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.

*=+=*=+=*=+=*

The four roommates had spent all morning in the library trying to find any information about Theema. They were completely unsuccessful.

Frey had been the most concerned, and it was evident from the towers of books that developed around her during the research. She had started with ancient vampire texts, seeing if anything could be traced back to Theema. When that didn't work, see searched through deity reference books for any entity that matched Theema's description.

Tricks had spent most of her time skimming through spirit resource books. She focused on finding any spirits that had anything to do with darkness. Out of all the girls, Tricks seemed to make the least amount of progress. Whenever she found a description of something incredibly interesting, she immediately lost track of her goal.

Desyi and Suhara worked together, and browsed through several lexicons of immortal realms.

Although they didn't find Theema's realm, Light's Cowardice, Suhara was able to find a brief description of Broken Space:

The Realm of Five Dimensions, once called Broken Space, is one of the most difficult immortal realms to navigate. This realm is a shifting maze. It contains countless tunnels, which all fuse and divide unpredictably.

There is no known deity in the Realm of Five Dimensions. It is occasionally theorized that the maze itself is the deity. Although not confirmed, it is rumored that spirits from the Realm of Five Dimensions are able to stay in mortal realms indefinitely.

Suhara copied the information down on a piece of parchment. Her roommates weren't letting her interact with Theema, but she still wanted to be prepared.

=+=+=

The girls dispersed from the library as it came time for the first class. Suhara was the only one who didn't have to head for the stairs, since her enchantment class was also on the third floor.

Thanks to all her magical training, Suhara had dramatically improved her ability to enchant. All the new spells she learned had also taught her how to manipulate the temperature, motion, and concentration genres. Making her wooden doll glow only took two tries.

By the end of the lesson, she managed to make her doll glow, levitate, and weigh a few extra grams.

Casting pattern development class was focusing on standard difficulty spell patterns. Suhara actually wanted to practice her aim like last week, but the lessons were very dynamic. She had several advanced spells memorized by now, so there wasn't a lot to improve today.

=+=+=

Suhara tripped while on her way to her specialty class.

The bottom of her right shoe was covered with a smooth layer of ice.

After she fell onto the floor, a choir of giggles was heard.

When Suhara looked back at the source of the laughter, she recognized one of the snobby boys from Roy's group. His wand was pointed towards her. He wasn't trying to hide that he was the one who caused the slip. The boy was smirking, and a giggling band of girls surrounded him.

Suhara swiftly pushed herself back onto her feet. "What's your problem?!"

"You owe the prince a new breastplate, loser." The boy pocketed his wand. "I'm thinking twenty gold coins should cover it, right?"

The boy's mob of girls unanimously agreed.

"If he can't handle having his toys broken, then he shouldn't bring them into fights." Suhara said, "Tell Roy that if he wants anything else broken, I'm more than happy to have a rematch."

Suhara turned away from the bullies, and dramatically stomped her right leg. The frozen sole smashed into the stone ground, causing tiny ice shards to fly across the floor. Then she stormed off with a huff.

=+=+=

At eight standard spells and three advanced spells, Suhara was about halfway through Sellwall's assignment. She hoped to have more to surprise her teacher, but the last few days had been a bit clustered.

There was a knock on the classroom door about halfway through class time. Every student went silent and turned their head.

"Ah! Yes, right on time!" said Sellwall, as he went up to open the door.

Rictor Hawkshire, the wizard who admitted Suhara as a student, walked into the class. His squarely bearded face looked as intimidating as ever, even though he wore a slight grin.

Hawkshire spotted the violet eyed girl, and walked over. "Hello Miss Ballad, do you remember me?"

"Uh, yes sir." Suhara slowly nodded.

"Excellent." Hawkshire turned and headed back to the doorway. "Come with me, then. Professor Sellwall has requested that we administer a promotional examination for you."

Suhara's brows arched up. She glanced over to Frey, and the red headed girl smiled before pointing over at the retreating Hawkshire. "Better get going." Frey said.

Suhara leap out from her seat. She quickly followed after the tall wizard, but drifted back for a moment to wave at Frey and Sellwall.

Hawkshire did not change his pace. Suhara had to jog over to catch back up with him. The tall wizard didn't look back, but spoke up as soon as he heard Suhara's footsteps behind him. "You have made some decent progress, Miss Ballad. I've heard good things."

Suhara blushed, and was thankful that Hawkshire couldn't see her embarrassment. "Thank you very much, and thank you for admitting me."

"You accomplished that on your own," he said, "and you've done very well since then. You helped save lives on your first school day, achieved the approval of your specialty professor, and even fought your first duel within the week. You are an excellent student to have here in the Lyceum."

Hawkshire's praise caused Suhara to stare towards the floor. Her walking pace slowed down, and the distance between the two lengthened considerably. The compliments made her feel incredibly awkward. "I... I lost the duel though."

