Chapter 1 - Why Does It Have To Be Me?

They say Keeper Academy is the perfection of magic, a place for those who seem worthy of wielding incredible power that can change and protect the world. But as I stand here, staring up at its soaring towers piercing the clouds and the grand golden gated entrance, all I can think of is how much I don’t fit in. 

I shift on my feet, the rough stone and dirt beneath me feeling too solid, too real, compared to the swirling tornado of doubts in my mind. The icy wind catches my cloak, whipping it around me like a shroud. It’s cold up here, being enveloped in the clouds, but the chill that seeps into my bones has little to do with the altitude. Fear is the reason.

To my left, a group of first-year students are laughing together, their voices ringing with enthusiasm and confidence. They’re already talking about the incredible spells they’re going to learn, the legendary battles they’ll fight, and the glory they’ll achieve by becoming a World Keeper. I want to tell them it’s all a lie—that this place doesn’t create heroes—it breaks you. I choke on the words, caught in my doubts.

What am I doing here?

It’s plain and simple: I have no idea. Okay, the answer is more complicated. I was minding my own business at my house. One day, the Keeper Academy Administration “invited” me to become a special student because they told me I had limitless potential and unique magic. I was surprised because others had teased me for my lack of skill in using even basic magic. Also, you can’t just decline an “invitation” from the Keeper Academy, either. 

I shiver as I hug myself to preserve my body temperature. The cold freezing air made me feel like I was drowning. Not only that, but some mysterious force inside me keeps raging, day in and day out, like a boiling pot of water about to burst. As I closed my eyes, I counted to 10. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. I felt the force calm down inside me. I sighed in relief. 

“Hey, are you alright?” A voice snaps me out of my thoughts. I glance up to see a girl with bright green eyes and a friendly smile. She looks like she belongs here—confident, strong, and apparently not freezing. I should lie and tell her I’m fine and that I’m just nervous like everyone else. But something about her gaze makes the truth slip out.

“I’m uncomfortable. I don’t belong here,” I say, my voice trailing off with the wind. 

The girl’s smile doesn’t fade. Her eyes softened with understanding. 

“We all start off feeling uncomfortable, like this is a foreign place. But we wouldn’t be here if the academy didn’t see potential in us, right? We all have a place here.”, she said to me warmly.

“Yeah,” I say to her. I resisted the urge to tell her that everything may not seem what they look like. The Keeper’s Academy’s intentions may not be pure. My gut tells me that there are many more layers concealed by this place than what is known. 

My expression grew dimmer as my thoughts plunged deeper into darkness. The Keeper Academy doesn’t care about me as a person. They only care about this mysterious raging force within me. This is a force of rare magic that I can’t even wield. The most I can do is stop it from overflowing out of me. 

“By the way, my name is Ivy McKinley! I have an affinity for earth magic, with a focus on plants. What about you?” The girl asked me in a cheerful tone. 

I looked at her in momentary silence as my eyes widened at the question. I wanted to thank her for distracting me from my thoughts. 

“My name is Nico Lotus. I have an affinity for fire magic, with a focus on explosions. I am not very good at it or control it well,” I told her as I laughed. 

Fire magic is the only magic I can wield out of the basic foundational magic attributes, which are fire, water, air, and earth. Magic users can then choose to focus on specializations stemming from their main magical attribute. 

The rare magic attributes are light and darkness, though the descriptions of those kinds of magic only appear in lost ancient documents, which could be anywhere. My main real attribute is the uncontrollable force inside of me, which I have yet to figure out what it is. Whatever it was, the Keeper Academy wants to control it and the person using it. 

Ivy laughed alongside me, her hair flowing in the wind, without a care in the world. 

“That’s alright. I know how to grow a tree using one spell. One day, I will grow an entire forest of trees with one flick of my wrist! We all have to start somewhere,” she said to me while winking at me. 

Before I could think about what to say next, Ivy blurted out, “Hey, you want to be friends? I come from a place far away, so I don’t know any people here. You seem to have felt down a lot, so I can cheer you up when you need it! What do you say?” 

I couldn’t believe my ears. I stumbled upon my words but mustered enough energy and courage to say, “Sure, why not?”

To be honest, I don’t have many friends. It’s not because I am shy, but more because I am awkward. Feeling my energy being drained to come up with the right words to not mess up an interaction with somebody takes a lot. 

“Yay!” Ivy exclaimed out loud, causing a lot of first-years to look at her in confusion. My cheeks turned a slight shade of red out of second-hand embarrassment, even though it looked like she didn’t care at all. In a way, I admired how she didn’t care about what others thought of her. 

“Will you shut up?” A rough voice from the right shouted out loud. The man who shouted had a tall frame and muscles that looked like they were on steroids. When Ivy looked toward the shout, a powerful gust of wind threw her off her feet and onto the ground with a hard thud. 

Ivy grimaced in pain as she hit the ground. 

“I’m Dustin Windsori! One of the best first-year wind users at the academy, I don’t like loud noises. Next time, just keep your excitement to yourself, or I will knock you to the ground again.” Dustin chuckled to himself as his friends laughed with him. 

Ivy’s eyes flashed with a mix of anger and pain as she got up from the ground, wiping off the dirt smeared across her cheek. I saw as she opened her mouth to say something, but I stepped forward before anything could come out. 

“Could you just leave us alone?” I asked Dustin in a demanding voice. I gripped both of my hands into tight fists, trying to get my temper under control. If I lose my temper, if I lose control, and if I unleash the force within me, who knows what could happen? 

Dustin looked at me with a sneer on his lips. “Who are you? Her boyfriend?”. He summoned another gust of wind, which ruffled my hair. “You think you can stand up against me? From what I heard, you stink at magic.” Dustin’s friends laughed together at the statement. I could feel the magical force inside rising and boiling. Thoughts flashed through my mind as I decided what to do. 

Become a world keeper? I have no need for that. I do not need to save people I don’t even understand. If I get expelled for attacking another student who deserves it, I don’t care. What matters is that I don’t let the nice person who just became my friend continue to get hurt. My anger was rising even more rapidly now, causing my body to heat and produce flames on my skin. 

These weren’t just any ordinary flames, though. These flames were purple, a very rare color to be produced by a fire user. Nobody knows the full extent of what purple flames can do to a person. As Dustin took a step back, the purple flames on my body became larger and more uncontrollable. “Playtime is over,” I told him coldly.

Just as I was about to throw these dark flames at Dustin, a large, blinding light appeared right outside the golden gates of the academy. My flames perished as I wasn’t able to sustain the energy consumption of my magic and, because of the blinding light, threw me off. 

As I was squinting toward where the light was coming from, I noticed a grand figure enshrouded in a yellow light. 

“Stop fighting immediately with the power invested in me by the principal keeper. The entrance ceremony is about to begin. All students go to the great hall now!” the figure said to all the students. Everyone quickly filed through the now-open gates toward the intimidating Keeper Academy towers ahead. 

“Nico and Dustin, you are to be sent to the principal’s office. No words, just actions. Move it now.”, the figure demanded of us.

As I walked through the grand gates toward the principal’s office, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this whole academy was a test. A trial by fire that might consume me if my own flames don’t consume me first. 

The academy doors slam shut behind us. There is no turning back now.