2nd day was fully devoted to training the rune of connection to absolute perfection. Valar listened during the classes that he had, of course, but every ounce of free time was spent solely in study of the rune. This work wasn’t for naught either, as in the late hours of the evening, he felt that his work was finally rewarded.

  The rune of connection had been quite a simple affair compared to life, mend, and protection, although the last one was still a work in progress. It wouldn’t be long until he had a grip on every single rune, and he could finally start looking for actual iron rank internships.

  Even though Valar had learned faster than the vast majority of the student body, he was nowhere near the fastest to graduate from the iron rank studies. The two savants were of course the ones who learned the fastest, but some others had graduated or were extremely close to finishing their studies. To be clear, none of the students belonging to the latter group had started their studies without any prior knowledge, and some had even known their first rune before ever stepping through the doors of the academy.

  One of these students was Arwen, the 17th prince of Leoria. It was no secret that he had progressed through his force magic studies with frightening pace. The comparison held no value though, as he had known the iron rank rune of force before the semester and had been essentially tutored by one of his siblings from the start of the semester. Only one other force magic student had attended, so Titus Aurelius had been able to invest inordinate amounts of time teaching just his brother.

  All in all, Valar’s studying pace had been extremely fast, but he wouldn't be the first one out of the academy. The two savants, Arwen and about twenty nobles would be leaving through the doors of the academy before him, but… They were no life mages.

  Valar would be finished with his studies nearly instantly when he learned tether, as the spells using it would be just extensions of the couple of spells he would learn in the coming days. The first one would of course be Lesser Restoration, but as soon as he got finished with protection, he would be learning Lesser Fortify too. That wasn’t far off, so the boy would probably be out of the academy in a couple of weeks. Time really flies, doesn’t it?

  He had arrived at the academy about one and a half months ago with basically no knowledge of magic whatsoever. Now, he was only a night away from casting his first spell! Valar could finally call himself an actual life mage!

  That was of course only if he was able to cast the spell properly, and for that, he needed to sleep. Iron rank spells weren’t hard by any means if one knew the required runes well enough, but the consequences of failure were still extreme. To avoid that failure, Valar would sleep. And that he did.

  Once again, Valar woke up with the light of the sun. He had slept wearing only his briefs and necklace, so he went to take a shower just after waking up. Today is an important day. I slept well, but I need a good breakfast too.

  After completing his morning routine and dressing up in the simple but well made clothing Viktor had provided him, Valar started heading for the cafeteria. He ate his breakfast with Zeke and Arwen, the prince silently grumbling about the food quality for the duration of the meal. Luckily, he wouldn’t need to ‘endure’ the cafeteria food for long either, as he was close to graduating as well.

  After breakfast was the lecture held by Brynn Withers, the professor of wind magic. The lecture’s topic was a boring one—the coming academy tournament—and Valar didn’t really care. The most important reason for Valar’s uncaring attitude was that iron rankers didn’t participate in the tournament. In addition to that, life mages didn’t join either, as the tournament consisted of students dueling each other. Unless Valar was bronze rank and ready to show the whole nation his fire, he wouldn’t be joining the fun…

  Some others were seemingly highly interested in the tournament. Their higher ranked house members were joining in and the tournament was held yearly. If they were lucky, the nobles could join in as bronze ranks in a year or two.

  “Oh dear, I’m going to have to go in a year, aren’t I?” Arwen muttered.

  “Why? You’re a crown prince, just say no,” Zeke said.

  “If you’re trying to order me around, sure… But the likely order to attend will be from my parents. All of my siblings have attended the tournament when they were studying, so father is going to want me to go too.”

  “Is it that bad?” Valar asked. “If I wasn’t a life mage, I’d at least think about attending.”

  “Just watch when father arranges me in a bracket with only savants and abstract mages…”

  After the lecture was lunchtime. That went about the same as breakfast, and Valar left for the class on life magic quite quickly. He couldn’t wait any longer… He wanted to cast a spell!

  The instant Elaine walked into the classroom, Valar was already showing her the perfected rune of connection lingering in the air in front of him.

  “I’m ready now, right? I can cast Lesser Restoration today!”

  Elaine chuckled as she walked past the boy and to the front of the class. “Wait for just a minute, Valar. I need to start the lesson for all the others, and then we can figure out how to cast the first spell with you, ok?”

