I was in the training room, staring at five stones. They were all similar in color–a dark black–but all were shaped vastly different. Zeph assured me they all held different elemental attributes and wanted to see which ones I could sense and get correct.

“I had them all assessed and know which ones are which. Just tell me which ones you can sense and which attribute you think they are. I’ll tell you if you guess correctly or not and we can continue from there.” He said, looking at the stones along with me.

“So it’s a test.” I looked up at him in realization, “You still don’t believe me do you?”

“I have my suspicions, but they’re warranted.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess.”

Looking at the stones I could sense what four of them were instantly, but noticed I could sense two more clearly than the others.

Picking up the one I could barely sense first, I tossed it to Zeph, “I can just barely tell but its attribute is fire.”

He looked at the stone for a slight second before responding, “Heh, so you weren't kidding, brat, you can really sense them. Unless you're just good at guessing. Keep going.”

I chose the next weakest one, but this one was nowhere as weak as the fire stone. “This one’s the light attribute.”

“Correct again. You're on a roll, brat. This one makes sense, though, If I recall correctly, your familiar, Rye, said he possessed the light element.”

“Yeah, he did say that,” I said, already grabbing the next stone. This one we already knew I could sense and the cause of this whole test.

“Earth.” I said simply.

“Right again.”

At his confirmation, I looked at the last two stones. One I sensed nothing from and the other I could sense everything. It was surprising, to say the least. If I knew sensing elements meant you could potentially use them, I would have started training with them long ago.

Grabbing the last stone I could sense I held it up, “This one holds the water attribute. I don’t know if this matters or not, but this one, to me, has a stronger presence than the other stones I said earlier.”

“First off, correct. And I'm not entirely sure if that means anything but if I had to guess it means you have more adeptness in that element.” He gestured to the last stone, “What about that one.”

I picked up the stone, “I don’t sense anything from this one.”

Tossing it to Zeph he caught it swiftly. “This one's lightning. It's too bad you couldn't sense this one, really. Some people call it the most powerful offensive natural element.”

“Is that so? That would’ve been useful.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine though. Having the potential to use six of the natural elements is unheard of.” He bent down so he was at eye level with me, “You are the first-ever in history.”

If Zeph was shocked he hid it well. He seemed more excited or relieved than anything else.

“Thank you for your praise. I’ll be sure to try not to change the course of history.” I joked.

Zeph chuckled, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll start to take you seriously when you can keep up with me.” Standing back up, he continued, “Looking back, I can understand why you would have the potential to use these elements. Earth and water could be from Melvin and light from your familiar. The only one that's inexplicable to me is the fire.”

I had thought about this too. I most likely got Earth and water from my father and light from Rye. I did have one idea of why I could sense fire though.

Observing my mana core once more I looked at the bright pearly white flame silently dancing inside that Rye had claimed was his soul.

‘Could this be the reason?’ I thought.

Could I possibly manifest Rye’s soul and use it as a spell? What would that even look like? I laughed to myself at the thoughts.

I couldn’t ask him personally because he was still asleep. The more I thought about Rye, the more my thoughts always seemed to drift to how different he was.

Rye was an oddity and different from other beasts, that itself wasn’t hard to notice. I only knew bits of his past and only got a glimpse of his powerful mother. She was able to open portals with a swipe of her paw. I had never heard Zeph talking about things like that so I knew there was still a lot I didn’t know about his world and most likely a lot the masses didn't know either.

So who to say I can’t manifest this so-called ‘soul flame’? I announced in my mind.

Responding to Zeph's question I shrugged, “The fire attribute might be from Rye as well.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain. It doesn't matter though, I could only sense a minuscule amount of it.”

“If you don’t want to tell me that's fine, as long as y–” Zeph's sentence trailed off as the training room's large doors creaked open.

And running towards us with a huge excited smile on her face was Myla. “I got in!” When she made it to us she gave each of us a warm hug and repeated, “I got in! I got in!”

Besides her clothes looking a little disheveled and her hair frizzy, she looked truly happy.

“That’s amazing Myla.” I said in congratulations.

“Yeah, I knew you’d get in.” Zeph chimed.

“I'm sorry to interrupt I just had to tell you guys.” She said, her voice still littered with excitement. “What were you guys talking about anyway?”

“Oh, we were just talking about how your brother ca--” Zeph's sentence was cut off at my jab to his side and a glare telling him to shut up. “--About how you bother can’t beat me in a fight yet.” he finished.

