A young man with short brown hair, a pointy nose, and striking purple eyes stood near the city gates in the metropolis of Goldton. With his lean but muscular build of 1.8 meters, he looked more adult than a teen, despite being only sixteen years old.

His name was Lando Weber, a magician at the very end of his academy years, looking forward to visiting his home before his graduation.

The four years there were exhausting in more than one way. He had a strict timetable during his studies and training, but that was the easy part.

The more difficult part was hiding his secrets from his teachers and peers while living under the same roof as them.

In this world, about a tenth of magicians awakened their magical element at the delicate age of twelve. Everyone lucky enough to be one of the fortunate ones had the ability to become a magician and gain control over elements like water, fire, or earth.

Lando was one of them and awakened his element, like everybody else, on his 12th birthday—the rare element of space.

His parents were both magicians themselves, so his chances of awakening were higher than those of the common population to begin with and they were ecstatic about their son becoming a magician like them.

But the problems started as Lando discovered that he not only had the ability to wield the power of space but time as well.

It was unheard of! A magician able to wield two elements, space and time, would almost certainly shake the common understanding of magic on the continent, as everyone else was only able to wield one element.

A mere 1% of the awakened elements manifested as the enigmatic forces of space and time, while the vast majority were far more commonplace, with each 10% attributed to the powers of light and dark. Additionally, the elemental compositions of fire, water, earth, and wind each accounted for 20% of the awakened elements.

This meant that Lando had not only two kinds of magic at his disposal but also the rarest ones.

His parents quickly assessed the situation. They were happy for their son to be special, of course, but they lived in a society where this meant more trouble than blessing.

As experienced magicians familiar with the people in the upper ranks of society, they advised their son to hide his time element, at least until he could protect himself from outside forces.

They were powerful mages themselves, but that meant nothing if they had to defend Lando against even more powerful enemies.

A magician, wielding both space and time, if nurtured properly could become a very valuable asset to any organization, kingdom, or empire.

If they could not get this asset themselves, it was better to eliminate it before it joins the enemy ranks and become a threat for their own power.

This led to Lando’s secret and lonely training sessions in his dorm at the academy, always careful that nobody got wind of his time element.

He was isolating himself from the rest more often than not and was calculating every risk he took.

Everyone was evaluated in his mind at first ‘Is she just approaching me because of my space element to form connections for their own family? Which family are they from? How much trouble would it bring me if he would somehow find out about his second element?’

Because of this careful mindset, he had not many friends at school. Those few he called ‘friends’ were thoroughly selected. ‘Coming from a noble family? Want nothing to do with him. Your father is a high mage? Too risky at my current level of power.’

Most of the time, he was mingling with awakened commoners, that came out of poverty and were more often than not, the only magicians in their whole family.

Lando enjoyed the much more straight forward attitude those people had. No superficial compliments that were actually insults, no showing off about their parent’s wealth or power, just normal conversations about magic and some day-to-day topics.

He really savored his magical studies and all the things included. Discovering new possibilities of using his magic, finding new approaches to magical problems he was stuck at and just the feeling of more power it gave him when he mastered a new spell.

As a kid he already loved watching his father making all kind of enchantments and observing the effects they had afterwards.

Nothing was more exciting than gazing at a fireball coming out of a piece of wood or metal, seemingly out of nowhere, at least for the 6-year-old Lando.

 

Finally finding a carriage that would travel by his hometown Sisterreach, the young dual elemental magician was on his way to see his parents again.

He was only allowed to leave the academy grounds once a year during the summer break and despite his adult looking appearance, he was getting a bit homesick in his last school year.

While he sat on the carriage, he looked at the bypassing city and marveled at the local architecture. The exteriors of the buildings were adorned with pilasters, columns and cornices adding a sense of verticality and rhythm to it.

Goldton was famous for its thriving crafting business due to the mines in its close vicinity at the Hammerfall mountains. The advantageous location brought peace and prosperity to the whole city and it’s over a million inhabitants. At least that’s what he heard from his classmates.

‘What a shame. I lived four years in this city already and all I saw was the academy grounds.’ He thought while swearing to himself to explore the city right after his graduation.

Only a few minutes into the ride, the Fangwood forest came into view on his left. This already awakened familiar feelings in the young magician as the large forest extended even beyond his hometown.

Most of the people in his village depended on this woodland and earned their livelihood by hunting magical beasts, gathering herbs, or harvesting wood.

Lando found himself sharing the carriage with some other passengers, including a man named Gary and his talkative young daughter, Alice. The little girl's long, curly black hair and lively demeanor added a sense of joy to the journey.

Alice turned her attention to Lando. Her innocent eyes sparkled with curiosity as she asked him if he was a magician. Lando's academy uniform gave away his affiliation, and he found himself nodding in response.

