In a huge hall, with a large number of seats surrounding a single pond, there sat the beings known as gods.

  “I welcome you all to today’s meeting, and today’s topic of discussion is Prithyu.” A god began.

  But perhaps no being other than themselves could tell who was the one that spoke. It was impossible to distinguish between them as they all seemed like blurry silhouettes.

  “Are you still doing the hero summoning thing? Don’t you get bored?”

  “Nope, I try new things regularly, like letting the hero realize that the demon god was not at all evil, or have the hero watch his family getting burned, or the classic hero saves the world and go home for memories sake.”

  “But the mages are the most entertaining”

  “True”

  The voices discussed in indistinguishable ways. They perhaps had no need to talk, no need to pretend to be sitting on chairs, yet they did, maybe for the sake of entertainment, maybe just to make the ‘entertainment house’ a little more entertaining.

  “Isn’t that about to happen again?”

  “Yes, yes it is”

  “Then I have an idea, they think the next crusade will happen in 130 years?”

  “Yes, yes it will”

  “Then I have an amazing idea, wh…

  <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

  “Welcome to my academy Mr. Farion” Edward appeared, somehow not on a chair but standing up straight.

  “You had no need to come here personally” The old man, Farion the fiery as people liked to call him, someone who barely didn’t manage to become a demigod due to an old injury, spoke in a respectful tone.

  The young man who stood next to him, his direct apprentice barely of 19 years of age, bowed his head in the direction of Edward.

  “Of course I had to come personally, I had once been taught by you after all!” A rare smile of excitement and joy was on his face.

  “You have become a big man Edward, no, Sir Edward, and I would do no injustice to a demigod, much less one taught by me, by making them wait on me”

  “Stop with the formalities teach, you would make me blush”

  “HA! You remain the same as always you brat! What was with you way of speaking at the conference huh?!” Farion spoke in mock anger.

  The 2 had been very close, Edward almost being considered his personal disciple, the one who almost inherited his legacy.

  “Sit down first teach” Saying this Edward took out 2 chairs from his soulspace, and both of them sat down on these chairs. The boy calmly took his place behind Farion.

  “So, why did you call me?” Farion began after taking a sip of tea from a cup that was most likely conjured from his soulspace, though the habit of Edward always having a cup of tea in his hand might have come from somewhere around here.

  “To give a few lectures to the students perhaps, who knows you might like someone and take them in as your personal disciple”

  “I don’t think that many people carry enough passion in them to impress me”

  Edward took a sip out of his tea cup, which he had taken out somewhere in the conversation.

  “You will be surprised by what sort of kids we have, one particular person I think you would want to pass on your legacy too”

  “Show me then, I am getting a little excited so I hope you don’t disappoint me”

  “Have I ever disappointed anyone?” Edward lightly mumbled, though even the young man behind Farion could hear what was said.

  “Go outside and play” Farion said, hearing this he quickly exited the room.

  “Son” Farion placed a hand Edward’s shoulder.

  “Sometimes, a few burdens are too heavy to carry for even the greatest of shoulders, No matter what you believe I would always say that my son’s death was not your fault, perhaps if I-”

  “No teach! You couldn’t have known what was about to happen!”

  “But… Could you have known? Let it go, Let this old man carry that burden while you carry our future on these very capable hands” Farion patted Edward’s shoulder with a proud expression and stood up.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The man who was said to be the greatest demigod ever had his own problems, his own regrets, regrets strong enough to drown the strongest of people.

  But perhaps that’s why he was called great, because he still lived for magic.

  “Now show me what kind of mages you are raising.”

  “Half-crazy people, I have seen, make for excellent mages” Edward said while looking at Farion.

  “You want to be hung upside down again Huh!?”

  “Try it old man”

  Without saying another word Farion waved his hand and a wave of fire came out of his hands. Edward just gazed at the water and it disappeared.

  “You could have actually hung me upside down” Edward said with a smile.

  “And you could disintegrated me you cheeky bastard!” Farion said with a smile no lesser then Edward’s.

  Meanwhile the young man wondered why he was so unlucky, Knowing someone’s secrets is always dangerous, specially when that someone was one of the strongest people alive.

  Luckily though neither of the 2 ever bothered to look at him, and after a while Edward teleported them all to a viewing room, directly in front of stage surrounded by many such viewing rooms and a single hallway, saying that the 2nd year students will be doing the most impressive things they can do with mana, for the teachers to see their progress.

  After a while of chatting between the 2, A girl came up on the stage, slowly water flowed out of her hands, in perhaps 5 seconds the water took the shape of a magic circle above her and a bluish barrier appeared around her.

  She maintained the mana circle for 10 seconds, and then with a slightly tired face exited the stage.

