The morning came, and the comforting blackness of sleep slowly became Teerom shaking Paley violently.
"Paley! Paley! Paley!" He had been trying to wake him up for ten minutes now.
"I'm awake." Paley yawned and sat up on the bed. He felt horrendous; his back was tight, and his eyes were lazier than usual. He smacked his lips and looked at Teerom, who was in even worse shape.
He looked like a ghoul. His hair was all over the place, and his eyes were red and sore with enormous, dark bags underneath.
"What happened to you?" Paley asked, getting a tired sigh from Teerom.
"I'm hungover," He replied weakly.
"You look horrible,"
"Yeah, that's why I'm never going to drink ever again." He spaced out and had to be bought back by Paley, who waved his hand in front of his face.
"Does drinking do that?" He got off the bed and stretched.
"Mhm," Teerom nodded. He had a splitting headache, "How do the dwarves drink so much?" He asked himself.
"Maybe they're naturally tolerant," Paley suggested as he made his way downstairs with him, where the others had already gathered at the table.
"How're you feeling?" Madella approached Teerom.
"Better, thanks."
"That's good." Madella looked at Teerom, "Make sure to drink a lot of water, okay?". Teerom nodded in reply. Paley looked behind her and saw Jurie with her head on the table.
"You guys want me to use Healing magic on you?" He asked. Madella looked at Teerom expectantly; she'd already talked about this with him earlier.
"No. We need to learn from our mistake." He replied gloomily.
"But we've already learned it," Jurie said monotonously and looked up. She looked way worse than Teerom. Her usual bright blue eyes were unsaturated and full of exhaustion, and her neck posture was like that of a goblin. They would've been fine if they had just drunk a bottle of the wine, but they went ahead and burned through five of them that night.
The orphans ate breakfast and prepared to go to school. The dwarves didn't have any building requests that day, so Teerom could stay home and relax with Madella. After putting on his uniform, Paley took the panda chain from his pockets and wore it around his neck. It suited him nicely, hanging in the middle of his chest.
Adimia was already dressed and ready, so he opened the door to wait outside for them.
"Guys, it's raining," He held his hand out, letting weak rain hit it.
"Ah, that's not good. You're all going to get drenched," Madella looked out. It was a gentle rain, but rain nonetheless.
"Don't worry. I'll handle it," Paley came down and stepped outside.
"Are you gonna blow the clouds away?" Adimia asked, excited.
"No, I'm not that powerful." Paley created a simple barrier on top of him, which despite being anticlimactic, blocked all the rain efficiently.
"Oh- Okay." Adimia's excitement died down, and he joined Paley under the barrier.
"It's raining!" Bacha and Amasha ran outside and got themselves soaked. Jurie came last with Rauba, still groggy from the hangover.
"Stop playing in the rain. You're going to get wet." Madella instructed, and Bacha and Amasha joined everyone else under the barrier.
"I'll dry you off at school," Paley said to them and began walking.
"See you, mother," They left Madella and Teerom and walked close together to school.
The school day went as usual; That day, they had a Magic lesson, but Paley had no idea of the basics, so the teacher instructed him to read through a beginner's guide to Magic.
"Paley, here you go." He dropped a thin crumpled book onto Paley's table. He only had two beginner's guide books left. He gave the newer one to Adimia, so Paley happened to get the decades-old one.
He opened the book, taking care to not break the fragile paper, and began to read through it. He learned the following:
Magic is categorized into four main types that have many more subtypes. However, the subtypes aren't the same as the main types because they are still the unique magic of a person. For example, a person using Iron magic can't use an Earth magic spell. Iron magic is classified under Earth magic due to its physical relation, but it's independent of it.
There are two Magics in existence: Bound and Unbound Magic. Bound magic is a conscious being's magic; magic that has will. Unbound magic is a non-conscious being's magic; magic that has no will.
Unbound Mana can be bound by simply putting your raw mana into an object. Most objects can act as Vessels - a term for things containing that can be infused with Bound Mana to make Runestones.
Runestones can do anything within your scope of magic. For example, an Air mage can create a runestone that simply cools you down in the summer, to one that can level entire cities with tornadoes.
Paley decided to create a runestone himself. A simple Earth runestone would do for starters. Everyone else was doing basic silent studying off the textbook, so he had to be quiet as he prepared.
He had no stationery to use since it was a textbook revision lesson, so he settled for the author's biography page at the back of the book. He ripped it out and folded it until it was nice, small, and firm.
It was still raining outside. He found the pitter-patter on the windows relaxing rather than distracting. Taking a deep breath, he slowly focused his mana into the page. The book simplified the process into three steps: bind the object to your mana, bind a spell to it, and then add an activation condition.
