After setting down the basket he was originally carrying, Professor Aberyth guided Gale to what would be her home for the next months: his magical academy. He explained that the academy was only part of the building, the other part was where he conducted his research on unnatural forms of magical energy. Gale did not know much about magical energy, much less about what would be an “unnatural” form of it, so she did not ask any further about it.
After a few twists and turns, they reached the academy/research facility building. It was a big wooden building, 3 levels tall and had a wide courtyard in the back. The roof was painted purplish-blue, contrasting with the light brown of the wooden structure, and the windows were painted light red. Whoever designed the decoration had quite the strange taste, Gale thought. On the side, the building had a second, smaller building attached, as if someone had sewed them together. It was also a wooden building, but the wood was much darker in color, and both the windows and roof were painted in white. There was a chimney coming out of it, and bluish smoke was currently coming out of it.
The professor guided Gale from the side directly to the courtyard, where the sound of people training could be heard from the entrance. As they reached it, she could see 5 other people seemingly doing some kind of magic training together. They were all dressed in some kind of unmarked martial arts uniform, in different colors.
There were two thin, mid-teenage looking twins wearing a red and a black uniform, who had their heads shaved. They were not very tall, and from their eyebrows Gale was able to tell their natural hair was blonde. They were trying to hit a bullseye painted in a board of wood a few meters away from them using magical projectiles coming from magic circles in their arms, which they swung energetically. The red-wearing twin was creating stone-like projectiles, while the black-wearing one small fiery ones. They seemed to have moderate success.
There was a black haired man with olive skin, seemingly in his early 20s, wearing a green uniform, closing his eyes with a focused expression trying a failing to connect a spark that was being generated from his fingertips to an arrowhead a couple of meters away.
On the far side of the yard, close to the fence, there was a blonde young boy, not older than 12, wearing a dark blue uniform. He was trying to climb a tree using only his feet, which were surrounded by a blurry effect, but he could not really take more than a couple of steps before falling on his butt.
Finally, close to the building itself, there was slender brown-haired girl wearing a light gray uniform. He hair was long, reaching to her mid-back, and was tied back in a long braid. She was using a magic circle on her hands to create some kind of water whip to try and move a ceramic pot a few meters from her, but it seemed that the tip side of the whip was not really cooperating, and stayed still.
Gale did not know why, but she could not help staring at her for a few seconds, after which they made eye contact. She could not meet her piercing blue eyes, and got a bit red in the face before looking away. A couple of seconds afterwards, the rest of the students noticed them, and stopped their training to form in a line to greet the professor.
“Good morning, Professor Aberyth”, they said in unison.
“Good morning students, good work with the training today. I wanted to introduce you to a new student starting today, Gale”, he said, pointing at Gale and letting all the students look at her. The students started then to introduce themselves.
“Nice to meet you Gale, we’re Tom and Jon”, the black-wearing teen said, while his brother greeted her waving his hand,
“Welcome to our school, I’m Teb.”, said the older student, looking at her without too much interest.
“Wow, a new student just like that! Are you strong? My name is Saku, don't forget it”, the youngest student said excitedly.
“Pleased to meet you, and welcome to the academy Gale. I’m Sofia”, the girl said while offering Gale her hand. It took her a moment to snap out of it and grab it.
“Nice to meet you all! I hope I can learn many new things here” Gale said, trying to stay as friendly as possible with all her new fellow students.
“While we live and train together, Gale”, Professor Aberith started saying, ”each student normally trains on their own. After all, each one has their own elemental affinity, training stages and goals. Still, all students help each other frequently, so don’t be a stranger. But first, we need to get you properly settled and equipped”.
With that, he guided Gale out of the courtyard and inside the building, there was a big hall inside, with a blackboard of sorts, some seats and tables, and a series of scrolls and books in numerous bookshelves.
“This, Gale, is the classroom. It’s where I give lectures on different topics, and the non-physical part of training is done. Since you are new, first you need to learn quite a few things your fellow students have already learnt. Do not worry though, most of the training is actually done trough proper experimentation, so it wont be too long.” Gale was relieved at his words, she was starting to worry he would make her study for days on end. She preferred more active, hands-on learning anyway.
Past the classroom there was a big wooden door that led to his research facility. In principle, this was off-limits so that his experiments would not be disturbed. He also had a series of magical blocking devices to protect them from the external magical energy generated by the students, and from now on, specially from her.
On the side, there was a wooden stairway. They went upstairs to the topmost floor, and there she found two opposite rooms, each one with four beds. As of now, the four beds in one of the rooms, and a single one in the other, were occupied. The rooms were currently segregated by gender, but this was completely incidental, as they were both unisex. Sofia had been the second-to-last student to arrive before Gale, choosing to sleep in her own room instead of the same one as the twins and the older boy, and the final student, Saku, had preferred to sleep in the “boys room”. Gale took the bed besides Sofia, and left some of her equipment on top of the bed. Then, she waited for the professor to return with a uniform of her own.
