The bastard child of the family.
Jelani was never known to be particularly favored by anyone. Not even his own family. Not even as an up-and-coming student of the Ludwaigan Academy of Magic. An informal enrollment earned him the privilege to attend the school when most his standing couldn't even get in because they lacked a tutor to understand the Mystic Arts. A human of dark complexion, he'd come to familiarize himself with the differences among each occupant of Ludwag after straying from the Nixian Border, his place of birth, and coming to terms with the distance he accumulated from his relatives and family.
What made Jelani any different? What made him able to understand the Mystic Arts while others his age failed through their toil and constant effort? Those considered geniuses ― those who could grasp the complex, colossus nature of magic were still vexed by the demands of the entrance exam that barred them from entering while Jelani passed by mere inches of mercury ― infinitesimal miracles smeared on the page as it was half a point that saved him from failing the entrance exams to the Ludwaigan Academy of Magic.
Jelani was only eighteen at the time he was able to achieve any form of raw attunement with the mancy he was trying to attain. Through rigorous mental and physical training, the child who excelled at absolutely nothing throughout his lifetime was able to do what was seemingly impossible ― become a student of the Ludwaigan Academy of Magic. He was enrolled into a branch of the Ludwaigan Academy of Magic known as the School of Calor ― the third of the core elemental mancies. Fire, light, and thermal based forms of magic therein were studied in great detail by all pupils of the school. Jelani could remember from the time he was enrolled the endless initial struggle he faced during examinations during the first semester of the school trying to learn a mancy considered highly destructive ― highly capable and yet reproached by other scholars of magic considering how notorious the categorization of Mystic Art was, its tendency to destroy feared by even archmages given its unpredictability and volatile nature.
It was all a matter of endurance, Jelani thought to himself presently. He was in the corridors of the library in the subsection for Pyromancy, and had acquainted himself with reading voraciously about the subject after hours his instructor wasn't teaching anything of importance. He constantly read on hours and hours end when the academy was in its closing hours. When it was time to leave, he was hastily ushered off. Not much for reading initially in his younger days, the preoccupation he found with Pyromancy and its destructive capabilities gave birth to a tenacious, fierce and passionate side of Jelani. He was barely a novice ― much less a beginner, hardly capable of generating a speck of flame. Like a moth to flame, however, when he was given the opportunity to learn, he learned as much as he could in a small amount of time. In just the first few weeks of the Ludwaigan Academy of Magic, he was able to gain insight into the vast realm of Magic Theory, learning about attunement.
Learning turned into doing. Jelani read about meditation for as long as time would allow him to over and over. The same repetitive words filled his mind with vicarious quality speckled upon them almost as if he was doing the exercises printed in the books he read himself.
Except he wasn't. A day spent at the academy turned into a day spent in the wild, plodding along with no official home to himself. Days amounted to reading and little practice if any ― the time he was able to practice was spent in a makeshift state attempting to reproduce the sensation of meditation ― the sensation of entering a realm that he had read about many times. A realm of the immense resource and energy known as vitor.
A resource that he did not quite understand ― but understood the importance of dearly. Jelani continued to read each day. The closest he came to practicing was after the conclusion of the first semester at the Ludwaigan Academy of Magic. On an ordinary, hasty busy day around Ludwag, the clumsy black sheep who was expelled from his family was able to get a brief look into a realm he could only yearn to understand ― a dimension of infinite energy that was distant ― impossible to access, but definitely there for the brief moment Jelani envisioned it while meditating in his attempt to understand the mancy.
The more Jelani tried to call back the will to summon the mancy, the little he faced success. Weighing just a meager 182 pounds, each attempt to get into contact with the energy source known as vitor left Jelani drained ― declining in his physical health and sloping just a bit in his meditation. It was recommended for him to reenergize the body frequently, and it was what he tried to do many times.
With a break allowed from the academy, Jelani's days were long, brooding, and exhausting. Many days were spent physically training the body and mentally training it ― trying to establish cohesion between the two halves of his being and opportune balance to unleash the flames within and enact his will on the physical world. Each and every attempt failed for Jelani, however.
One day, however, everything changed.
On an evening where the tides of the ocean went unchanged, Jelani went out of his way to begin an expedition to a nearby volcano in an attempt to unlock the Mystic Art of Pyromancy. Each meager part of his body was fully acknowledging of where he went ― how he went about ― and what he was going for. Hearing of an eruption, he knew full well the risks associated with his travel, but opted not to say goodbye to anyone or anything. Nearby settlers Jelani knew of for a brief time in his aimless settlement near the Ludwaigan Academy of Magic heard nothing from him.
He went with the mindset he would make it, but what if he didn't? What if he crumbled before the colossus mountain in steady, knowing tread towards it, well aware of its predetermined design to erupt? Sizzling lava and heat wouldn't fare him well if he couldn't control or regulate it. Lava that could burn him to mere ash would be his certain enemy, and he would have little way of escaping it if the eruption was as mighty as he suspected.