This was Myla’s moment. I wasn't going to let Zeph ruin it by telling her, that her sibling has the potential to manipulate six natural elements and possibly high magic. I didn’t want her to downplay her own achievements.

“Anyway, Myla, what kind of test did they make you undergo?”

She went on to tell us that, first, she had to display some of her magical capabilities and how she was surprised that she was a little better than most of her peers. She passed this with ease and was even excused from the other rather meticulous tests to weed out the unqualified.

“The second test was more interesting.” She said with a smirk.

By the way, she portrayed the second test I noticed myself feeling a little excited to hear about it. “Oh? What was it?”

“One versus one mock battles.”

I instantly voiced the question that came to mind, “Did you win?”

Her smile only grew larger, “Of course I did. It was a bad matchup for my opponent, though. He was some cocky noble fire mage kid. He was talking a big game before the match saying, ‘Casters can’t wield swords. You have no honor for the way of the sword.’ ” As she mocked the poor boy she stood ramrod straight and her voice turned prim and proper.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the spectacle. I even heard Zeph chuckle from my side.

“Due to that, he let his guard down when I got in close and I ended the match quickly. I was quite surprised to see his mood toward me completely 180 and he started sucking up to me.”

“Well, it's good you’re making friends,” Zeph said. “Did they tell you when classes start?”

“They start in three months.” She said, holding up three fingers, “Though they told me to go back there in two to get my class schedule and dorm room number in advance.”

Zeph rubbed his chin, “Okay, I’ll have Bertly plan for that. Tomorrow Fal and I are going to the castle so I can check in, my vacation has long since been over. Would you like to come with us, Myla?”

“You never mentioned anythi-”

He lifted up his hand to silence me before I could finish, “Last minute plans.”

Myla pondered for a second before answering, “I would like to, but I can’t. I have to study and prepare for my upcoming classes. Even if it is three months away, I don’t want to enter and not even know the basics.”

“What admirable motivations.” Zeph smiled and nudged me, “You should teach your brother a thing or two.”

She laughed, “I'm sure Fal will be fine. Now that I think about it, he's more skilled than most of the kids I ran into.”

“Oh really?” Zeph asked with a brow raised and his voiced mocking surprise.

“I know, I know. It's not that surprising. But I just wanted to give Fal some motivation.” Myla commented.

“Well, thanks.” I joked, “I look forward to beating your classmates and male pursuers to a bloody pulp.”

She stifled a giggle, “Yeah, right.”

We then talked for a few more minutes and I told her about what I did today at the Blockade. She seemed really interested in my stories as Myla had never fought a mana beast before.

Myla crossed her arms, “I wish they had a test like that. It would have been more interesting.”

“We can go to a Blockade again in the future if you would like, Myla” Zeph mentioned, “It shouldn’t interrupt your studies either. In fact, I can be considered a lesson in and of itself.” Zeph paused for a moment and did his usual chin rub–something he only did when he was thinking. “A homeschooled magical combat class.”

Myla smirked and her hands moved to her hips, “Now that doesn't sound too bad. Deal!”

“Well, now that that's settled, I'm sure you had a long day, Myla, and need some rest. Just let Loria know you’re here and she’ll prepare your dinner.”

“Got it.” She said as she turned to head out.

As the training room doors closed behind her Zehp spoke, “I just want to test you on one more thing, then you can go to sleep or do whatever the hell you do in your room.”

Ignoring his snide remarks that he never seemed to let go of, I asked, “And what would that be?”

He looked around at all the terrains in the training room, “I want to see if you can utilize any of the elements as of right now.” He began to walk toward the dry and rocky area of the room, “Let's start with earth and fire.”

When we made it to the rocky area Zehp leaned against one of the giant rocks present, “Alright, brat. Try to conjure fire. Even if it’s the most minuscule amount. If you can’t, that's fine too, we'll just move on to the next element.”

“You’re the boss,” I said as I held out my palm. I pushed pure mana into my hand and tried to imbue it with the flame attribute.

It didn't work out as planned, though. I stood like this for around ten minutes and nothing happened. Even though I could sense the fire attribute mana around us, and knew it was present, I couldn't beckon it to respond to my will. It was almost as if I was missing something, or couldn't understand how ‘fire magic’ worked properly.

“Well, that was anti-climactic.” Zeph cooed from his rock, “I was sure you’d produce at least an ember.”

“Heh, you and I both.”

“Try earth now,” he said.

