Time went by quickly, three years passing by in a flash. The years had been dreary, all Ashur had done was learning unimportant things and trivial information about this and that. Everything was learned in big classes that gathered two days a week while the rest of the time was self-study and meditation.

Ashur would often complain about the meditation he had been taught. It was sloppy, uninformative and only slightly better than simply gathering mana and stuffing it into your astral soul. This worlds magic seemed greatly underdeveloped, and a large part of it was linked to Karl.

Unable to find out how long ago it had truly been since he came to this world. He had found a legend about magic that told about how the birthplace of magic had been destroyed for its wealth by a being summoned from another world by a greedy kingdom. The greedy kingdom then turned on the being and stole its sword, bringing it back to its capital.

Having stolen or destroyed most of the magical knowledge the greedy kingdom began feasting its eyes on the neighbouring kingdoms, wanting to conquer the world. However, after gathering its armies close to the capital ready to launch its invasion. The kingdom had gone silent, after a while spies had been sent to investigate and a humongous mountain now covered a large part of the greedy kingdom capital and it's surrounding area.

Many believed it was the gods that had brought divine judgement on the kingdom. Ashur on the other hand knew it was most likely the sword that had reverted back after losing Ashur’s magic power to keep it together.

It would be great if he could get it back, after it had been dyed in his magic for so many years it could be said to be a part of him. No information except for the legend could be found however.

Apart from this he had learned quite a bit about this worlds material such as ores and some of its fauna.

Most of the time had been spent trying to use his old knowledge to no avail. Something about this world was fundamentally different. One of his biggest hurdles however was simply how weak his powers was.

The ranking of a magic user in this world from what he had learned thus far went from initiate, acolyte, apprentice, mage, magus and wizard.

Ashur was still an acolyte but his power had grown that he should shortly be able to take the step into becoming an apprentice. It shamed him that the man who inspected him when he had entered the college, who had called his talent average had unfortunately proven to be right since all of the other from his age group had already become acolytes. Around half had even become apprentices already!

Simply having the talent would make you reach the initiate rank and then with a few years of meditation and making the astral soul grow bigger would make one reach acolyte. In fact, being an acolyte was actually having just reached the starting line, since it didn’t really involve doing anything complicated.

Becoming an apprentice was where things really started. He still didn’t know what needed to be done except stuffing his astral soul till it felt ready to burst before attempting to become an apprentice. After that learning magic would be open to him, since the danger of learning and casting magic before that was too high.

He had been warned and forbidden from using his rune magic repeatedly, of course it had fallen on deaf ears. But there had been no reason to even cast rune magic the past few years.

Simply put the time spent up to now had been safe, boring and filled with tedious nagging.

He hadn’t made a single friend, not that he wanted to, the boys for some reason seemed to hate him from day one, and would mostly stay away from him. Girls had at first come forward often once a class ended to speak with him, but every time they did Gwen would appear from somewhere and glare at them until they went away. After some time, not even the girls would come and say hello.

Gwen would come visit at least once almost every day, when he said he wanted something she would appear before him as quickly as possible with whatever he asked for. Gwen could be said to be the perfect minion, always there watching and listening, but never noticeable.

“You know my father recently bought a mansion and gifted it to me back home as a present for becoming an apprentice.” A voice he recognized could be heard from nearby.

Miranda, he hadn’t seen her for almost a year since she turned twelve. She had never approached him after their first day of meeting. She would however often argue with him during class if questions were asked. Often contradicting him! Which vexed him to no avail. That damn know-it-all!

Whenever not in class he could often hear her voice nearby as she would be bragging about how rich, pretty or talented she was. It was actually strange how often it seemed to occur. Did she suffer from narcissism? Perhaps she simply liked talking about herself.

It was just such a shame that most of his incubus abilities were blocked somehow. It would seem that using demonic powers in any way that affected anything outside of his body in any harmful way was impossible. While his hypnotic eye and flame powers were blocked, his shapeshifting still worked but his mana was too low at the moment. Also, even though his face was womanly changing the way he looked was a shameful thing to do. This was after all the face that his new form now held.

For now, all he could do was to simply continue learning and meditating. Stopping his thoughts, he continued with his meditation. Sitting cross legged outside in a meadow used by the magical students to meditate.

Guiding the mana around him into his astral soul a throbbing pain filled his head, inspecting it he noticed that trying to insert more mana into it was impossible and all he gained in return was a headache. He had finally reached the bursting point of his astral soul!

Standing up a smile creeped up on his face, now his time had come!

“Gwen!” Ashur said with a flat tone.

From the shadow of a tree close by Gwen stepped out and quickly closed the gap between her and Ashur.

“Yes! I am here, what do you need?” Happy with the fact that Ashur had called for her, she looked at Miranda with a triumphant smile.

Miranda on the other looked gloomily at the pair from close by and started to whisper with the girls close to her.

“My astral soul is full and I can now take the step into becoming an apprentice. Please bring me to where I need to go make this happen.” Ashur told Gwen.

“Oh, it’s finally time! This will be my pleasure!” Gwen said as she quickly stepped forward and hugged him tightly, then darkness surrounded the pair and then faded away, leaving nothing behind.