  Valar nodded excitedly and sat down to wait for Elaine to start the class.

  The following fifteen minutes of explanation about mend, the other runes and other basics were pure torture for the overly excited boy. Everything Elaine said to the whole class went straight in through one ear and left through the other. He simply couldn’t focus on anything else than the upcoming spell. I’m about to cast a spell! I’m about to cast a-.

  “Calm down, Valar,” Elaine spoke as she grabbed Valar by the shoulders, having walked up without him even realizing. “If you don’t calm yourself at least a little, you’re not going to be casting any spells today. I’m not taking the risk of helping you cast a spell when you’re not focused. There’s too much danger with that.”

  Valar nodded distractedly. Okay… I need to calm down. Deep breaths. In and out. Focus up!

  He just sat there for multiple minutes, breathing slowly and centering himself. After a long while, he finally spoke.

  “I think I’m calm enough now.”

  “Good. Do you remember the spellform?”

  “Yeah… Life in the middle, three mends making a triangle around it. Connection runes between the three mends in addition to connecting life and the highest mend.”

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  “Why three mends? And why no connection between life and the other mends?

  Valar thought back to the chapter on iron rank spells and pondered on Elaine’s question. He needed to remember everything about the spell, including the reasons for why it was built like that.

  “If I remember correctly, two mends wouldn’t give the spell a clear enough purpose,” Valar mumbled. “The spellform needs to convert all the life mana into healing, and two mends wouldn’t overpower the purpose already given by life. As for only one connection between life and the triangle of mends, feeding life mana to every mend simultaneously could break up the rhythm of the spell and destroy the spellform.”

  Elaine nodded to herself. “That’s right. You seem to have internalized the spellform well enough. Just remember that as you progress through iron rank, you can add the other two connections. That makes the spell channel faster but requires more focus. Are you ready to make your first attempt?”

  “Yeah. I’ll start now.”

  Up until now, Valar had never actually drawn a rune directly onto his skin. Elaine had described the feeling, as had Brynn, but it was still surprising. When he had drawn runes in the air, Valar had felt a connection between himself and them, but it had been relatively faint. After he had finished drawing them, that connection had been broken and the rune had been left lingering in the air, expending its mana until it ceased to exist. After the rune had been completed, his ability to keep up the link between himself and it had been lost. He wouldn’t have been able to keep it up even if he had wanted to.

  When he drew the rune on the surface of his unscarred left arm, the feeling was quite different. He started with life as that was the way most life spells started. Immediately after he finished the rune, he almost lost focus due to the link between himself and the rune not breaking. It was still up, and that was an unfamiliar sensation to say the least.

  Valar managed to hold to his wits and continue, moving onto the first connection and the mend it connected to. That was when he lost focus.

  Elaine’s full gold rank aura clamped down onto his, and Valar felt the runes on his skin be unraveled at a snail’s pace. He was not undoing them. Elaine was.

  “You lost control,” Elaine spoke calmly. “Can you tell me exactly what went wrong?”

  Valar breathed slowly, carefully. He still felt the mana lingering within the unraveling rune of life on his arm. Elaine was draining it away somehow, but he could only imagine what would have happened if she wasn’t there. “The feeling of the lingering connection between my magic and the rune shocked me… I expected to draw the second rune with a different string of magic, but the first one just continued through the connection. It surprised me enough to lose focus.”

  “Good, I sensed the same issue,” Elaine responded as the last dregs of mana were drained from the incomplete spellform. “Now that you know what to expect, the second attempt should be more successful.”

  “Why wasn’t that described in the book about life magic?” Valar asked. “Also, how many attempts does it usually take to cast a spell for the first time?”

  “People usually sense their mana in different ways,” the professor explained. “You said that you visualized your magic as a string that drew the runes, but others imagine their magic differently. I visualize my magic as the roots of a tree, and I know some that describe their magic to be like drawings, ocean currents or even words spoken out in their mind. Everyone feels magic in their own and unique way, although the perception of your own magic tends to start simple like your string of mana and evolve through the ranks,” she sighed. “I’ll go check on the others for a minute or two, then come back. I think you can get this in one or two more attempts if we’re lucky.”

  As it turned out, they weren’t quite as lucky as Elaine hoped. The next two attempts encountered similar blocks in Valar’s mindset further in the spellform, but he progressed further with each one. The end of the class was arriving fast, but both Elaine and Valar could sense it.

