After getting dressed, the young mage walked down to breakfast, bruises visible on his hands and his neck as well as a very visible pain that came with each of his steps. There were only a handful of teachers in training in the life school and unlike the other schools, they could become head of infirmary who was in charge of dealing with teaching their infirmary helpers during the year. Another difference life had from the other schools on top of being the weakest magic was its ability to help others more than the other magics could. Each breath seemed to pull on the sore muscles of his body and the bruises were irritated by every movement and the contact with anything. The pain wasn't enough however to stop Uri from laughing to himself as he thought back to the battle with Vertigo and the fact that he drew blood from the behemoth mage without needing any sort of magic. He had been pummeled but the single strike back was more than enough to make him laugh through the pain. Laughing alone at his table made some of the teachers in training wonder what he was doing and if he hadn't gone slightly insane.
"You have returned, Vertigo," A tall mage spoke, "How was your little duel with the mage?" The large mage shrugged before grinning, "You are missing some teeth."
"Did he really cause you so much trouble?" A female mage asked as she stood next to the tall mage, "He is just a boy."
"You will see when we ultimately face," Vertigo chuckled, "A boy can become a man in a very short time and shouldn't be mocked for the way they are now."
"How did he harm you?" A small, squeaky voiced mage asked, "If he is still a boy?"
"A good mage has many tools, he uses old magic as well."
"Oh, so the report our scouts gave was correct, he does in fact use old magic," The tall mage stated, "Very well, then we shall prepare for such an event."
"Agreed," A fifth mage spoke up in the room, "Knowing the academy, they either muzzled his old magic or are pushing him to use it more and more."
"The latter seems to be the most probable," Vertigo replied, "Now if you will excuse me, I have a face to tend to."
The school year rolled in, Uri was being pointed out by the automaton guides around campus when students asked about the plaque that signified that he was the hero of the academy. It was the same thing as the previous year, meeting new faces, meeting familiar faces, getting back into classes and hearing the endless stories of what happened during the summer. His life had returned to normal, classes to attend, magic to practice and spells that he had already taught himself. One of the big differences of the year was that he was finally allowed to participate in the Mage Games.
The brace that the crafter had made him was more than enough to hold his leg when practice came around. He had seen the impacts as a spectator when the two teams' mages would hit each other but now he was able to feel them. The fact that they could simply heal themselves through the pain made practices feel very strange with intense hits leading into no pain before restarting and repeating the whole step. Uri didn't have to use much magic to deliver hits, watching Kelly train had taught him a lot of things about the game. He could use his Oik magic in order to empower his body with the spirit of an animal while using life magic to get around the limitations that his body had. Uri could flatten some of the taller and stronger students in the life school, "I see why this is such a big thing in our school," Uri commented as he finished casting a spell on himself, "How do we even lose?"
"Being unlucky," One of the 5th year students replied, "That is how we lost last year at least," Uri nodded, "Wanna go again?" He nodded once more as someone threw him the ball and he charged at the person who was supposed to tackle him. Unlike what he had been told, he lowered his head and it slammed into the other student's shoulder. A huge wave of pain rushed through his body as his legs went limp and he fell to the ground, eyes blank and wide open, body motionless. The gravity of his situation wasn't clear right away as the 5th years attempted to help him and someone was sent to get one of the nurses, "Come on, Uri, stay with us, come on."
Uri woke up in a shadowy, hazy world. He blinked and realized that he was having another event, similar to the one he had in first year but this time with no disembodied voice or Oik attacks, nothing but a whirling sandstorm around him. Words began appearing in the sand as he tried to focus, "Krono? Krono-Pontis?" He had never heard of that combination of words and couldn't think of what it could be, "What does it mean?" A hand appeared, drawn out in the whirling sand before the thumb was severed and then reattached. Uri didn't have time to ask another question as he awoke in the plane of the living once more. He sat up quickly and violently as the students around him seemed more worried about that than anything.
"Uri, are you with us?"
"Yeah, I am fine."
"Are you sure? You took a nasty hit."
"Yeah, I am fine," He stood up and everyone seemed to panic and make sure he wouldn't lose balance, "I am fine, I told you," The young man tried to reassure everyone, "I don't know what happened, just a bad hit."
"You should rest, take a trip to the infirmary and make sure you are alright," The Oik man nodded before leaving the training session. His eyes were still wide open after the hit and the words that the sand displayed to him continued to echo through his head as he couldn't decipher their meaning or find out if they were even real words. He got strange looks as he walked with wide open eyes and heard chatter as he made his way to the infirmary, he wasn't all that fine, at least not as much as he claimed.
His mind finally settled on an answer as he entered the infirmary, Krono-Pontis was a place and the hand that he was shown was a representation of the Hand of Reality. All that was left to do was find a reason for such a vision and that was much easier said than done.