I was born from 2 parents that had almost nothing to do with each other. My dad is a trapper that lives in a dangerous zone, and my mom is a mage that works at a university. My father loves nature, while my mother took classes in applied magic. They did encounter each other on an expedition, where my dad was one of the guides and my mother one of the mages that took samples and ingredients during that expedition. I don't have lots of details on how they encountered each other, or how they did end up together after that, but I do know that each time my mother needed materials for her experiments (and even when she didn't, they told me at some point), she would call for my father and ask him if he could escort and guide her where she needed. Most of the time, he would agree. I was told they played this little game for almost 2 years before officially asking each other out for a date. I was born almost 9 months after that event. They did marry each other during that time, too.
When I was born, I had a weird birthmark on my chest, near my heart. It's a triangle and a circle that overlap with each other, and a sort of horizontal "I" inbetween. [Nd-Writer: it's called the theta-delta, for everyone wondering] Nobody knows why I had that, but my mom didn't find anything related to something similar-looking in the library of her university. I grew up with my dad teaching me lots and lots of things about the animals and monsters that live in the forest around our home, and my mom teaching me all I could learn about magic, from mastering an element to detection magic when I want to go hunting.
Both said I was very talented, but that I wasn't involved enough to truly master anything. I honestly never considered myself "talented" as they said. Magic came to me naturally, as if I was controlling my own body, while my mother describes it more like using a wooden spoon to make egg whites or something similar. While hunting, my dad joked that if he wasn't there when I was born, he would think I was a beast seeing how naturally hunting came to me. Both were very surprised when I described my uses of wind magic while I was barely 3 years old. I could cast a levitation spell (to grab something on the table) without chanting the magic, or in other words speaking and moving my body to assemble them, as it is usually required. My mom called it "Free Casting" and said it was very rare.
That never went to my head, though, because even if I was good with wind, I was atrocious with all other elements, despite my mother's teachings. I was a very curious child, and with the right to use an internet connection at 6, I rapidly learned a lot of stuff, mostly related to hunting, beast life and magic. And then one day I discovered that Wikipedia had a "random article" button, and that night I didn't sleep… I got scolded a bit by my dad the next morning because I was supposed to help him with his traps that day, but he let it slide because of all the knowledge I accumulated. Later that year, I found websites that talked in way more details about spells, and I learned enough about magic to impress my mother.
I will also admit that I never worked too hard, because even if something went wrong, I could still call my parents for help. Everything was still a game for me at this age. When I started school at 7, I had way more knowledge than what was needed for the class because of all the random wikipedia searches I did. Same thing when I needed to take a special class at 10, choosing between mage and knight, I was also way over qualified in magic, because I had been taught it when I could hardly walk and talk properly ! Although it's true that I struggled a lot in swordsmanship classes, I didn't have to do it again the very next year… Well, the next 3 months to be precise. I skipped the class at one point because they realized it was pointless to train me in the way of the sword. So, yeah, I skipped lots of classes.
For normal school, I skipped the first 2 classes, because I already knew everything that was taught, so in only 3 months I was already classmates with the 9 and 10 years old, when I just had my 8th birthday. And I literally graduated from the magic classes in 2 years, when it's supposed to take 6. And because graduating the mage's cursus automatically grants you access to higher school, I could go to my mom's university at 12, one of the youngest mages the school have ever seen as a student. To top it all off, even though most of my classmates were at least 16 years old, I wasn't last in terms of grades. Just because I was so young, I didn't have as much mana as all the other kids, so I was way more tired after each practical class.
After the 1st year in this university, I choose to be what's called an explorer mage. To put it simply, it's the course necessary to become a guide in a danger zone, like my dad sometimes does. It's not a popular course, most people choose between being a battlemage or an adventurer if they want action, or researcher for those that seek knowledge. But I thought that it was way better to help my father with his job than to raid monster nests, especially when you still need an explorer mage (most of the time) to go anywhere. And I didn't want to get locked inside a lab 8 hours a day like my mom does, so for me it was the best pick. Each weekend, I would practice what I learned in class by helping my dad in his trapper job, for things like capturing a wild boar or a herd of horned rabbits. I even once took down a Chimera, a wild beast that has been corrupted by magic and that started to assimilate what it has eaten as itself.
Which means that, with all the on-field experiences I had, I was one of the best in theory classes, and when my mana pool was big enough I even became first in practice class for a short while. I was 14 and a half at the time. I was still younger than most of the 1st years, but was already strong enough to challenge some of the professors. It was wild. I was called a genius by everyone, classmates as much as teachers. If anyone needed help in class, they asked me if I could find a solution. Only problem, I didn't talk to anyone outside of those moments, and even then I only did the minimum required to help them (thank's social anxiety). At one point, students from lower levels asked for me to help them, and even an upperclassman demanded something once. Not that I liked all the attention though…
Now that that's said, I should also talk about the worst thing that happened. When I entered the school the year after that, I was hit with very, VERY bad news: My mana pool hadn't increased since last year. Not even by a bit. On the first day of class, your magic is tested, to be dispatched more accurately between the classes. And as I usually did during vacations, I trained my magic with my mother so that I could increase my mana pool to help with its natural expansion. I still did it this vacation, but with seemingly no results. It wasn't uncommon for people's mana pool to stop extending when they get too old, but it generally coincides with the end of puberty and growth spurt.
