Even though there was magic flowing through the shimmering leaf in the air, the boy couldn’t obviously do anything with it. First of all, the rune itself did basically nothing, just working as a way to conduct life mana through other runes. Secondly, Valar couldn’t actually cast magic with runes that weren’t in contact with his skin. That wouldn’t happen until the later ranks. Much later…

  Still, he was doing the exact thing the students were supposed to do. After a week or two of practicing with pen and paper…

  Valar had skipped those steps with sheer force of will, bashing his head against the problem until he memorized the rune. The more surprising thing was that he was actually achieving partial success. Elaine suspected that he would need to backtrack afterwards to really memorize the details, but she was sure that the boy had skipped weeks of work with his stunt.

  “This, my dear students, is what hard work gets you.”

  “How… What is happening auntie?” Julie seemed to have forgotten the prior discussion on family ties, but Elaine didn’t blame her.

  “The person you are currently looking at is Valar, our youngest student for quite a few years. I think the last student of a similar age appeared two decades ago, but even she was a bit older than him if I remember correctly. Now, do you think this boy has had an easy life?”

  Elaine wasn’t quite sure how to talk about Valar. He wasn’t conscious of what was happening around him, and she didn’t want to reveal too many secrets that he wanted to keep. However if she had said nothing, only a larger rift between him and the other students would form. She needed to give the students a reason why he was progressing so fast. Otherwise, they could become envious.

  Besides, Valar’s fast progress brought a learning opportunity to the others. His hard work would make others work harder too. Even better, this was the first lesson. This class could be one of the better ones of the whole decade… She could get bonus pay!

  Another male student, this one maybe one of the Relwyns—she was guessing more by his clothing and facial features than anything else—spoke up. “How are we supposed to know that? He isn’t a noble, that’s for sure.”

  His tone had a sneer that Elaine did not like, but she decided to ignore it for the moment. He wouldn’t be the first or last prideful noble in the kingdom.

  “No, he isn’t… Does anyone have a clue on how early awakenings happen?”

  Julie looked at Valar nervously, only answering when she was sure that he wasn’t going to overhear their discussion. “Usually they have to solo kill a higher rank beast. The power disparity has to increase as the person gets younger.”

  “Indeed. I happen to know what this boy killed, but I will not reveal that information to you. What I need you to understand is that this boy hasn’t lived a leisurely childhood like every single one of you.”

  “How dare you?” The Relwyn boy started. “I’ve been trained for my whole life to become a great mage!”

  That loud shout finally seemed to break Valar out of his trance, and the boy looked around confusedly. Everyone was staring at him.

  “What?”

  “What?”

  Valar seemed to have missed quite a lot. Everyone was looking at him. That wasn’t nice, but it seemed to be a common enough situation nowadays. The glowing green rune in front of him wasn’t a surprise either. After all, he had improved on the rune for the past… How long have I been here?

  “Welcome back to the real world, Valar,” Elaine’s tone had a bit of snark in it. “We were just talking about you.”

  “Talking about me? Why?”

  “Well you see, you have been drawing leaves in the air for the past thirty minutes. Normally, I would say that you should focus on the class more, but I can’t really do that this time.”

  Valar looked at the swiftly dispersing image of the rune of life. Weren’t they supposed to try and learn all these runes? He had just been learning as he was supposed to, right?

  “I don’t really understand,” Valar muttered. “Am I not supposed to memorize this rune?”

  Elaine’s laugh was as sudden as it was unsuspected. The class looked on in confused silence as the professor of life magic tried to get a hold of herself. “Sorry, sorry… It’s just that you have skipped quite a few lessons with that stunt of yours. Normally we would start with pen and paper, slowly progressing towards what you were doing. Drawing runes into the air with actual mana requires at least a middling understanding of the rune’s intricacies, as a less accurate rune would disperse pretty much instantly. The fact that the rune you drew stayed in the air for that long means that you’re essentially halfway there.”

  The classroom filled with envious looks. Seeing them, Valar instinctually hunched down a bit, trying to appear smaller than he was. The stares weren’t especially nice ones, only the Livren girl’s gaze seemingly free from ill will. Elaine noticed that too, letting out a loud click of her tongue.

  “The intent in all of your gazes is something that I don’t like,” she said. “I just told you all that Valar’s accomplishment was achieved with hard work and total focus, not some natural talent. He is not a savant of life magic. Instead of jealousy, maybe you should ask him for tips. Learning tends to be easier in a group…”

  “Valar, how did you awaken?” The Livren girl next to him practically blurted out her question. “I mean… You’re like fourteen, maybe even thirteen years old.”

  Valar looked at Elaine in question. He wasn’t sure if he should be telling people about his awakening, as he could accidentally let some secret slip. Additionally, he wasn’t sure if telling people about his exploits would help or hinder making new friends in the academy. I’m in unknown territory. What if they hate me after I tell them? He couldn’t be sure…

  Elaine helped with his indecisiveness, nodding her head encouragingly. Valar followed her advice and turned to the young Livren woman. “An umbral terror tried to kill me when I escaped the orphanage. I… I won.”

