Meriel watched the birch door as he waited in a line once again. After crossing several intersections toward what he assumed was the Headmaster's quarters, he was instead delegated into the hands of a less-important department head, who apparently, like almost everyone, always had his hands full.

  There weren't that many people in front of him, thankfully. But truth be told, compared to the line in front of the city, anything would seem small in comparison.

  Now, there was still nothing to do except wait. Meriel circulated his mana, a simple exercise that, while most people claimed it was useless, he found useful in knowing how to bring out mana fast. He wasn't sure even if it was the reason for his survival, but quick spellcasting was what saved him more often than not. It was only one of the components of magic, true, but an important one.

  Looking at the people in front of him, most of them seemed to be spell-swords already, though they looked younger than the men outside the gate. Maybe they were Meriel's age at the time he enrolled himself. There were also two students who looked just a little older than Mary.

  Their swords were different from the guards' as well. It seemed that age was a deciding factor in how powerful of a sword the mages in here would get to use, or maybe it was the rank. Or the combination of the two. He wasn't quite so sure.

  "Mr. Meriel, this place is so amazing!" Mary muttered, looking around with wide eyes.

  Meriel bit back the retort about how nothing here was amazing—if anything, it was an insult to what this place once was. But instead he patted her head again and nodded. "Are you excited to enroll?" he asked, watching her excited movements.

  "Oh yes! I never knew I had any talent in magic! Oh, I cannot wait! Do you think I'll be able to fly?"

  Meriel chuckled at the thought. It was quite improbable that spell-swords here would know how to cast a flying spell, and while he had a wide repertoire of spells himself, this one he still hadn't quite cracked.

  "Probably not any time soon, but I want to learn that as well. It should theoretically be possible!" He scratched his beard.

  He would need a shave soon. "You know what? Once I teach you some basics, we can try to learn it together! How about that?"

  Mary beamed at him and nodded excitedly. "Oh yes, Mr. Meriel! Once I'll learn how to cast fire, or maybe how to make someone give me money, or maybe—"

  "Okay, okay, getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we?" Meriel chuckled and stepped forward in the line. Finally, it shifted after what felt like 20 minutes. "There are some rules of magic, Mary. You'll understand once you learn a little, but there are some hard rules imposed by the mana itself, and then there are some simple rules that humans created. This very academy created some of them," he pointed out. "I do not know if they changed in the time I've been gone, but you won't be able to do stuff like that unless you want to become a criminal—a hated and hunted criminal."

  Mary deflated a little, but she was back to her previous energetic mannerisms almost immediately. "Understood, Mr. Meriel."

  A little more waiting, and the line moved again, making them third in line. Some soft talking could be heard through the door, but Meriel didn't feel like imposing himself onto the conversation through eavesdropping. He would get his turn soon enough.

  "Can I ask you something?" Meriel looked at Mary again.

  "Sure! What is it?"

  He looked her in the eyes. "Why are you calling me Mr. Meriel? I mean, 'the Mister' part of it? I've never been called that, and I'm not that old."

  Mary shrugged. "It just came to me naturally. Also, some people don't like being called by their names. Apparently, it's not enough respect or something like that." She mused, lost in thought, suddenly.

  Poor child, Meriel thought. So small yet so full of bad memories. Trying to distract her, Meriel thought back on her question and reminded her. "So you wanted to ask something?"

  Mary beamed again and, looking him in the eye, nodded. "Oh yes! I wanted to ask: You said that you were a legendary mage, right? Or well, the lady called you that and then you said that's your name? You also said something about hiding away from the people when we talked—I was a bit distracted by the dragon right in front of me. But are you the mage from the legend?"

  He quickly placed his hand over her mouth, and took a glance around. If someone was listening, they didn’t make it obvious. Slowly, he met her eyes, and let go, continuing in whisper. "No talk about these things when there are people around. Also, I thought you didn't know the legend."

  She smiled at him, her face turned to mock-guilt. "I didn't learn about it in school, but I know my mom told me the story when I was little. I don't remember it now, though. It's an old tale, and most people don't care about it."

  Meriel almost coughed at the irony. He fought and bled and sweated until his status became legendary. Just to miss the era of people praising him, until his battles were just an item of history.

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  Ignoring the annoying feeling, however, he smiled and answered Mary in truth. "Yes. I am the legendary mage who has slain a dragon—at least if the bandits outside the city told me the truth about the current year."

  "But you don't look that old! You look like maybe 20!"

  The children's ability to tell age didn't change with the eras at all, it seemed. He was 26, physically, at least. "I used a spell to save myself from a fall and something made it last way longer than it should have. I'll explain more to you if you actually become my apprentice and learn magic. Let’s say.. I’ll tell you anything you want to know once you learn at least twenty spells."

  Mary nodded as if that would be an easy task, but it was very far from the truth. Most mages could barely understand one or two spells when they started the academy. Most people that managed to study the whole five years of the academy didn't know more than maybe 30 or 40. But that was with the best teachers in the kingdom and millennia of ancient texts to help the students. Seeing that the academy had changed this much, he wasn't so sure that both would be at hand.

  Meriel would be the only supplement.

  The line shifted again, and Meriel realized that he missed one person moving inside, so now it was their turn to stand right in front of the door. The voices were more audible now—so much so that Meriel could almost make out the words.

