Confessions of a Modern Mage: The Seals of Blood

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Honestly, whoever gave humans magic is an idiot. It's volatile, dangerous, and without proper training will often kill its wielder. I've seen firsthand what it does in the wrong - and right - hands. It levels cities, collapses governments, shatters homes. The world is polluted with corrupted magicians who constantly backstab each other for personal or political gain. But the worst of them won't settle for having a government in their hand; they'd rather have the magical and human worlds on their knees. And they don't care who they kill to have their way.

When I was three, I watched my parents be brutally murdered by the Necromancer Mouroma. Since then, a flurry of custody wars left me living with my deadbeat Uncle Jack(ass). I hated him, and he wanted nothing to do with me. But we lived with uneasy peace. And then on my twelfth birthday, I blew up our apartment.

From there I ended up at Ardragea Academy of Magical Arts, some school for magicians like me. I proved to be good at my craft - fire magic. Me being me, I spent most of my first and second years in and out of detention. Masters came to hate me. Other kids avoided me.

Around my third year, things started changing. Not just for me, but for the world. Mouroma had turned his territory - most of Australia - into essentially a death camp for humans. Politicians started to weigh in on campaigns for the Necromancer's capture. But then was serious talk that magicians might inadvertently start World War III if they tried to interfere with Mouroma's plans, whatever they were. We couldn't afford war; with every death, Mouroma's army would only grow. And we couldn't get normal humans involved, either - the last thing we needed was them restricting and controlling magicians. In short, no one was brave enough or dumb enough to try to try to stop the guy.

Well, no one except me.