  Silence filled the small classroom. Most of the students were nobles whose families taught them about the world from a very young age, so they were at least aware of the lower ranked beast varieties. Usually, everything up to peak bronze rank belonged to their childhood curriculum.

  Umbral terrors were usually at least high to peak bronze rank beasts. To make it worse, they were solitary hunters with magical abilities. That made them one of the worst beasts a person could encounter while in bronze rank. Not the worst, but not far from it either.

  Valar, a thirteen-year-old boy, had killed one of those beasts.

  The Livren girl looked at Elaine with clear shock on her face. “Is it true, auntie?”

  “I wasn’t there of course, but his story seems to be true. An adventurer team found him and the beast’s corpse right after. Needless to say, he required a swift escort to the infirmary and a long day of healing to recover.”

  The earlier gazes had been full of jealousy. That was gone. The void left behind was swiftly filled with both fear and admiration. Valar didn’t enjoy the gazes, but they were certainly better than the ones which were full of jealousy.

  “What I’m trying to get across-” Elaine started. “is that hard work and strength of will will get you far in life. Valar, would you consider yourself particularly smart or knowledgeable?”

  Valar chuckled nervously. “I’m not dumb or anything like that, but growing up in the orphanage, I didn’t get to learn a lot of stuff.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  He was starting to get what Elaine was trying to do with her questioning. Valar was being used as a teaching aid for the other students. The professor was trying to show that working hard would give them advantages in this class. Valar’s small stunt had initially looked like he was just incredibly talented, but that wasn’t true. He knew that himself, but Elaine was trying to show that same thing to the others too.

  “I mean… I could barely read a week ago,” he grinned nervously. “I’m in a weak position compared to you all, so I need to work harder to fix that.”

  “You’re way younger than us!” one of the male students commented. “You’re not in a weak position at all!”

  Valar was left surprised by the near rage in the young man’s voice. The brown haired man had been silent up until now, but his eyes were wide with apparent anger. Why is he so angry?

  The question in his mind was answered very quickly. “I had to wait until I was eighteen, and you get to awaken at thirteen instead? This just isn’t fair!”

  There it was again… Unfairness. When Elizabeth Wendir had called his early awakening unfair, Valar had felt furious. How did she dare? She had grown up in a cushy noble household, whereas Valar’s childhood was practically torture. Valar’s awakening was an equalizer, but it was not enough…

  Now, he wanted to be angry. He really did. The problem was, Valar could not gather that same anger. Surprising even himself, Valar felt a kind of pity instead. I can help this man understand that unfairness comes in different forms. He awakens late, I awaken early. That’s obviously unfair from his perspective, even if I had to risk my life to do what he could not. Still, I almost died. My childhood was most probably abhorrent compared to his. That’s unfair too.

  “Can I ask your name? I’m Valar.”

  Even though he was furious, the man answered Valar’s question quickly. “Gerard Steinmor.”

  He’s the earth magic teacher’s relative then… “Would you consider your childhood hard?

  The young nobleman shrugged. “The training I went through was difficult, but not particularly.”

  “I’ll just say this, I would swap childhoods with you in a heartbeat. No matter how hard your training was, no matter how many sleepless nights you suffered through… I would have switched places with you in your darkest moment, and that would have been a relief.”

  Valar knew that telling the man about his early life wasn’t the logical choice. It could affect how the man saw him. He could either call Valar a liar or pity him, and neither of those options were ones that the boy liked. Still, he wanted to make the young man understand that the world wasn’t fair. If it was, I wouldn’t have gone through all that suffering, all that pain…

  The nobleman evidently saw something in Valar’s eyes, as he didn’t try to argue further. In all honesty, Valar’s decision to speak on his own traumatic life had probably been a bad one. It would change how the people around Valar saw him. That wasn’t something he wanted, but he had needed that release of emotion. I just hope that I haven’t ruined all chances of friendship with these people.

  “Well said,” Elaine butted in. “The students here come from all walks of life, even if nobles are more prevalent in these halls. Do not focus on others’ advantages; Build your own instead. In this academy, competition is not about pushing others down, and that sentiment is only stronger with us life mages. A healer does not seek to crush others, but to uplift them.”

  The young Steinmor scion bowed down his head in shame. He at least looked like he regretted his outburst. “I apologize for my rash words. My emotions took the better of me, and I will endeavour to do better in the future.”

  Valar had never really been apologized to, so he just shrugged. “Thanks!”

  “Now with that out of the way, our lesson is almost over,” Elaine said. “I still have to hand you all the required books, so get your bags ready. You’re going to get two books for personal reading.”