  Mary didn't seem pleased with just almost audible, so she stepped forward toward the door and pressed one of her ears to it.

  "Stop that, Mary," Meriel whispered, looking around to see if anyone was watching, though nobody seemed to be.

  "But I wanna listen," she whispered back.

  "Come here before it causes any trouble," Meriel pleaded, not sure if he should just step forward as well and grab her by force.

  "Just one more minute—they're talking about spells!" she whispered back, her eyes focusing back on the door.

  Suddenly, the door swung open and Mary, with a yelp, fell inside, followed by a soft thud as she hit the ground. Meriel sighed and stepped forward, scrambling to pick her up. "I am very sorry for my sister's behavior," he said, not looking at the people inside. "It's so embarrassing."

  He quickly scooped Mary up and stepped out.

  A chuckle sounded from the room, however, and a wizened voice stopped him in his tracks. "It's no matter really. You can step inside. We are just done with the interview, at any rate."

  Meriel finally looked up and saw a very old man sitting behind a massive wooden table. There were piles and piles of paper stacked on top of it, sorted in a way that Meriel couldn't deduce.

  An angry teenager, dressed in Spellsword robes, was just stepping out. His face turned to a grimace of disgust. Meriel sidestepped, letting the younger man through, and jumped as the door closed with a wild swing and a loud thud.

  "So, what is the matter you come to me with?" The man looked between Mary and Meriel and started reaching for something in his pockets.

  "Greetings, Department Head. My name is Mev, and I came to inquire about whether we could enroll in the academy."

  "Enroll? Well, you wouldn't be the first one to try, although the entrance tests are in two days. Well, I can speed up the process—I assume you're not from these parts."

  The older man finally stopped looking for whatever he was trying to find in his pockets and extended his palm, holding two candies in it. The hand extended toward Mary. She looked at Meriel, who nodded, and stepped forward, grabbing the sweets hungrily.

  Meriel watched as the mana coalesced into a stream that flowed into the man and his eyes glazed over as he tried to analyze Meriel and Mary, confirming he had a third eye at least. He wouldn't be able to see anything at this point of course—Meriel wasn't casting anything and Mary didn't even know how to begin coalescing mana at all.

  "I'm afraid I see no mana in either of you. Hmm, strange." The man looked them over like some items at the market. "I assume you came to me because you think you have some magical talents, right? Can either of you cast a small spell? I'll provide the item through which to cast, of course."

  Meriel was once again completely confused about how magic was cast. Why would he need an item? That wasn't the way to cast magic. In fact, in the old days, casting spells through items was seen as unseemly in the academy. It didn't allow the mages to reach such a high peak as they would have if they relied on strengthening their mana heart and improving their technique.

  The man opened a shelf in his desk, looking for something while muttering something only he could hear. The soft clinks and thuds told Meriel of the man's new magic, but in just a minute, he took two small gemstones and placed them on the desk, pushing them toward Meriel and Mary.

  "Now, can both of you grab one of these, please?"

  Meriel stepped closer, urging Mary to do the same, and grabbed the gemstone in his palm. It was a simple enchantment, he knew immediately. A fake mana-heart which would let the caster cast a very small spell.

  Mana heart of such bad quality and the spell circle was so undetailed that Meriel thought that this must be a joke, surely. It was a simple spell to cast a small amount of water to appear. But with just a few modifications, Meriel could cast something twenty times its magnitude in just a few seconds while burning less mana.

  "Now pour mana into the hearts. If you don't know how, just imagine grabbing a ladle and scooping the weird thing that seems to be flowing around the whole world and putting it into the gemstone." The man said, his eyes half-closed in scrutiny. A test to see if they had the third eye. Good. They weren’t completely hopeless, then.

  But how inefficient of a mana gathering technique! Meriel scoffed. It would leave great gaps in the surroundings, sure, but it wouldn't gather nearly enough to cast a spell of higher caliber. He didn't like exposing his talents so soon, but he felt offended at the thought of doing something so crude.

  Instead, he did what he always did; grabbed all the mana around him, leaving a small place around Mary so she could gather some herself, and immediately pulled it all into the gemstone.

  The gem, a topaz, started glowing as the mana surged in great waves into it, overflowing its mana circuits and the magic circle inside. Water started beading and appearing in giant balls all around the room, dropping to the ground, splashing the wooden floor. More started flowing from the ceiling, dropping on most of the paper stacks in front of the wizard.

  "Hey! Stop! What are you—" the man shouted, but it was too late. The quality of the gem just didn't account for such a high mana quantity.

  It glowed more, and then exploded into tiny chunks.

  This book is performing really well too, and I'd like to set some stretch goals, as little rewards for some milestones :P

  1000 followers - Bonus Chapter

  2500 followers - Another Bonus Chapter

  50 Ratings - Another Bonus Chapter

  125 ratings - Another Bonus Chapter

  10 Patrons - I commission a Drawn Map of the continent

  20 Patrons - I increase the number of advance chapters to 15 on Patreon.

  30 Patrons - I commission art of one of the characters (voted on by patrons) + Bonus Chapter

  50 Patrons - I increase the number of advance chapters to 18, and I commission another piece of art.

  Please keep in mind that increasing the number of advance chapters or bonus chapters overall will not be immediate, but in a short span of time after reaching the goal.

  Have a nice weekend!