Oliver stood there, wide-eyed and staring at Ashton. He could also feel the stares of his party in the back of his head.

  "Wh-What? No, as I said, I just... I wasn't given the chance to get a class yet, that's all," he said nervously. It was the most obvious lie that Ashton had ever heard, and it clearly didn't fool anyone else on the rooftop. Not even the watchman who had barely been listening in.

  "I'm sorry, but I don't think I can help you with that, either," Ashton explained, "I could help you get a class like Enchanter. Alchemist, maybe. Though... the things that I could help you with would probably provide the Apothecarist class."

  "Wait, what? Why that? Do I not have the talent to become a mage?" Oliver asked dejectedly, but Ashton just shrugged as he used thin paper to wrap up small bundles of herbs and dried leaves, keeping the bundles closed by tying blades of grass around them. Each bundle was fairly small, barely the size of the front of his thumb behind the last joint.

  "I don't know if you have talent to become a mage. If you give me a few weeks, the Pen of Insight might be able to pick up on those things, but you can't wait to get your class until then, because..."

  "Because I'll die, right..." Oliver groaned, "So what, you can't teach me how to cast spells or something?"

  With a scoff, Ashton shook his head and approached the small campfire that the others had put together already, "I don't know how to cast spells."

  And then, without further ado, he clicked his finger and produced a small spark in the air, which he proceeded to catch and carefully lead into the campfire. Specifically, Ashton attached it to a small stick that seemed to be leading perfectly into the middle of the cone-shapes campfire setup. The fire spread throughout it fast, much faster than it usually should, and soon engulfed all the wood. And from within the flames, a small creature, an axolotl made of hot, burning coal, was born.

  Oliver looked around confused at the others, trying to see if he misunderstood the concept of 'casting a spell', but they seemed just as startled as Oliver was. But Ashton just sat down cross-legged in front of the fire, and Poppy sat down on his knee, holding her hand out toward the bright fire to keep herself warm.

  "But you just... you just used magic!"

  "Hm? Oh, no, technically not," Ashton replied, looking over at the utterly confused John, "I simply channelled the magic of the Lesser Salamander, the fire elemental currently sitting inside of there. Plus, 'using magic' and 'casting a spell' are two entirely different things."

  Slowly, as curiosity filled them, clearly overtaking the annoyance at their friend's reckless hope of becoming a mage instead of choosing a simpler class so that he could get stronger and actually survive, the group gathered around the campfire, all staring at either Ashton, the small pixie sitting on his knee, or the salamander currently enjoying the crackling heat of the fire.

  "So what's the difference, then?" Jacky finally asked, and Ashton had already been thinking about how to best explain it.

  "It's like... the difference between walking, and performing a highly choreographed dance," he said, figuring that this would be good enough, but it seemed like the others were all still confused, so Ashton elaborated a bit more, "The majority of people know how to walk. It's literally one of the first things that we learn how to do. The ability to walk is innate, unless there is something actively hindering us, like some kind of accident, disease, or other ailment, everyone walks, and without thinking about it."

  Oliver eagerly nodded, "So, 'using magic' is something innate that we should be able to do already?"

  "No, of course not," Ashton shook his head. He held his hand forward and plucked a flame from the campfire, making it fly around the rooftop, "What I'm doing is 'using magic', but it's something that happens like an extension of my body. Once you know how to do it and you've built up the muscle memory, it's easy. Of course, there are different levels as well. Variations. Crawling, sprinting, skipping. Similar, but... different. You put more intent into it, but at the end of the day, they're extensions of the basic, innate ability of 'walking'."

  And then, Ashton let the fire that he was controlling go back out, before he continued.

  "And then, we have the dance. Of course, there are also levels to dance, but let's ignore that for now. Imagine some kind of highly-choreographed dance number. Every movement, every turn of the head and of the body, every step and maybe even every breath is precisely tuned down to the second. Down to the exact, precise beat. That's not walking, that's not... innate. That takes extreme practice, and understanding, and usually quite a lot of passion as well. To me, inherently, the act of simply walking and this sort of dance couldn't be further away from each other. And sadly, I can't show you what that looks like translated back to a spell, because, as I just said, I can't cast spells yet."

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  The group listened intensely, and it seemed like they understood what Ashton was trying to say. Using magic was one thing, while casting a spell was a whole different, much more complicated thing. But even so, nobody in the group missed a tiny, three-letter word at the end of the sentence.

  "You said... 'yet'," Oliver pointed out, "That means you'll be able to at some point?"

  "... Theoretically, yes. I'm pretty good at mana manipulation, but I need to figure out those last few tricks. I know all the theory, but all the practice is another matter."

  With a dejected sigh, Oliver pulled his knees closer, "Fucking bitch. I just want to cast cool spells, what's so wrong with that? Hey, can't you-"

  Ashton interrupted him, smiling lightly. "I'm not going to teach you summoning. And that's not because I'm trying to monopolise this power. But because if you mess things up even slightly, it's not just you that's fucked. And frankly." His smile disappeared as he locked eyes with Oliver. "Someone that clearly doesn't take his own life seriously enough to get a class that could save their own life is not someone that should hold the lives of these beings in their hand."