But still. Jelani went. The heat wasn't yet detected as far as his part went, but the walk was long and arduous. On the way there, he familiarized himself with the landscape, keeping a mental note of it. By not any means he was a genius, but he knew well his environment in his stead of power to catch up with his eldest sister of the family who had long passed him on.
Passed him on in a way that left him wanting to catch up. What had she left behind before going to the next realm? Absolutely nothing as far as Jelani knew. All the young man knew as he roamed through Ludwag on his destiny to catch up to his sister was that she was a Pyromancer of impressive skill and talent, able to command over hundreds of condensed, oxygenated flames greater than any he could imagine himself commanding in any time. If mancy was genetic as he heard students circulating in rumors, then wouldn't it have been common sense he would inherit the power one day himself? Or was it commanded by one's own mind? One's own state of mind and individual capabilities? Something extranormal and something outside of the physical or genetic ― something he briefly encountered in one of the vivid meditative stances he entered in his effort to understand the mancy he tried to so desperately grasp in the many teachings of the School of Calor?
He would never know unless he made it to the volcano. Jelani bore on and on, walking, wearing raggedy and torn clothing as he roamed a consistent, paved path of a trail leading to a volcano he'd been reading on. It was a large volcano attached to a mountain in Ludwag named aptly Ignoramus. His stomach uttered distant groans of pain all the way through. He needed to satisfy hunger sooner or later. But little to kill ― little to consume other than herbs and grasses along the way of Ludwag's decorated floor of nature presented him with no other option to endure.
Mount Ignoramus, a great, large mountain, was only miles away. Its name was of a great ancient tale of the dangers of ignorant shooing of dangers associated with imminence and permanence such as death, retribution, and compunction for those that did not heed the warnings of common folk that warned about cause for concern.
Travelers he'd heard of in books did not last long in their stead to the volcano. Along the route to the volcano upon coming to a stop at the destination, those reckoned of as deceased and lost to the volcano allegedly died of heat strokes, and were not fared well at any outreach in their attempts to grasp Pyromancy by being close to the source of it. With that in mind, one would think a man such as Jelani would try to stay away from what appeared to be the foreclosure of death itself biding him into its territory, smoldering heat swarming the environment as to make the air so dense that breathing was an impossibility from the descriptions he encountered in the textbooks. Only those who assumed great risk could survive. One would have to shed completely naked just to survive the heat, and that included the tedious, forbearing temperature that ate up those who arrived to the location.
And yet, despite the negative implications of his coming to the volcano, he was still affixed to visit it, anyways. The trail he walked along was a dangerous, unsettling path full of many twists and turns unprecedented in their scope ― quite unlike any he'd ever seen before in his lifetime even as a young boy who lived outdoors in land that was not defined by any border. But Jelani was a young man itching to graduate from the School of Calor. He was not a young boy who curiously followed in the foosteps of his elder sister, Zahra, who surpassed him in about every desirable field.
Context clues. Deductive reasoning. Physical fitness ― it was odd, an outlier for Jelani to lack, but considering he was younger, it only made sense. Zahra seemed to be the naturally more gifted one ― inheriting a gene which Jelani lacked from the outset of his life. Leverage of her surroundings from everything to the rocks to the trees and the bushes provided her indiscriminating versatility from the start. She could be a merchant. She could be a bandit. She could be anything. And yet... what was he? The black sheep of the family. His family wasn't any royalty. No, they were average.
Ordinary people. Ordinary people not of any royalty, not of any entitlement, not of any status, or any relative importance to the grand scheme of things outside of borders Jelani knew to be dormant. Born at the Nixian Border, he was only a mere infant at the time of his conception who was already the bastard child of the family. For what? What had earned him such a reputation?
Already not well at much, it was a surprise he was even able to recognize the fixture that was his sister ― unfairly the more gifted one of the family, Zahra possessed what Jelani hadn't ― it was wealth, fame, and riches from those around. Jelani envied her because of it. The wealth and fame she possessed was earned off of stealing from others. Living life risky came with consequences, however. While Zahra scavenged those who eventually factored in as malefactors in the way of her progressive wealth, she enraged those less likely to respond with warnings.
Bandits were sent after her. Jelani wasn't sure if his sister had died or not. But he wished death upon her at the time. The neglect and the abuse he endured at the hand of the family for his inferiority to his sister and lack of ability to do any of the things he was expected to do made him wish she was sent as far away as possible or perhaps even killed, turning up to the family door as roadkill or a corpse trampled by a pack of horses. But that didn't happen.
