When we woke up and started changing, I noticed that Chronos was just sitting there as if he had no energy.

“Are you alright?”

“Chronos... is fine... cannot... do last night... again... for next... month... need to... regenerate... mana...”

“Time magic is very useful, but it has its downsides. Pure time mana can only be regenerated naturally. Even then it takes quite a bit of time to do so. He won’t be able to do the speeding up again like last night until next month, if we go by his words,” said Malakir.

“Will he be alright?”

“He will, he just can’t use time magic for as long as last night. He can still use time magic.”

I nodded and after getting Alex, we went to our morning routine. Malakir was hiding again, but Chronos was following behind us and Asher was on Alex’s shoulder.

Our classmates wanted to touch our summons and we let them. Chronos was as impassive as ever but Asher looked like he was not liking the touches.

Lunch came and Sasha wanted to hold our summons. She said that Chronos was cute while Asher was cuddly. Chronos didn’t mind Sasha or any of the others that touched him, but Asher was actually lenient this time. In our earlier classes, Asher was alright with girls to touch him but if it was a guy other than me or Alex, he would growl softly at them.

Sasha asked Malakir what the differences between the subsections of affinities were. She was having a hard time understanding why we were in different classes when our magic were of the safe affinity.

“Every mage has different power,” said Malakir, “Holy mages have the highest regeneration but their stats are lower than most. Chaos mages have balanced power and regeneration but they can increase it tremendously when the need is dire.”

Malakir explained the differences between mages to us and we listened intently.

“A fire mage has powerful spells but at the cost of regeneration. Wind mages have a small mana pool and a slow regeneration rate but their stamina and speed can rival a swordsman’s. Earth mages have the highest stamina out of all the mages but they are slow and their spells are a little bit weaker than a fire mage’s. Water mages are the most balanced out of the Primordial mages.”

“In the Spectrum, everyone is entirely different. Their powers are different even in those who use the same magic. Arcane mages are the most efficient and accurate. Nature mages are the most powerful but they are more often clumsy and inaccurate. Dark mages are famed for their surprise tactics with spells while Light mages are famed for their sustainability. Out of the Spectrum, only Light mages are able to heal wounds.”

“In the Supreme, I’ve already explained the Holy and Chaos. Healing mages are the most resilient. Their power though is reflected through their faith. The more faithful the mage is to the gods, the more powerful the healing as well as their resiliency. Summoners though are the most peculiar. Their powers are the most erratic as it changes depending on their own effort. This is why they are considered the most powerful mages.”

“In the Ancient, its similar to Summoners but weaker. Form mages have the least amount of mana which is why most Form mages are also warriors. In this way they become unstoppable. Void mages are experts in concealment. They are much more powerful than Dark mages when it comes to surprise tactics. Inner mages are just as erratic as Summoners. Their powers depend on themselves only though. Almost all Inner mages are very powerful warriors as compared to every mage, Inner mages have almost no mana to use. Spirit mages are the most similar to Summoners. They borrow the powers of a nearby spirit to help them, just like Summoners bring out their summons. The difference is that Spirit mages have to rely on the environment to bring out their potential. They are considered the most wise as they have to think about every action they make.”

“There is no use in saying this but for academic reasons. In Legendary, their powers are the most bizarre. The spells of Space mages, even the weakest, are very powerful. Time mages have all the time in the world to become what they want to become. Ethereal mages have all of the advantages of each magic and none of the repercussions. They might have difficulty in trying to do a spell from the same affinity, but they are more than capable of handling any from the lower ones.”

I knew that Malakir just told us about the Legendary affinities because I had it. Alex and Sasha do not know about it yet and I plan to tell them at some point but now is not the time.

We left and said our goodbyes to Sasha and went to our summoning class. All of us had our summons out when Ralph came.

“We’ll begin the lessons but before that. All seven of you have made me proud. You all passed the tests that I had you do. Tell me, did any of you understand what the pass couple days were about?”

I didn’t say anything as I was not paying attention to the class as Ralph made us do exercises instead.

When no one did Ralph sighed and said, “The first day was a test of your stamina. To see if you were able to keep on running as far as we could without knowing when enough was enough. The second day was a test of your endurance. You had to do the same thing as the first day only you had to do it with twice your own weight and you knew how far to go at that time.”

