In the city known as the city of magic, Arcadia, a lecture about mana was taking place inside the most prestigious magic academy.
"Mana."
"Mana is the blood of the world, everything depends on it. From humans and beasts to even rocks and minerals, they're all, in some way or shape, influenced by it."
"When mana is controlled and put in a circuit, it forms what's known as magic."
"Magic can be all sorts of things, it can be fire or water, it can be dirt or sand. But what it can't be, is a living creature."
"Humans are unique in their ability to gather mana inside of them and control it, they aren't inherently born with mana."
"Those who gather mana and use it to form spells are called magicians. While beasts who are inherently born with mana are called mana beasts."
"Mana beasts are much stronger than their normal counterparts, the mana present in them heightens their physical abilities to the max. In some rare cases, the heightened ability is intelligence."
"While intelligent beasts with mana sound scary, they can't cast spells or use their mana in any effective way. They're usually weaker than other mana beasts."
"But why can't intelligent beasts cast magic? Its because magic has very strict rules, requiring its caster to know the exact circuit and have fine mana control."
"After thousands of years of research, the three core rules of magic were established."
"Firstly, mana can only be transformed into different shapes through a circuit."
"Secondly, mana needs a medium in order to allow it's transformation. This medium could be a magician's hand or a wand."
"And finally, magic cant be made from mana that doesn't fit the type of magic cast. You cant use mana present in water to cast a fire spell. The only exception to this rule is the mana gathered in your mana cores, since it's neutral mana without a type."
"If any of these rules were to be violated, the caster would either recieve a backlash from their own mana, or have their spell explode in their face."
"This is all well-known information about magic that all of you should already know."
"Any questions?" The professor ended his speech with an expectant tone.
Seeing that no one raised their hands, the professor nodded and moved on to the next subject.
"For magicians, there are stages they have to reach before they can cast certain magic. The higher your stage, the more powerful magic you can cast."
"These stages go from first circle to ninth circle, and are categorized by the amount of mana a magician has in their mana core."
"In the entire history of the world, only three people are known to have reached the eighth circle realm, while the ninth circle is only a theoretical realm."
"The speed of progression is dependant on multiple things, but the most important is the volume of mana in the area."
"The higher the volume of surrounding mana, the easier it is to sense and gather into mana cores."
"While mana exists everywhere in this world, its most abundant in the central regions of the continent. Arcadia, where we're currently at, is the most abundant region in mana in the entire world."
...
The lecture went on for a few hours before the professor deemed it better to stop the lecture and allow the students to absorb the information on their own.
As the professor packed up his papers and notes, a small child no older than 12 came up to him.
"That was amazing!" The child exclaimed loudly.
"Was it?" The professor asked as he rubbed the child's head with his hand.
The child nodded repeatedly before the professor chuckled and turned around prepared to leave the lecture hall.
"When will you take me to another lecture again, dad?" The child asked, his eyes burning with enthusiasm.
"Maybe next week if you behave." The professor promised as he walked out with the child beside him.
.....
Inside the lecture hall the professor had just left, a student let go of his pencil as he finished copying what the professor had written.
'At least im not the only one suffering.' I thought as I turned towards the student next to me, Denis, still copying down what the professor had left us with.
Noting that he was a mile away from reaching the end, I looked around for a bit, noticing the bright sunlight coming into the hall through the windows and falling on a few conversing students.
'The weather is nice today. Maybe i should go out with Denis and Penelope this time.'
After a few minutes, I saw Denis with a nerd-looking girl behind him coming towards me.
"Hey, Kyle, what do you think about going out with us today? We want to grab some food before going to the park." Denis, who had given up on copying the mountain of lines the professor had dumped on us, extended me an invitation to hang out with him and Penelope. Something he had already done a few times before classes began.
"Sure." I agreed, seeing as I had nothing planned for the day.
As we walked out of the hall, the nerd-looking girl, Penelope, brought up something I hadn't paid much attention to during the lecture.
"Don't you find it strange that Professor Damian brought his kid to the lecture?"
Yeah. It was strange.
Why would someone like him bring a child to the first lecture of the semester?
"But isn't Professor Damian not married?" I asked.
"That's his adoptive son," Denis replied. "At least, that's what people say. He took the kid in after his parents died."
"How do you know that?"
Denis shrugged. "He's our professor this year. I looked into him a bit." He paused, then added, "Want to hear more?"
I nodded. I did want to know why someone with his reputation was teaching instead of pushing his magic further.
"He's one of the most famous magicians of this century," Denis continued. "Sixth circle by thirty. Seventh by fifty." He let out a quiet sigh. "People like that don't just adopt kids for no reason."
"So you think the kid's special?" Penelope asked.
"Maybe." Denis said.
Penelope frowned. "Still… he repeated himself during the lecture. Did you notice that?"
"Yeah," Denis replied after a moment. "He's almost seventy."