(Note 4 year time skip, he is now 10)

  Aris woke up.

  He looked at the window letting in the golden light of the morning and the gentle flowing of the magic in his room. A quiet knock on the door,

  “Morning, Aris” Uncle Bibo said gently, opening the door

  “Morning.”

  “The new arrivals came in today”

  “Really!” Aris perked up. “So I could really start learning magic now?”

  “If you mean more that you already know, yeah, I woulda thought you would be more interested in the new kids though.”

  “Yeah I guess, but I want to do cool stuff with magic!”

  “And then show the other kids I’d imagine.”

  “Yep!” Aris showed a tendency to show off whenever possible, although sometimes what he was showing off would be made entirely out of pure magic, thus invisible for most people. For 4 years since Aris arrived, he has been waiting to truly learn magic to the fullest extent.

  The both of them walked into the lobby where there were a few kids around Aris’s age, the vast protection spell hanging above them, dominating the space. One of the kids was holding a spell that was in the form of a sword, it looked like it would fall apart just from him swinging it. Seemed to be lightning aligned.

  Antimony walked in, one of the kids, a girl with dark purplish hair, stood up and ran over to him, he bent down and said something to her, she walked back to her seat.

  “Ahem, I see that all of our new students are here, let me introduce myself. I am the Headmaster of this academy, Antimony.” The lightning sword kid had dispelled his construct. “As you might expect you are here to learn and improve at magic, maybe even develop your own spells, if any of you have the talent to. However, that is not the sole reason you are here, you are also forming your reputation and your future career, so I would ask you to think twice before you do anything stupid here. Your future lies in your hands.”

  The construct on Antimony’s shoulder twitched “One last thing. I know all of you have heard about the duels that happen here, but do not let your competitiveness risk someone else or your own life.” The construct leaped, or no, flashed across the room and wrapped around one of the students' hands that was fidgeting with a fireball. Immediately the flames extinguished "And if you cannot ensure that, I will.”

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  All of the new students were shocked, they all felt that thing, but no one could see it, well, except for Aris. He could tell that Antimony let them feel its presence, he had seen that thing move before and it could move through a crowd of mages without anyone noticing.

  “He does this every time, I'm starting to think he likes the attention,” Bibo laughed. Aris couldn't tell, Antimony always keeps his shield up, so he could never see the swirling patterns he was used to watching. Just a blank wall of magic.

  Aris walked over to the other kids. There was a mix of nervous and excited swirling patterns. The purple haired kid seemed oddly calm though. Upon closer inspection there were worried spirals underneath the calm.

  “I am Theon, and I will be the greatest mage that has ever stood on the Earth!” Previously Lighting Sword Kid, now Theon announced suddenly.

  “Nuh-uh!” The purple haired kid, the worried spirals sank deeper, completely out of sight for Aris. “My dad already is!”

  Excited swirls bloomed across every kid's body as the two went back and forth, Aris was used to fairly level headed professors, trying to read everyone here hurt his head. Instead he focused on the purple hair kid, she was calm.

  “Go away, Bismuth! We don’t want you here!” Theon yelled at the purple haired kid. Angry spirals rose up from her core. She kicked him in the shin. “Ow ow ow ow!” Antimony was already out of the room.

  “Hey now kids, please don’t hurt each other” a soft voice spoke out, it was Tethe, the Healer at the academy and the Life mage teacher. “Now apologise to each other” he said firmly

  ““sorry.”” They said in unison.

  Tethe led the kids to their dorms, near to his. “Girls on this side and boys on the other.” The kids did as they were told. “Classes start tomorrow at the first bell, don’t be late.”

  Tethe left the group to their own devices, trusting the protection spell would tell them if someone was being harmed.

  The other kids went off and chose their beds, Aris went towards the bed he’s been sleeping in for 4 years. He looked at the node above him, the strange spirals within it.

  “Hey! Why’s your bed so filled with stuff!” Theon, who apparently did not know of any other punctuation other than exclamation marks, pointed out. His magic was swishing with distrust.

  “Ive lived here for a while.” Aris attempted to deescalate.

  “How is that fair, you probably know all sorts about magic!” He manifested his lightning sword, or well. It wasn't actually purely lightning, he could see that it had a bit of the rigidness from the Light aspect. It was interesting to note that the two didn't really mix well. “I challenge you to a duel!” Theon announced very publicly.

  “No.” Aris also announced publicly, notably without trying to make everyone deaf.

  Theon's sword wavered, threatening to dispel ”What?” Theon managed to say without an exclamation mark. His magic stopped for a short moment before picking back speed in a way that Aris hadn't seen before. “Fine, but I will beat you eventually, you can’t say no forever!”

  The rest of the day pass without much happening, and after everyone had unpacked and organized, it was time to sleep. The protection spell slowly began to shift into its night mode, focusing its gaze outwards more. Aris finally went to sleep.