Leinad heard the sound wind and string instruments playing an uplifting melody. As he did, new ornate lines in a table appeared to him. He took in their meaning.

- You have begun down a path of immense growth and have learned a truth about yourself that will change the very way you interact with the world around you. You are more than your body, more than prison of flesh and blood. You are a Light Caster. -

-By using one ability to discover another, you have gleaned a connection between your two abilities. Exploring this connection could lead to exponential growth in your power. The limit of a Soul Caster is what they know of themselves. Look within, grow without and master your power!-

-You’ve gained 20% progress to your next level-

Leinad told Du’Vel about his new ability and about the messages that came with it.

”A lot about your casting is basically the same as the main elements and essences,” Du’Vel told him. “Lirenth will give most new casters these types of messages through the Eyes of the Realms.”

Upon seeing Leiand’s expression he explained that the Eyes of the Realms was what people called all the messages, stats and other information.

”If someone you’re talking to wants you to look information up within the Eyes of the Realms, they’ll usually just call it The Eyes,” Du’Vel said.

Du’Vel walked to a large table toward the back of the room. He motioned Leinad to follow him. They both sat opposite each other. Du’Vel gave a long sigh as he pulled out 

“This actually brings up another problem,” Du’Vel said. “When Julia and I first spoke about your situation, we thought we’d have at least a year to help you develop. I must admit, we didn’t factor in experience that you’d gain from the major milestones. If we factor these in, you could be taken from us in a matter of days.”

Du’Vel studied Leinad, who just seemed to be waiting for Du’Vel to say more.

“This doesn’t trouble you?” Du’Vel asked.

Leinad thought about it for a moment, and the truth was that he didn’t know what to be worried about yet. He didn’t know exactly what the trials were, so how could he prepare for them? From what he had been told so far (or rather, not told), nobody really did.

“All I can really do is learn all I can in the time I have,” Leinad said. “I really don’t think there’s much I can do beyond that.”

Du’Vel nodded, “In any case, I’ll have to let your mother know when she gets here. We were planning on you working on the skills you learned so far. Farming and cooking are great for survival, but combat skills are very important. It’s better you get the milestone experience from learning combat skills now and then we can work on slowing getting experience from your noncombat skills.”

Leinad felt a tinge of excitement when thinking about combat and magic. If anything, he was eager to learn.

“But first, let's go over magic,” Du’Vel said. “As a light caster, you’ll have one major disadvantage. The major elements and essences all have masters to teach spells, and you can even purchase lower grade prepared spells at shops. For someone who doesn’t have the ability to cast using the main elements and essences, you’ll have to develop your own spells. Learning the concepts of magic takes years of study and normally only those who get a formal education ever become masters.”

Du’Vel took out a card that was about seven by twelve centimeters and placed it on the table. The card had a circle drawn in the middle with a few designs within. Above the circle there was a line that Leinad read as “Weak Fireball. Novice I.”

“This is a novice spell called Weak Fireball,” Du’Vel said. “It takes fire mana, compacts it and discharges it at a high velocity to inflict damage on a target. Now, the mana you carry within your body is tied to your casting and it takes on the properties of the user's casting ability. In your case, your mana becomes light.”

He took out a stone and placed it in front of Leinad.

“Take this stone, and I want you to focus on placing your mana within it, like you did with the light from the flame,” Du’Vel said. 

Leinad did as he asked, taking the stone and focusing on it. He could see the waves of energy slowly moving into it, and as he did, the blue bar of mana at the bottom of his vision started to slowly drop. After what felt like forever, the surface of the stone changed to an almost pearl like white. He heard the sound of a soft musical hum before a prompt appeared.

-You have created a Light Mana stone. Quality, Trash. Charge, 1/25. By using 100 of your mana you have loaded this stone with 1 Light mana charge.-

Leinad looked at the time in the eyes.

“That took a whole hour for just one mana?” Leinad said with a bit of shock. “And it took 100 of my own mana too?”

Du’Vel took the stone and examined it.

“That’s typical when doing this,” Du’Vel said. “You didn’t get a skill called mana manipulation?”

Leinad shook his head.

“Well that’s interesting,” Du’vel said as he put the stone down. “Basically, mana manipulation has to do with transferring mana from yourself to an object or from one object to another. Those with the skill can improve the skill and fill mana stones faster with less cost. Mana manipulators usually work at banks, since mana is also the most commonly accepted currency. You can use your personal mana to use a spell, or you can use a mana stone in your possession.”

He handed the white stone back to Leinad.

“This difficulty in loading stones yourself should help you understand why using spells that belong to your own personal casting type is beneficial,” Du’Vel said. “In combat, using spells outside of your casting type will cost more mana than the spell calls for, especially if it’s the opposite of the spell you’re using. A fireball that cost 25 fire mana would cost a water caster 100 of their personal mana. A water caster that needs fire spells for combat would have to carry fire mana stones if they didn’t want to deplete their mana pool.”

Du’Vel handed the card with the fireball spell to Leinad.

“Now, spells are written out instructions for mana to create an effect,” Du’Vel said. “Creating spells can be a very complicated process, as I said before, but most spells are readily available to be taught and purchased. I know a few basics of spell creation, like while writing and setting your intention and what the basic symbols are meant to do.”

“How does a line have intentions?” Leinad asked.

Du’Vel thought about Leiand's question for a moment before figuring out what Leinad meant.

“Leinad, do you not know how to writing works,” Du’Vel asked.

“No sir,” Leinad answered with a small shake of his head.

“How do the messages in the eyes look for you when you read them.”

Leinad recalled all the prompts he had gotten so far, and they had indeed just been lines that he could interpret. 

“They’re just lines, but how do I write like that,” Leinad asked.

Du’Vel opened a drawer in his desk and took out ink, a quill and paper before placing it in front of Leinad. Leinad took the quill and looked down at the paper

“Go ahead and write something,” Du’Vel asked, waving down at the paper.

Du’Vel watched as Leinad scribbled strange symbols on the paper. He motioned for Leinad to stop. 

“Just do a straight line and while writing try willing your meaning into ink,” Du’Vel said.

Leinad did as told. As the quill moved from left to right he felt his thoughts move through the quill onto the paper, as he picked up the quill he could see a line was different from the symbols he had drawn earlier. The line clearly had meaning and he read it back to himself as “Hello World.”

Du’Vel nodded.

“Very good,” Du’Vel asked. “Writing is a very intuitive process.”

He looked down at the symbols Leinad had drawn earlier.

“What about these symbols you drew earlier,” Du’Vel asked. “What do they mean?” 

Leinad looked down at the symbols he had drawn. The idea of what they stood for had been with him for a moment, but they had slipped away like the memory of a dream.

“I can’t really remember,” Leinad said. “It felt kind of natural to write them.”

Du’Vel sat back down, looking at the symbols on the paper, wondering what they meant.

Clearly written above the hello world line were the english letters, F-I-R-E-B-A-L-L.