Alice bombarded him with questions about his magical abilities, eager to know more about his elemental affinity, magical stage and level of mastery.

Lando, feeling a warmth in his chest from the little girl's enthusiasm, shared that he was a space magician, still at the apprentice level with medium mastery.

Apprentice was the stage right after Novice. He had already strengthened his body with his mana, becoming multiple times stronger and more resilient than common people.

The little girl's curiosity piqued, Lando conjured a simple demonstration, levitating a few copper coins in a circular motion above his hand.

“Wow, a space magician! I heard they are super-duper rare! And you have medium mastery already!” the girl said with enthusiasm.

A magician had to learn how to control their element, as pure power was just one side of the coin on a magician’s advancement. Lando's medium mastery was the result of the hard work he put into his studies and practice at the academy.

This garnered not only attention from Alice but also from the other passengers.

Gary asked with a hint of curiosity, “With your talent, you surely got scouted by a faction already! I heard space magicians get contracts offered from practically every faction, but mostly they get snatched away by the Space-Time Council.”

Lando had received numerous offers as soon as he joined the academy, but he had declined all of them so far because he did not want to be ordered around by greedy merchants or nobles.

Once upon a time, a guy in a white uniform with notes of violet and a logo that depicted a clock in a three-dimensional cube popped out of nowhere during his combat training classes and offered him a VERY generous contract of employment. The contract would overwhelm him with resources, but it had a minimum timespan of 50 years in the best case and was magically enforced.

The council was acting as a law enforcement company most of the time that could be employed by kingdoms and states under certain conditions.

The conditions were harsh and thus not very common among kingdoms and empires because they would implement the general space-time laws formed by the council, which would limit the kingdoms in their leadership.

The Republic of Enolin, situated on the easternmost part of the continent, employed them centuries ago and, according to rumors, it is a hell for criminals on the run.

Just imagine a space mage popping out of nowhere with a time mage in tow. If you are on the weaker side, you wouldn't even notice being trapped in a time prison. The possibility of that happening alone would be a huge deterrent for criminals.

Nevertheless, he did not like being bonded to an organization for 50 years at minimum, and he got a bad impression of the guy. He was arrogant and had a stoic expression on his emotionless face. As he left when Lando declined the offer, he said, "What a waste," then his ring flashed purple and 2 seconds later he disappeared seemingly out of existence.

 

Alice and her father were amazed, proclaiming Lando surely must be one of the most outstanding students at the academy.

As those memories resurfaced, he just shrugged his shoulders to indicate to them that he didn't want to talk about it.

Little did they know that Lando's talent went beyond what anyone could imagine.

“So, you are one of those rich kids from one of the noble families?” a young woman with fiery red hair commented accusingly, as she heard of Lando’s talent.

Lando raised an eyebrow at the woman’s question and answered her with a slight chuckle “No, by all means, my father has a small shop but that’s all. I have nothing do with those two-faced snakes.”

He chose his words deliberately. Compared to commoners, his parents were certainly rich, as the disparity between normal people and magicians was vast. His father was an enchanter and his mother worked for the Empire.

But times were troubling for the nobility and Lando did not want to draw the ire of the folks in the carriage.

Vincent Underwood, the brother of the current emperor, was gathering people to overthrow the current rule. His aim was to establish a Republic where common people had the same rights as magicians and nobility.

Rumors even reached the isolated academy where Lando studied, not too long ago.

Common folks were uniting and the hate for nobility was growing from day to day. People got braver and even confronted them on the streets from time to time.

The redhaired woman still eyed at Lando suspiciously, when a middle- aged man suddenly defended Lando “Leave the kid alone Marry. Not every magician is one of those bastards.”

The tone grew rougher and Marry replied with rising anger “You may be right, but that changes next to nothing. Most magicians subordinate themselves to nobles and help them torturing us common people. Did you already forget what they did to my little sister?”

The man obviously remembered what the woman was talking about, as his face visibly portrayed sorrow and grief, but he said nothing.

“They nearly crippled her! And for what? For merely ‘not showing the right amount of respect’! She just bumped in to him and even said sorry. Why should we even show them our respect when they have none for us in the first place?” Marry nearly shouted at her companion.

Such things happened daily and not even once got a noble punished even in the slightest. The people executing the law had nothing to gain and everything to lose. It was not even against the law, as there was a two-class system in the empire.

“Damn right! Put those fuckers down!” another man voiced in his opinion.

The topic soon escalated and shouts for revolution and a rebellion became more and louder by the second.

Lando felt very uncomfortable all of a sudden and tried to phase into the background, to avoid being pulled into conversations again.

Alice’s father Gary had a sorry expression on his face, as it was his daughter’s questions that started this argument in the first place.

Luckily, Lando’s mood lightened up at the sight of familiar walls on the horizon.