Ellie hung from her mother's arm as they walked through the narrow, cobbled alley that cut through the townhomes that clumped together toward Ebenshire’s center.

“You alright?” Kal said, walking with a lackadaisical stride.

“Mmhmm,” Ellie nodded and squeezed on her mom's arm.

“Oookay… if you say so,” Kal shrugged.

“I’m excited,” Arix bobbed along.

When are you not?

“Isn’t it just so cute bringing these three little rascals together for their first day of school?” Yandi clapped.

“You’re so right about that,” Lydia nodded. “They grow up so fast.”

“You’re a little nervous, are you, honey?” Tammy hugged Ellie’s head. “The first day of school can be pretty intimidating, but at least you have your friends here with you.”

“Uh-huh,” Ellie nodded and rubbed her head against her mom’s arm.

“Don’t worry, Ellie. I’m sure Kal and Arix will look after you. Won’t you, boys?”

“Yeah, sure,” Kal said, sounding barely present. His thoughts were elsewhere, circling back to Andric and the presence in the forest.

The demon hunter had said his goodbyes a day after the party, and Kal overheard him telling Daedrik that he hadn’t found anything and, as such, it was time to return to more important work. However, as he turned for the door, he cast an unnerving look into Kal’s eyes, which sent shivers down his spine.

He couldn’t wrap his head around it. The man had seemed different from the person he had met at the library—who was silly and easily embarrassed. Had he sensed it when he showed Ellie and Arix his magic?

Kal let out a deep sigh.

“Are you okay, Beetle?” Yandi said, grabbing hold of Kal’s hand.

“I’m fine, Mom.”

Was he reading too much into the strange mage, or was there a chance that the man was up to something? He was still a couple of years too young to cast spells, based on what Daedrik had told him, and he reminded himself to be careful.

“I will!” Arix jumped and waved his hands.

“You will what?” Kal crooked his head.

“Protect Ellie!” Arix shouted.

“Maybe Kal’s a little scared, too,” Tammy said. “He seems distant. Look after each other, okay?”

Ellie nodded and sniffed, “Yes, Mommy.”

“It’s—no…” Kal trailed off as they rounded the street’s bend. Ahead of them was Ebenshire’s main road, packed with hundreds of people.

“Oh my,” Yandi said.

“Look,” Kal said, pointing at the children and their parents gathered in front of the school's ancient stone facade.

The carved stone that laced the building depicted children studying and playing. However, many years of wear and poor maintenance had led to lichen and bird droppings covering most of it, making the sculptures look sooty, greenish, and unrecognizable.

Every child within the Kingdom was at least supposed to get a primary education between the ages of five and sixteen, after which they generally either gained an apprenticeship, went to a Magic Academy, a College of Science and Art, or found a job.

“Mommy,” Ellie quivered.

“It’s okay; I’m right here with you. You go on ahead, boys. We’re going to take our time.”

“Nah, I’m good,” Kal shrugged. He could think of a million places he would rather be, and the thought of rushing off to a school with nothing to offer balled a sickening knot in his stomach.

“Come on, Kal,” Arix tugged at his sleeve. “Let’s check it out.”

“Ah, alright,” Kal groaned.

Pulled by the sleeve, he followed Arix into the crowd, squeezing through the people as they pushed toward the front.

Opposite them, a scruffy, poorly kept man apologized for his way past several people as he pushed along the school’s wall, headed to a podium that the crowd gathered around.

“Oh, excuse me,” the man said, grabbing his trousers and pulling them up past his ankles as he climbed the podium. “Welcome, welcome—students and parents.”

“This guy,” one of the parents said as Kal passed, hand against her mouth. “Can they seriously not hire anybody more competent to run the town’s only school?”

“Tell me about it. I know Ebenshire is only a small town, but we’re not far from the capital. Surely there’s some talent around.”

“The mayor is probably too cheap to hire anyone better.”

“Sounds about right.”

Jeez, these people really don’t like this guy, huh?

Kal followed Arix—who was oblivious to the parents’ remarks—deeper into the crowd until they reached the podium.

Round spectacles hung crookedly across the principal’s hooked nose, and scruffy, brown hair pointed in all directions. “Myself—Principal Dore—and all of us here at Ebenshire Elementary are pleased to call in the new year with you all.”

“This clown never ceases to make a fool of himself,” a parent huffed behind Kal.

