Leo was staring at the principal while clenching his fists.

  “The details entailing your potential candidature will be explained by your respective teachers. All of you should have received your new class distributions. If anyone is confused or forgot to check what class you’re in, you can confirm with me. That is all, you are dismissed.”

  “Hey, Leo, are you okay? You know, with your-”

  “I’m fine, Bim. Come on, don’t wanna be late for class, right?”

  Bim looked like he wanted to say more, but he ultimately decided against it.

  “If you’re sure… Just know that I can always hear you out if you ever wanna talk.”

  “I don’t nee- …No, thank you. I’ll see you around.” Leo decided to leave it at that and started to make his way to his newly assigned class in a daze.

  He bumped into multiple people but didn’t react in any way. Without any complications along the way he found his way to the classroom, sat in the nearest chair to the exit and put his head on the desk.

  I have to be positive. This isn’t bad, actually, it’s an opportunity. Nobody knows if the Exile proposition would have been accepted…

  “Leo, would you mind sitting closer to the front?” Leo looked up with a bewildered expression. At the front of the class stood Mrs. Canton, the same teacher that recorded their binding results the day before, with her long black hair gathered in a ponytail, reaching just below her waist, “Wait, is that not your name? I’m so sorry, I tried to remember all of the students that became formation mages yesterday…”

  “No, you remembered correctly, Mrs. Canton. Sorry, I was just a bit out of it because of the principal’s announcement earlier.” Leo was a little taken aback by the woman’s demeanor. Judging by her appearance he always thought she would be really strict, but so far that wasn’t the case at all.

  All of the other students were eyeing him, which wasn’t a lot, as only seven other kids were sitting in the class, which made sense as with only about a tenth of all mages being formationists it was by far the most uncommon magic type. He noticed two other students who were in the same class as him before, but he wasn’t particularly close with either of them.

  Leo picked up his backpack and relocated to one of the free seats in the second row.

  “Understandable, it came as a surprise to most of us. We found out only a couple of hours before all of you” The teacher hopped up a bit to sit on the desk behind her, “Speaking of which, you were promised more details from us by the principal. So, do any of you need a refresher on what the Magic Contest even is?”

  Three of the students present raised their hands shyly.

  “Okay, I’ll try to be quick. So, the council of the six powers for some reason a long time ago decided that the best course of action when they have a tie in one of their votes is to make some kids fight each other. And so each planet makes a team of four, two girls and boys each of the newest generation of mages and then the team that is the last one standing earns the right to by itself decide the result of all of the votes held at that particular council meeting."

  A timid looking boy raised his hand.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Uhm, do we have to become candidates?”

  “Ah, yes, that was the next thing on the list. No you don’t. And of course there won’t be any repercussions or anything of the sort. But if you do want to become a candidate, please stay for a bit after classes are over. But anyway, now that we have the boring stuff out of the way, aren’t you excited to be doing some magic… is what I wish I could say, but first we need to revise all of the runic script you learned… But don’t worry after some other classes that I thankfully don’t have to teach, we’ll have our first practical lesson during fifth grade today…”

  *****

  Even though Leo didn’t like to admit it, he was incredibly excited about finally doing some magic, especially after what his mother told him. Could it really be so great? The classes leading up to the practical lesson were a drag. For the first time in a long time Leo didn’t enjoy history and math, although those were two of his favorite subjects before.

  His new classmates seemed to feel similar, as Leo hadn’t seen any of them talking amidst themselves.

  “…and that’s why we define derivatives as a limit… Okay, since you all seem a bit out of it, that either means that I’m really bad at my job, but since I’m hoping that’s not the case I’m gonna assume that you have your first practical coming up?” Some hesitant nods follow, “Yeah, I figured. In that case you can all be on your way, we only had a couple more minutes anyway.”

  Everyone, including Leo, immediately started packing and not even a minute later everyone was already up and about on their way to the classroom.

  “Seems like we’re all equally excited for this.” One of his classmates, Leo was pretty sure her name was Sally, spoke up. He remembered her because of the glasses sitting on her nose being way too big.

  “Yeah, my mom was telling me that it feels awesome yesterday… Wait, that sounds weird.” Leo decided to chime in.

  “It does. But yeah, my whole life I’m seeing everyone around me use magic. I really want to do it too.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Their other classmates also all decided to share some of their thoughts as well. Shortly after they all finally reached the classroom where the class was going to be held. Leo was the first to reach the door and was practically shoved inside.

  “You lot seem excited, and you’re here so early.” Mrs. Canton says as she drinks what appears to be tea with her legs up on her desk. “What, you already miss me? How cute.” The woman stands up and leans against the desk. “Well, since I’m sure that if I let you wait any longer you’re gonna revolt, let’s start. Get seated everyone.”

  It doesn’t take more than ten seconds for everyone to find a seat.

  “Sadly, for you it won’t be as easy to get started with casting as it will be for spellweavers and especially for freeformers. But don’t get discouraged, because there’s not that many of you, I have the privilege to have every single one of you achieve some results today. So, as I’m sure you all know, the reason we started with runic earlier today is that it’s necessary for one of the two steps of casting us formationists have - namely the drawing of the magic circle.”