  “How did she did?” Farion asked his disciple, Laven

  “Her mana control is not upto the mark, with the amount of mana she has if her mana control was optimal then she could have maintained it for atleast 4 hours minimum.”

  Edward nodded at his answer, and then the next student entered who floated around for a few minutes and then went off stage.

  “He used mana really ineffectively, The air mana he was using to float was just thrown at the ground without any regards for the way air moves.”

  One by one a bunch of student entered came up on the stage, With Laven only acknowledging a single performance as ok , of someone who used 2 made 2 separate shapes from earth mana at once.

  “Is that all you got?” Farion asked with his eyes glued to his staff.

  “Of course not, I still got 4 students left, among which 3 are reincarnators”

  Upon hearing that Farion nodded and put his gaze from the staff to the stage.

  Another girl came on the stage,

  “This is Delsa, a reincarnator”

  “What did her soulspace looked like?” Farion was one of the few people who wanted to know what someone’s soulspace looked like if he was intrigued.

  “A library”

  “A truth seeker.. I see”

  Delsa closed her eyes for a moment, and then 4 water droplets appeared around her, the 4 droplets started spinning in a slowly enclosing circle, drawing a magic circle in barely 2 or 3 seconds, the moment it was complete the whole stage was filled with water droplets that came down lightning fast towards the stage, lightly wetting the ground.

  “It was a good performance no doubt, it would have been much more impressive and damaging if she did it without a mana circle with pure water mana but still she did pretty good, though her being a reincarnator is a pretty unfair advantage” Laven commented.

  “It is not a unfair advantage young one, you could hardly call it a advantage if I say so myself” Farion said.

  “Next up is the 2nd reincarnator we have, Adiel, His soulspace looked like a mountain, with a single rose on the top”

  “Deep, really deep, He will rise pretty high if his commitment is towards magic”

  Adiel came forward the stage, and drew the same magic circle with the same method as Delsa, though instead of water drops a gentle wind started to blow towards the ground.

  “Same as the last one I believe?” Edward asked Laven before he could speak, making him hurriedly nod his head.

  After Adiel exited the stage Theo came up, and Edward began with the introductions.

  “This is the most devoted person to magic we had in a while, though he shares this title with one other. His soulspace was a garden with a statue of a mage controlling a small statue made from earth”

  “That was you wasn’t it” Farion asked.

  “What could I have done! He just kept asking me to show him some magic and the moment I did he followed me like a magnet, saying he wanted to learn how to do it, when I told him that he could do it with the system he said it was not magical. I was forced to take him around for a year after that and just decided to take him in”

  “A good child” Farion said while Theo came onto the stage.

  He just stared at the ground, and 3 dolls came out from the ground, the 3 dolls started play fighting while Theo slowly started smiling.

  “Excellent! To simultaneously make and control 3 earth statues, and to make them untraced is a skill he should have really worked hard for since the start of his education” Laven commented while Edward nodded in approval.

  “What did he do to reach such high mana control level at such a young age”

  “He used the no sleep magic circle throughout the previous and current year”

  Farion looked really excited about someone for the first time since the performances started..

  “I will teach him if that’s what you want”

  “I am sure he would be happy to be taught by the legend maker, the one who has taught 57 legendary mages and 1 demigod”

  “Flattery is not getting you anywhere kiddo” Farion said though a slight smile came to his face after the praise.

  “The last person, Eric, is a reincarnated person too, nearly 80 when he died. His soulspace was a green grassland, with no other color in sight”

  “What did he follow to the extent of leaving his soul with a single color? And why such a calm personality with such intense passion?”

  “You will see” Edward said, and Farion understood that he wanted it to be kept a secret.

  When Edward came up on stage he waved his hand, and 5 fireballs appeared in front of him, he started moving them around with no intention of stopping even after 3 minutes.

  “That’s it?”

  …

  After receiving no reply for a solid minute he looked at his master’s face.

  It was a little wide-eyed, a expression that was entirely unfamiliar on Farion’s face.

  “What happened?”

  Farion raised his finger and pointed at Eric.

  “His fucking hand” He had never heard his master curse.

  He looked at Eric’s hand and saw that 4 small read specks were floating around near his hand.

  Now that is impressi-

  “What the..” was all he managed to get out of his mouth when his gaze turned a little upwards on his hand.

  4 thin bracelets.

  “This fucking madman is wearing mana suppression bracelets! 4 of them! What the fuck are you doing Edward! He will go mad from the pain!” Farion suddenly started shouting at Edward.

  “I told him that the pain might drive him mad”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said that he would rather go mad in order to fill his life with more magic than live normally again”

  “Did he not live a fulfilling life?”

  “Not at all, he searched for magic after seeing a single scene of a man floating on earth, and he actually found magic”

  All this talk was going above Laven’s head, The sole thing he understood was that this was a madman the likes of which are rarely seen.