If my mana pool stopped expanding, while I was still 15 and barely 5 '4 (or 1,65 m), this could be disastrous for my future as an Explorer mage. I had a mana pool barely big enough for my classes of 20 and 21 years old, and that's because they only ask for things that even the least talented mage possible could do, granted it will still require a lot of effort. In the outside world, I always wanted to have more mana to be able to cast more and better spells. Not because I was struggling inside my native forest, but because I already wanted more. I knew that the forest next to my parents house was one of the least dangerous amongst the "dangerous places" of the country.
And now, my dreams have been crushed to dust… I know that there's ways to expand your mana pool, with things like mana stones, rituals and other artifacts, but… You're not supposed to NEED them to do basic class work ! To be perfectly honest, the reason why my mother is a researcher is also because she has a low mana pool. Not like me where it stopped growing unexpectedly, but she always had a small one for her age. And she can have static mana pools inside her lab to artificially increase her pool of mana, which are literally pools filled with semi-liquid mana (the subject of her team's research at school). The fact that my dad was also not a mage didn't help…
I was dispatched in the "useless and troublemaker" class, or the absolute worst class for my level. On the first day, I was asked to do things that I already did during the previous year ! It's like I just lost 6 months to even a year of advancement and training just like that ! That's absurd ! The quality of the class was trash, the teacher spent more time on maintaining some kind of order than on actually teaching, one even didn't dispense any classes because the attention of the majority of the students were just not there, and I almost started sleeping in class because I already knew everything that was taught to me. And don't even get me started with the bullying… I once blew up the face of someone who was trying to "prank" me by burning my paper… With wind so it wasn't leather or permanent, but still.
One month later, I asked my mom if it was possible to have a mana-boosting something, whether it would be an artifact or some mana stones, but she said "I'm very sorry, but what you're asking for costs more than the entirety of the house". That broke me so much I didn't even go to class for that week. Then, the next week, my dad called for me and my mom to say: "I think I found something that might interest both of you. It looks like it's some mana stones, but I'm not sure… Can you come with me to check ?" I was reanimated by that one sentence, and did everything I could to make us go the very next day 1st thing in the morning.
The downside of what my dad said was that the mana stone vein was in the most difficult part of the forest, which is a mountain that's home for a lot of birds and other flying monsters. I'm usually not allowed there, but since I was accompanying my mom and my dad, they let me go with them. The mountain was more than a day away from home, so my mom sent a message through our familial mana communication stone directly to the school to report that we (me and here mostly) wouldn't be able to attend school on Monday because of the discovery of my dad.
I'll be honest, I don't remember lots about the walk there, except that we mounted a camping for the night and that nothing happened during my turn to guard, except a rabbit family that passed at the edge of the light of the firecamp (that I didn't try to catch because that would mean leaving my post, potentially endangering my parents). We arrived at the bottom of the mountain in the morning, and my dad said that the mana stone vein was inside one of the caves. A cave that must be home for at least a family of monsters. Especially if there's mana stones inside it, beasts of all sorts are attracted to them like crazy.
After me and my mother defeated all the monsters inside the cave (nothing really interesting about them), we finally found the supposed mana vein. [Nd-Writer: Just to clarify, his dad is a guide and a trapper, not a fighter, the only time he fights are within a good range of trapped beasts with ranged weapons like spear] My mother confirmed that it really was a mana stone vein, but also that it was too small to really be of any use to a mining company. Then she looked at me and said "But we can gather some of it so that he can have a mana-boosting artifact." "And we absolutely should." that my dad said just after.
Because I was the one with the backpacks, I was tasked to retrieve all the stones that my mother extracted with her earth magic. I was taught elementary magic but not at the same level as my mother, and I'm only really good with the elements I have affinity with, unlike my mother who can use almost all of them, even if not at the same level. Mom is naturally close to water, wind and earth, while I'm more talented in electricity and wind magic. During the way back home, my mom said that since we have the mana stones, she and Dad will agree to pay for the making of the mana-boosting artifact with the stones we gathered. I was overjoyed, except for the fact that it would take until at least next week for it to be done.
After obtaining the mana-boosting bracelet, my school days were way better. I was approved to transfer back to the elite class, which wasn't even the best thing about having that artifact. Oh, yes, the mana gems weren't of extremely high quality, because the stones themselves were too small to be proper mana stones, but still a bit big to be broken down and mixed with another object to make it an artifact. So the craftsman my parents tasked chose another option: making it into jewels. It wasn't shocking to have mana stones as jewels, because with their shining blue color they already looked like they were jewels anyway. The only difference is that they glow a bit, even in complete darkness, and that they are almost as expensive to get as diamonds, so it's very rare to have mana stones as jewels. The craftsman chose to make a bracelet after shaping the mana stones like pearls, teeths or droplets depending on where they would be placed.
There was just one thing I had to be extremely careful of: not using the stones too much, because they would break if I did so. But other than that, I managed to finish off this year of school without any other major problems, and with my new and improved mana pool I was able to get even better than before.