Jaux Ballad has always wanted to enter the realm of magic, but could not do so by regular means. In his desperation to become a magician he finds himself with more power, and more trouble, than he could ever have imagined.

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A torrent of thoughts rushed through Jaux's head at the mention of demon.

Her wand was called the demon root, but the old shopkeeper had assured Jaux that the wand wasn't being literal with the name. The wand did still have something to do with the transformation. It had led Jaux to the black statue, and it was the origin to the purple light.

Then Jaux thought about the black statue. She had never seen a statue made of dark stones before. Her new violet eyes and the statue's purple gemstone eyes were also a similarity that had not escaped Jaux's notice. It wasn't necessarily demonic, but there was a possibility.

Thinking about her eyes also gave Jaux an idea. The next time she gets a chance, she could use her eyes to sneak over to the black statue without being caught. She could see magic even through solid objects, so detecting and avoiding people wouldn't be a problem.

"Ah, finally back here." Frey said, breaking Jaux out of her thoughts.

They had managed to arrive back at their room again.

Desyi and Tricks were not back yet, so for now Frey and Jaux were alone together.

"I've heard a lot about demon attacks," Jaux began to say, "but... what exactly are demons?"

Frey grinned amusingly, before going to retrieve her pillow. Jaux, seeing that they were going to establish the usual pillow circle, followed suit by grabbing her own pillow. When both of the girls were facing each other on their improvised seats, Frey began to explain.

"First of all, we need to talk about the eighth genre of magic, the deity genre. Magic that is involved in the deity genre, deity magic, is often referred to as soul.

Soul is the hardest type of magic to obtain, because it is impossible for any mortal to learn. Soul is immortal magic, magic from separate realms of existence that function with the laws of eternity. Soul is arranged by degrees of positives, negatives, and neutrals just like our usual magic. Positive soul is referred to as miracle magic, negative soul is referred to as tragedy magic, and neutral soul is referred to as marvel magic.

Our realm is a mortal realm, anything will eventually die from the flow of time. Due to our finite nature, we can not directly create soul for ourselves. However, we are able to use soul as long as we have a source.

A common way to obtain soul is to travel to a peaceful realm, like the Garden of Roses or the Artisan's Sea, and store soul in magic containers. Unfortunately, this is difficult, due to the high skill of space and time genre magics required to hop between realms. Magical tools that contain soul are extremely expensive for this reason.

A more uncommon way to obtain soul is to bond with a powerful spirit from an immortal realm. The bonded spirit will provide a mortal with a supply of soul, while the bonded mortal will work under the spirit's will. A bonded mortal is often called a priest.

A spirit is basically a living gathering of soul. These spirits are categorized by the type and amount of soul they possess. The type of soul is between the miracle, tragedy, and marvel magics. The amount of soul basically refers to how powerful the spirit is. Since spirits are living pieces of soul, the more soul a spirit has, the more powerful the spirit.

We list spirits under three levels of power: low, medium, and high. Low spirits are fairies, imps, and sprites. Medium spirits are angels, demons, and ghosts. High spirits are seraphs, devils, and phantoms.

Deities are a lot like spirits, but instead of being a mass of living soul, they are actually the source of soul for their realms. They are also not restricted to using a single type of soul, but they usually specialize or prefer one of the three soul types.

It is possible for spirits to enter our realm just like how we can enter their realms. The drawback is that the more powerful a spirit is, the more difficult it will be for them to enter our realm. Even after a spirit has broken into our realm, it will have a time limit that is also based on how powerful they are.

Spirits like to influence what happens in our realm, some do so directly by breaking through, and other do so by working through other mortals. Low level spirits are sighted all the time because of how easy it is for them to enter our realm. Medium level spirits usually break in as well, but as they become more powerful they will start to rely on bonding with mortals. High level spirits and deities tend to rely exclusively on bonds.

Demons, the regular and most common spirits under the tragedy type, like to break into our realm to harm and destroy. Master class students occasionally go out on demon-related jobs while under teacher supervision. If a master class student in our Lyceum is the primary reason for a demon's defeat, they will be promoted to ace class like me."

