Elias stepped through the arched doorway into the classroom, the familiar scent of parchment and polished wood hanging in the air. The space was arranged in wide concentric tiers, built to allow clear sightlines toward the instructor's platform at the front. Pale morning light filtered through stained glass windows, painting soft colors across the white stone walls. It was quiet save for the occasional rustle of papers and low greetings being exchanged among students still filtering in.
At the front of the room, Instructor Hallie Iren was methodically arranging several smooth, rune-etched stones on the table beside her. Each was about the size of a fist, polished to a dull sheen, and inscribed with faintly glowing sigils. She moved with easy grace, each motion confident and practiced, as though this routine had been performed countless times.
"Good morning," she said with a pleasant smile, offering a nod to each student who entered.
Elias returned the greeting with a quick smile before glancing briefly toward the back of the room. Hush was already seated, tucked into the furthest corner, half-shrouded in shadow cast by the window frame. He wasn't reading or fiddling with any materials—just watching. Silent. Still.
Elias hesitated for a moment, but Hush didn't even look his way. Suppressing the odd flicker of concern, Elias made his way to one of the front rows and took his seat, scratching at the armband that still slightly itched against his wrist.
As the final few students filed in and found their places, Hallie clapped her hands once—softly, but firmly—and the room settled.
"Welcome, Class One," she began, her voice carrying easily to every corner of the room. "This is your first official lesson in Elemental Theory & Control. If you're here expecting to throw fireballs or summon storms, I won't say you're wrong—but that's not where we begin."
She turned and scribbled the words Elemental Theory across the front blackboard with a piece of chalk that gleamed like crystal.
"Let's talk about this word—'Theory.' What does that mean to you?"
A few hesitant glances passed among the students. One raised a hand, and Hallie gestured for them to speak.
"A… system of understanding? Like, explaining how something works?" the student offered.
"Very good," Hallie said with a nod. "A theory is a framework. It's the bones beneath the muscle. The how and the why—not just the what. And when we speak of Elemental Theory, we're referring to the fundamental principles behind one of the most ancient branches of magic. Fire, water, earth, air—yes—but more than just manipulation. Theory is the study of what they are, why they behave the way they do, and how to understand them before we control them."
She let that settle before turning back to the class.
"So, let me ask you something more interesting. Why do you think fire burns? I don't mean the chemical explanation—you'll get plenty of that in Alchemical Studies. I mean magically. Why does your fire burn, and not mine? Or your classmate's? Or a spirit's?"
No one answered at first.
Elias sat forward slightly in his seat, the question gnawing at him in a way he hadn't expected. His magic burned because… it was fire. Wasn't that obvious?
Hallie smiled knowingly at the silence.
"You'll find," she continued, "that elemental magic is deeply personal. It is not simply a tool you wield, but an extension of you. When you conjure flame, you are not borrowing fire from the world. You are manifesting fire as you understand it. Which means no two flames are ever exactly alike."
She picked up one of the rune-etched stones from the table and held it aloft.
"This," she said, "is an Elemental Keystone. They're common training tools, but valuable for first-year casters. Each of these stones is attuned to one of the base elements. When held by someone with aligned affinity, it reacts—and more importantly, reflects."
She passed the stone to a nearby student. "Try it."
The student hesitantly took the stone in both hands. It pulsed softly—first dull, then gradually brighter. A moment later, wisps of pale blue flame rose from its surface. Not hot, Elias noted. Decorative. Controlled.
"That's their fire," Hallie said. "Now pass it to the next."
As the stone passed through several hands, its reactions changed. Some flared with sparks, others flickered faintly, and a few gave off strange hues or heatless flashes. One didn't react at all.
When it reached Elias, he took it carefully, half-expecting it to burn his hand.
It didn't. Not at first.
Then, slowly, the surface began to glow—not with orange or red, but a shifting swirl of deep crimson edged with white. It was wild, unsteady, a flickering spiral that seemed to twist in on itself. The flames rose and licked the air above his fingers, growing slightly brighter than the others had.
But even as they climbed, they never spread. Never surged outward. The flames danced… inward. As if curling back to their source.