Damn, they’re really harsh. Give the poor guy a break, people. He seems decent enough, in a scruffy, lost dog kinda way.

The principal’s speech dragged on. He flipped back and forth as he remembered details, jumping between thanking the faculty and government employees and reviewing all the activities and courses they had planned for the year.

“With that said,” Principal Dore cleared his throat. “Welcome, students of class 427.”

Two large arching doors to either side of the podium creaked open, their heavy metal handles pulled by heaving faculty staff.

Kids waved goodbye to their parents and funneled into the ancient courtyard, its stone tiles lined by moss, and were followed by the teachers, who called out the classes they taught.

The classes started just about as boringly as Kal had expected. They gave their names, and then the teacher read a storybook.

It wasn’t until the third day that they actually started doing school work, and even then, it was counting and spelling three-letter words—which most of the class failed at.

Kal found himself constantly bemoaning his classes. It wasn’t just that they were boring; he was wasting his entire days learning nothing when he could be practicing magic.

 

Months of this went by, eating into the time he had to cast spells. Being at school all day was also fatiguing, and while he didn’t learn anything, there were physical education classes and games they played. Not to mention sitting around doing nothing, which fatigued him in its own special way.

These activities could have been managed easily, and Kal could have barely broken a sweat if he chose to enhance himself with mana, but that would then eat into the reserves he had for training at home.

On top of that, the mana spheres he found around the house had quickly lost their usefulness. It hadn’t taken him long to effectively drain them, and he found himself forced to cycle through all four spheres, restoring mana to them as needed.

Unfortunately, it was more than just the spheres and school eating into his training time; the learning curve of mana control was also steepening.

Kal read that most real mages—the kind that went to magic academies—began learning magic and awakening their core between the ages of twelve and sixteen. Of course, plenty of people awoke their cores later, but they rarely made it far, and we're unlikely ever to become a licensed mage.

Becoming a licensed mage required proving to a government official that you could cast and control third-circle magic—which was very difficult for late starters, who usually become dabbling hobbyists at best.

That still gave Kal a giant head start, but as the years went by without major breakthroughs, he became growingly disparaged.

The raw elemental spells he had been casting were called basic spells. That didn't necessarily mean they were bad and were usually the first spells budding young mages learned because of their simplicity, but they were hopelessly inefficient.

Spells were essentially just tried and tested formulas for the structured use of mana. If cast correctly, they were usually far more mana efficient than trying to weave mana into things as you went without a guide. It also meant that, in theory, anybody could make up their own spells, although it was no easy task, and there was little reason to do so if the spell you were creating wasn't either more efficient, powerful, or filling a specific need.

Kal had long decided since feeling the presence within the forest that he would—at the very least—perfect first and second circle spell casting before going to investigate it.

 

***Five Years of Training***

 

The five years of mind-numbingly simple primary education dragged on torturously for Kal, who tried to dedicate as much time as he could to studying spell casting.

His progress slowed, but it didn't stop as he worked on developing an arsenal of reliable spells.

While spells were categorized into circles based on their difficulty and mana consumption, being able to cast spells in a particular circle didn’t mean the mage could cast all spells in said circle.

Every spell was unique, and learning how to control one’s mana to be able to cast a spell took time. This again came back to efficiency, resulting in most mages having a rather limited selection of spells they regularly cast. Still, it allowed them to cast their preferred spells with a high level of mana efficiency. Most mages also had a larger variety of spells they knew and could cast if needed, but often weren’t very efficient; these were usually utility spells selected to help fill out their arsenal.

Knowing all this, Kal took his time going through Daedrik’s library and selecting a few spells to focus his time and energy on.

Of the first circle spells that caught his attention, Kal settled on Mana Whip, Steam Burst, and Mage Bullet.

Mana Whip instantly caught his attention since it was more than just a whip or potential weapon. The whip was a construct that worked as an extension of the caster. The interesting part was that the notes about it suggested that skilled mages learned to use it for all kinds of things—such as grabbing out-of-reach items.

Steam Burst shot out steam from around the caster’s body and was generally used as a close-quarters defensive spell. Whilst rarely fatal, a burst of steam shot into an attacker’s face was often more than adequate to interrupt their assault.

Mage Bullet was perhaps the most straightforward first-circle spell. It was a simple yet efficient means of firing condensed mana at an enemy, which created a bullet-like effect—albeit more of the sling-type bullet rather than a modern firearm. Still, it did its job and was hard to counter until mages reached third-circle spellcasting.

