Rahil and Shahil

Time passed by quickly and the examinations were already over. After getting a ninth place, barely making it to the top ten in the exams, Aren could finally choose a master and get five spells. Only then he could be called a ''true'' apprentice. If in previous semester he was just a newly born cub getting free meal, then now he would have to go for hunt with a real tiger.

After becoming mage's apprentice, he'd have to help in his master's endeavors. While helping, his master would also teach him magic.

An apprenticeship usually lasted for ten years at most. If within that ten years, an apprentice couldn't advance to a mage, then he or she would be a failure and expelled out of the academy. This was only a case for some apprentices having red and orange ring aptitudes. So that was why apprentices having higher aptitudes were favoured as they had greater intellect and could learn faster.

This belief, however, was broken in Clementine Academy when an unexpected dark horse emerged in the examinations.

Kim hoover, who only had yellow ring aptitude was now the talk of the whole academy. Reason? It was because she got a second place in the annual examinations! Not only that but her score was barely 20 marks less than the first place, Stephen. Now their class had three students who made it to top ten.

Also due to this, Miss Monica's position in the circles of mages elevated by quite a bit, making the scions of Major families want her more. She was already a genius mage but now it seemed that she was a talented teacher too.

While thinking about how last year transpired, Aren reached the dwelling of master Claude. He was the master he'd chosen to be under because of two reasons. First, he was also not born in any family of mages like him so he wouldn't discriminate against him. Second, he was the only diviner and enchanter among rank 2s in the academy.

Knock! knock!

"Come in." An old voice came from inside the room.

Aren lightly pushed open the wooden door and stepped on the wooden floor. The inside was like a laboratory but the supposed test tubes, flasks and pipes were not there. Instead scrolls upon scrolls of papers, some kind of brush, inks and various ornaments were there.

Except for an old man and a young boy who was also wearing uniform of an apprentice, there was no other soul here. The old man was holding a wand in his hand, teaching the boy how to enchant it.

Five minutes later, the old man seemed to have finished his lesson.Then, he and the apprentice turned to Aren.

"I believe you already know who I am but for formalities, let me introduce myself. I am Claude, rank 2 lesser Diviner and Grade 1 enchanter." The old man's tone was stern and he seemed like a person who could get pissed off easily.

"Now that you've become my apprentice, the spell models of apprentice level Divination magic will be be sent to your room later on. For now you have to focus on learning support spells. To learn magic under me, you will help me while I do divination rituals and enchantment."

Without giving Aren any time to say anything, the old man continued. "As you've just become my apprentice, I'll give you some pointers about the support spells and basic enchantment arrays..."

With that said, he dismissed the apprentice he was teaching and retrieved some blank papers and brush from a table and started teaching him.

For four hours straight, Aren had to listen to the continuous nagging when he tried to attempt what his master showed him. When it was finally over, the sun had already started to set.

"That's it for today. Remember to revise what I taught you. You can leave now. From tommorow onwards, you should come here at five in the morning." Claude's vexing voice rang out in his ears again.

Although Aren was very much exhausted, he didn't forget to bow to his master before leaving. It was necessary to always show respect to mages.

Coming outside, he caught sight of the same apprentice he saw earlier. Behind him, there was another apprentice too, who looked just like him.

"Hello. You must be master's new apprentice, Aren, right? Nice to meet you, I'm Rahil." The one in front said.

"Nice to meet you too..."

Seeing Aren's exhausted state, Rahil consoled. "Master must have worked you to the bones. He is always this strict with his apprentices but don't worry, you'll get used to it... Oh this guy behind me is my brother, Shahil. We both are apprentices under master Claude."

"Humph." The apprentice behind, who was called Shahil snorted. It seemed like he had a haughty attitude.

"Are we all of the apprentices?" Aren asked, paying no heed to Shahil's rude behaviour. There were always some overconfident fellows in every place. Aren could not be bothered with them.

"Yes for now were are only ones as half a year ago senior Nerra advanced to a mage. Now she's studying under Associate Professor Lohart, a rank 3 diviner. I heard the fees were very high, I wonder if she'll be okay..." Rahil replied.

Aren was about to ask some more questions when Shahil spoke up.

"Hurry up, don't keep Master waiting." he urged Rahil.

Though reluctant, he decided to keep the question in mind and bid them farewell. When he reached his room there was already a white book floating outside the door. The moment Aren touched it, it fell on his palm. He opened the door and entered his room.

Sitting on the chair before his desk, Aren opened the book. There was nothing written at first but immediately after words started filling the first page.

"Abiding by the rules of the Tower of sages, Do you wish to become a mage?"

'Yes..' just as this thought came into mind, new words were immediately written on the page.

"If you seek knowledge in this book, you shall swear not to divulge the knowledge written in this book without the permission of your Academy or school's headmaster..."

'This seems something like a contract. Basically, I shouldn't teach others about what it is written here... That's fine with me. But how should I assert this?' Aren thought.

Lets give this a try... Aren put the book down and put on solemn expression. Then, taking a deep breath he started swearing.

"I swear, In the name of Tower of Sages, that I will not divulge the knowledge written in this book to anyone without the permission of Clementine Academy's Headmaster."

As he said that, the book started glowing with a yelllow light. That was not it as a binding also appeared in Aren's spirit. It just stayed there eerily and didn't seem to affect him in anyway but Aren knew that if he broke his oath, there would surely be consequences due to it.

After glowing for a while the book dimmed and returned to its previous state. Aren once again opened the books only to see that it was filled with complicated spell models. Reading for a while, he found out that there were exactly five spell Divination models and another five auxilary spell models.

The divination spells really didn't have any combat uses though. Luck sense, probability change, Unpredictable cards, Bestow fortune/misfortune and Lesser Divination.

Of these five, only unpredictable cards which could summon cards of unpredictable attributes could be of help in fight. Even then, there was no telling what one might summon. It could be a small fire ball or a poisonous snake.

The only thing that he was sure that a caster couldn't use the cards to summon beings or energies higher than their rank.

For example, if a rank one diviner used it then only something that is considered rank 1 or below rank 1 will be summoned. But if the same spell was used by a rank 9 diviner then there was a chance of a rank 9 level terrifying thunderstorm appearing which might even kill the said caster on spot. In short, it was unreliable.

Among those spells, the most complicated one was the lesser divination even though it was the incomplete version of the complete rank 4 version. This spell was broken down to make it useable even for apprentices. When he becomes a rank 1, another version which was closer to the complete version of spell will be given to him.

As he turned the pages, Aren found out that the support spells were a bit better than main spells in his case. There was Haste, hold person, lesser strength, spirit sense and mage hand. Their spell models were also easy to learn than the previous ones.

When he reached the last page, however, there was something written there which made him frown. To do a divination, a material was needed. It was not any material also but a lower tier item, Orb of Vaticination! It cost 500 gold coins!

Just thinking about the price of that item caused him to sweat. He didn't know how he was going to get that much money.