there were three bodies covered in blood laying on the floor, all of them wore some kind of full body armor that had big holes in it. Something clearly made them.

David yelped scared. “What is going on!?” asked the boy.

“I wish I known.” said Leo, he too was scared, but the rest of the class counted on them. That is what he thought at least.

Looking up the stairs he noticed someone up there. It was Miles sitting on the stairs with his shoulder laying on the wall. He was covered in blood.

Leo run up to him and pressed his hands on the man, they shone but in a second he felt tired again and the light went down. It was as if his batteries run out. It was the first time he felt mana exhaustion.

Miles opened his right eye. Now that Leo looked at him there were bite marks all over his teacher and from his left eye blood was coming out.

“Leo. It’s good to see you…” said the teacher. “I’m kinda tired, so I will go back to sleep now.” Miles eyes closed again.

“No! You can’t do that! I still need to learn a lot from you!” shouted Leo, his eyes welling with tears. Miles opened his eyes for a second time.

“You are a smart boy and you are talented too. You don’t need to worry so much. Just train and tomorrow I will show you some tricks with the axe. Okay?” said Miles.

Leo nodded while crying. “Yes let’s do that! So don’t go to sleep.”

Miles didn’t answer. Leo shook him but no matter what he didn’t move.

He tried to make his hands shine again but he couldn’t no matter how hard he tried. He looked at his teacher one more time.

He shook his eyes. Now instead of the teacher, there was a red-haired woman in front of him, looking around he found himself in some kind of cave.

He couldn’t describe her by anything else than beautiful. She had perfect white skin and mesmerizing green eyes.

“Don’t worry about me. You are amazing, I’m sure you can end this on your own. *Cough* “ The woman coughed some blood.

Now that he looked she was impaled with three knives and a sword was sticking out of her chest.

Kneeling next to her, he screamed despite him not intending to, in what seemed to not be his own voice. “No! You can’t leave me too! I love you!”

“Idiot…” there were tears streaming out of her eyes. “You should have said it sooner.”