  As she was saying this, she walked up to the blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk.

  “What we will be trying to achieve today is what I consider the most basic spellchain. While I draw this circle, focus intently and try to spot if you feel anything.”

  Mrs. Canton started drawing on the board and Leo felt as if he heard something.

  He closed his eyes.

  A whisper? He tried to block out everything except the noise coming from the board. No it’s not whispering there isn’t any meaning in this noise. No it’s… the sound of leaves rustling in the wind.

  The noise stopped just as abruptly as it started and Leo opened his eyes again. Mrs. Canton finished drawing and watched the students with a satisfied smile.

  “I see that all of you have at least some mana sense. That’s a relief. What you just experienced is the mana flowing out of me while I channeled it into the wordchain. Before this you were only taught how to feel the mana inside your body, but now that you are bound you will also feel it all around you. Mana sense manifests differently for everyone. It could be something you see, feel, hear, smell or even taste. Now, did anyone make out what exactly it was that you felt?”

  Leo raised his hand and saw that, besides him, only Sally raised her hand.

  “Oh, interesting, you two have some pretty good mana senses. Leo, what did you feel?”

  “Uhm, I think I heard the rustling of leaves, why?”

  “Well, this is to help the others a bit. Your element is plants, right? You see, the thing you feel will always be connected to your element. I, for example, hear the clanging of speartips. Try to train your mana senses as much as possible, as that will make it easier to control your mana.” The woman turned back to the board.

  “Anyway, going back to the circle, as you can see, the wordchain only contains three words - spear, spew and single. In your case you will have to replace spear with your respective elements and single with small if your element is a concept, rather than an item. Now I want all of you to try and draw a circle yourselves. And remember - you always start with the inner ring, then the wordchain, and then the outer ring.”

  The teacher then placed a piece of paper in front of the students. Everyone started trying to draw a magic circle of their own.

  I haven’t actively thought about it until now, but will I even be able to participate in combat as a formationist? Leo kept getting distracted by his own thoughts. He didn’t have any success with the magic circle, even though some of the people around him had already finished.

  “Something on your mind?” he jerked in surprise - Mrs. Canton was standing right next to him. “If I can help you with something or have any questions I can answer them after class, so try to relax and focus on your mana.” She gave him a pat on the shoulder.

  “Yeah, thanks…”

  Leo concentrated on his pencil and tried to imagine circulating his mana not just through his body, but also his pencil. Then, he started hearing the rustling again and started moving his hand. Trying not to mess up the wordchain he concentrated on spelling out each word. First appeared plant then spew and finally small. Excited, but still trying to remain focused Leo carefully finished the outer ring and he felt like the rustling sound also went to rest as if a lone petal lay to rest on the ground after a wind too strong for it to bear separated it from its flower.

  After walking around class and helping everyone who struggled Mrs. Canton went back to the front of the class and resumed the lesson.

  “That went just as smooth as I hoped it would. Okay, now we can move onto the second step - the channeling. If you ever asked yourself why not just anyone can activate a magic circle after it's drawn, you actually have to be the person who drew the circle for the mana not to clash. The only exception to this are formationists with the mana element.”

  The woman again turned to the blackboard.

  “In the same way you drew the magic circle you now have to guide your mana through the formation. When doing this you don’t have to think about each runic word separately, but what you want the wordchain to mean as a whole. You also have to be fairly quick with it.”

  Mrs. Canton placed her hand on the board and after just a moment a small spear shot out and remained lodged in the board only to disappear a couple moments later.

  As this was happening, Leo could have sworn he ‘heard’ the mana again, although it wasn’t the rustling. But it happened so fast that he couldn’t make sense of it.

  “By the way, please be mindful about the amount of mana you use. The more you pour into the spell, the longer it’s going to last. Go ahead - try it.”

  Leo laid a hand on his piece of paper and closed his eyes. He tried to visualize a vine growing out of his desk and pushed mana from the center of the circle to the outside. He felt a light push against the bottom of his hand and again heard the sound he couldn’t recognize before. But this time he managed to make out what it was: to him it felt like the last crack of a falling tree trying to stay upright before it falters and falls over. Leo had to agree with his mother, there was something immensely satisfying and fulfilling about casting a spell.

  Then he finally opened his eyes and saw the result of his magic - a small flopped over mass of something resembling a stem.

  “Damn…”

  “Don’t be sad, it’s no big deal if you can’t keep it upright.” He heard Sally say with a snort, followed by a bunch of giggles, and Leo saw that even Mrs. Canton chuckled a bit.

  “Shut the fuck up, Sally!”

  Not long after that everyone had managed to cast their first spell without much trouble.

  “Okay, that’s all for today. I’m proud of all of you. Those wanting to become candidates for the Magic Contest, please stay behind.” At those words Leo’s mood immediately soured a bit.

  Ah, right, the Contest…