Luke thought for a bit and then nodded. He took out a small black stick that looked like a chopstick. The stick was made out of a magic material that allowed for channelling of mana.
Luke took a breath in to calm himself, extinguishing remnant thoughts and began performing the first control exercise. It was very simple, he had to balance the stick horizontally on the tip of his index finger and then will the mana to cause it to spin, without losing balance and falling. He performed it for five minutes, before he suddenly felt the stick lose its balance and fall down.
Melinda nodded and asked him to stop. "That's enough, you don't need to perform any more. Your control is fairly good for an ordinary new student. However, don't be satisfied with this much. I suggest, instead of practicing four exercises, just practice this first one and try to last as long as you can. Your current limit seems to be five minutes."
Then she took the stick from his hand and performed the control exercise. The black stick rapidly kept rotating about her index finger like a rotating fan, with no signs of losing balance. "My limit is one day. For every control exercise, there are four grades. Novice, Average, Master and Grandmaster proficiency. Your proficiency is barely novice level. This is the basic minimum we require before teaching spells, however, with such a low level of control, it will be hard to progress much. Thus, you should try to raise your proficiency in this exercise first."
Luke turned serious as he saw the stick still rotating about Melinda's index finger like it was nothing. He nodded. "Professor Melinda, I wonder if you are accepting students as apprentices?"
Melinda nodded. "I am. But I have a selection criterion. There are still two days till when you can choose your guide. If you can improve your skill in the first exercise to 8 minutes in these two days, then I am willing to accept you as my apprentice."
Luke nodded, as he turned to look out of the window. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the little girl take the stick and try to rotate it, but it fell off her small and chubby hands. Luke smiled. "This innocence... I feel like I lost this that night. An apocalypse.."
Luke thought about the incredible scenes of destruction he saw that night and the massive number of deaths and blood he saw splattered everywhere. He hated that gigantic hand. He hated the red hooded individual. He hated that his innocence was stolen from him and he was burdened with this terrifying knowledge.
He looked at the little girl. "What would happen to her on that day? She has no way to protect herself. But in the face of that calamity, I'm about as strong as her in relative terms. I only know a couple of basic spells I learnt at the academy in the past timeline."
Melinda was observing Luke and saw that he was looking at her daughter with a gentle gaze and then suddenly his pupils fluctuated heavily. She felt him turning emotional. "This boy seems to have a lot of thoughts on his mind. A tragic past perhaps?" She wondered to herself.
The train was passing through the beautiful and lush rural landscape, along the way, many creatures could be seen wandering around in the plains. No other student had joined the cabin, probably after seeing Melinda and realizing she was a teacher. However, this had caused Luke to frown.
"If I remember clearly, the previous time a student from the second year had come into the cabin. However, he was nowhere to be seen this time around. Could this be the butterfly effect at work?" Luke wondered.
Luke was not familiar with time magic, but he was quite familiar with causality amd its effects on time. Many of the best fantastical tales talked about them. Causality cannot be violated was one of the fundamental axioms in all of magic. Every effect has a cause and the cause cannot occur after the effect. This was the fundamental principle of causality.
The butterfly effect was closely linked to this principle of causality. The smallest of changes in the past can cascade into terrifying dynamic changes in the future.
Luke was shocked seeing this take place in real time. "I didn't even behave any differently. With the exception of my sudden panic attacks and the visit to the doctor. Just my having memories of before I travelled a month back into the past, already caused changes in the timeline." He thought to himself with a complicated look.
Melinda did not miss the constant fluctuations in emotions she could sense just from the mana disturbances. "A very complex sequence of thoughts at such a young age... such people are usually not suited to the standard mage path. His talent in control is subpar though. Now, I want to see his determination... can he grow under pressure... five to eight minutes in under two days, can he do it?" She thought to herself.
Soon the train arrived right into the Academy Campus. Melinda bid her farewell and took her daughter away. Luke quietly made his way to the initiation ceremony. The non appearance of the second year student in the cabin had turned Luke even more cautious. Although his very curious existence had itself provoked a butterfly effect, he didn't want to reveal any clues that led back to him. He was wary of the red hooded individual's plans, but at the same time, the warning of not dying again constantly rang in his ears, making him very cautious.
He remembered that his past timeline, due to the constant blackmail of the red hooded individual, the stress had turned Luke into a loner who didn't associate with others. At the same time, he had a terrible guide, Professor Alok, who didn't even guide him in the entire month or even meet him.
Luke considered if he should change his guide to Melinda, but he was wary of altering the timeline too much. However, he knew that following the consequences of the previous timeline would lead to his death, and he did not want to die. Another thing that had changed was that there was no hint of the red hooded individual. No blackmail and weird clues to follow for further instructions. No wild goose chase.
In the end, Luke decided to work hard on the first control exercise and try to get it to eight minutes.