"Jodoc, I have got better things to do than babysitting a greenhorn beginner magician, which is why I'm giving you the responsibility," commented Simon loudly.

By now, Master Simon was getting fed up with filling the holes in Luz's brain, which was clearly lacking in theoretical knowledge. Instead of teaching useful tricks, such as: "how to quickly chant a spell," for example, it ended up with the most mundane things.The two were scratching the basics of magic, which one could easily read from a book, such as from where does magic originates, what kind of disciplines exists, and so forth. Over the last few days, Simon was busy helping Luz, the apprentice mage who lacked knowledge in many areas.

You can imagine Luz's situation like this. Luz may be a seedling worth taking care of. But do you want to teach him the basics? Why not give this job to someone else and only later help the child, after he has reached the desired level.

"No. No. No. I have better things to do than helping a child," Modoc cursed.

"I'm not a child," Luz interjected. "Be quiet, child!" both shouted in unison. "You take over babysitting duties five days a week, and I'll take the weekend," Simon sighed as he tried to make a compromise with his pet.

"No. I will take care of Luz four days a week while you'll look after him the rest of the week," shouted Jodoc back, who wasn't looking forward to his new job.

"Nah, I don't think so. You clearly seem to have forgotten who the Master Magician is and who his pet is!" Simon objected, and before Jodoc could reply, Simon teleported them both down a floor.

"Curse you, Simon! May all your experiments fail," screeched Jodoc, the parrot, as he stared at the ceiling.

Luz, however, chose to remain silent since he didn't want to attract the latter's frustration and anger onto him.

After the parrot calmed down from his resentment, he chose to land on Luz's shoulder with the plan of convincing him of his grandiose plans.

"I've got a plan. I'll be dedicating more time than necessary to your magic education. But you'll be beating that bastard's ass and set me free after you overtake Master Simon. You will train every day until you pass out," laughed the parrot loudly.

"That doesn't sound like the future I imagined back then," Luz sighed."Well, I don't care," squawked the parrot as he immediately began teaching him how to handle mana.

"There are mana spells, and there are magic spells," Jodoc told him.

Luz interrupted with the question, "What's the difference between these two? Aren't they the same thing anyway?"

"Let me finish my fucking sentence, instead of interrupting me, you stupid shit. Anyway, as you know, your body absorbs mana from the environment. Explaining mana is complicated. On the one hand, it is the pure natural element of the environment. On the other hand, it's something that you won't find in its pure form in nature since it's contaminated with all sorts of local elements. These residues may vary since mana near volcanoes tends to have a higher fire particle concentration than, then, for example, water concentration."

"So, mana isn't the same everywhere, and mana isn't mana since mana refers to the pure element that is contaminated by other elements. Did I get it right?" asked Luz.

Jodoc nodded. "Well… that's one way to put it. As magicians, we look at the contamination gradient of the mana. But we shouldn't continue dappling into that situation. Since that's the concern for higher ranking magicians and not for beginner mages such as yourself.

As you know, your body takes mana from the air and purifies it to a certain degree. Whenever you use your own mana for an elemental spell, you will waste a certain amount of your mana to convert it into the respective element.

There are two methods with which mages try to limit these conversion losses. They either attempt to build their body from an element, which has its own consequences since elements can't be converted to other elements, resulting in a limitation of spells.

As one progresses towards becoming an elemental mage, with every success they make, their conversion costs will keep increasing. In the end, one would use the hundred times more mana than required to cast a simple spell from a different element."

"To be honest, these benefits don't seem to be worth the effort, becoming an elemental mage," admitted Luz.

"Well, you're right to a certain degree. Your spells of one element will be a hundred times more potent. That alone is worth for some magicians," commented Jodoc before continuing his narration.

"Option two is to use mana spells. These consume much less since there is no conversion to an element. These spells, however, take way longer to learn since one doesn't have a talent for that element," Jodoc told Luz, who listened silently.

Even though Jodoc's stories were interesting, he seemed to have lost track of time because he talked for hours without pausing. It didn't take long for Luz to get a headache from all the new knowledge.

Jodoc realized at some point that Luz had had enough and announced a one-hour break.

The latter thanked Jodoc before making his way towards the canteen as the word: 'Hunger,' echoed in his head.

'Yeah, something tries to communicate with me, and I'm not sure if I should look forward to it. If that thing evolves further, I'll never find peace,' Luz cursed as he made his way to the canteen. After reaching the canteen, he met the two girls and Francis from his first meeting there.***********************************************************************************************Somewhere else, deep inside a dungeon, Gab was seen walking with a group through the corridors while being equipped with an ax. The group was silent, and beyond their silent footsteps, one only could hear the loud dripping of water combined with the echoes of mutants every once in a while.This time the group was willingly approaching a group of mutants everyone except for Gab had some experience when it came to hunting and killing these mutants. The latter merely had some experience when it came to hunting wild animals with an ax or a bow.

Gab was the youngest hunter in his village, and he joined their ranks a few months before its destruction. Nevertheless, Gab had already joined several hunts.

After a few observations, the group in front of them was a 15 man strong group of mutants. These creatures seemed to have lost the trail to the parasite queen while hunting for humans.

Alex gave a signal, and the arrows were shot. The mutants began to shriek, and Gab watched as four of his five-party members shot either with bows or crossbows.

'Charging at these creatures would be a stupid idea. Let's wait for them to run towards us.'His previous weapon, which could probably be used as a club, was by now cut into two pieces and attached to his legs.

Of the 15 monsters, only 5 of them reached the group. Immediately, Gab swung his ax at the neck of one mutant, but to his misfortune, it got stuck. Its blood splattered onto Gab's face. 'Shit,' Gab thought to himself, kicking the screeching monster in the stomach while holding the ax handle.

By now, the rest had switched from bows to swords and shields. 'Why the hell didn't I ask for a shield too?' Gab cursed in his head as he threw his ax at the monster. Even though the ax stuck to its chest, the creature didn't seem to halter and continued running while screeching loudly towards Gab.

"Why won't it die," Gab screamed back in desperation as he grabbed his bone club in panic. But before he could do anything, Alex cut off the mutant's head.

"Why the hell did you throw your fucking weapon at him, you goddamn idiot," Alex cursed at him before hitting Gab in the back of the head with the hilt of his sword.

"You better get yourself under control. We're here to survive and not to babysit hormone-driven teenagers who want to practice their freestyle."

But before Alex could continue to lecture Gab, the echoes of screams in the tunnels grew louder, and the ground slowly began to shake.

"Shit. We have to go," Alex shouted, and the group started to run.