Instead, the circumstances around her sudden disappearance were made as vague as possible. Jelani couldn't understand what happened. How could someone such as his sister who became a mage of great power on her own accord and someone of great standing in the locales of the birthplace he was outcast in from the very start turn up missing? Locales, witnesses, and others said she was chased off by bandits wanting to rob her. They cornered her, and... before Jelani knew it, the story ended up in disorienting randomization of mystery as if his sister never existed. The reminder that his sister was greater than something he was and the fact that her disappearance only led to his ushering off sooner frustrated him. He wanted to know what she had he didn't. He'd come to be something himself if he had to.
Remembering that resolve, he refocused himself on his current goal.
Jelani wasn't a pushover. Anything that alarmed him ― anything that startled him out of the ravenous bushes that surrounded him would be slain. He came properly equipped, saddled with a knife appropriately holstered by his side. Something ― anything that took him off guard or gave him enough concern to defend himself would be slain immediately. As he strolled along, he became overcame with skepticisms of curiosity, and the natural environment began to take him off guard, captivating him in ways that he never thought. His walk lasted hours and hours, stretching into the night. He could see Luanides and Rulara orbiting Azura in the atmosphere. Could they see him? Wandering around isles of the lost, he encountered little of importance until something jumped from the bushes, startling Jelani.
"...Huh?" Jelani grunted, feet turning to shuddering bushes that shook rather uneasily. He could see a lime green tail poking out of the bushes, but its origin wasn't clear. He roamed closer to see the tail, eyes gyrating curiously left and right to get a closer look; the lime, green tail defined by a texture of reptilian scales.
Dinner. Not having eaten anything for weeks, Jelani took to the reptilian tail poking out of the bush as the conclusion to the hunger he'd been feeling ever since the beginning of his walk. Everything in his vision rendered to him the insight he was dealing with a reptile ― in particular, a reptilian lizard.
He placed his hand around the tail of the lizard. With a slight yank that was of greater quality than he suspected after his initial brief pull failed, he was only given right to assume the lizard had been holding onto a twig in the bush. It eventually was forced out by force. The lizard dangled in his hand; humanoid like any other, helpless. There was no other reason for Jelani to keep it alive other than for entertainment. But he was not strewn like a sadistic, repugnant soul that wanted to torture his food. He simply wanted to eat it.
"...You'll make for good dinner," Jelani said to the lizard, presently holding it with a firm grip. There was no reason not to ― knowing how tricky and deceptive the lizard could be in its looks despite its small size, a single retraction of the human muscles within the hand would mean his dinner would be scampering away. After moments of remaining inert, the lizard began to fight, shaking and resisting under the brute resistant force of the human.
Though the smallest he'd eaten in a while given the distance from his home and the unnatural spread of the prey he was used to eating, Jelani supposed the lizard would do the job. He didn't take much time to get the job done with the supposition there was nothing left for him to hunt and track down with his senses of observation.
The knife he held by a diligent handle sliced and diced the lizard, disemboweling it in a single go with a swipe across the torso. Such a small creature that once hung alive was concurrently dead for it possessed no life, organs shuffled out of its abiotic, inert frame as Jelani found a nearby pond and washed away the bacteria and germs of the lizard the best way he knew how ― water. He crouched over a local body of pond water, locating it after tucking away his knife and let the lizard dance in the water as if hanging in a limited state of limbo, piercing silence defining the waiting period in which he let the water pulsate through the dead lizard, rejuvenating only the worn-out, pressurized skin with hydrating elements, the empty core of the reptile sliced open brutally by the knife Jelani held.
The water expunged as many germs and bacteria they could on the lizard's reptilian skin ― enough to make it digestible for the strong digestive system of the human whose diet up until then had been calculated, regular intake of animals he brutally murdered on the trail and turned over to consume. With no remorse, the lizard met the inside of Jelani's mouth, reptilian arms, tail, and legs grinded and chewed under the pressure of Jelani's teeth. It was quite enough for him to eat for the time being, but not enough to survive off of if he was going to go into the deathly state of Ignoramus. The volcano was scheduled to erupt at any moment and liquid would ooze out of its mass, adding to the heat if his estimations were correct from the books he read. If he arrived prior to its eruption and prioritized getting used to the heat, maybe he would be successful in his train of thought.
So it was what he focused on. Jelani concentrated on going ahead after consuming the lizard. His stomach still groaned, but it would help him make it through. His 'dinner' was a short, uneventful meal of forced proportions. A small, innocuous lizard. Not even a mature lizardkin who would give quite the fight before it was incapacitated and slit open for a food source.
It was all he had.
Mount Ignoramus wasn't far away. Up the hills of Ludwag, he found his increasing altitude along the slopes of the region were only getting him closer to an inferno. He was approaching Mount Ignoramus with the intention to survive, not to die. With that much in mind, he bore caution, noticing the instant change in temperature.
Almost there. Almost to the site where he would finally be able to assess all of the reading and training he had done in order to attune himself with Pyromancy at the very least to catch up with his sister.
Would he succeed? Would he lose himself to the flame?
Only fate would tell.