The carriage ride took quite a while because the driver swerved into the street where the protests were happening. The man apologised, his rough-around-the-edges voice barely passing through his even more rough-around-the-edges carriage.

  But in the end, all journeys came to their destination, and Jim exited the carriage, tossing a few bronze coins to the driver, who promptly picked up another passenger and stormed off, whipping his horses. The sound the whip made was quite pleasing to the ear and Jim briefly considered if he should get one himself.

  After giving it some thought Jim shook his head and looked up at the academy grounds. There was a wall around the whole estate, and there were only two entrances. A large arched gate, which was currently open but which closed during the night. Breathing in deeply, the young mage entered the grounds, noting that they looked the same as always. All clean-cut gravel paths winding their way along green grass, interspersed with fruit, nut and pine trees. Every path led to a different building, a different part of the grounds.

  It was beautiful, in a way, but Jim had long since gotten sick of it. It always looked the same, and after a year, he'd gotten truly and utterly bored. What was the point of maintaining a specific natural environment with magic if one never changed it?

  Today, he took a gravel path that he hadn't before. In the past, he'd visited the main lecture halls, those reserved for mandatory lessons, and the combat arena. Today, he went towards the building that he knew the headmaster resided and worked in.

  It was something of a teacher's lounge, directly in the middle of campus. A large tower made of simple grey stone piercing the skies. Below was a large square structure reminiscent of a cathedral. An odd building. As he got closer, he noted that no teacher seemed to be present outside the door, which meant he would likely have to go inside to find out if the headmaster was there or not.

  The reason he wanted to seek out the man specifically was because while being a professor at the academy was a respected position, it also was not a political one. Whereas the headmaster, other than being an archmage, also sat on the city council and had emergency powers and influence in the military.

  Jim walked up the door and put his hand on a large iron knob and was about to push it down before he was rudely interrupted.

  "What are you doing?" the girl waiting there asked. She was dressed in a blue robe, which was acceptable since classes hadn't started yet. Her hair also dyed blue, or maybe that was just the natural colour. Her name was Dew Waterflower, and she was annoying.

  "What do you want, Dew?" he asked in a tired voice, already sick of being in the presence of the noblesse oblige-obsessed girl. It hadn't even been five seconds.

  "I want you to respectfully wait here until a professor comes and lets us in, or someone answers my knocks. But I understand if it's too much to ask for you to understand basic human politeness. I assume your class participation was just as non-existent during your etiquette lessons as a child?" she asked with a sneer.

  "Unlike your pathetic brown-nosing, I have actual important stuff to do here. I'm sure you're just here to bother the staff by asking if you can take all the electives somehow, knowing it's against the rules," Jim responded with similar acid. He remembered from his visions how Dew had somehow managed to weasel into three electives during the semester, despite her start-of-semester exam grades technically only allowing for two until she passed Combat Magic I.

  The girl blushed and glared at him, crossing her arms.

  "At least I'm not here to double-check if I can pass without taking any electives," she said with a sniff. "They've really dropped the standard, letting people like you in."

  "People like me," Jim muttered to himself with some confusion and a small bit of hurt.

  He was usually the one referring to others as ‘people like you’...

  The Waterflowers were a family of mages who'd survived several ages by now. After the most recent age of fire, they'd immediately switched their focus from fire magic to water magic. They'd been the one who'd suggested and created the artificial lake surrounding the city. Gamblers, basically. Betting that the next calamity would include monsters tending towards the fire side of things, hoping for more prestige from being useful in the defence and subjugation.

  If one was even coming, the whole point of the age of fire had been to burn the Hrust mountain chain to a crisp. These days, it was just a collection of jagged black rock, everything alive burned to ash on the outside, and on the inside. Cursed fire assured nothing grew, and miners could source the ore without danger. He'd seen it in the future when he'd been sent to that village. Jagged black teeth clawing a path into the sky behind it, covering the horizon and encompassing most of Mitelos.

  "People like me. Those who've awakened a bloodline, you mean. I agree, the academy is for pathetic mage families who've never developed a single specific talent."

  "What bloodline?" Dew asked frostily. "The magical ability to get discounts on imports from Ezengerd because you pretend you believe in their flame bullshit?" she asked.

  "Prophetic dreaming, actually," Jim replied while demonstratively looking down at his nails, wondering if he should clip them. They were getting a bit long. He'd left his family domicile four days ago and had been on the road for a bit now. He hadn't taken the time to groom properly.

  "You're trying to tell me you're a seer?" Dew asked, seemingly dumbfounded, rather than offended.

  Jim was looking down on her already since she was shorter than he, but now he tilted his head as well. "Yes, so maybe you should seriously reconsider getting off my back, before I tell someone you go crazy in a few years and they lock you up," he sniffed.

