Aron wakes up with purpose in his eyes and a smile on his face as he gets out of bed. He grabs his wand and comes out of the room in a hustle. He runs over to the Headmaster’s chambers and knocks on the door eagerly. ‘It’s been three years since I came to the university. Auntie Trish says that I’m ready to actually start learning magic now that I’m six years old. I’m really, really excited. I haven’t had a chance to practice magic over these past years, so it’ll be fun to see what I can do.’ The Headmaster opens the door after a while and smiles weakly, her messy silver hair all over the place. Her appearance is disheveled, like she hasn’t slept well in a few nights.

“Hey Aron. What’s up?” She yawns.

“It’s time that I learn magic, right?” Aron’s eyes gleam with excitement.

The Headmaster sighs. “Oh, I suppose so. But did you have to wake me up when the sun’s barely out?” 

“Yep.” Aron jumps around the hallway, impatiently awaiting for a lesson in magic.

“Okay, okay. Let’s go.” Trish chuckles and leads Aron to a classroom. The classroom is spacious and allows for a capacity of maybe 50-100 students at a time. Aron sits down in his seat as soon as he enters the classroom and gets a quill to take notes, determined to know more about magic and this world in general. 

“Now. To understand how to use magic, you gotta know the history of magic.” Trish gets a piece of purple chalk to write on the board with. “The history of magic begins 1,200 years ago in the continent of Marenth. An elven man by the name of Aldir noticed strange particles in the air that no one else could sense. He began to filter out these particles and put them into his body to see if he would die or not. He didn’t die, but in fact, grew stronger. He noticed physical improvements to his body, but he also noticed that he could access a realm outside of this physical world. He began experimenting inside of this new realm and thought that maybe if he poured some of these particles, which he named mana, into the realm, that it would seep into our dimension as well so that more people could have this gift. His hopes came true, and soon, more and more people were being born with the ability to see these mana particles and bend them to our desires. These desires made races across the world able to access the four elements: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. The people that made the incantations for new spells are called the Wise Men. We know of four people that made most of all the known incantations. Molber, an elven man made about a third of the incantations for Air magic. Dessiedus, a dwarven man made most of the incantations for Earth magic. Olvia, a human woman made almost all of the incantations for Water magic and the offshoots of it. Finally, Aldir, the elven man that made mana manipulation possible in the first place, made all of the known incantations for fire magic. Legend has it that Aldir is still alive today and has mastered all four of the elements and lives somewhere in what people call the Fourth Dimension.” 

“So… I have a question.” Aron says, intrigued and excited by all of this information.

“Yes, what is it?” Trish smiles as she looks back at him.

“How come I could easily do ice magic at three? Cause I didn’t hear anything about three-year-olds having the ability to do that.” 

“Y…you used ice magic at three?” A strand of hair falls over her eye as she gasps. 

“Yeah. I know it probably isn’t normal, but I was just wondering what that was about.” Aron looks up at Trish, waiting eagerly for a response.

“Oh, so that’s why your mom was telling me that you’re a prodigy. Uh… the best explanation that I can come up with is that you were either blessed by the gods or that you just have very powerful royal blood in you.” Trish covers her mouth as she thinks.

“Royal blood? What’s that got to do with any of it?” Aron asks, very intrigued.

“You see, Aldir gave the most amount of mana to the royal families, which is why most people that are very adept at magic are nobles or the immediate royal family.” 

“Ohh, okay got it. I have another question though.”

“Yes, Aron?”

“What exactly is the Fourth Dime-” A teacher barges into the room.

“So sorry to interrupt, but Ms. Headmaster, something is wrong with the students. Th- They won’t wake up.” The teacher looks at Trish in a very concerned manner.

“Don’t worry, I got this. Aron, stay here.” She gives Aron a slight nod, smiles at him, and goes to the other room. The teacher follows behind her and closes the door behind them. Aron immediately goes after them, following closely behind. He puts his ear next to the door and can just barely make out what they’re saying.