Hallie tilted her head, watching intently. "Interesting."
Elias handed the stone off, rubbing his palm as the fire faded from view. For a second, it had felt like the heat was coming from within the stone rather than forming on top of it.
"Fire responds to will," Hallie said. "To identity. And to understanding. That is the essence of Elemental Theory. We don't start by wielding power—we begin by understanding the nature of that power. And most importantly, the nature of ourselves."
She gestured, and the stones floated back toward her table.
"Later this week, we'll move into paired elemental response testing, followed by individual conjuring exercises. You'll have workshop time to experiment, and you'll also receive a brief assignment by week's end."
Hallie set the stone down and folded her hands behind her back.
"But for today, I want you to think on this: What shape does your element take when no one's watching? Not when you force it. Not when you display it. But when it rests—when it breathes. What does it become?"
She paused, her gaze sweeping the room.
"I expect your answers in writing by tomorrow morning."
As the bell chimed softly through the halls, students began gathering their belongings. The mood was thoughtful, subdued. No one bolted for the door.
Elias, still thinking about the spiral in his hand, glanced back once toward Hush.
But Hush was already gone.
Deciding not to think on it too much, Elias instead crossed the bustling courtyard, weaving past other students as he made his way to the Engineering Wing, and as he got closer and closer to his destination, he noted an abrupt shift in the atmosphere.
It was different—less polished than the academic halls, more grounded, with the smell of oil, heated metal, and a faint tingle of charged mana lingering in the air.
His destination: Magitech Engineering.
He wasn't entirely sure what to expect—the class had been had chosen for him after all.
When he stepped through the wide double doors, his ears were immediately greeted by the rhythmic clanking of tools, faint bursts of mana, and voices shouting measurements back and forth. The space looked more like a forge than a classroom—rows of metal worktables lined the perimeter, cabinets full of gears, runestones, coils, wires, and all manner of arcane implements.
The man standing at the head of the class was hard to miss.
A portly, barrel-chested older fellow with a thick gray beard and a deeply tanned face, he wore a thick leather apron covered in soot, a battered smithing glove on one hand, and an ornate metal eyepatch over his left eye that glowed faintly with shifting runes. He looked less like a teacher and more like someone who regularly punched volcanoes for a living.
"Alright, you lot!" he bellowed, clapping his gloved hand against a worktable, startling several students into stiff attention. "Welcome to Magitech Engineering, the art of giving brains to your brawn!"
He paused, looked around the room, then nodded in satisfaction. "Name's Instructor Garran Holt. Yes, I know what I look like. Yes, I used to fight in the Skirmish Circuit. No, I will not show you my scars. And yes, you will respect the equipment or I'll personally replace your wand with a wrench. Clear?"
There was a tentative murmur of agreement from the students.
"Good."
Without further ado, he launched into a walking tour of the department, gesturing broadly at the various ongoing projects and components scattered throughout.
"See this?" he said, tapping on a half-finished gauntlet mounted to a floating crystal pedestal. "Rune-locked kinetic absorption mesh. Takes a punch, stores the force, and lets you return it later. One of my third-years built it with nothing but copper filament and stubbornness."
Elias leaned in closer, eyebrows raised. The gauntlet was humming gently, and faint lines of energy pulsed through its metal plating. It looked… alive.
They moved past glowing canisters, half-dissembled spell projectors, a complex harness rig hooked into a mana battery, and a massive workbench with what looked like an unfinished construct—bipedal, armored, its head missing but its arms twitching slightly as if dreaming.
"All of this," Instructor Holt continued, "exists because of wizards like me. And, possibly, like you, if you've got the head for it."
He stopped them near a circular arrangement of desks and slammed his hand down on a glowing panel. With a soft hiss, several panels opened in the wall, revealing toolkits and modular components.
"Now, listen up. You're all only here because you've been assigned this class on a laundry list of electives. You don't know yet if this is what you'll stick with—and that's fine. For the first few weeks of term, you'll be rotating through that list of classes. One week in each, then two of your choosing for the rest of the year. That means by next week, some of you'll be off learning herbalism, or enchanting, or beasts and binding, or whatever other whimsy caught your fancy."
