Chapter 3: Learning magic

The next day, everyone was gathered behind the church, where a training ground was located.

The priests told us that the training ground was for the knights stationed there so they could train while not on duty.

All twenty-four students and both teachers stood in the middle of the ground, waiting for the instructors to arrive.

Everyone was talking about the blessing that they had received and what it could do.

For example, the class president, an 18-year-old young man with short red hair, called Richard Smith, had the blessing of the god of fire.

It gave him pyroclastic abilities and it seemed as if he could also freely control his flames, and it seemed that he almost burned down his room by accident.

He wasn´t the only one that had gained the ability to create and control a certain element.

Miss Preston had gained it over darkness and shadows.

She enlarged her own shadow and slowly began to sink into it, but she stopped once she had sunk to her waist and slowly rose again.

“Good morning, everyone, I hope that you all had a good night and are rested.”, said a female knight that entered the training ground.

She seemed to be in her early twenties, with long blonde hair and light blue eyes.

She wore full plate armor, and she just gave off that feeling of a veteran worrier that had gone through hell itself.

“I am general Selena; I have been tasked to train you for the war with the demons. You might think that your blessings make you strong or invincible, but that is far from the truth.”, Selena said and the second that she finished she emitted a pressure that made us all unable to stand.

Every single one of us kneeled before her.

“THIS IS THE KIND OF THING THAT YOU ALL NEED TO WITHSTAND WITHOUT EVEN BATTING AN EYE!!! BEFORE YOU CAN DO THIS, NONE OF YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO CALL YOURSELF HEROES!!!”

Just as quickly as the pressure appeared, it just as quickly disappeared again.

“So, before you can make use of your blessings, all of you need to strengthen your mind, your will, and most importantly your body. I will put you through hell itself so that every single one of you will become the heroes that you are meant to be.”

What followed was probably the most intense and downright malicious training session of my life.

Normally I am not someone that shies away from physical activities, my parents would always go with me hiking, wandering, climbing mountains, and whatnot.

But even so, that training was just brutal, that general would do everything in her power to break us, which she also admitted without any hesitation.

‘I will break you all and remodel you with my own hands.’, is what she said when one of us asked.

The training went until sundown and there were only breaks for eating or every three hours.

The knights and the priests had to carry us back to our rooms because none of us were able to even stand.

The second that the knight laid me down on the bed, the exhaustion became too much for me and I fell asleep.

The next morning, my body was sore all over and I tried to move as little as possible.

I also summoned all three snakes, for mental support.

Although I only had summoned them once and only for an hour, I already liked them a lot.

All three of them seemed to notice the state of my body and looked rather worriedly at me.

The holy snake used her healing bite on me, which helped a bit, but was sadly not enough to cure me fully.

“It´s ok, you tried your best.”, I said while petting the little snake on the head.

The snake seemed to feel bad about the fact that it couldn´t help me more.

I should give them some names, can´t keep calling them it, or little snake.

But I wasn´t good with names, and I didn´t want to give them names that they might not like.

Maybe I should ask Andrew about it.

Andrew was one of the only friends that I had in the class, and he was an absolute animal lover.

His family was running a pet shop, where besides the normal things such as cats, dogs, and rabbits; they also had lizards and snakes.

They also worked together with pet sanctuaries and breeders.

So maybe, he could help me with giving them names.

But that has to wait for the three and I had our little snuggle session, pretty sure that I am going to get addicted to them, but I am ok with that.

After the hour had passed and my little three snakes had disappeared again, someone knocked on my door.

“Mister John, breakfast is ready, the others are waiting for you in the cafeteria.”

I sighed and slowly got up and put on the clothes that we had gotten yesterday.

With 1,9 meters I was relatively tall, mostly thanks to my parents who both were also around that height.

Both of them came from some country in Scandinavia, they never really mentioned it.

I had inherited their light blue eyes, but unlike them had short black hair.

My height had brought some complications with the training clothes that we had received yesterday because the average height was under 1,8 meters, and they had nothing in my size.

