It had been some time since Kynos started training, and he felt that he had a good grasp of his own abilities. Mithandra had grumbled to him multiple times about not being able to use magic. She kept saying, 'even though it exists in this world,' or 'what a shit game with no respec'.

It was all nonsensical to him.

Kynos was somewhat fawned over by both his shadow magic teach Roland as well as his fire magic instructor. Both teachers had classes of approximately a dozen students each, but they spent more time with Kynos since he had a better grasp of magic manipulation and image. There was bound to be some jealousy.

Behind the scenes, Mithandra had arranged for a trial. 'If he can't beat this, then he's worthless,' she thought to herself.

Kynos waved goodbye to Mithandra and started heading to the boy's dorm. There was the long-awaited cake as dessert for dinner tonight, which boded extremely poorly for the group of seven students that surrounded him as Mithandra watched from behind a tree.

Kynos immediately sensed the danger, and since it was late in the afternoon, there was plenty he could work with. The only issue was that he had overdone it a bit in magic practice, and was feeling quite empty on mana. He lowered his head and pretended to be scared while backing slowly towards the shadow of a large tree. Magic was forbidden unless it was supervised by an instructor, but he would use it if it got him to the cake.

“Let me through, please.”

The kids jeered at him. “Look at the puny kid, forget magic, just let me punch him once and the fight'll be over!,” a fat kid yelled. “I can't believe he has the nerve to stick to mister Roland like that,” a girl with a long face bitched. The other two girls nodded.

So there were people that actually liked that kind of person? Kynos shook his head a bit from the rude thought.

To the sounds to insults, Kynos finished his image. He looked up with a face that showed anything but fear. “Let me through.”

“Screw this,” yelled an eleven-year-old who was the top in fire magic class, “get him!”

Three of the kids looked visibly afraid as the ball of fire formed in mid-air, and two others started preparing more fireballs as a third began siphoning water from nearby. They were preparing to set him on fire and put it out before he burned to death.

Kids were assholes, after all.

Kynos swallowed his pooling saliva and acted first. Every single one of the seven kids surrounding him was tripped at the ankle by a shadow coil while he ducked and made his own fireball. The three fireballs that were formed flew wildly, one hit the tree behind him and two flew off and dispersed in the air. The half-formed ball of water collapsed on the ground with a splash.

He shot his own, much smaller fireball at the head of the oldest kid, the first one to attack him, and smashed the heads of the other six into the dirt with his shadows. The hair of the oldest kid lit up like a bonfire before he smothered it out with a final shadow.

Tired from mana exhaustion, but victorious, he walked back to the dorm to enjoy delicious cake. He didn't even turn around to look at the tree, now ablaze. Mithandra left to get an instructor; she still needed to spin the story of how seven older kids were bullying her precious friend after all.

The next day, the oldest child was expelled from the school while the other six were punished harshly. The rumors of the strongest bully that burns hair and gets people expelled was born thereafter, also with a bit of prodding from Mithandra.

It was the reason why Kynos couldn't make any other friends at school.