  The class received two books each: Basics of life magic and Iron rank life runes. Valar was relieved to receive the books since he had missed most of the first lesson. He had skipped a lot of work too, but that didn’t matter if he couldn’t learn the very basics. Valar was swiftly becoming a student who had a lot of peculiar things going for him, but who was failing at the very basics.

  “You won’t have any further lessons today. Go study in your dorms, library or wherever you like. Class dismissed,” Elaine waved to the students leaving the room.

  Just as Valar was about to leave too, the professor of life magic grabbed him by the shoulder. “Stay for a bit, please. We need to talk.”

  As the others left, Valar sat back down at Elaine’s suggestion. The professor wanted to pretty obviously talk about Valar’s small stunt during the class, but he wasn’t sure what her point was.

  “I said during the class that you are not a savant of life magic,” Elaine started. “And I still believe that wholeheartedly. Unlike the students, I observed every second of your learning experience, and what you did was not something a savant would do. A savant of magic would have tried a few times, their attempts improving immensely with each iteration. Their fast learning comes from an instinctual understanding of their affinity. You do not have that understanding of life magic.”

  Valar was left confused. Why was Elaine explaining this to him? He already knew that he wasn’t particularly talented. He recognized that himself when he failed to memorize the rune during the hundreds of attempts just ten minutes ago.

  “That being said,” Elaine sighed. “Your approach and the approach of a savant lead you to the same conclusion. You are better at learning magic than the others.”

  “Oh… But isn’t that a good thing?”

  “For your studies? It’s excellent news! For your social life though… You’ll have to be careful, Valar. That Steinmor boy apologized to you, but I have to warn you that he is still jealous. Frankly, I think most of the students are.”

  “But… I explained to them that my life has been hard and I’m learning fast because of it!” Valar couldn’t understand what Elaine was getting at. He had lived a profoundly bad life up until now, and those people were still jealous of him?

  Elaine let out a small, almost pitious, chuckle. “You really are quite bad with people, aren’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “People, especially children and young adults, don’t think about the past that much. They look to the present and future instead. What do they see right now, Valar?”

  After a few seconds of furious thought, Valar finally understood what Elaine was trying to get at. “They just see a younger student who progresses way faster than them… Now they even know that I’m an orphan, and my success isn’t from meticulous teachings or anything like that.”

  “Yes, and that’s the core of your problem. With each and every day, you are becoming harder and harder to relate to.”

  “But what can I do? I still want to learn as fast as I can.”

  “Leave the impressive epiphanies for your own dorm. Just focus on the class here, please. You will thank me later.”

  Valar left the classroom with those words. He descended the stairs to his dorm and collapsed to the bed. At least Zeke seemed like a genuinely nice person… Otherwise this day would have been a total disaster on the social front.

  In order to combat the depressive thoughts trying to invade his mind, Valar took out the book on life magic runes. The least he could do was to check the three other runes he had missed in his trance.

  The second rune that Elaine had introduced to the class was the one that symbolized mending. It was way simpler than the rune of life, as it was just a cross with some intricate detailing. Apparently it was used for all healing at iron rank, but would swiftly become mostly obsolete at higher ranks. Some used it to enhance their other healing spells, but Valar wasn’t sure what that even meant. Maybe he should learn actual spellforms before delving so deep in the details.

  The third rune symbolized a tether. It was a string connecting two points and was used to form a link between the target and healer. In order to heal someone, the healer needed a direct link. In addition to that, they needed to get the patient’s consent or to have massive aura superiority over them. Healing was a direct use of magic on the patient’s body, and their aura would try to resist such an invasion if the patient didn’t consent to be healed.

  That same fact made offensive healing magic extremely hard. Elemental mages could just throw stuff at their target, while life mages usually required aura supremacy instead. That meant that they could only really combat those that were weaker than themselves.

  The last rune symbolised protection. The rune looking like a shield made out of wood wasn’t used in healing spells, but it was extremely important for any healer, especially those who wanted to adventure. When reading this part of the book, Valar discovered a nasty detail of life magic that most other disciplines didn’t have to worry about.

  Making a shield out of life magic wasn’t possible until gold rank.

  Earth mages created shields of earth, water mages shields of water or ice. Wind mages blasted away any incoming projectiles and fire mages burned them away. Every single element had a way to protect themselves from physical attacks. Life magic did not have options like that.

  Sure, a competent life mage could manipulate nearby living things like trees or plants to block incoming attacks, but that way of protection was a notoriously slow one. No, the only option was the simplest way of body enhancement available.

  Elaine had said to the students that body enhancement wouldn’t be taught in iron rank classes, but the protection rune was absolutely necessary. The iron rank spell that was created with the rune would toughen the body, enabling the mage to protect themselves from attacks. It was not a good way of protection, but it was more than nothing.

  This lack of protection was one of the many reasons why healers did not like adventuring. Their ways of protecting themselves were highly limited, and a small misstep or ambush could be their end.

  For Valar though, the protection rune meant something else.

  If I use the rune right, could I protect myself from the fire?