  The next attempt would succeed.

  The previous spellform had started to destabilize when Valar had gotten to the third mend. The orientation of the triangle had messed with the perception of the spellform in his mind, and it had broken down the instant he lost focus. Both the student and teacher knew that the issue was small and easy to fix, and the next attempt would be successful.

  “Remember to utter the spell’s name and channel magic through it,” Elaine said with a gentle smile on her face. “Etch the following moment into your memory, Valar. You are about to become a mage.”

  Valar wiped his eyes as he nodded to Elaine and refocused his mind to the task at hand. He would not cry. Instead, he would cast his first spell with clear eyes and a smile on his face.

  He sat cross legged on the ground, closed his eyes and focused on his soul. A faint smile grew on his face, and he breathed slowly. In… and out. It’s time to become a mage.

  Valar started controlling the mana flowing from his gate with the full brunt of his will. He kept his breathing steady and his smile never faltered.

  He moved slowly across the required runes. In the opinions of some, the casting would have been laughably slow, but Valar didn’t care. This was a moment he enjoyed immensely, and he wouldn’t finish it a second too fast.

  First was the rune of life: The keystone, the pin that held it all together, the very core of his spell. It etched itself upon his skin with excruciating slowness, but every movement was deliberately planned out and cleanly executed. Valar couldn’t care less about speed. Everything that mattered was success.

  Next were the first mend and connection. The solid base Valar had built with life helped him coast along easily enough, and he moved to the rest of the spellform relatively quickly.

  The spellform was drawn across Valar’s skin almost fully now. Silence had fallen upon the room at Elaine’s urging, and every student of life magic spectated the moment of greatness Valar was experiencing firsthand.

  As Valar finally drew the final connection, completing the spellform, he drew in his breath one last time. The smile never left his lips as he opened his eyes and uttered the words that would make the boy a mage at last. They were not words of death and destruction. Instead, they were words of life, healing and creation.

  “Lesser Restoration”

  The spellform resonated like the greatest symphony as his mana poured through it. The mana flowed through the runes, finally converting to healing energy that spread itself around Valar’s whole body. Truly, there was no greater first spell than a self-healing one. Fireballs and ice lances were great, but they didn’t create such a feeling in one’s body. They could never create the euphoria life magic could.

  The students looked on in silence. Their expressions were a mix of jealousy, pride and emotions that were not so easy to see. Elaine, however…

  “Beautiful.”

  The professor of life magic had seen many times when a student cast his or her first spell. The event was almost always emotional and was cause for celebration. It told of both her and their success and the student’s ascension to a real mage.

  A student of the academy couldn’t call themselves a mage if they could not cast a spell. The affinity of their mana did not matter when they couldn’t do anything with it, did it?

  The first spells were often executed sloppily, barely managing to hold themselves together for long enough to even channel. Still, they were spells and their casters could call themselves mages with their whole heart. This time however… It was different.

  When Valar had attempted the spell for the first three times, it had gone as well as anyone could expect. Students’ first spells often took tens of attempts under supervision, and they would need to train for weeks or even months to truly perfect the spellforms after that.

  Elaine, a gold rank life mage, could not find a single issue with Valar’s spell.

  “Beautiful,” a single tear dripped from Elaine’s eye as she looked on in wonder.

  Being untiring had its advantages, but perfection on the first try was not something that was characteristic to their kind. This was the realm of savants and abstract mages instead.

  Despite the impossibility of what Elaine was looking at, she had an inkling on how this could happen. With this final attempt, Valar had achieved something that was extremely rare for students casting their first spell. He had managed to calm himself, relax and actually enjoy the process of spellcasting.

  Too many stressed about the possible consequences of failure. Their attention to their weaknesses did no favors for their ability to focus, and their spellforms were rife with errors and inconsistencies. Only after that first spell could they truly relax and focus on what was important: The spell.

  Despite his long trauma, or perhaps because of it, Valar could momentarily detach his mind from all the doubt and fear lingering in the depths of his mind. That would not fix the damage within, but only drive it away for the barest moment. Only that could make this feat possible.

  Regardless of how he had done it, one thing was true.

  At just the meager age of thirteen, Valar had earned the right to call himself a mage.

  Team Cookie Sandwich will end on the 13th!