  Dew just stared at him with her clear blue eyes, clearly jealous. "I refuse to even entertain the possibility," she said in a neutral tone of voice with a twitching eyebrow showing that she wasn't unaffected by his claim.

  "The first stage of grief," Jim muttered with a sigh as he shook his head. "Denial." He put his hand on the doorknob again, something Dew didn't attempt to prevent, and pushed down. It didn't open. It was locked, or warded, or something.

  The girl snorted from next to him. "That's what you get," she said. "Now scamper off. I'm sure there's a bronze coin to be made in some trade on campus."

  Jim sighed, turned around so that the teacher's lounge was behind him and leaned against the wall, enjoying being in the shade. "I think I'll wait," he said.

  "Fine!"

  "Alright."

  "Be my guest!"

  "Don't mind if I do."

  "Don't mind if I accept."

  "Thank you."

  They stopped sniping at each other, deciding it wasn't worth the effort to have the last word. A minute or so later Dew raised a palm to chest-level, pointed it upwards and started cycling mana. A small droplet of water formed over her hand and slowly started accumulating more mass.

  Magic was divided into two levels. Structured magic, which consisted of spells, rituals, and potions, all of which required clear steps and gestures to bring to fruition. Unstructured magic, on the other hand, simply consisted of bringing forth one's mana and effecting change onto the world. The change one could effect upon the world like that was quite limited, which was why the entire branch was mostly used as foundational exercise for structured magic.

  Suppose Dew wanted to cast Water Spear. She could chant the incantation, wave her arms appropriately and let the tried and tested formula take control of her mana and form a water spear which she would then shoot at an enemy.

  But formulas couldn't carry a user completely and utterly. If Dew had no idea how to create water, manipulate it, or telekinetically banish it, she would be unlikely to succeed in casting her spell. That was what shaping exercises were for. If she trained herself to be able to summon water in an unstructured manner, control it in an unstructured manner, hold its shape in an unstructured manner, and last but not least, violently reject it in an unstructured manner, then she would probably be capable of using the water spear spell. Because water spear required mastery of at least three shaping exercises – summon, shape, banish – it was classified as a 3rd ring spell.

  Additionally, there was a difference between creating water and pulling it out of the atmosphere.

  Jim was considering all of this because of one simple reason. His seer’s blood had progressed his magical ability. And while he’d never normally waste an opportunity to laze about while waiting, upstaging Dew and her aristocratic pedigree was reason enough.

  He couldn’t pull off anything flashy, but the exercises he had learned now came with six months of extra practice. Meaning, if he picked the right one…

  "Drawing or creating?" he asked blithely, receiving a glare as the small ball of water in the girl's hand lost its shape and fell down, causing a small splash.

  "Creation," she growled, before going back to concentrating.

  Creation was more difficult than drawing the water from the atmosphere. Jim could only do the latter; it had been one of the shaping exercises necessary to learn the water gathering spell, one of the basic four. His other four basic shaping exercises weren't too hot either. But there were two shaping exercises that he was quite decent at. Understandable, considering that Combat Magic I was only cleared once you learned the two spells associated with those exercises. But Jim's talent lay more in the shield spell, rather than the magic missile spell.

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  He glanced at Dew from his peripheral vision as he also raised a hand, similarly to her. He could feel her watching him like a hawk, waiting for what he had to show her and preparing the words she'd use to insult him if it didn’t meet her standards.

  The young mage tugged at his mana, it coalesced over his palm. A bluish stream, like smoke, curled from his palm before snapping into a glowing ring. Then a second, nested inside the first. That was nearly his limit. But with one last punch, he made them spin in opposite directions. One of the most basic shaping exercises available, but one that treated mana ejection, mana shaping and mana control all at the same time.

  He turned to give Dew a smug look, happily noting how she'd dropped the ball of water again and was looking at his palm as if it had just given her the middle finger.

  "How did you do that?" she asked brusquely with a frown.

  He knew from his memory of the start of semester exam that she was still stuck on the phase of creating the two rings but was unable to properly manipulate them yet. She'd looked at him and Lebowski with a very self-satisfied gaze when she'd managed that.

  Now she wasn't looking nearly as happy.

  Jim dropped the exercise, happily letting go of the near pain-inducing level of concentration needed for it. "Perks of seeing the future," he said and crossed his arms as the blue-haired girl analysed his form with a contemplative look.

  "Well, I'm glad to see two pupils who know how to take proper advantage of the little waiting moments life tends to enforce on us," a voice suddenly said from behind them, causing both students to jump and spin around, seeing that a professor had lazily opened the door without either of them having noticed it.

