The crystal

Entering the building I was definitely surprised by the luxury and look of the building, it was filled with tons of books about what seems to all be magic, the bookshelves were placed between the rooms that were all connected to the corridor.

I read the titles of a few of the books and there were books purely on fire magic or water magic in one bookshelf, about the strongest or most well known people who ever had this magic and were feared by whole kingdoms.

There were books, who were purely on special magical beasts or other well known races, that were deeply connected with magics, like dwarfs were connected with earth magic and had special magic like metal.

The thing all books had in common was magic, but the topic would change very quickly like from books about the pure element to a book solely written about one person, who had a unique magic or was able to push to the limits of a certain elemental magic like fire.

The building had a lot of different rooms, but we were heading to the end of the main corridor.

I was curious about the building and would definitely ask about it later if I had the chance, but I could tell that it was extremely important by the obviously expensive and luxurious materials that had been used to build it.

We also had to pass multiple guards, who were stationed to guard the building, but when they saw the princess's master and the princess itself walk together with me they just greeted us and let us walk by. That was definitely convenient, because it would've taken a lot longer if we would've been stopped by every single guard on the way.

"We're here."

We had reached the end of the corridor and entered the door to our left at the very end. I could immediately tell that the room was special.

In the room there were all kinds of different magical tools or that's what they looked like. I could feel and see slight amounts of mana from them.

There were different kinds of quills, which stood right next to what seemed like ink pots. The pots were filled with a black substance, which I couldn't quite tell what it was. I could tell that it wasn't normal ink, because of the mana I could feel from it, the same could be said about the quill, which also had a faint amount of mana emerging from it.

"Well looks like he isn't here right now. Where is that guy when you need him?"

There was one desk and a few chairs, the old man told us to sit down after seeing that the chair behind the desk was empty and I took that time to look around the room a bit more.

There was a couch to lie down on, which actually sort of reminded me of the couch you always had to lie down on while you waited for the dentist to do his job. It actually looked rather comfortable.

As in basically the whole building there were also books in this room, but when reading the titles of the books I noticed that they really were extremely specific just like at the dentist, where you would find books about teeth, which was also technically about you health, but really only had something to do with one specific part of your body.

And these books seemed to all be about some kind of Seal: "The art of sealing", "Natsuo Onishi and his journey on the way of seals"...

It was all about a seal, but I couldn't exactly say what was sealed, so I just took the risk and asked the old man about the seal, even if he might look at me weirdly, because it was common knowledge, but at that point it would be better to ask now than later.

"What exactly is this seal that you told me about?"

It had been a bit weird, because we were all just waiting for that supposed friend of the old man, so the he was actually quite happy about that question and answered me even more in detail than I expected.

"Well a seal is supposed to conceal your strength from others. That's basically what it is in just one sentence and as the name suggests a seal is something that has to be printed onto you by someone skilled. It's not that hard to create a seal that is enough to seal for example your own magic, which after just awakening shouldn't be too strong. But the stronger someone is the stronger the seal has to be and high level seals, which are able to completely conceal your power from everyone else are a lot harder to create than normal ones. It has to be imprinted onto the exact location, where your dantian, your mana center is located. If it's too far off from the mana center it will not have it's complete strength, so you have to be really careful in the process."

I was more than content with that answer, but now that I know roughly what the seal is all about I worried a bit, because one thing is not normal with my specific magic, which could be really dangerous for me and I can just hope that it will not come to that situation, but I really have my doubts.

"And who is the person that we are waiting for? I am guessing that he's one of the best in this field or am I wrong."

"Yes he is, when I was a few years younger and first awakened my magic he was also the one who gave me my seal."

To my surprise the princess actually answered me and not the old man like I expected. She seemed to be excited and seemed to get used to me, well that could be one explanation or maybe-

The door was suddenly opened and a man came in. He looked too young to be a childhood friend, but to be called a friend of the master of the princess, who is extremely strong and respected he must be really good at his work, probably even good enough to have made the seal for the old man himself.

*pant*

"I am really sorry to have made you wait, princess."

He seemed to have just hurried to come here as quickly as possible, he probably heard from a guard along the way that we were waiting for him.

"I tried to come here as quickly as possible, I hope you didn't have to wait too long, but I didn't expect you to come today of all days, because tomorrow is the new year start of the academy."

After calming down a bit he finally seemed to notice me after quickly looking around.

"Oh, were are my manners. My name is Seiichi Sugiyama and I am a seal master. Nice to meet you, boy."

On a first glance he seemed to be a nice person.

"I am Yori Tsuyoku, I am happy to make your acquaintance."

We all stood up to properly speak and greet him.

"But why are you here today so suddenly that you came here on what seems like a whim. Tomorrow is the beginning of the new year, so what lead you to come here today?"