But they somehow managed to give one in the middle of training, when my entire clothes were soaked in sweat.

Walking down the hall toward the hall, I hoped that today wouldn´t be as hellish as yesterday.

When I entered the cantina, everyone had already begun, all of them were exhausted and tired.

They tried to move as little as possible and as slowly as possible.

I searched for a table that had a chair or two free.

The breakfast was made out of bread with jam, honey or other things, fresh vegetables, and a warm soup.

After finding a place, I began silently to eat the soup, no one tried to start a conversation, and I wasn´t going to try to start one either.

Andrew was sitting at another table, the same as the other people that I usually talk with.

“May I have your attention please, today you will not go through physical training. Today, all of you will get your magical proficiency tested.”, said Father Alexander as he entered the room.

The tension in the room was lifted and everyone sighed in relief, no one wanted to go through that training from hell again.

After everyone was finished with breakfast, everyone gathered in the large hall, with the statues of the gods and goddesses.

The statues of Tiamat and Echidna still seemed to pull me in, but I resisted the pull.

Father Alexander stood before a crystal ball, which was standing on a podium.

“This is a magic detector. With it, we can see which form of magic you can use, and how proficient you are with them. I know that some of you, have gained the blessings of gods that grant you affinity with a certain element, but you also have the chance to use multiple elements, which would give you more options when fighting against the demons.”, he said.

Once again, we formed a line, with me being at the end again.

 As I waited for my turn to finally arrive, I could hear both happy and disappointed voices.

Seems like not everyone is happy with what they got.

I wonder if I could check, if the two-headed snake had an affinity with any form of magic as well, that description was simply way too depressing.

But the cooldown wasn´t through yet and it would take at least two more hours before I could summon it again.

As I snapped out of my thoughts, I realized that it was finally my turn.

“You seem to have been in deep thought there John? Want to talk about it?”, Father Alexander asked.

“I was just thinking about something related to the blessing, maybe talking about it would help.”

“Good, then meet me at my office after the training, ok?”

“Sure thing.”

“Then please, put your hand on the detector.”

I had already a guess with which magic I had an affinity since one of my abilities had something to do with it.

As I placed my hand on the ball, the crystal began to glow in three different colors, sickly green, red and blue.

“Affinity with poison, water, and fire… A terrible attribute, which is quite rare, but that combination will be difficult.”, Father Alexander said, sounding a bit disappointed.

He turned around and looked at the other people in the room.

“Now that we know your attributes, I will show you how you can control and use your magic.”

Priests brought large pillows and lied them on the ground.

Father Alexander sat down on one of them and signaled us to do the same.

All of us sat down on the pillows and looked at Father Alexander.

“When you use magic, you use energy that your body stores inside it, the more you consume and the faster you consume it, the faster you will get exhausted. This is why many mages train their endurance, and the amount of power inside of them, to let them use more magic for a longer time. This is also why general Serena´s training is so important. But she will explain that more in detail tomorrow.”

Everyone groaned after hearing general Serena´s name, including me, I was not eager to continue the training tomorrow.

Father Alexander explained to us how to draw out our magic.

“Close your eyes and go deep inside you. Picture a small lake, filled to the brim with water.”

Everyone did as he asked.

I pictured a small lake and after a minute or so, I was able to feel something inside me.

“Good, everyone had made contact with the energy inside of you. Now try to draw some of that water from the lake and into the rest of your body.”

I tried to reach out to the lake, but no matter what I did, I wasn´t able to get near it.

I became desperate, trying again and again, but nothing changed.

Suddenly, the person next to me stood up and yelled loudly, “YES!”

Losing my focus, I looked at him and was stunned, he held two orbs in his hand, one red and emitting heat, the other white and limiting cold air.

“Verry good, you managed to not only draw out your magic power but also manifest it without using your blessing.”, Father Alexander said in approval.

Shortly after that, others succeeded one after the other.

Some tried to use their blessing as support, but Father Alexander quickly noticed them all and stopped them.