  "I do have to ask, however, what are you doing here?" the vice-headmistress asked as she adjusted her round glasses and gave them both a severe look. She was known as a no-nonsense woman, and Jim thankfully had never bothered taking any of her classes, which were supposedly all centred on shaping exercises. In fact, he'd never taken any electives… Anyway, he knew that in front of her, it was better to get to the point.

  "Headmistress Vector, I was looking to speak with headmaster Leigh to discuss with him the awakening of my latent bloodline," he started, giving the woman a meaningful look, before swiping his eyes quickly to Dew as if to imply that he would rather have that conversation in private.

  The headmistress remained unimpressed. "Is there any reason you couldn't wait until the day after tomorrow? That's when the ranking exams will be."

  Well, he'd told Dew anyway, Jim decided and went straight for the jugular. "I had a prophetic dream, vice-headmistress. I wanted to convey to the headmaster, who I know has a voice in political and military matters, some information that might be relevant to saving lives." Most importantly, his own life.

  Professor Vector blinked at him slowly, before suddenly frowning even more severely, if that was possible. She stepped back and unceremoniously bid him to enter the building. "Let's be quick, he's in his office right now," she said, before turning and walking off. A glance backwards. "Come along then," she said. Jim followed in her footsteps, turning back to see Dew glaring at him from the open door, fists clenched and red in the face. He stuck out his tongue at her before the door promptly shut in her face, putting him decisively and immediately in the inner sanctum of the academy staff.

  Quite frankly, it was less awe-inspiring than he'd imagined it to be. It was just a wide-open space with desks strewn about. Sure, the chairs looked comfortable, and the stacks of paper jutting into the air looked intimidating, but it was similar to how the offices of his family business looked, just less lively. Other than him and Professor Vector, there was nobody present.

  "The professors prefer teleporting on the day of the exam," the vice-headmistress said, without glancing back, as she navigated them towards a spiral staircase

  "I guess there's not really much point," Jim mused. "No classes, the exam is already prepared and handling the enrollment and fee-collecting administration is beneath a mage of any skill."

  Professor Vector turned her head back to give him a tight smile as they started ascending the stairs of the tower. "Yes, although we generally assign some of these tasks to professors who've just joined us, so that they can see how the academy operates." She turned around again, giving Jim the opportunity to grimace.

  How was it possible that even after becoming a mage accomplished enough to be a professor at the Sredinan academy, one still had to do administrative paperwork? He'd be doing some of that for his family business when he graduated and the new professors had to do it as an introduction. Was there any place left in the world that was safe?

  They arrived at the top of the tower, where a small antechamber awaited them. It was lit by ever-burning braziers of blue flame, and a comfortable rug was spread out on the floor. There was a sofa, a few chairs, and a small table. Jim was about to go sit down, expecting at least some waiting period. However, Vector simply walked up to the imposing door presumably leading to the headmaster's office and banged her fist on it.

  "Leigh!" she shouted. "Important stuff!"

  "One second!" an older male voice answered from inside. Some sounds followed: iron pots clanging, goats bleating, and porcelain breaking. Jim took a step back, slightly disturbed and confused about what was happening behind the closed door. However, he didn't need to wonder no more as the door swung open, revealing a… Completely normal room?

  A big oak desk, behind which sat an older man with a rectangular grey beard dressed in a purple robe. In front of it were two armchairs, the whole room was blocked in by two gigantic bookshelves that seemed to hold folders upon folders of material, occasionally interspersed with some magical trinket made of black iron. Wheels that spun in place on their own, little spider models that danced and a sword or two gathering dust on a wooden shelf.

  "What seems to be the issue?" the headmaster asked as he peered at the pair who'd entered his office.

  Professor Vector looked at Jim as if urging that he explain himself. "I had a prophetic dream on the ship passage to the academy, there are potentially deaths that could be avoided," he explained briskly, causing the headmaster to hum thoughtfully and lean back in his chair.

  "What's your last name, boy?" the headmaster asked.

  "Savant, headmaster, sir," Jim said with no small amount of pride.

  The headmaster frowned, the atmosphere turning more serious. "This conversation might take a while. Perhaps you can finish up the preparations for tomorrow, Vector?" he prompted.

  Professor Vector didn't seem bothered by the clear dismissal and simply left the room, leaving the two men alone.

  "If I remember correctly," the headmaster muttered before holding up a hand and summoning one of the books on the left shelf. It smacked into his palm with a satisfying thwack. It was a large tome, which made another big sound when it was dropped on the table. The headmaster ran a glowing finger along the spine, causing the book to open itself. "Richean merchants," the man hummed.

  "400 years and ongoing," Jim said with some pride. A lot of merchant families didn't last that long. One stupid offspring taking over the business could bankrupt it in a decade or lead it to being taken over by a rival. It was a cut-throat business, and the only escape was buying oneself into the aristocracy. However, that was harder than it sounded, and historically in Rotto, one could only attain noble status with a good military showing during the calamity.

