Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 7

As soon as I step into my dorm room, leaving Aidan to go to his own, I walk up to the desk with my books in hand, only to pause as I find a nice looking bag in it. One that I remember seeing the older cadets carrying around.

I place my books onto the desk before grabbing the device we used in Magic Circuitry and placing that next to the books. After that, I pick up the bag and begin opening the different compartments out of curiosity.

The bag has two different major sections, one that’s just a large open space to carry something big in, and the other that has some sort of folder with several sections for multiple different classes. It has a few different detachable straps, allowing someone to carry it under one arm, on their back, or even just hooking it to their uniform – which I’m not sure why someone would want to do, considering its size.

That said, it looks a lot more convenient than what I’ve been doing. Also, who’s the one that put these in here? I know they don’t allow non-magicians on campus, so did they just have a second lieutenant go through dropping off bags? Because that sounds a little degrading for how much the Republic hypes up their magicians.

Although, on second thought, I guess after the magician’s ten year time period in the military ends – assuming they don’t die during it of course – they still need jobs. And they might be perfect for a job like that in a magician-only place.

I can kind of understand their rule of not letting non-magicians on campus, but that’s only because of the harsh drafting the Republic does in the first place.

Magicians are automatically sent to the academy after graduating high school, but non-magicians are randomly drafted at some point in their life before they turn forty for a period of two to five years.

Which is… rather sad, to be honest.

The Republic has had a bit of an overpopulation problem for a while, and this is one of the ways to solve it, while also keeping our military dominance in the world. It’s a pretty damn brutal method to do it, and a large majority of the non-magicians in the Republic don’t reach their forties before dying on a brutal battlefield due to some magician’s spell.

My parents were some of the lucky ones who had both managed to survive their time in service; one as a magician, one as a non-magician. Which isn’t a very common pairing.

Although, the other nations of the world aren’t exactly all that much better than ours. Just with a bit less oppression, and a lot less military strength.

But at least all of the nations take care of children pretty well, keeping them out of any danger.

After I finish inspecting the bag, I turn my attention towards the books on my desk before carefully placing each of them into the bag and hanging the bag by its strap on the back of the chair sitting in front of the desk. After that, I grab the device and glance at the door.

It might be best if I checked to see where he was…

I place it into my pocket again before walking up to my door and cracking it open to look through the suite for Aidan, only to find light spilling out from under his room’s door, along with a light snoring coming from the room.

Okay, he’s in his room. Although I didn’t realize that he snored.

Anyways, I should be good to practice.

I just hope backfiring as a fire mage doesn’t make too much noise. Because I know that the backfiring of a spell tends to be dependent on the type of mana that backfired.

Like how Muscles’ arm began to morph into something monstrous due to his enhancement mana.

“Please don’t let there be explosions,” I mutter with a quick look through my pretty much spotless room.

Although I shouldn’t be doing anything too dangerous as long as I follow the commands the instructor told us. Two taps on the crystal means to cancel the magic circle, one tap is to activate the script in it.

Which is rather poorly designed, but I guess it was an S Class magician that designed it. One who probably didn’t care much about the people using it, since they weren’t going to use it themself.

Right as I’m about to put on the device and begin, a thought comes to mind and I begin taking off my uniform’s blazer, along with the armor beneath it and placing them on my bed.

Just in case something goes wrong. After all, it wouldn’t be very hidden if I had a partially damaged or even destroyed uniform when going to my next class tomorrow.

And with that thought, I put the device back onto my wrist just like earlier today before feeling that strange buzzing sensation again. I then step towards the open space of my room in front of my bed and allow my mana to enter the device, once again focusing on the process the device uses as it both creates the circle and moves my mana. After that, I tap the crystal twice, causing the magic circle to begin vanishing, first with each line of the star inside of it, then with the circle on the outside of it shrinking down until it practically vanishes, leaving nothing but my mana behind.

Okay, I didn’t get any of that.

Then again, I guess making a circle on your own is a high course requirement and not a low course one. So it’s not meant to be easy.

With that thought in mind, I repeatedly use the device to make and reverse magic circle after magic circle after magic circle until finally, right as I press the button once and am about to press it again, I hear a knock on the door followed by Aidan’s voice, startling me out of my focused state into missing the button.

“I’m going to be heading out with Sophia to-” I can’t hear whatever else he’s saying as the red magic circle turns glitchy before leaking large amounts of flames that latch right onto my arm beneath it, beginning to burn right through my skin and into the muscles beneath while bits of my fire mana attempt to force its way through the device into the circle, only feeding it more. Meanwhile, my arm automatically begins to rebuild itself from nothing despite the flesh previously making it up no longer existing as it continues to burn, creating a seemingly endless process as I fall to my knees on the floor of my room.

“FUU-” I begin a scream only to cover my mouth with my other hand while chomping down as hard as possible on my tongue to shut myself up, biting part of the way through it in the process before I instinctively hold myself back from going further, creating even more pain for myself as blood instantly floods my mouth, with some of it spilling out both down my throat and from between my lips.

Meanwhile, through the pain, I can vaguely tell that Aidan had stopped talking before he knocks on the door again and asks, “Nathan? You good in there?”

After only a couple of seconds, the blood that had spilled out from the bite on my tongue finishes flying back into my tongue and repairing itself after having rushed either back up my throat or through my lips. I then push through the pain of my still burning arm with tears flowing down my eyes to say as calmly as I can manage, “Yesss,” only to still let some of my pain show in the word.

The fire burns for several more seconds until I finally figure out how to force the device to stop pulling my mana from me, stopping the flow of mana into the messed up magic circle, making it slowly begin to fade from existence without making any more flames.

I let out a loud gasp of air as soon as the flames still on my arm finally finishes burning, leaving my arm to finish repairing itself before I find myself falling onto the floor face first despite not being able to feel tired.

“Well, if you’re sure…” I hear Aidan speaking again from the other side of the door. “I’m gonna go now then. Catch ya later!”

I roll over onto my front as the sensations of the pain continue to echo through my memory for the next several minutes of silence.

Once I’m sure he’s gone, I open my mouth and mutter, “That fucking hurt.”