Just then Tricks came into the room from the bathroom. "Wow Frey, you are really good at sounding like a teacher when you're talking to Suhara, we could hear your boring lecture even while showering!"

"Oh don't be like that Tricks," interjected Desyi as she came in from behind Tricks, "If I had a novi like Suhara I would do the same thing."

"Then you two are just too boring." Trick said. "If I were an ace, I would teach my novi about demons by sneaking her out and fighting vampires and werepeople with her!"

While the girls talked, Desyi and Tricks both got their pillows off their beds and joined into the seated formation with Jaux and Frey.

"Those aren't the same thing you dummy." Frey shot back.

Tricks rolled her eyes and scoffed before replying. "Close enough, they're priests of demons and they transform to look like their demons."

"Demons can transform a person?" Jaux asked, immediately thinking about her own involuntary transformation.

"Yeah, see? I'm being way more interesting!" Tricks gloated.

"She just wants to learn," said Frey, "I'm sure she's not the least bit interested in hunting demon priests with you, Tricks."

"Oh come on! Why wouldn't she want to fight some evil with me?" Tricks urged. "It would be exciting! There's no way anyone would turn that down."

"Anyway, ignoring Tricks' bloodlust... yes Suhara, spirits can grant all sorts of powers, but transformations are one of the most common traits." Frey answered.

"Uh... are spirits able to bond to a person without the person's permission?" Questioned Jaux.

"Oh totally, that's how most vampires came to be." Tricks explained. "They bite you, which corrupts you with some of their freaky vampire powers, and then poof! A new blood demon will be bound to you."

"She's my novi, Tricks, let me do the teaching." Complained Frey.

"Hey, what does it matter, I'm still right." Claimed Tricks.

"Yeah, don't keep Suhara to yourself Frey! She's our roommate too." Desyi added.

While her roommates continued to argue, Jaux went back to thinking about the black statue and her demon root. Could it be possible that her new body was the result of a demon bond? She might be overthinking the possibilities a bit, but none of her little theories had been proven or disproven yet. She really needed to go see the black statue...

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Opportunity.

Today, Jaux was the first person to wake up. She wasn't sure what time it was, since the room had no windows, but she could make out three motionless girls lying peacefully in their beds. All the light crystals were very dim as well, so no one had gotten up or needed any light recently.

Jaux skipped her shower and just threw on a robe over her nightie to save as much time as she could. She also picked her darkest robe, one colored black and dark purple, so that she could sneak around more easily. The room's door opened for her quietly enough, and soon she was out in the empty halls.

Jaux had shifted her magical eyes on as soon as she stepped outside her room. Then she started traveling to the first floor while keeping as far away from anyone as she could. There were a couple of times where Jaux had to backtrack and hide around a corner, but she found herself in the research storage hallway within the hour.

Now that magic was shining in her eyes, Jaux could see faint traces of enchantments and wards around many of the doors in this hallway. For a moment, Jaux was sure she saw some mystical defenses set up around the door to the black statue's room, but there turned out to be nothing.

The room itself was glowing a very faint purple. Jaux could clearly see the other items on display this time as she headed towards the black statue. All the displays seem to have some kind of ancient equipment. There was a gauntlet, a staff, a mask, boots, bracelets, a tiara, and much more. Most of the items were made with what looked like the same black stone as the statue, and every single item had at least one smooth purple gemstone engraved somewhere.

At last, Jaux was standing before the black stature again. The girl depicted by the statue looked very similar to how she looked now, but in an older sort of way.

If Jaux was born how she looked now, the statue might even have been of her mother.

"W-who are you?" Jaux nervously asked as she gazed into the eyes of the statue.

Everything suddenly went dark. All Jaux could see was the color of black. She tried to turn off her magical vision, but even when her eyesight shifted back to normal the darkness did not fade away.

Then the darkness started to melt away by itself like fading fog. Jaux found herself standing alone on an endless field of black ankle-deep mist. A purple glow was shining up in the colorless sky, providing just enough light to see through the transparent mist of the dark world.