"Defeat does not take away from your effort." Hawkshire said, "The teacher who supervised your duel was very impressed with you."

Hawkshire's reply was heard from far away. Suhara snapped her head up when she realized how big the gap between the two had become. She once again jogged forward to catch up.

Hawkshire didn't look like he was walking very quickly, but his legs covered a deceptively large amount of distance.

=+=+=

Suhara remembered this room.

This room was the same one she first woke up in as a girl. It was the same room that she first met Hawkshire in.

The small bed was still tucked away in the corner.

Today, the room was filled with six large glass boxes. Each box was filled with something different: a flaming scarecrow, a flying rock, a group of floating lights, a miniature gray tornado, a statue made of white ice, and a ferocious looking wolf.

"The exam is simple." Hawkshire said, "This is a test made for specialized curse magicians, you must use a single spell to subjugate the elements of each box. Everything has been enchanted so that nothing can leave the boxes, even when they are opened. You are free to take as much time as you'd like before casting, but you may only cast a single spell. Any type of spell is fine, the test is just geared more towards curse magic. To qualify for a rank promotion, you must succeed in four out of six. Get in front of a box when you are ready."

Suhara nodded, before standing in front of the first box. The frontmost glass wall fell open, and the violet eyed girl pointed her demon root at the flaming scarecrow. A magenta orb burst out from the tip of her wand, hitting the scarecrow on the chest. All the flames vanished into the glowing orb, before a small explosion blew the scarecrow apart. The first box was a success.

For the second box, the young curse magician just memorized the rock's flight pattern. Then she used the tar-like motion eating curse on the wall, which snagged the rock and held it into place. She succeeded once again.

Unfortunately, Suhara failed the third box. She didn't know any concentration eating curses, and tried to just use her raw magic consuming curse. She was able to snuff out three of the lights, but two more were untouched.

Suhara had a bit more luck with the tornado, which was diminished with a cloud of her motion disrupting mist.

The ice statue had been impossible. Normally the girl would just smash something like that with her staff, but a magic test didn't allow for any melee attacks.

This left Suhara gazing nervously at the wolf. She had no idea what spell to use. A lot of her spells could hinder the wolf, but not fully subjugate it. While trying to think of what spell to gamble on, the violet eyed girl ended up in a half-minute staring contest with the wolf.

All of a sudden, the wolf fell asleep.

Right, vampire powers. Suhara sighed in relief. That was four.

Hawkshire scribbled a few more words into a book he was holding. "Outstanding! You pass, Miss Ballad. You are officially a Basic Class Marlifa Mage."

=+=+=

All of Suhara's roommates offered congratulations.

Desyi gave the black haired girl a tight hug. "Wow! It's been only a week and you're already a basic class mage!"

"Looks like you should take that collar off." Tricks jokingly elbowed Frey.

"Aw, already? Why'd you have to be such a good mage, Suhara!" said Frey.

"Well," said Suhara, "I guess I can keep it on a bit longer."

The four girls had a small celebration, eating out from Tricks's sizable stash of snacks. After a couple hours of merrymaking, Desyi revealed a little discovery she made.

"Okay, so I asked my deity professor about Theema, and he actually had a tiny bit of information." Desyi pulled out a small book and turned to a bookmarked page.

On the page, a man known as Temir said, "Tonight, Theema's spawn falls!"

The book held the history of a group of paladins, which are magical knights. The group referred to itself as the Cooleur Curahge, and their personal mission was to purge all spirits from the continent of Curahge. The Cooleur Paladins were active back during the Sixth Demonic Invasion, about seven hundred years ago. They believed that all spirits were to blame for the crisis of demons. Temir was the leader of the group.

Upon first reading it, Tricks claimed that she was right about Theema being evil. However, as the girls read more about the paladins, that claim was mostly dropped.

The Cooleur Curahge hunted down any and all spirits on their continent, including peaceful or beneficial ones. They discriminated equally against all spirits.

"Well, this thing is useless." Tricks slammed the book shut as the girls finished reading the last page. "Besides mentioning Theema's name, we got nada."

"Maybe not," said Frey. "If we could find more information on these paladins, we might stumble on something about Theema."

"Yep! This gives us at least one more lead." Desyi picked the book up and flipped it open to the first page. "Two, actually. We now know that Theema was around seven hundred years ago."

"Ugh, I'm getting a bit sick of the library." The short blonde girl planted her chin between her hands, her eyes narrowing in frustration. "Why couldn't you be the priest of a popular deity, Suhara?"

"Well Tricks, if you don't want to hang in the library, why don't you try asking the headmistress about Theema?" said Frey.

"Oh yeah!" said Desyi, "Marlifa might know something!"

Suhara's jaw dropped, and she let out a loud gasp. "Marlifa is our headmistress?"

"No silly!" Desyi giggled and absently waved her hand. "The headmistress is Marlifa's High Priestess! They communicate all the time!"

"Oh."