The cavern was dark, darker than night. The irregular sounds of shuffling steps could be heard. He limped slowly, careful not to reopen his wounds. An urging in his head could be felt. Why was that. He was Lord of-. He felt the darkness move, a tendril worming its way towards him. A quick hand to his waist made him stop, he had no weapon. He chucked at the thought. Him, without a weapon. Even injured like this he had one weapon that would never leave him. He muttered quietly not wanting to disturb the darkness just yet.

He stretched out his hand towards the tendril. “may the light guide me, lux”. Light burst from his hand and-

Jason woke with a gasp, out of breath. The ring on his left hand, warm. He glanced at his window, it was still night, but not too far from dawn. Was that a dream, Jason was uncertain, it had felt so real. And at the end of it, was that a spell. He looked at his palm, there was no harm in trying, he reasoned.

What was the wording again? He didn’t want to wake Alex, so he kept his voice low. “may the light guide me, lux”. Nothing happened, and a surge of irritation overcame him. He was a mage now, why won’t it work.

He repeated it again, with more force. Again, nothing happened. What was he doing wrong. He thought back on what he knew of magic. A memory came to him of his father. It was one of his first lessons.

“you must find your centre Jason” he rolled his shoulders, “to do so means that you are empty but full, awake but asleep, to do so is meditation, for one hour a day you will meditate, ok?”. His father had given him little choice.

Sitting up, Jason crossed his legs and placed his hands on his knees. He slowed his breathing. In the way Leon had taught him. Breath in, hold of a second, breath out, hold for a second, repeat.

Gradually his heart slowed, and his frustration flowed away. His thoughts were drawn back to the dream, no, the vision. What had he felt. A flow. Flowing from him, channelled throw the words. He had one half, he just had to find the other half. The energy, the mana was what he was missing. He knew he had it, so all he had to do was find it.

He threw his mind deep inside himself, searching for the what he was certain that was there. An unknown but familiar sensation filled him. He found it, buried deep in him. There it was. An ocean, full and urging to be released. The closer he got to it the more the encouraging it was. Jason reached out with his mind a opened a connection.

The ocean spilled out with vigour, eager to be free. Jason broke out of his meditative state, engulfed with unknown energy. It ravaged throw his body filling him. He clawed his chest, trying to free the mana. How could he use it.

The spell he desperately thought. “may the light guide me, lux” he could barely say the words. It was then, the mana, which had been flowing from his centre found a way out. A blinding white light filled Jason’s vision. He felt the flow and how the words channelled it. Finding the source of the light was easy, it was coming from his left hand.

Feeling the connection, he cut it off. Cursing under his breath, he hoped no-one had seen the light from outside. Glancing out the window he saw nothing. Satisfied, he fell back on to his bed, tired. He had done it, cast a spell.

A soft knocking at his door, brought him back to reality. Going over hesitantly, he opened the door. Standing there was Alex, with ruffled hair and dishevelled clothes. Did he wake him with the spell?

“yes” Jason asked, Alex was silent. “did you do something with the lights, it woke me up”.

Jason seeing a perfect way to hide the truth nodded. “ah, yes sorry about that, the lights are new to me”. Which was only a half lie. It was true the lights were new to him, and earlier he had been unable to use them.

Alex, maybe because he was just woken up, accepted this and when back to bed “just try not to do it again”. Jason agreed and closed his own door. He then grabbed the blanket and stuffed hastily into the crack between the door and the floor. There was no chance that he would go to sleep, so he made sure he wouldn’t wake Alex again.

Sitting back down, he felt for his mana. Now that he knew what he was doing, he found it quicker. He made the flow smaller this time, not wanting such a bright light. He casted the spell. Much to his surprise, the flow of mana wasn’t harnessed by the incantation and no light was made.

He grimaced; it was harder than he thought. Focusing his mind, he directed the mana. He closed his eyes and thought of a small light appearing in fount of him. Whispering the spell, he sensed the mana flowing throw the spell. He opened his eyes to find a small bit of light coming from his hand. The light was only as bright as a candle. Holding his hand out. He clenched his fist in success and severed the flow.

He repeated the spell until he could do it without meditation. All he had to do was speak the words and the light would appear. The light’s size and brightness were harder to control. So far, he could only make it a candle or a lantern. He didn’t want to make another really bright light, so he held off.

Glancing up he found the sun to be up, and with movement coming from the common room he and Alex shared. He prepared his class materials before going out.

Alex barely grunted hello, he also haphazardly had gathered his class materials. Jason thought for a moment and asked a question.

“are light spells colourless?” he remembered the term for neutral spells. Alex looked up with a slight hint of concern in his eyes.

He did answer though. “yeah, most are neutral”. Thankfully, he didn’t ask why Jason wanted to know. Then they were off to breakfast.

After being guided by Alex to their first lesson. Jason was surprised by the space. There was a flat area with a desk, behind which a blackboard was. Opposite that was rows of desks, with each row being raised slightly higher than the one before. Not many of the seats were taken only a few. Jason and Alex found two near the middle and close to the front. None of the student took notice of them.

Alex glanced at the clock and found the lesson would be starting soon. Both their eyes were drawn to a what was a group of people entering the room. They were all dressed in very fancy clothes. Nobles, Jason guessed. He was right, not only were the Nobles, they were all the sons of rich and powerful family’s. The four of them looked around the room before landing on Jason and Alex. This caused Jason’s stomach to fall.