“Your blessings are powerful, but you need to learn how to use magic on your own without the help of the blessing. You cannot rely on it for everything.”

‘I need to hurry up and figure this out. The summoning of those three was similar to this, but I think that the blessing had helped in it. But maybe I did go at it the wrong way, what if I don´t have to draw it out by force.’, I thought, since trying to force it out didn´t work and there had been no changes in the situation at all, then maybe it was time to change the way I go at it.

Well, only one way to find out about it.

I imagined the lake again and it quickly appeared inside my mind again.

This time, I didn´t try to force it out, but to try and connect with it.

Nothing happened, no connection had been made, and no change had occurred.

Was I wrong?

No, it was too soon to say that.

I tried again and this time, I felt something, it was vague and weak, but it was there.

Again, the feeling got stronger, something was moving in the lake.

Again and again, I tried to make a connection with the power inside the lake, and every time that I tried it, that feeling got stronger.

Until finally it overwhelmed me and the energy inside the lake erupted.

POV Father Alexander

I was teaching the heroes how to draw out their magic power. This was one of the most important steps when using magic, later on, it will be as easy as breathing but the first time will always be the most difficult one and the one where accidents are quite likely.

The pictures that many of them have are either for a single attribute or for two.

Both of the teachers have an only affinity with one attribute, the ones that align with their blessing.

Only a few have triple affinity and from them, John has a bad combination.

Water magic is mostly seen as support magic, many spells are useful but aren´t able to do much damage.

Ice magic is a sup class of water magic, but you need to master water first before you can begin with the sup class, or you have an affinity with the sup class, to begin with.

Poison was a rare one, but didn´t have many uses.

The only useful he had was fire magic, and that was contradicting his other two.

He seemed like a nice young man that thinks a bit too hard about things, but with the blessing of Echidna and that combination of affinity, I don´t think that he will be able to do much against the demons.

Compared to the others, he was starting to fall behind.

Even now, everyone else had already drawn out their magic and was now waiting for Jhon to do the same.

Maybe I should end it here and let him try later, there is no need to be hasty in this, any mistake here will be forever.

As I opened my mouth to end the lesson, I could feel the magic power flowing out of his body, covering it.

‘Did… Did he achieve it already?’

When you first draw out your magic power, you do so with force, to get a feeling for it.

Later on, you will learn to naturally use it, to draw it out passively, so that you won´t even need to think about drawing it out.

But this required time, practice, and experience, and yet John seemed to have figured it out.

What’s more, it seemed that the magic power has taken on a physical form.

The pure magic power was materializing around John, taking on the appearance of a massive snake, coiled around John.

‘Is this a sign of Echidna?’, was the only thing that came to my mind.

Far beyond the reaches of any mortal being, lay the realms of the gods.

Each god and goddess had his or her area, which represented them.

The only exception to this was the god of the underworld, his wife, and the gods that served under them.

They had to watch over the underworld and the souls of the dead, so they had no time to relax in the realm of the gods.

1000 years ago, the gods had fought against the devils and the demons that had invaded the planet.

Only with their last option, the summoning of the heroes was they able to finally defeat the devils and free the demons from their enslavement.

But this victory came at a high cost, most of the heroes had died and the planet had received scares that would never heal.

The demons had almost been wiped out and the remaining members of their race had sworn to watch over the corrupted lands.

The gods had lost almost all of their powers and needed to retreat to their realms to regain their powers.

For almost 900 years they had been asleep, leaving their duties to their subordinates.

And even after all these years of sleeping, they had not regained the strength that they once wielded.

One of the reasons was the hero’s summoning rituals that the humans had been conducting.

Every time that a hero would be summoned, they would drain a part of the power of the god that had to bless them.

Echidna had blessed many heroes in the past and was currently one of the weakest gods.

“Looks like the one that has received my blessing is quite the interesting one. After spending a short time with my children, he has seen how to draw out the magic power correctly… Fufufufufu But will you be able to survive, or will you fall at the beginning like all of them before. Not, that isn´t right, there was one that survived to the end. Let´s see if you are as capable as he?”