1 Another Day, Another Round of Torment

A group of enthusiastic magic apprentices was currently gathered around an old oak tree trunk. Their teacher was showing them how to properly inscribe magic circles to speed up natural growth.

"You must remember to create an equilibrium in your inscriptions." Said their teacher.

"If there is even a slight disturbance in your magic, the inscription will fail", she said with a stern warning.

She then proceeded to inscribe runic characters onto the circle's outer layer.

"Remember to write in runic that the tree understands," The teacher reminded her onlookers. "If the runic characters do not match with the subject, the subject will not react."

"Just like how one will not react appropriately if given a set of instructions in a foreign language they do not understand, similarly the subject of the inscription will not react if given a wrong set of runic characters."

"As you are inscribing a circle, you must also pay attention to the time of day." The teacher added. "It is important to create growth circles in the first half of the day, as that is the time of growth."

"If the circle is to be created at night, the energy of the night will contradict the growth circle leading to a neutralized magic circle."

As she was talking, the teacher finished inscribing the final runic character onto the tree trunk. At first, there was no change. But slowly, and to the awe and amazement of her pupils, the center of the trunk started sprouting new branches.

"As expected of our teacher, she aced it on her first try!" Said one of the pupils watching.

"This is still fairly simple," the teacher humbly replied. "With practice and perseverance, I believe each of you is capable of this as well."

"Even you, Ultrix." The teacher added at the end with a gentle smile.

"Pfft, who, Ultrix?" Another pupil spoke up. "Teacher, Ultrix has no magic affinity, and even worse, he does not even attempt at learning any of the crafts." The pupil said with a cold sneer.

"Silence, Taxon." The teacher replied coldly. "There is no point in chastising another fellow apprentice."

Taxon grumbled silently to himself, but would not dare to say anything more on the matter. However, he still shot Ultrix a dirty look before looking the other way.

Ultrix, however, did not even notice the tension that he had caused. Or rather, even if he was aware, he did not seem to care much. At the moment, he was busy dissecting a unique insect that he had found and did not have time for other people's remarks.

Noticing what he was doing, one of the female pupils said out loud "Ultrix probably did not hear you, he is too busy preparing his afternoon meal."

The rest of the pupils laughed at her seemingly funny remark. The teacher rebutted for their mean remarks, but the corners of her lips were also slightly bent upwards.

Through all this, Ultrix did not even once look up from what he was doing. Instead, he simply slowly got up from where he was sitting and started walking away.

One of the boys reached out and grabbed his shoulder as he was leaving.

"Hey, where do you think you're going, normie?" He asked in a mean voice.

"Did you forget your cooking utensils at home?" He added sarcastically.

Ultrix gave no reply. Instead, he simply shook off the aggressor and continued walking away.

"I bet he is going to go cry to his mother." the girl from earlier said. And then she added on with a sheepish grin "Oh right, he doesn't have one."

The rest of the class giggled at this comment as well and despite the teacher's best efforts to calm them down it was too late anyway.

Meanwhile, at this point, Ultrix was already almost out of the school grounds. Although he had put on a strong facade, a single tear still slipped out of his eyes. The damage was done.

Quickly wiping his eyes, Ultrix regained his original composure and silently swore that he would triumph above everyone else.

[I'll show them!] He silently thought to himself. [I'll show that Taxon, and everyone else!]

With this silent vow, a new fire kindled in his heart and if one looked closely, they could just see the faint glow of embers falling from his clothes.