  Shivering, Oliver's eyes widened, "I-I just-"

  Ashton leaned forward with one of the small packs of dried herbs in his hand, "This isn't a joking matter. I get that the idea of magic is fun and exciting, but if you die, that's not going to help you get your hands on it, either."

  The party grew silent, as Ashton moved some of the flames to the side so that he could reach the salamander. The small elemental quickly and happily bit into it, starting to chomp down on the dried plants.

  Immediately, the flames were filled with magic and changed colour momentarily, turning a slight pink before going back to the normal orange and yellow. The air was filled with a sweet floral scent.

  "What... what was that?" Nicole asked, nervously holding a hand in front of her mouth and nose, but Ashton smiled over at her.

  "It's good for you, don't worry. I fed the salamander a mixture of materials that I've already verified to be good for health recovery. I've also got some potions ready that you guys can apply to your more serious wounds, but if you just relax here for a while, you should feel a lot of the exhaustion from the past few days wash away."

  The moment that he explained this, everyone seemed to visibly calm down a lot more. Whether it was because they were already feeling the relaxation from the magical herbs, or because they somehow trusted Ashton enough to just believe whatever he told them.

  "By the way, uhm..." Paul slowly spoke up. He in particular had been catching a lot of glances at Poppy. "She looks a lot like..."

  "Oh, right, you study entomology? Yeah, pixies tend to look a lot like different types of insects. Do you have any idea what sort of butterfly Poppy mi-"

  "That's the thing, I really don't know for sure, to be honest. Everything from the wing shape to the underwing pattern tells me that she's an Adonis Blue, but those don't really have this sort of colouration. Males are usually a bright blue while females are brown, but Poppy's wings are red with this iridescent purple sheen. I've never really seen that before. Maybe it's a species that I don't know about, which is definitely possible, but I was only just recently looking into the different species of butterflies that are native to southern England. Though, does nativity even matter?"

  Ashton raised his brows, surprised. Sure, he hadn't exactly spent a lot of time around these people, but this was the most he had heard from Paul concurrently.

  "If you say so. I'm not sure," Ashton replied, looking down at the small fairy. She had noticed Paul's incessant stares, and quickly hopped down Ashton's knee to hide in his jacket . "Sorry, I guess she's a bit shy. Fairies aren't exactly the most social beings in the world."

  "I-It's okay," Paul stuttered out, though he obviously wasn't fine.

  "I know it's a pretty grim sight, but did you consider looking a bit closer at some of the older corpses? New species of insects are gathering. They're a type of scavenger, and they're not as aggressive as other monsters," Ashton explained. "It might be worth considering."

  As Paul's eyes started glistening in excitement, Ashton got back up and started putting up the simple metal frame that he wanted to put his potion pot onto.

  Ashton started filling up the pot with some water and got the ingredients ready. After a few more moments of silence, Oliver clicked his tongue and got up. He walked over to another part of the roof, clearly annoyed or ashamed because of what Ashton said. The others, not wanting to upset Ashton either, just sat there quietly for a while as he started mixing ingredients together.

  But in the end, the air got so tense that Ashton got just really annoyed. And then, he saw the magic stones that he was going to use for the potions. He picked one up, and sighed.

  He pushed some of his mana into the magic stone, and decided to try something that he used to do a lot in the past when he tried to get better at mana manipulation.

  He took control of the magic stone's mana and aligned its almost random, wild pattern into a more orderly alignment. It was usually pretty hard to manipulate the mana in another object, which is why you generally needed a magic circle to help you out with the process and stabilise everything, but because magic stones were purely made of crystalized mana, it was a lot easier than in mana-infused object, or intentionally shaped mana like the coins.

  And so, Ashton slowly changed the shape of the magic stone into a perfect cube.

  "Could you watch the pot? If it starts bubbling more than this, just call me," Ashton said, starting to walk over to where Oliver was. This wasn't just because he felt bad for him, though that was certainly part of it. It was more because he was curious. If it was possible that this world used to have magic, then that meant that it was possible there were people with an innate talent for magic that simply weren't able to awaken those talents.

  Since Oliver was able to see Poppy so easily, it was possible that he had such a talent as well.

  "Okay, I'm going to teach you a training method to learn how to control mana better," Ashton started saying, before Oliver even know what was happening, "Maybe you can figure out a way to awaken some kind of caster class, maybe not. But I will only teach you under one condition."

  Oliver furiously nodded his head, as if all the shame that he had felt just now was washed away, "Yes! Of course!"

  "If you don't manage to get your class by the time it gets dark on... Uh, it's Monday, right? Yes, it should be... Anyway, if you don't get your magic class by the time it gets dark on Thursday, you have to pick a different one that has already been offered to you."