“These students are under a spell that’s too powerful for me to break.” Trish says and looks worriedly at the teacher. 

“Oh, well that’s unfortunate.” He grins slightly, out of view from the Headmaster. Aron senses that something feels off. The teacher puts a mask on with a painted-on creepy smile and white thunderbolts for eyes. He turns around for the Headmaster to see and talks in a distorted voice. “Sorry that you won’t be dying in front of the children. I thought I had made it weak enough.” He laughs wickedly. 

“Was the Drago Party that bad that you had to betray me?” The Headmaster asks in a half serious, half sarcastic tone. 

“What? No, it was good. I just have some orders from on High. You know how it is.” The teacher reassures her and pulls out a sword from his side scabbard. 

“Oh good, so now I know that I won’t be the cause of your death.” She smirks and pulls a sword from beneath her cloak and infuses it with fire magic. She skillfully outmaneuvers the teacher and attempts to swing onto his head, but before she could, he kicks her in the abdomen, winding her. He goes for a kill shot in the chest, but Aron opens the door. He chants the words that he remembered from the book and a thick, blue light comes from his hands and a shard of ice shoots out toward the teacher. The teacher blocks it and gets ready to fight Aron, completely disregarding the now unconscious Headmaster. 

“That was impressive for a five-year-old.” The teacher chuckles. 

“I’m six.” Aron says, pouting.

“Oh, sorry. That was impressive for a little brat.” The teacher gets ready to jump toward Aron with his sword. Aron takes out his wand and a memory comes into his mind.

“The best mage is one with a clear head.” Trish smiled and patted Aron’s head.

Time seems to slow down. Aron closes his eyes and focuses on doing something. Anything. To defeat his opponent. It gets quiet and only the wind outside of the room can be heard.

“May this mana given to me by the gods enhance the power of Ice. Ice Spikes.” He slowly breathes out and points the wand at the teacher and a thin, sky blue, light beams from the wand. Suddenly, jagged spikes of ice come up through the floor and hurtle towards the teacher at a rapid speed. In the blink of an eye, the spikes reach the teacher and pierce his abdomen. He coughs up blood immediately.

“The… kingdom will… come for… you. Both of… you.” He collapses and his corpse falls down toward the base of the spike, blood trailing down onto the floor where it pools. Aron sees this and immediately goes to the nearest trash can to throw up. 

“I can’t handle this.” He breathes heavily and collapses onto the ground, getting some blood on his clothes. ‘What did I just do?’ He crawls over to Trish, trying to see if she’s still alive. 

 “Auntie… Trish.” He faints.

Aron is transported to a sort of unfamiliar place with a familiar feel to it. It’s cold and
empty, just as it always has been, but it’s blindingly bright. Like the void had swallowed a sun.

“Not this again. I just dealt with something traumatic again, can we not do this right now. Please?” Aron sighs and dusts himself off, letting his medium-length, light green hair flow how it usually does.

“You don’t need to be offended every time you come here-”

“Don’t say it.”

“Boo boo.” The Astral Voice finishes their sentence and laughs.

Aron sighs. “You know what, I can just leave, right? I think I’m gonna do that.”

“Unh-unh-unh. You can only leave when I allow you to leave. You’re trapped with me for right now, so enjoy it.”

“Isn’t it rude to not let your guests know who you are?” Aron says, angrily.

“You mean you still don’t know who I am? Do I have to spell it out for you or something? So dense. How’d you ever get a wife in your past life?” The Voice scoffs.

“What am I supposed to figure out?” Aron asks, very confused.

“I almost don’t wanna keep you in here anymore. You know what? No, leave. Bye bye.” The Astral Voice makes a black, wooden door for Aron.

“Good riddance. Bye, whoever you are.” Aron walks out the door and is transported back to where he was. On the floor, next to the Headmaster. One problem, though.

“Where’s the Headmaster?” Aron looks around, confused. “Auntie Trish?”