“Good morning, class! My name is Sector Dougsta, and we meet for the first time. I’m teaching archery. You may ask – what does archery have to do with magic? And to that, my answer is simple. There are many ways to use magic and to be more precise, I’m teaching different types of combat magic. It’s mostly for having multiple options in your arsenal. Today we’ll have a practical lesson, so follow me to the next classroom.” He felt like an outgoing person, his face was very expressional, and his body movements were very energetic. His hair was black, and his eyes were dark brown. He wore a white long sleeve shirt and brown velvet pants – basic looking teacher set-up.

“As you may see, these targets have markings on them, and they are far away from the place we’re going to cast magic from. For the first semester, you won’t receive any grades in my class. If I remember correctly, besides few classes, there are no real tests for you for now. In the second semester, you’ll all be getting ranks based on your skills. Don’t worry, only the top fifty students are shown in the ranking board per year, so if you’re last in your year, no one will know unless you suddenly disappear from school, which means that you’ve most likely been expelled.” He was walking away from us towards the target, so it was harder and harder to hear what he was saying, but I think everyone could hear what he was saying.

“Oke, let me do this...” His hand slithered in his pocket and pulled out an orange looking stone.
“Hello, you can now hear me better since the stone is transmitting my voice to that strange contraption on your left. It’s called whisper-machine and is used in short-range communication, mostly in military camps, to give notices and call upon people to assembling place. It’s not a safe communication tool for secret messages since it’s easy to catch signals with other devices, so it has limited uses. Still, if you, later on, join the military, you will see it pretty often.” While waving at us from the other side of the classroom, he explained about some tools we’ll have to get accustomed to.

“The magic in this exercise is to use the smallest projectiles you can form up with your spells and launch them with the best accuracy you can at this target. The middle gives you the best scores, but I’m sure everyone knows how this works, so I’ll get to the point now. Those of you, who can’t hit at least within the blue markings by the end of the first year, will be expelled even if you pass other classes, there might be some exceptions, but those are rare, got it?” He clapped his hands, walked away from the target to the east wall of the room, and sat down on a bench that just appeared from thin air. I don’t know that kind of magic, so I was surprised to see something like that.

“Let’s begin, one by one. Whoever wants can start first.” While in a relaxed pose with hands behind his head and right leg crossing his left one, he began to watch the target. His eyes were locked on the places where spells landed.  He most likely has already made a ranking of his own, or so it seemed.


Most of the students were struggling with magic small projectiles and simply hit the entire target with spells. Some of them were missing it, and only a few students could do what was asked of them. To my understanding, there are many uses to small magic projectiles because magic tends to work nearly the same as needles. It is easier to penetrate through barriers if more of it is concentrated into a single point of impact. Some spells can blow away barriers in large explosions, but it’s more efficient to conserve some energy, especially if you’re against some strong creatures.
It was finally my turn to try this task. I was pretty confident since I’m really good at using these kinds of spells because I can use a magic bow that needs me to have some archery skills, and I’ve trained plenty in those. I created a bow out of lightning and shot an arrow that was of the same element. It hit the target next to the middle point, easily pierced through it, and hit the wall behind it. It’s easier to aim these spells rather than a real bow since they go in a straight line. I don’t have to calculate air resistance and other things that make it difficult to shoot a bow.
I looked at the target and was surprised to see those results because many powerful-looking spells barely did anything to it, but I shot through it. I could only guess how strong are the pelkanix since that didn’t even scratch Rakh when I used it on him.
Others were mumbling to each other in a surprise that I hit it. Well, it makes sense after that poor showing in evaluation when I missed my target. When I looked at the teacher, I could see that he was excited about my showing, I don’t know how well I compare to other students he’s seen, but I hope I did well.

“Excuse me, Elias Lyceus, my name is Eliana Quill. I’m the third daughter of Marquis Yulius Quill, and I’d like to ask you about this performance. What you did on evaluations was on purpose, right? It seems that you have no issues wielding powerful magic and do so without even using chants or some other common casting methods. What I’d like to know is how? I haven’t heard of the Lyceus household having prodigies in magic, I know of the three sisters that are highly ranked in their year, but everyone can achieve that if they give it their best. You seem to possess too much power, especially as someone this young. Forgive if I sound rude or strange, but I’m mostly curious. I’d like to invite you over to Quill mansion this weekend, and I hope you’ll come.” She was a little shorter than me, she didn’t seem as smug as she was in evaluations, her face was bewitching, she was charming, but that didn’t make me act weird, I’ve grown up with three sisters that all were in her league, so I’m used to talking with females. I’ve always wanted to see how nobles live, so I had no reasons to decline.
“Thank you for your invite. I’d love to come. How do I get there?” When I was ten years old, I learned from my mother how to be a little more polite. I could feel that there would be a use for it. I stood as straight as I could and answered her.
“We’ll meet at the east entrance gate on the Friday evening after all classes are over. It will take almost all night to get there, so be ready to sleep in the carriage. The class is about to end, so let’s talk more when that day comes.” With a big smile on her face, she walked away.


“Students, I got a grasp on how is everyone doing, and the next time we meet, I’ll have a training program made for everyone individually. The class is over. You can stay here to practice more or go and get ready for the next one.” The doors were left open as he left the training classroom. Some people stayed to practice, but I decided to go outside for some fresh air.