Kal quickly realized that the learning curve to reach second-circle spells was a great leap. He had wanted to pick three of each to fill out his base and then move on to the third circle once he had a decent grasp of them, but it wasn’t that easy.

The problem was twofold when moving up to a higher level of spellcasting because the increased difficulty multiplied against the increased mana requirements, resulting in a steep path to efficient casting.

However, while this bottleneck was a setback, his constant training did push his core into its second stage, and while it was still labeled a Lesser-Demonic core—much to Kal’s disappointment—the bonuses were nothing to scoff at.

 

 

Reaching the next stage had given him a bunch of stats that seemed almost randomly distributed, but he had read that they were related to a combination of how the core was utilized and its inherent power.

He had passed ten wisdom and intelligence as well, gaining him another ten mana. And from the looks of it, reaching Stage 2 had given him another 12 points on top of that and significantly increased his mana potential.

Since normal mages didn’t unlock Bloodline Traits, it was becoming increasingly clear how far ahead of his peers Kal was getting. The increases he had gained from reaching the next stage were good, but except for his mana itself, they made up less than half of his gains so far. If this was what other mages had to rely on to get stronger, then the difference would only grow greater as time went by.

Kal immediately realized why reaching the second stage was so important for casting spells. The additional mana vastly improved his ability to cast first-circle spells, and he better understood why most mages needed to increase their core stage before they could learn any spells. If anything, Kal’s ability to learn both basic and first-circle spells while still possessing a Stage 1 core was uniquely amazing.

Kal had read that few mages ever reached a mage academy before their fifteenth birthday, and most were likely to get there around seventeen to eighteen, even if they did manage to awaken their cores around the age of twelve or thirteen. The leap between awakening a core and pushing it to the next stage took time; few could cast the first circle spells at a mastery level without first achieving it.

Having reached Stage 2 and vastly improved his first-circle casting, Kal was already satisfied he would pass examinations and make it to an academy; he just had to wait now.

He had also managed to reduce the mana cost of his chosen spells to between five and eight mana—making them considerably more efficient than basic casting.

 

***Five Years of Training Completed***

 

“Kal,” Ellie said as the ten-year-old trio walked home one school afternoon, pressing her fingers together.

“Yeah?”

“Me and Arix have been thinking…”

“Huh?” Kal cast a sideways glance.

“She wants to ask if you'll teach us magic,” Arix blurted out.

Oh, right. It's been a while, and they've been watching me study magic this entire time. I guess it’s not too surprising they would like to learn.

“I mean, I can try,” Kal shrugged as he walked. “No promises, though. At the end of the day, it'll be up to you to awaken your core.”

“Thank you, Kal!” Ellie said.

 

Kal instructed them with what he had learned from his father's library, but there was only so much he could do. They might have been his friends, but there was no way he was trusting a couple of kids with his secret. And so, he pretended to know what it was like to awaken a regular mana core.

 

“So, Kal—you never did say what type your core is. I heard that everyone has one.”

“Mine?” Kal said.

He knew this question would come sooner or later; in fact, he had been waiting for Daedrik to ask for years, but he never did.

“It's Arcane,” Kal said.

Arcane was the perfect fit since it was primarily the magic he had been using and seemed to come easily to him. Core types didn’t restrict you to only casting magic that fell into your core’s realm but instead made those spells easier and the others more difficult. For example, Mage Bullet and Steam Burst were Arcane spells, while Mana Whip was Astral.

However, Kal’s affinity seemed a little different. He couldn’t be sure since he was far from an expert on the subject, but from what he could tell, he could not cast divine magic at all, which wasn’t a huge surprise considering that he had a demon core.

“I wonder what mine is,” Ellie said.

“I hope mine is either Marital or Arcane. Like a real hero,” Arix said.

“You can’t have Arcane, Kal already has that,” Ellie retorted.

“That’s not how it works, Ellie. Is it, Kal?”

“He’s right,” Kal said flatly.

“Well, it’d still be boring,” Ellie huffed. “We should be unique. How cool would that be?”

“You should worry less about your cores and more about feeling your mana. It’s going to take some time.”

“See, told you,” Arix stuck his tongue out at Ellie.

“You didn’t even say any of that.”

“Did too!”

“Would you two quit it,” Kal said.

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

Oh, my days, these kids are going to be my death.