Sprinting across the side-walk from my home in the almost-affluent Jisik Residential Town to the nearby commercial district of Sijang Market, I was partially lost in thought once again. As various shops and eateries rushed past my hazy side view, even the small gasps for air as my body started tiring from the run couldn’t break my string of thoughts. My mind was once again reminded of my younger sister and the comatose condition she now found herself in because of me.

Looking back, my sister had always been more talented than me, despite our age gap. And that had become even more clear after she awoke to her comtype of healer at the young age of twelve, which was uncommon even in this world of mana arts (read: magic) we were now living in. A mage’s rank and comtype were two extremely important pieces of their identity in this world. While rank, ranging from F-rank to S-rank, signified a mage’s proficiency in perceiving, channeling and controlling the mana around them, their compatibility type or ‘comtype’ signified their natural affinity towards one (or sometimes more) particular type(s) of mana art. 

Even the impending fear of Master Jaehyun at my dojo beating me to a pulp for being late didn’t make it difficult for me to recall the twelve comtypes we had been taught since we were school children. Taking a second to draw the mental diagram in my mind, the twelve different comtypes were neatly arranged in a circle. Starting from the top, they were: Elemental, Monk, Enhancer, Archwizard, Alchemist, Trickster, Healer, Summoner, Gatekeeper, Blood-demon, Shadow-wielder, and Soul-seeker.

When a mage first awoke to their comtype, which happened completely randomly in their teenage years, they were given a preliminary assessment by our kingdom’s magic council to determine their rank. While the rank of a mage was constantly re-evaluated throughout their life, it was uncommon for the rank to change after the mage’s awakening of their comtype, until they entered a magic academy after graduating high school and received formal training in magic. For instance, I awoke to my comtype as a flame elemental at the age of seventeen, where I was preliminarily assessed to be E-rank. 

Although I think I had gotten a fair bit stronger since then and was hoping for a rank revision after Magiharu this year. But while elementals like me were fairly common, healers were a lot rarer, and my sister had been pre-assessed to be a C-rank healer at the mere age of twelve. Being granted C-rank upon awakening to her comtype meant my sister would have had her picks of the top magic academies of the world. Even at her current level, my sister would have been one of the top healers in the city with how rare healers were in general. Of course, that is, if it hadn’t been for me.

‘Watch where you’re going!’ a pedestrian roared as I was brought back to my senses. Nearing the dojo, I decided to pull back from any negative thoughts for the time being to focus on my training. I had to get stronger quickly for my sister, although this was easier said than done. Withdrawing Fire Jet; a fire spell I had cast on the soles of my feet to boost my speed while running, I entered the dojo.

The interior of Meijhang Dojo was quite similar to what one might expect from a martial arts dojo. The walls were mostly devoid of color except for occasional cream-colored panels amidst a sea of white marble, which spilled out past the walls onto the floor as well. Although the main hall was quite large for a traditional dojo, Master Jaehyun had decided to utilize almost the entire room to build the one-on-one sparring stage which stood in the center. While this meant new trainees, who wanted to practice in smaller groups had to use the smaller back rooms for their lessons, it did make the main hall an ideal place for sparring matches between mages. Although the Master discouraged the use of too many spells except for those which augmented our natural fighting techniques, it gave us an added peace of mind knowing a simple fire fist wouldn’t bring the whole dojo down due to a lack of space.

As I entered the dojo, my eyes met Fang and Chen’s, who were busy warming up on the side of the stage waiting for the current sparring match to finish. Although they were both a year older than I was and already attending Ashford Academy, one of the most prestigious magic academies in the city, I had grown quite close with one of them after spending almost two years training at the dojo. As a loud whistle signaled the end of the previous match, I couldn’t help but smile as the two of them rushed onto the stage. I went and stood next to Master Jaehyun, who seemed to be meditating amidst the buzz of the room, no doubt observing the proceedings with his keen mana sense, even with his eyes closed tightly. Although with his shaved head and loose yellow robes, he seemed more like a religious preacher rather than a martial arts master.

‘Greetings Master,’ I spoke, calmly bowing, hoping to not disturb his meditation from up close.

‘Ah, finally decided to give us some of your valuable time?’ he asked rhetorically, with his eyes still closed.

Not wanting to engage, I let out a playful chuckle before turning my attention to the stage again. By the faint glowing light starting to emanate from their bodies, even I could tell Fang and Chen were about to start. Although my mana sense or perception wasn’t as strong as a high ranker’s, it had always been better than the average E-ranker. For instance, most E-rankers only had a vague ‘sense’ of the mana around them being manipulated, while I could actually see it happening to an extent, which was uncommon before reaching higher ranks.