This place was insanely soundless, and it was so featureless that Jaux couldn't even tell if she moved or not after running around for a few seconds.

"Where am I?" She finally asked the empty air.

"This is my domain." Said a voice from the purple light that hung in the sky.

The light slowly descended from the heavens until it floated right in front of Jaux. Dark mist then floated up from the ground and condensed around the purple light, slowly extinguishing its glow. Jaux wasn't sure what was happening, but she remained still as light once again began to leave her vision.

When Jaux could finally see light again, she recognized the lady depicted by the statue standing right in front of her.

The only source of light now as coming from the lady's left arm, which was transparent and made of bright purple energy. At around the lady's left shoulder, the purple light faded into solid, marble-white skin. Now that the lady wasn't carved out of black stone, Jaux could see that they did indeed resemble each other. They had the same hair color, but the lady's hair stretched all the way into the ground. They also had roughly the same shade of skin, and both had similar eye colors. The lady's skin was just a bit paler, while her eyes were also a bit darker.

"Who are you?" Jaux finally asked after she could no longer stand for the lingering silence.

"They once called me Theema, but the mortals of your world have long since forgotten me." The lady answered. "I am the deity and sole inhabitant of this realm, which was once known as Light's Cowardice. What are you called, child?"

Jaux was talking to a deity. This was unexpected, Jaux had never imagined such a possibility would happen to her. Sure, she had never heard of this deity in her life, but it didn't make the moment feel any less incredible.

"Uh... my name is Jaux Ballad. Did... did you turn me into a girl?" Said Jaux.

Theema regarded Jaux for a few minutes, not making a single sound. When she finally finished studying Jaux, she answered. "Yes, indirectly I suppose. My vessels used to always take my shape. It appears that they still do."

"Y-You mean you bonded with me?"

"That is another term for our arrangement, yes."

"Why, what arrangement?"

"You held onto an artifact of darkness with great desire in your heart. When you stood close to my soul seeds, I could hear the songs of your wishes. It has been so long since I connected to a mortal, so I forged us into agreement and granted your desire for magic. I made you my new vessel, which gave you more than enough power to learn all that you wanted."

"Soul seeds? What do you mean by that?"

"My soul seeds are magnificent jewels that empower the mystical tools that I created in your world."

"Oh. Oh! You must mean those purple gemstones."

"Yes. You were near them again when I granted you your second desire to move quickly to a faraway goal."

"Right. T-That explains a lot. Listen, I really don't want to be rude or anything, and I'm thankful that you helped me learn magic, but could you please turn be back into a boy? Being a different gender is extremely awkward and uncomfortable."

"I am afraid that is not possible, child. My vessels always take my form when we reach an arrangement, but breaking that arrangement does not take away my form."

"Oh..."

Jaux felt a bit defeated, she now knew for sure what triggered her change, but couldn't do anything about it. She wasn't quite sure what to do anymore. Then again, there was sure to be some transformation magics to learn in the Lyceum, perhaps she could try to turn back using those.

"Now that you're here, it is time to begin our contract." Theema abruptly said.

"Huh? What contract?" Jaux asked in surprise.

Theema did not answer Jaux, but instead the goddess's left arm drew back gracefully, and then stabbed forward into Jaux's chest.

The action had left no wounds, but Jaux's body was completely paralyzed. The paralyzation did not fade even when Theema pulled her glowing purple arm back out. Terror and confusion began to grip Jaux's mind as darkness began to rise from the ground in the form of black tendrils.

The sharp tips of the black tendrils dug into Jaux's skin, burning on contact as they tattooed her entire body with a grand variety of patterns and runes. A warmth from Jaux's chest began to spread to where Jaux felt the tattoos, making them tingle.

The eerie quiet and numbing pain made Jaux lose track of time. Theema never stopped staring with her expressionless purple eyes.

Eventually, the tendrils withdrew back into the ground. Then a tornado of black fog began to whirl around Jaux's paralyzed body, while Theema finally started to walk away.

When the fog finally obscured the last of Theema's light, darkness once again overwhelmed everything.