“Welcome to a new beginning in your measly little lives, I’m going to keep this short as you are all unworthy, and as you all stand at the moment, you’re all maggots, frail little bugs in which anyone could crush, yes, welcome to Obsidian, my school, my pride.”

The man speaking in front a group of 150 new students was the Master of the school, everyone knew him only as the Master, he stood on a column of black obsidian reaching two meters high above the stage and radiated an air of dominance which made it hard to breathe, the column was as black as the darkest night and it seems he was also wearing a matching robe, he had long white hair and a matching beard and his cold, piercing red eyes made it impossible to make eye contact.

His tone was low and quiet but everyone in the hall could hear it as clearly as their own voice, the new students were all sitting in a hall with around 30,000 seats, far more than they ever needed but it made the hall look grand on all scales, the back row of seats stood 40 meters high in this grand hall and the obsidian platform/column in which the Master stood was above the normal stage, 50 meters high, the highest place within the room, it gave the students the impression of being far inferior to the speaker and everyone within the room would probably of agreed with this thought.

After the welcoming ceremony, or should I say the not so very welcoming ceremony, everyone funneled out of the hall in rows of their seating, in front of the crowd leaving the hall was three hooded men wearing the same robes as the Master, everyone instantly recognised them as teachers, the man in the middle of the three turned around and raised his hand, making the noise within the crowd die down until all you could hear was footsteps of some stragglers behind catching up, “follow me, we’re going to the secondary hall, from here, we’ll tell you the arrangements, come along now”

Everyone followed the three through the vast halls which seemed to span in all directions, after what seemed like forever we reached a massive room, or the secondary hall as they called it, we all walked in and stood in rows as the three men walked onto the platforms in front of us, this is when I realised that they didn’t have any faces, their faces which should of been there were just blackness under the hood, I admit this scared me a bit, but as they were teachers I suppressed my fear and continued to wait for them to speak.

The teacher in the middle walked forward 1 meter ahead of the other two, this confirmed my suspicions that he was the more senior teacher, again he raised his hand and the room came to silence, what a neat trick I thought.

“As all of you with a brain have deduced, we are teachers here in Obsidian, and before the less observant of you freak out because of our appearance, let me tell you a bit about us, we are called ‘shadows’, our Master, the Master created us to teach within his school, you better get used to this because every teacher here in Obsidian is a shadow except for the vice-master and a few others, now, moving on, let me tell you a bit about this school.

We are the greatest and mightiest school in existence, the Master created the Obsidian School a hundred and thirty years ago in the 1095th calender year, we teach our students how to awaken their magic or magic abilities and the knowledge they need to control it, there are 7 years within the School, you new students are First years and then next year you become Second years, and so on, however, you can only become second years if you pass the end of year exams in the First year, if not then you will have to stay on the year until you pass,this process is followed until you graduate.

Your years will be split into 7 classes, class 1, class 2, class 3, class 4, class 5, class 6 and class 7, each class will have a teacher dedicated to teaching them, I’ll will now send you the details on your mana boards, dismissed.”

-

I pulled out my Mana board from within the grey robes they gave to all new students and proceeded to turn it on, the Mana board is a piece of technology which runs off mana, it’s more or less like a handheld computer (author note - think Ipad).

[ Please Show authorisation ]

This must be a security measure I thought, as it was showing a thumbprint sign I gathered it wanted me to place my thumb on it, after doing this a window popped up with the details the teacher said he sent us,

[ Zepp Alkery - First year, -| Class 7 - Teacher - Runru |- ]

First things first, finding where class 7 is, I guess I’ll have to ask around as they didn’t bother giving us a map or anything.

I took a look at my fellow students, there was a mix of races within the students, ah first let me explain,

On our planet, Ula, there is one giant continent which is called Ein, we have many different species of intelligent life, we have the humans, dragons, demons, elves and a few other subspecies who are interbreeds between races, everyone calls them hybrids, they are like everyone else it’s just they aren’t a pure species of a certain race, just intermixed.

The four races live in different parts of the continent, the Humans live in the East, the Dragon live in the West, the Demons live in the South and the Elves live in the North, all the races look the same except for certain traits, the humans have no traits, the dragon have horns, the demons have tails and the elves have pointy ears, apart from this you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them.

All four of the races have the potential to be born with magic or magic abilities , for all races the probability a child being born with magic or magic abilities is 1 in 100, these children have to go to special schools to learn how to awaken and learn to control their magic, the Obsidian school is the greatest of all these schools, it stands in the middle of the continent and is ran by a man simply known as the Master, one of the most powerful beings in the continent.

Chapter 1

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This is my first ever attempt at writing something so please give me lots of advice and don't be shy on suggestions and criticism ;)

Thank you!