As I saw the green tinted mana particles gather around Fang’s legs, I knew he had started to channel a small burst of wind from his feet to dash towards Chen. Before I could even finish my thought, Fang had dashed forward, quickly closing the distance between himself and Chen, coating his body in a thin veil of wind to increase his defense. Unable to use wind-based magic to increase his speed like Fang, Chen’s response was to manipulate the water flowing around the stage into a jet-stream launched directly at Fang, to try and slow down his mad dash forward. Avoiding most of the water jet by putting his weight to one side, Fang used the air around him to momentarily spin counter-clockwise before regaining his balance, going in for a wind-infused low kick to knock Chen off his feet. As if reading his intentions, Chen channeled water onto his arms to create long tentacles of water which whipped the ground in front of him at a maniacal speed, a C-ranked spell called Water Whip. 

Unlike what I had seen with Fang, the mana particles around Chen seemed to have a slight blue tint to them. To be honest, although I had been able to see these slight differences in the color of mana since I awoke to my comtype, I hadn’t been able to find any information on this phenomenon in any of the magical texts I had had access to in my father’s quite extensive home-library. Thinking I might be abnormal or in need of mental help, I’d never mentioned this fact to anyone, not even Master Jaehyun, for fear of being labelled a deviant. Even to Master Jaehyun, who was a B-ranked enhancer with an exceptional mana sense, mana appeared as particles of shimmering white, much the same as it did for everyone else I had talked to about this, with my own self being the only exception I had ever come across.

A small shockwave shifted me out of my thoughts as Chen’s water whips met Fang’s quickly conjured wind disks thrown in quick succession from his arms. Although Chen’s spell was superior, and it was commendable that he could utilize a spell way above his rank, I could see the strain on his face as his mana drained out of him. Fang meanwhile had created enough of a gap in the dancing whips to be able to dash forward and close the distance between him and his opponent in one well-timed leap. With a wind-infused round-house kick delivered straight to Chen’s mostly unguarded abdomen; the match was quickly over. 

Chen let out a huge sigh, withdrawing the thin veil of water he had used to somewhat shield his abdomen from the blow, falling to his knees, clearly exhausted. So as not to gravely hurt anyone, Master Jaehyun had instituted a one-hit rule in our dojo, so whoever managed to deliver the first hit to their opponent’s body was declared the winner before any serious injuries could take place. Still, even though elementals weren’t as capable as enhancers at body strengthening or enhancement, it helped that we could coat our bodies with a thin layer of our element to reduce external force to varied degrees of success.

When Master Jaehyun finally opened his eyes and asked me for a brief analysis of the match, it was quite easy to answer him. With Fang being a wind elemental, he was better able to use his element’s strengths to supplement his martial arts skills with minimum mana usage, retaining his vitality throughout the match. Chen on the other hand, hadn’t yet figured out how to integrate the water element into his martial arts, relying more on his superior magical prowess and medium-level spells such as Water Whip to overpower his opponent. 

While it was commendable that Chen could use a medium-level spell, with his current rank, his mana control was not sufficient to shield his body from the backlash and exhaustion from the spell, which resulted in Fang’s low mana use strategy paying off. The reason why Chen was actually so exhausted after one spell wasn’t something I needed to explain to Master Jaehyun. Although mages manipulated the mana around them to create specific effects (a.k.a. spells), it wasn’t really possible to sit still and concentrate enough to absorb and manipulate external mana via our mana channels during a close quarters battle. For this reason, battle mages had to mostly rely on the mana absorbed and stored prior within their mana channels to cast spells for the duration of the battle. Although Master Jaehyun had told me that exceptional high-ranked mages could continue to absorb and utilize external mana even during a battle, even he wasn’t able to do this as yet, according to him at least. 

Simply put, Chen had taken a gamble by using most of his internal mana to cast a mid-level spell, hoping it would knock Fang out before the exhaustion hit Chen. Ultimately it was futile however, as Fang came from a family of exceptional wind elementals, his father being an A-ranked wind elemental currently serving as a deputy brigade commander in Argent Wing, our kingdom’s military force. Although he was stationed on the northern border our province shared with the Kingdom of the Sun, I’m sure he was giving his son some private tutoring on his routine visits back home.

I ran up to my friend as he walked off the stage, triumphant, although I could tell the slightly arrogant air he was giving off was annoying the other students. While he had been the closest thing I had had to a real friend for the past two years, Fang Aria did take a lot of pride in the elite status of his family, although he was still far better than many of the other younger members from elite families I’d occasionally come across.

‘You were so good! Although I still think I can beat you,’ I teased as I high-fived my best friend.

‘A fire elemental beating a wind elemental, don’t be ridiculous,’ he teased back.

His words, although playful, did slightly sour my mood. Although he was right in that at our rank, a wind elemental had a clear advantage over a fire elemental, that wasn’t the only issue. Although I didn’t want to admit it, Fang’s D-rank meant that he was probably a lot stronger than me in general, able to utilize his mana reserves a lot more efficiently than I could.

‘I’m going to go train,’ I replied almost coldly as I made my way to one of the backrooms of the dojo for some individual martial arts practice.