Paley completed step 1 with no trouble. He continued until the entire page's unbound mana was now bound to him. Next was the spell-binding part. He visualized the spell and poured more Bound mana into it. (Once you get good at making runestones, you can do all three steps at once, but practising them one after the other helps when you're starting out.)
The paper didn't change physically at all, but Paley continued. He then folded one corner and added more Bound mana to add the activation condition, which was to tap that folded corner thrice. After a minute of transferring mana into the paper, it was ready.
Small glowing yellowish-brown letters appeared, covering the words. He looked around and made sure that everyone was lost deep in their books before trying it out. He tapped the folded corner three times and a disappointingly small spurt of sand shot out of the paper.
'Maybe I should try adding more mana to it.' He thought and added a lot more mana. Before, he was adding a small amount at a steady rate, but he impatiently added a ton in a few seconds this time. 'Alright, time to test it.' He was too eager to try the runestone to realize that he'd put too much mana into it.
After tapping the folded corner three times, a concentrated stream of sand burst forward from the paper. Luckily, it hit no one and instead made a small dent in the wall, but unfortunately, the teacher noticed the stream of sand.
"Who did that?" He asked. An awkward silence ensued before Paley put his hand up hesitantly.
"Paley? That was you? How did you do that?" The teacher was usually a tired man, but the energy seemed to return to him due to this ordeal. Paley nodded, bracing for a fearful reaction from the teacher, but he instead grinned from ear to ear.
"You can use magic?" He walked over to Paley.
"Y-Yeah." Paley replied, "Sometimes," He quickly added to downplay his power. All eyes - apart from Adimia, who was fast asleep - were on him now.
"Are you an Earth-type?" The teacher asked.
"Mhm," Paley was a Quimnia, so he was technically also an Earth-type.
"Wow, you can use strong magic at such a young age. That's fantastic," He was a tall man so he had to crouch down to Paley's level, "What do you say about joining the Magic Club? We have magic users like you there. I think you can learn a thing or two from them. But they *are* all in stage 6."
"Sure, I'll join. Is it unusual for people my age to be able to use magic?" Paley asked.
"Very. It's a one in a hundred occurence, in fact. You are very special in that manner." He patronizingly patted Paley on the head, making him slightly uncomfortable, "Anyways, I should let all of you go back to studying." He returned to his seat at the front of the class, and resumed the book he was reading.
Paley sat back down, but not before locking eyes with one of the noble kids, who was shooting daggers at him. It was the same black-haired noble who threatened to enslave Dillie the day prior.
Paley joined Adimia and Dillie, then made his way outside with them.
"Hey, that chain looks really nice on you," Dillie commented as they exited the building, pointing to the semi-concealed panda chain around his neck.
"Thank you, and your hair suits you well," He replied.
"You noticed?" She asked, blushing and shocked. Usually, she kept her hair in its natural place, moving straight down to her shoulders and forming bangs on her forehead. But that morning, she'd styled it so that it parted down the middle and traveled down the sides in a wavy manner.
They met up with Jurie and the other orphans and walked a few streets down with them before separating.
"Oh, yeah," Paley approached Jurie, "Take this." He gave her a bright red pebble.
"What's this?" She asked, holding it up.
"A Fire runestone. If you're in trouble just say the words 'Paley is awesome' and it'll shoot out a fireball. I put enough mana into it for four uses. Try it." Paley explained.
(The reason why the runestone didn't shoot a fireball when he said 'Paley is awesome' is because he wasn't holding it. He set an additional activation condition so that only the one holding the runestone, can use it.)
"Heh, okay," Jurie laughed and said the words, "Paley is awesome!" She held the stone out and it suddenly began glowing a bright yellow. Protection magic snaked around her hands to shield them from the Firebolt.
A football-sized flame shot out of the stone and dissipated down the street.
"Woah..." The orphans stared, amazed, especially Adimia.
"Let me try!" Amasha begged.
"I'll make another one for you later, Amasha." Paley wrapped his arm around Dillie's waist, catching her off guard, "I'll see you all later." He flew off into the sky. The street was relatively empty, so he didn't have to worry about anyone seeing him fly.
"See you!" The orphans waved and began walking back to the orphanage.
Paley flew Dillie to her house and tried to hastily leave yet again after bidding her goodbye, but her mother sprinted out of the house and stopped him, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Would you like to come in for tea?" She offered, but it didn't seem like an offer to him It seemed like a command with how keen she was.
"S-Sure," He replied reluctantly.