  "It says here your house was founded by a certain Trevelyn Savant. He also had prophetic dreams, which he used to make a lot of money. Buying up wheat when a famine was incoming, stuff like that?"

  "Yes," Jim said. Trevelyn, his great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather had somehow been able to make a succession of good trades which had created the family fortune that served as a foundation for their current business.

  "I see, perhaps there is something to the story then. I'm sorry, but being able to predict the future in any noteworthy detail or capacity is a rare gift. But, it is more likely to appear hereditarily. Perhaps you should take the divination elective; it's not really the same thing, but it's likely you'd have a predisposition for the subject," the headmaster suggested.

  Jim let the thought of taking an elective pass through his head. Originally, he wouldn't have been privileged to take an elective anyway. The start of semester exams determined how good of a student you were, so that the academy could tell how much freedom they could allow. They didn't want someone's electives distracting them from passing Combat Magic I, which was the most important class. However, even if he could, Jim didn't really feel like taking up an additional burden. The gendarmes, perhaps even the headmaster, could potentially solve the issue of his stolen coin purse. "Thank you for the suggestion, headmaster," he nonetheless said, dutifully.

  "Now, why don’t you tell me what you saw?" the man asked, leaning forward and putting his head on his hands, fixating his eyes on the boy.

  "A lot of irrelevant stuff, actually," Jim muttered, thinking about all the time spent going to classes, reading in his room, drinking with Lebowski and visiting the Red Lantern. Some market trends he'd noticed, the royal decree sending all prison labour to the Hrust mountain chain to dig up more ore, producing more weapons. The theft of a large amount of money from the royal bank, useless stuff, basically.

  "One thing is important, terrifying, rather. In the vision, I was myself, and I saw the event from my own eyes. I had just graduated, so in half a year, and had been given a task by the academy. I was sent to a village in Mitelos to defend it. It was close to the Hrust mountain chain. I don't know the name, or maybe it didn't have one. But… some sort of brown dragon attacked the village. It was huge, as big as this tower. Just by landing, it crushed half the houses," he hesitated, before swallowing his pride for a moment. "The me in the vision didn't really stand a chance. I survived, somehow, or perhaps what I saw then was a separate vision? It felt different than the rest."

  "The dragon," the headmaster said slowly. "Did you see any other monsters, any other dragons?"

  Jim shook his head. "I had the feeling it was an isolated incident. But if nothing is done, that village in Mitelos will be wiped out."

  "And the other vision, the one you said, felt different?" the headmaster probed.

  "It was murky, but there were seven figures clad in black robes in a large ritual circle. Bigger than this room. Five of them had already collapsed on the floor, the other two were walking around. Golden magic was shining through the chalk drawings, all lines were pointing towards a man sitting in the middle. He was pointing a sword at his own heart. A golden sword, with red fur at the handle. I get the feeling that I know it from somewhere, but not from where…" Jim trailed off, looking up at the headmaster, who was looking at him calmly, not moving one inch. It seemed like the man had stopped breathing; that's how calm he was.

  He probably had it under control then. What was one dragon and one circle of cultists to the might of the Sredinan magical academy, let alone the city and its military? Jim breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Thank you, headmaster, being able to tell someone really puts a burden off my chest," the boy said. "Now that I'm here anyway, perhaps I can mention that my coin purse was stolen on the ship? Is there any way to retrieve it, or to find out who did it? Expel them, all that."

  "For what it's worth," the headmaster said with a sigh. "I deeply apologise."

  Jim puffed up, feigning nonchalance. "Well, it is just money in the end, much more where that came from. No need to apologise," he said magnanimously. It had been the correct decision to come here; finally, someone was taking the theft seriously.

  "It's just, there are things that nobody can be allowed to know," the headmaster said sadly.

  Jim furrowed his brows. "What, the fact that thievery happens even amongst the students? With how many Mitelosian students we take on, I'm pretty sure everybody suspects that it occurs every now and again," he said.

  The headmaster stood up from his chair with a sigh, the scraping of wood against stone filling the room. He gave Jim a sad look. "We need every advantage we can get," he said.

  "Wait," Jim muttered with furrowed brows. "Did you steal my-"

  His words were cut off as a glowing green sun radiating magic popped into existence over the headmaster's shoulder. Before Jim could react, it shot at his head and made it snap backwards. He fell to the floor, dead.

  AN: Alright, I'd say that was the introduction. If you like the story so far, if it makes you curious, or amused, then you'll probably like the rest as well! If not, you can just check back in after a few weeks when book 1 is finished.

  Headmaster Leigh