The Nobles made their way over slowly, grinning at each other. The leading one stopped next to Jason’s seat.

The Noble had a look of disgust in his eyes. “look, some commoners had saved our seats” He said to the others.

Jason simply stared back at the Noble. Clenching his fist under the table. When the First Noble saw that Jason wasn’t going to move, he was angry.

“Do you know who I am?” his voice was raised, His buddy’s coming closer and standing over Jason.

Jason grinned with as much happiness as he could, “no”.

The Nobles actually gasped in shock. The main one was angry now. “YOU DON’T KNOW MY NAME”

He yelled overcome rage. “MY family is a long line of great mages, I can trace them back twenty generations, more than your pathetic commoner, I am Lucas WhiteSage, hire of the greatest family in this kingdom, now move and give me your seat”. Lucas stopped for breath.

Lucas thought his spiel had worked, but for Jason it had the opposite effect.

Jason had enough, he stood up, he wasn’t taller than them, but he had far more muscle. Which made them back away. “ok look, Lucas or whatever your name is” he pointed out all the empty chairs, “see all those” They nodded, not used to being talked to like this. “they are all empty, so why don’t you go and sit there and not try and use your family’s name”

Lucas’ friends were slowly moving away, but Lucas was not finished. He pulled his arm back and swung. Jason had seen the punch coming from far away and brushed it aside. Lucas being untrained had over swung and was off balance. Jason pushed him away and he collapsed onto his followers.

Lucas jumped up, fury in his eyes “YOU filthy commoner, how dare you” He was ready to jump at Jason when Alex jumped to his defence. “go sit somewhere else” While Jason wasn’t the shortest, Alex towered over all of them. Combined with his red hair, Lucas thought better and backed off.

But while finding another chair, he had one final word, “this isn’t over” Jason, pleased with himself snapped back “I sure hope it isn’t” And sat back down.

There was a silence that overcame the room. Jason blushed at the attention; he wasn’t used to it. Alex flopped down as well, “by the Gods, I can’t believe we did that” Alex was shaking.

Jason was surprised. “I never thought you would be scared of some pompous Noble?” Alex shook his head, “not just any Noble, a WhiteSage” Jason looked at him, “who are they?”

Alex looked at him like he had just asked what colour the sky was. “what, haven’t you heard of the White Sages?”. He nodded. “you live under a rock?” Alex asked him seriously. Not waiting for an answer, he continued “they are one of, if not the richest and most influential family’s in the kingdom”. Jason gulped at this. Before he could dwell on it further, some else entered.

It was a Mage, their teacher. Dressed in brown robes, he strode into the room with an otherworldly aura. He quickly reached the centre desk and looked around the room. “Greetings, I am James StoneArm, and I will be your teacher for this lesson” no-one said a word.

He was slightly abashed at this, “well, I will start now”. Jason hurriedly dug into his bag for a notebook. The second he had found one James had started speaking.

“Magic is a strange force that exists in only few humans, with other races this is different. I will assume you know a little” Jason was then very glad he had asked Alex about it. “Mages use spell to channel mana so they can use it. As mages you will be trained to fight monsters and aid the army if needed. As you know there are seven elements and also neutral spells”

James paused “that’s most of it without going into too much detail, so for the rest of the lesson, first I’ll awaken your elements, then you will try and learn your first spell”.

“so will do it by first row then the next” he then beckoned the closet student. The boy hesitantly came forward. James pulled out a crystal from his pocket and placed it in the boys waiting hand. The crystal glowed but with no colour.

James pulled it away, “air, next” he proceeded to do the same to the next person, for which the crystal glowed brown. Jason made the connection for what colour represented each element. It was simple, blue for water, no colour for air, brown for earth, red for fire, yellow for lightning, white for light and black for darkness, he guessed.

His theory was proven right again and again. Then an odd-looking girl came up. The glow was green. James was slow at grabbing the crystal from her. “Nature, I believe” was the only clue James gave them.

Jason turned to Alex, who knew what he was going to ask and had an answer ready. “look at her ears” Jason did so and noticed that her ears were slightly pointed. Which was not the only thing odd about her. He saw that she had violet hair and eyes to match.

“she’s part Elf, maybe one quarter” Alex told Jason, “that’s way she has the nature element” Jason nodded and filed the information away. Soon it was Alex’s turn, the crystal turned red. When Alex returned to his seat he grinned at Jason, “my hair gives it away”. Then it was Jason’s turn.

James quickly gave him the crystal, clearly board from the repetition. Jason held the crystal and felt his mana be pulled for a moment before it started to change. A line of yellow swirled inside the crystal, before another colour came. Inky Blackness formed a line beside the yellow. This brought out cries from the students who could see.

James gingerly took the crystal, and looked carefully at Jason, who raised an eyebrow. “lightning and darkness, that makes you a duel element user, rare”. Jason went back to his seat, with a wide-eyed Alex to greet him. “wow, you’re a duel element, that’s incredible”. Jason just nodded and thought.

It was finally Lucas’ turn; he snatched the crystal from James and held it high above his head. To everyone surprise, it glowed three colours, brown, white, and blue. He held it triumphantly, “This is the different between Nobles and commoners. Remember it well”. He smirked at Jason as he swaggered back.

James finished recording and began talking, “wow one nature, one duel and even one tri elements” he grinned at them, “this is going to be an exciting class”.