He continued, “The third day was to see if you were capable of outsmarting your opponent even if you were tired. The last day, yesterday, was to see if you would be able to handle yourselves in an unknown land. A test of survival. Yesterday was the easiest as we were using an easy way of finding your summon but the next time it will not. You will be searching there for your next ones on your own. Yesterday was just a glimpse of a small fraction of what it means to be a summoner and you all passed.”

“What are our summons?” he asked us.

“Companions,” I said.

“Friends,” said Darren.

“Pets,” said Jared.

“Allies,” said Janice who had red Hair, fair skin and green eyes.

“Family,” said Anne who had fair skin, red eyes, brown hair.

“Minions” said Nathaniel.

“Comrades,” said Alex.

He looked at Jared and Nathaniel as theirs were the only ones different then he shook his head.

“They are a part of you,” he said, “they are you. How you see them is how they will see you.”

“How are summoners different from the other mages?” he asked. “We have our summons to fight for us,” said Nathaniel.

“Wrong. Those that think like that are the weakest and do not understand what a summoner is. We fight with our summons, they help us be able to do things that we can’t do ourselves.”

“I will teach you a spell to demonstrate this point.”

“Sho’ral come,” he said and the green dragon appeared behind him after a swirling wind revealed him.

“We summoners have very few spells compared to the other mages. Without a summon, we cannot be considered a mage. Now, the first spell ‘Assimilate’.”

When he said that word, Sho’ral, the dragon disappeared and the air around Ralph became heavier.

“This is assimilate. Its power depends on your rank. It increases your stats by an amount proportional to the summon you used. At your current rank, you can only assimilate 10% of your summons powers. As you increase in rank, it will increase by another 10%.”

“Zed, since you have already reached the Adept level, your assimilate is stronger than your classmates. And you will also be able to use the second spell, ‘Merge’.”

With that nothing visible changed but there was an air of superiority coming from him.

“Merge allows you to gain a portion of your summons abilities. You don’t see it but my skin is now as tough as a lesser dragon’s. Normal steel will not be able to pierce me.”

He released the spells and Sho’ral appeared behind him.

“Our spells only get stronger when we rank up, to do that we must gather more and more summons. But you must be careful of what you pick. Once you contract with one, you are forever bound to it.”

“How many summons do we need to reach god-rank?” asked Nathaniel.

“It differs from mage to mage, but if you need it for reference, I have thirty under that I have contracted and I am of Emperor rank.”

Everyone gasped but I just remained indifferent thinking, the road is long.After that we had no more questions and we listened to his instructions. To be able to usethe first spell.

He told us to gather our mana into ourselves and form a link with it to our summon. Once the link was established we would then cast the spell.

Alex and I got it on the first try. I used Malakir as Chronos seemed to still be regenerating his mana.

I felt power coursing through me and felt that I would be able to crush boulders if I wanted to.

I then cast the spell ‘Merge’ as Ralph said that our spells require us only to connect to our summon and we can then use our spells.

“With Merge, I have given you four skills. Mana Sight allows you to see the flow of mana. Cost Reduction allows you to use spells more efficiently. Mana Absorption allows you to regenerate mana by absorbing it from the surroundings. Second Pool grants you another mana pool to use from,” said Malakir as I merged with him.

Once everyone was able to use the spell, Ralph said, “Until your rank is Sage, you can only use your spells on one summon at a time. Make sure that you choose the correct summon to supplement your skills correctly.”

Class was dismissed early because we were all able to do it fairly quick so Alex and I went back to our mansion.

When we got back, we started our training once more. It was just at about 6pm when we heard a commotion outside.

We stopped training and went outside. We saw a smoke in the distance and people were yelling and screaming.

We ran to where the smoke was and we were caught off guard when we got there.

The Academy had a giant courtyard that was perfectly maintained as it served as a great spot for the students to relax on the benches or under a shade of trees or maybe even sitting beside the many fountains and admiring the view.

The smoke came from that courtyard and now it was ruined. Fountains were broken with water spouting for several feet up in the air. Some trees were burning while others were uprooted and laying on the ground. Benches were crushed by some of the trees while others were just simply crumbled.

It was chaos, the courtyard would take a long time to bring it back to its original condition. Magic was flying in the air almost hitting a crowd of students running away.

It looked like there were two groups that were fighting each other but the smoke was making it difficult to see anything.

“What do we do?” asked Alex.

“What else?” I said, “We have to stop them.”

“Yeah, alright I get it,” he said smiling.

“What are you smiling about?” I asked confused.

“Nothing,” he said looking away.

“Let’s go,” I said and we went to confront the two groups.

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