Book of Kings

Chapter 23

"I won't lie to you," a roundly man standing next to a podium said, "if you want to succeed in anything," he cleared his throat, "a lot of attention and," he raised a finger, "hard work is required. Magic is no different than anything else. It's not like carpentry but a lot more like engineering and in the future, I imagine a lot of you will help people's lives in more ways than you can imagine. You'll bring new things into existence some will maybe even change every aspect of society, just like the wheel."

He paused to wheeze, his shapely figure didn't help to make it looks any more pleasing.

"So, what will be your wheel?" He questioned everyone sitting in class.

His name was Vico Prav, and he was one of the teachers here at the school in the capital.

If I attend all classes next year when I would actually learn applied magic, I would have to hear him drone on, every week for hours.

In my mind, I had already associated him with the word boring but not yet insufferable.

I forced myself to listen attentively to everything he said, anything to help me learn because one of the things I feared worst had happened.

I couldn't do magic anymore.

During the second week after I had arrived at Dralett, I just couldn't do any of the magic I had done again.

Magister Eeming doesn't yet know about it and I don't think I will tell him.

He gave me a sponsorship because of my so-called talent, if he found out that I didn't have it I fear that he'll revoke it and will throw me out and I'll be left on the street.

The only thing that had remained was the magic 'vision' or 'sense', for the lack of a better word for it. Even after I had read a lot about magic in the past few weeks, this ability wasn't mentioned anywhere.

Was it unique to me because of the forest incident? Was this a kind of fairy magic?

Maybe this was how they saw the world.

It strained my eyes but maybe not theirs.

I could turn it off and on at will, like snapping a finger, there wasn't much to it.

I just had to think about it and then it was there.

I looked around with it. The other students in the class didn't have much to them, and many of them were much older than me.

The only two things we all shared in common was that we somehow got into this school, was it either through money, talent, or knowing the right people, and the light blue coats with a small insignia of a book, quill, and crystal on it that we all had on.

A kind of uniform for all students, I much rather had one on like that of the Grand Magister, more like his colors and cuts.

Next to his, this one felt cheap even if it was expensive in comparison to what most people would pay for their clothing.

I was thankful to Vaunn, someone I would call the Magister's right hand.

He brought me all the things I needed to attend school.

Writing utensils, books, even the very coat I was wearing right now.

Comparing the others with the magic sense to my hand, which still was brighter than anyone else's, none here could compare, even Vico Prav, a mage I assume has spent at least a decade or two dedicated to magic.

If it really was magical power that I saw, I had the most potential.

I just had to learn.

The only one who I thought I could compare myself to was another boy, he was sitting multiple rows down from where I was seated. He has a small frame and short hair which was the same color as mine.

"It's strange," I thought.

Even though I couldn't do magic after a few weeks, my hair and eyes still remained different colors they have gotten after the incident in the forest.

I don't think he went through anything like that to get his hair color.

He had a lot of magical power but not as much as I did.

It was hard trying to measure something like that with just different shades of light blue.

I couldn't differentiate most of my other classmates with that method. Most of them were the same, with just minor differences. I would have to get closer, stare at them for a while, and compare them directly, which I wouldn't do out of common decency.

It's rude to stare and I didn't want to be known as the person who blankly stares at people and I don't think people of higher class would take too kindly if I would.

After the introduction had finished, classes began, first was history. The subject was more of an introduction to what we will learn this year, the history of the Kingdom of Eizon, the lives of our kings, and much else of what we have recorded of the earlier years of our country.

I scribbled away, history won't help me learn magic but for the class, I still needed to pay attention.

I thought that my writing was much too slow to carefully write everything I wanted to get down on the paper, much of what I wrote was just quick notes, beyond comprehension to someone who didn't know what it was about.

The same was true for all of the other classes I had that day.

Literature and grammar, philosophy, the study of nature.

The subject I least understood was math. I've never learned about math this complicated, with letters instead of numerals and numbers which may or may not exist.

It wasn't the teacher's fault, a frail middle-aged woman who introduced herself with just Miss Ryleigh.

I noted down every 'equation' that was drawn on the chalkboard for later.

If I didn't know I just had to learn.

I said that a lot to myself lately.