He crossed his arms, his metal eyepatch glinting. "But if you do choose to stay here—understand that this class doesn't hand out easy grades or glittering praise. You build. You break. You bleed. You rebuild. And if you're lucky—maybe you make something that matters."
He turned to face them fully now, his voice losing some of its bark. "Magitech is where theory meets steel. Where magic learns to live in the world. Everything from the floating trays in the mess hall to wand amplifiers to prosthetic limbs started because some engineer somewhere said: 'I bet I can make that.' If that's how your mind works… then maybe this class is for you."
Elias, still processing all of it, felt something strange stirring. There was a different kind of thrill here—not the raw, explosive energy of his flames, but the promise of understanding how things ticked. Of building something, not just burning it.
Actually, this is almost exactly how he forged his wand. Maybe he could find a connecting strand between all of the various ways he learned to mold his flames here.
The rest of the class passed in a blur of introductions, safety protocol, and a look at their rotating assignment calendar. By the end of it, Elias found himself scribbling notes, already considering what he might be able to create… if his armband allowed it.
As they were dismissed, Instructor Holt called after them, "Tomorrow, you'll be assigned a beginner's project to test your instincts. Until then—look around you. Whether it's here in this school or outside in your daily lives, Ideas don't grow in isolation."
Stepping back out into the courtyard, Elias blinked against the bright afternoon sun. Between Hallie's philosophical lecture and Holt's forge-born sermon, he had a lot to think about—and even more to look forward to.
Stepping into his workshop for his alloted workshop hours, Elias paused in the doorway.His eyes drifted across the space—over the standard shelves, the plain desk, the untouched tools waiting to be claimed. Everything looked… normal. Uninspired, even. But something in him had shifted.
Crossing to his desk, he pulled out a blank sheet of paper and set it down carefully. The weight of the day pressed behind his eyes—Holt's words, the keystones in class, the hum of mana-infused machines still echoing faintly in his ears. Hallie's voice rang louder than the rest:
"What shape does your element take when no one's watching?"
Elias sat down, fingers brushing the edge of the page. He thought of the shimmering runes in the gauntlet. The twitching limbs of the unfinished construct. The faint thrum of energy in the air—alive, yet controlled. And for a moment, fire wasn't the only thing that thrilled him.
He glanced down at the blank paper, his thoughts still buzzing.
And then, slowly, he smiled.
The next day passed in a blur.
For Hallie, the afternoon had slipped by so quickly that she barely remembered the class itself—just flickers of lectures, discussion, the occasional spark of curiosity in a student's eyes.
Now, seated at her desk in a quiet faculty room, she stared down at a modest pile of assignment sheets. Her fingers hovered over the stack, poised to begin the usual rhythm of flipping, reading, annotating.
But one paper immediately caught her attention.
Even tucked halfway down the pile, it was impossible to miss—a softly glowing sheet, warm orange with dancing embers licking the edges. It didn't smoke. It didn't burn. It simply was.
She smiled faintly, recalling the moment it had been handed to her.
The boy had approached without a hint of hesitation, holding out the flaming piece as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She'd nearly leapt back, already reaching for a spell to protect her hands, but he had raised a brow and casually said, "It's safe."
She'd taken it. And to her astonishment, it had been safe. Rather than the a sheet of flaming paper however, It seemed to her as if the paper itself was constructed out of fire itself.
Magitech purely through flames. She hadn't seen anything like it.
Pulling the paper free from the stack, she turned it in her hands, letting her eyes trace the single message scrawled into the fire: "Fire, pure and simple."
A quiet chuckle slipped past her lips.
Elias. That was his name, wasn't it?
She'd heard murmurs among the faculty—about an incident on orientation morning. About a boy wearing a Mana-Restricting armband who scorched a wall. There'd been concern, warnings, But also… curiosity.
Looking at the sheet again, Hallie leaned back in her chair.
"Yes". she thought to herself "This school year is shaping up to be very interesting".