When they had finished their errands, Floris and Kathrina returned to the Mages' Guild. They made their way to a hidden room behind the bookshelves on the first floor. There they found Flare had been trying to teach Alvis a little about magic. As Floris and Kathrina entered the room, they set their stuff down next to the wall and watched as Alvis desperately tried to conjure up something in his hand.
Hunched over and squeezing his right wrist tightly, Alvis made a face that could only be described as "hilariously terrifying" as he put all his focus into what Flare was instructing. His eyes were wide and his cheeks were red with anger, but he desperately tried his best.
"Grrr! Come on! I can do it, I can do it, I can do it!" Alvis closed his eyes for a moment, then quickly raised his hand over his head and shouted, "Fireball!"
Flare, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, stared at Alvis with a neutral look in his eyes, then slowly shook his head and said, "I can already tell, you're going to be a special case."
Alvis growled and spun around to face Flare and pointed at him as he shouted, "Well, excuse me for not being a genius!" He then turned his back to Flare and continued trying to spawn some kind of magic from his hand.
Flare shook his head again at Alvis, then directed his attention to Floris and Kathrina and spoke, "I take it you finished your errands? How much were you able to get?"
Kathrina sat in a chair and shook her head to clear her hair out of her face before answering, "About twenty-six-hundred gold pieces, most of that coming from Floris' potions. We got an extra two-hundred from a summon scroll I had."
"What was the scroll?" Flare asked.
"Just an extra Entity Ram scroll I had. They're one-time use items, and they're not very powerful, so I figured I'd go ahead and sell it." Kathrina answered.
Flare nodded and returned his attention to Alvis, who was still desperately trying to cast a spell, "You can't force magic to work, Alvis. The more you try to force a spell to work, the more likely you are to end up hurting yourself in the process of trying to cast it."
Kathrina looked at Alvis for a moment, then looked at Flare again and asked, "How far along are you now? Have you made any progress with him at all?"
"No, the idiot hasn't even told me what kind of magic he wants to specialize in yet." Flare answered sharply.
Alvis suddenly froze in his place, then slowly looked over his shoulder at Flare, "Y-you mean I... I had to do that all along?"
Flare sighed loudly and hung his head, but Kathrina suddenly went into fits of laughter while Floris only remained quiet, almost as lost in all this as Alvis was.
"Well, how the heck was I supposed to know?!" Alvis shouted at Kathrina.
Kathrina stopped laughing and looked at Alvis as she replied, "The teacher in the classroom told us we'd have to select what type of magic we'd want to use just a few days ago."
Alvis remained quiet for a moment, then tilted his head as he suddenly remembered the instructor saying that in class, "Oh... Right."
"But it's not as simple as that. I have to figure out what kind of mages your parents were before you make any decision." Flare stated.
"And how do you go about doing that?" Floris asked curiously.
Flare pushed himself off the wall and walked over to Alvis and rested his hand on top of Alvis' head. He then closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and pulled a single hair from Alvis' head.
"OUCH! What the heck, man?!" Alvis said, rubbing his head where Flare pulled the hair from.
Flare studied the hair for a moment, then smiled under his mask as he said, "Looks like you do have potential to be a fire mage, Alvis."
"How can you tell?" Floris asked curiously.
Flare held the hair up so the others could see, and used his finger to point out what he was talking about, "See how the hair is yellow or blonde at the top, but gradually becomes red towards the bottom?"
The three students nodded as they looked closer at the hair.
"This is a natural phenomenon that occurs inside the human body when and if he or she has the potential for fire magic." Flare stated.
Floris stared at the hair for a moment, then looked at Flare and asked, "Wait, it's actually that simple?"
Flare nodded and responded, "More or less. But keep in mind that just because an instance like this happens, it does not guarantee that said individual will become a fire mage. It only means that there's potential."
Kathrina stared at the hair for a moment, then slowly tilted her head to the side before she looked at Flare and asked, "I've never heard of this trick before. Can it be used to discover other types of magic as well?"
Flare looked at Kathrina and said, "It depends on your meaning. If you're asking if I could detect whether you were a healer or summoner, no, this trick would not work. It specifically works on Elemental Magic and Elemental Magic alone. However, if you're asking it this would work for different types of Elemental Magic, there are several ways to detect a mage."
"So, out of curiosity, what would be a good way of picking out an ice mage?" Kathrina asked.
Flare pointed at his eyes and gave his response, "For Ice Mages, a good way to tell is usually with the eyes. An Ice Mage will likely have brighter blue eyes than other people who have blue eyes. The same kind of goes for Earth Mages as well, with the exception that they usually have darker brown eyes than most people with brown eyes."
"But what about a Lightning Mage?" Floris asked.
"And a Wind Mage, too?" Alvis butted in.
Flare looked at Floris as he answered his question, "Lightning can be easier to detect, despite it being one of the harder elements to learn. If you were a Lightning Mage, I would only have to look at your hair. If you had naturally spiky hair, it could be a decent indicator that you'd be a lightning mage."
Flare then looked at Alvis and answered, "Wind, however, is a different story. It's arguably the hardest Elemental Magic to learn, and can also be the hardest to detect. Wind Mages typically get hot a lot easier than most people if there's no wind, even if it's a nice cool day outside. They also tend to have what some might call... a strange fascination with storms that produce natural disasters such as Hurricanes or Tornadoes."
"Such as what?" Alvis asked curiously. He looked over to Floris and asked him, "Have you ever heard of these? What are they?"
Floris only looked at Alvis with a funny look in his eyes and shrugged his shoulders in response, "No idea."
Flare reached into his robe for one of his inner pockets and pulled out a small bottle containing some pills. He unscrewed the lid, then used his thumb to flip one of the pills over to Alvis, "Here, swallow this."
Alvis caught the pill in the palms of his hands and looked at with a bumfuzzled look on his face. He slowly raised his head to look at Flare and pointed at it as he asked, "What the heck is this? You expect me to swallow a pebble?!"
Kathrina widened her eyes, then immediately flew into a fit of laughter after hearing Alvis say that.
Flare sighed with a loud exhale as he rolled his eyes; then looked at Alvis and answered, "No, Alvis, this is what we call a pill. To be more specific, we call them "Magica Awakening Pills" or "MAP's" for short. They're pills apprentices can take to "awaken" their magical abilities if they've been struggling, or are starting late in life - AKA you two."
Alvis looked down at the pill again and asked, "So, I just swallow it, right?"
Flare nodded, "Just don't choke on it."
Alvis nodded and flipped the pill into his mouth and swallowed it. He waited for a few moments; observing himself, then looked at Flare and stated, "I don't feel any different."
Flare walked back to where he originally was and leaned his back against the wall with his arms crossed, then looked at Alvis and said, "I want you to try something basic. Try igniting a fire on your right-hand fingers using only your magic. Your own spells can't hurt you, so don't worry about feeling any pain."
"But how does he do that, exactly?" Floris asked, looking at Alvis.
Kathrina walked up to them and demonstrated one of her own spells by holding out her hand and cast a spell that formed a bright and warmly lit orb over the palm of her hand, "Magic is not an easy thing to tame nor master. However, one way to cast a spell is to picture something in your mind, then use your mana to create that spell. Everyone has different ways of doing it, but imagining how you want a spell to look when you cast it is usually a good beginning stage."
"Okay, so all I have to do is picture what I want to cast in my head? I think I can do that." Alvis said. He held out his right hand and started imagining a fire in his hand.