Doing the same thing, but switching the element I held out my palm. This time, there was a reaction. I felt small particles of dirt gather at my palm and condense. I continued to do this for about five minutes, and eventually, I formed a ball of dirt the size of my fingernail.

I turned to Zeph and shot the ball of dirt directly at his eyes. The dirt ball’s compact form dispersed into dust, shooting toward him like smoke.

Zeph smiled a blew wind, clearing the dust in an instant and it quickly disappeared into thin air. “Now you’re getting somewhere. But I do have some advice if you want to call it that.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve sparred with many earth mages in my day and one thing they all had in common was that they stomped and clapped a lot during battle.”

“Stomped and clapped?” I echoed, confused.

“Apparently it’s part of the teachings in earth magic. Next time you contact your parents and ask your father about it, I'm sure he'll tell you what it's about.” He started walking to the training room's pond, “Enough of all that now, I don’t have enough information on earth magic to teach it to anyone. I just wanted you to keep it in mind. Now let's go test your skills in water and light”

Making it to the pond I had really wanted to start with water magic. The water attribute stone gave off more of a presence to me, like wind or dark attribute mana would and it left an impression on me. This being the case, I felt I would have a better chance of actually using it as of now, and I held it in much higher regard than the other elements.

Leaving no time for Zeph to say a word I began to push mana into my palm. The water attribute mana beckoned to my will and did exactly as I had commanded. Multiple condensed balls of water formed in front of my palm. They took a little under a minute to form, but that was already way better than any of the previous elements I had tried so far.

“Woah,” Zeph said, surprised, “That's impressive.”

I had used the wind bullet spell as the base of what I had done with the water. Curious if they were more potent than wind bullets I fired them at one of the nearby trees. The bullets whistled through the air and eventually through the tree.

I stood astonished at what I had just done. Wind bullets would only pierce things, but these water bullets would go through them. “…Imagine if I got better and started enhancing them with wind.” I mumbled to myself.

Zeph stepped closer toward the tree and observed the damage I had done. “Yes, good old water magic. It's as dense as any rock when made with mana, but can be made normal if the mage wishes. Truly a great element. Compliments wind as well.” He eventually made it to the tree and rubbed his fingers around its new punctures. “I’d say you’re pretty adept by this demonstration. I believe you can start incorporating it into your fighting style right away.”

I disbursed the last of the lingering water attribute mana around my hand and shook my head. “Agreed.” My voice turned jokingly sardonic, “I’d wish I had known about this sooner. It’s really too bad my teacher is more dense than he seems.”

“In my defense, this is very uncommon, even unprecedented.” he then laughed and pointed a finger at me. “And if you weren’t for your ignorance of the world and magic you would have known this long ago.”

“Well, I guess that's fair.” I ended. “Shall we try light magic now?”

“Yeah, get to it. I’m starting to get tired myself, plus we have a big day tomorrow.”

Repeating the same process I had done many times today pure mana gathered in my hand. But when I tried to imbue the mana with the light attribute my body off a weird feeling. The more I tried to imbue it, the stronger this feeling grew, and eventually, I realized what was happening.

My dark element was interfering with the light mana. It was unlike anything I had ever felt; like they were raging a war for supremacy inside my body. And the more this war raged on and as more time passed, the more It seemed wrong.

No. I thought.

A war was the wrong analogy. It was more like a lovers’ quarrel. Two things that were supposed to be together, but at odds for some reason.

And even after continuing for a few more minutes, no light magic was produced.

“I’m guessing you’re not good at this one either?” he asked when he saw that nothing was happening outside my body.

“Yeah, this ones a dud.” I said, putting my hand down and giving up on the futile task.

Even when I did the odd feeling of a fight inside my body still remained. I felt queasy and more tired than I was before.

Zeph must've taken my look of unwellness for disappointment saying, “Two out of four is not too bad, you know? Things like this take time.”

“Of course.” I agreed, walking sluggishly toward the exit. “I'm going to get to bed. As you said, we have a big day tomorrow.”

He must've been confused at my sudden change in attitude, but he didn't say anything, instead, he waved me off, “Alright, brat. Don’t sleep too well.”

Walking through the long halls and up the superfluous long stairs, I eventually made it to my bedroom. I didn’t hesitate to jump into my bed.

“What the hell is this?” I asked myself, clutching my abdomen. But only silence answered.

Luckily as time passed the feeling eased and I was finally able to close my eyes peacefully and sleep. Fully oblivious to tomorrow's possible events.