"Well it's strictly because tomorrow is the beginning of the new year that we have to be here. You see Yori is an acquaintance of the princess and when I met him by chance I saw that he had one of the best qualifications to become a mage I had ever seen. He didn't awaken yet, so I came here to get that out of the way and it would also be nice to get him his seal today."

Seiichi thought about it for a second and then answered the old man.

"Well, it's all a bit sudden, but it shouldn't be too hard, after all he didn't even awaken his magic and it's easy for me to perform a seal of the lowest level even without preparation. And I wouldn't dare to not do something as easy as that for an acquaintance of the princess."

"Ok perfect, then do you by any chance have a magic stone at hand?"

Seiichi began to think and then seemed to have remembered something all of a sudden.

"Oh, if I remember right there should be an awakening stone in another room... Yeah I am pretty sure. Because of the new classes almost all magic stones had been taken for the new students, but I remember that there was another awakening stone in a room, it is supposed to be used for someone else in a few days, but it's a high level one, so it'll be even more accurate. Wait a second let me get it."

"Sure we'll wait for you."

Seiichi left the room and we all sat down again waiting for him to return.

"He seems like a nice person, do you know him well?"

It was a question that brought a sudden, unexpectedly sad atmosphere. I should've probably not asked that, but I just thought it was a good opportunity to prevent a weird silence to happen again.

"...Well I never really knew him all that well before a certain incident, but at times like those he was a good friend I could count on, so naturally I trust him a lot. You don't have to worry, after all he is the head sealing master of Raiken."

It was clear that it was a bad topic, so I just let it rest and I couldn't have had the chance to say anything either way, because at that moment Seiichi entered the room again, with a stone in his hand that looked like a crystal, an extremely pure white coloured one.

It was 13 centimetres long and when it was exposed to the sunlight it seemed like it absorbed the sunlight and the crystal turned slightly golden.

It looked like it was high quality just like Seiichi had said before.

"This is the magic stone I told you about, it's of high quality, to awaken by using such a high level magic stone is extremely rare, so you are quite lucky."

I thought about the reason and remembered what he had just said.

"Is it because it is more accurate like you said before?"

"Precisely for that reason, the higher magical power you have the harder it is for normal magic stones to measure your power and display it properly. Some could even shatter if you were too powerful and used too much power."

He sat down onto the chair behind the desk and carefully placed the stone on a cloth, which he quickly pulled out of a drawer. I felt like I could feel a certain excitement in him, it was probably really rare for him to be able to use such a magic stone and I doubt it would break easily, otherwise stones like these could probably not be used for combat, for example in weapons if they would just break.

"Now if you are ready just place your hand on the magic stone and concentrate yourself on finding something in your body that is being drawn to the stone, that should be your mana and then just try to let it be drawn out by the stone, there are different methods, so just try it out."

"Ok."

I placed my right hand on the magic stone and then closed my eyes. Of course I couldn't always hide my special magic, but I should only show it to certain people and the number of people who know about it should be as low as possible.

I tried to control my power and slowly imbue my mana into the stone, but the moment I touched the crystal it tried to draw out all of my mana.

It seemed like the power that was amplified by the magic stone was way too strong for me to control at that moment.

It was such a strong power that I was so surprised, I unconsciously opened my eyes and tried to stop my magic flow, but the thing I was always afraid of had already happened.

My power was not under my control, I wasn't strong enough to control all of the magical power, which suddenly flowed through my body.

I now understood why it was impossible for normal people to just awaken like me, something must be a lot more different with my body than everybody elses'.

If your power would be boosted by such a huge amount then of course people would be able to use magic a lot faster, but my mana had probably been at the normal level of a normal kid my age with using the magic stone.

So I already had that as my base power and then my mana got boosted with just too much for me to handle.

Luckily the old man was there, he was strong enough to see that my magic was too strong and when the crystal started to turn darker and darker at a rapid speed he touched my hand and quickly pushed it away from the stone.

He had even used his wind magic to be as fast as possible as to not be too late.

"Huh, what happened?"

The princess was confused as to what had happened, because for her alone it had just been less than a second and she wasn't able to tell that my magic was too strong.

The old man had noticed my rapid increase in mana and immediately reacted, but Seiichi was able to tell even more accurately what had happened and was even more shocked at that.

His experience from making creating, improving or changing seals for all different kinds of people, which conceal a persons strength had made him change over the time.

He was able to tell the rough location of a mana center at a glance as well as the rough size.

But for that he normally had to concentrate on the person he was trying to create the seal for, but at that moment he was the only one, who was able to exactly see the thing I had feared.

He saw my eyes and could tell that my eyes were the center of my magic and not my dantian, it was the first time he had ever seen something like this and he had to quickly decide what to do.

Was he going to hide it, or was he going to tell everybody else.

I now had to put my trust in that person, something I didn't ever want to do.