“This one should be more or less your size, try it on to see. Do you like the color? There is also a similar one in orange”, Professor Aberith said. The uniform was teal, just like her hair and eyes, and she loved the color. Also, after trying it out, she found it fitted her quite well. She decided to keep it.
Following Professor Aberith downstairs again, this time in her new uniform, he told her that she needed to have her very first lesson today. Thus, they went to the classroom where she sat down while he went to the board. Before starting, though, he called in the rest of students, so they could be present for it.
“Wow, the uniform looks great on you Gale”, Sofia said to her smiling. Gale could only get red in her face and mutter thank you to her. Sofia giggled a little at her reaction, and went with the rest to sit down.
“Well, I’m sure the rest know this lesson, but surely you are all curious about our new student here”, he started the lesson. “There are 5 natural elements in magic, which constitute the foundation of our magical abilities. These are: Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth and Water. Each person has a natural affinity to one of these, except Lightning for a still unexplained reason, and excels at using magic associated with it. From there, the affinity to the rest of the elements can be easily inferred.”
In any case, lets start with a simple test. I am going to send a pulse of my magical aura to you, Gale, which you will see as some blurry wave, and you will have to react to it. Do it in the way that comes most natural to you, and that will show us your affinity. Note that this wave cannot hurt you, even if it might feel unpleasant. Are you ready? Stand up and get in front of me”, he told her.
She got up in front of him, and he put his hands forwards. “Here it goes”, he shouted. She covered herself out of instinct, but looked straight on at the blurry wave. Somehow, it turned around her and went straight back at Professor Aberyth, who stopped it with his hands.
“Great!”, he said clapping. Everyone else clapped too. “As I suspected from the very beginning, you have Wind affinity. And your sub-affinity is Fire, too.”
“How could you tell? What did this trial say?”, Gale asked him.
“Each element is actually just a way of understanding, modifying and acting onto the world. That is, each one has a series of “traits” and preferences to what might be the course of action in any situation. In this case, the action was “react to an incoming attack”. Each element would have reacted in a different way, and since you don’t really know anything about magic, this was a completely natural, subconscious procedure you made”, he explained.
“Sit down, let me draw a diagram to explain myself”, he told Gale. After she had sat down, he continued his lecture. He had drawn a vertical and horizontal axis, and had written aggressive on the top, passive on the bottom, rigid on the left, and flexible on the right.
“These are the traits all elements have, and describe their specific way of interacting with the world. Each person has the highest affinity with one of these traits, and a smaller affinity with the other trait. And each could be on either side of the spectrum. These, in turn, give rise to their magical affinities”, he continued. At that, he started writing on the diagram. On the top left corner, the aggressive-rigid quadrant, he wrote Fire. On the top right corner, the aggressive-flexible quadrant, he wrote Wind. On the bottom left corner, the passive-rigid quadrant, he wrote Earth. On the bottom right corner, the passive-flexible quadrant, he wrote Water. Finally, in the center he wrote Lightning.
“These traits give your affinity. Since your strongest affinity is Wind, it means that your highest traits are aggressive and flexible. This is your natural way of interacting with the world. Given that your sub-affinity is Fire, you have slightly more affinity for aggressive than flexible. Your third element affinity-wise would be Lightning, which is the same for everyone and is why it’s in the center. The reason for this is unknown too. Then the element that shares the other trait, Water. And finally, the one opposite of you in all manners, Earth. This does not mean you cannot learn them, just that it would be much harder than the rest. I try to make all my students learn at least the simplest forms of each element, since they always come in handy.”
“Finally, let me tell you one last thing. How the experiment measured all this. Earth affinity would have made you block the wave completely, as it is passive and rigid. Water would have made you deflect the wave in a different direction, as it is passive and flexible. Wind made you deflect the wave, but throw it back at me, as it is aggressive and flexible. Finally, Fire would have made you send a wave of your own to try to crush mine, as it is aggressive and rigid.”
“With this, we can start tomorrow your training proper. Rest well, have a nice dinner, and try to meet your new fellows. I have to check on a couple of experiments before leaving myself. See you all tomorrow, class!”, he said before leaving.
“See you tomorrow, professor”, they said in unison.
Gale was exhausted after such an intense day, so she had dinner (a stew one of the students had made) while listening in a bit on the conversation between fellow students, and trying not to stare too much at Sofia, and went straight to bed. She fell asleep pretty much immediately after laying on the bed, without even changing out of her uniform. She would try to socialize properly the next day.
