Most students had brought along their books in case they failed to cast the first few times, which a few of them did. But it seemed like most of the candidates could already cast magic at the first level. So while spells started shooting off and other students trained on their dummies or switched between offense and defense with their mentors, Samuel was still struggling.
He tried imagining his arm as his sword to cast spells with, while he also remembered the incantations in his head, his mind was his arcane focus which meant that he could cast most simple spells without speaking any incantation, but he had never actually casted a spell of the first level before which was the problem holding him back.
All his teammates proved really competent, Erica with her specialty to mimic spells easily, Sonya already knew how to cast up to third level and Ulma did the spells on her second try. Meanwhile Samuel was stuck after his 10th failure, feeling like ripping his hair out. He recalled his training thus far however and stuck with the calm while Bregane was standing there like a calm pillar not judging him in the least.
Samuel noticed all his teammates cast all the three spells after a few more minutes of his own failing. So he took a seat while and meditated for a little bit as all the other people training around him back and forth. "How is it going young man?" Professor Leipeg's voice snapped him out of his meditation. "Not good sir! I am hoping to try again after a moment of calming down." Samuel said and to his surprise the professor chuckled at him and walked on to the next student in need of help.
After almost an hour of continous failure most of the other students were taking a short break and reading their books. Every student had a success, except for Samuel even the ones struggling the most had succeeded after about half an hour. Samuel could almost feel his back being gazed at, he could imagine their filthy words about him not being a worthy candidate but in all honesty he could not blame them, for he himself was starting to feel hopeless. Maybe he was never meant to cast magic.
In one final breath of frustration, a small fire suddenly shaped in front of his hand and he felt like he finally was doing it, until suddenly the small fire blast backblasted into a mini explosion of black smoke, leaving Samuel with his face covered in soot and stings. While the entire candidate class went hysteric, they were all laughing at him, he even noticed his own teammates trying and failing to hide their laughs.
Ulma started laughing really hard and said. "You're a wizard Samuel!" Making those already laughing laugh even harder, 'Thief Girl' a voice inside his head screamed in anger filling Samuel with even more rage and hate, he imagined those laughing as if they were laughing at the innocent dead of his village. He imagined thats how the cultists would laugh at the innocent they killed in cold blood.
Rage filled him and he removed most of the soot on his face with his sleeves and grit his teeth and casted the incantation with hatred inside his mind. In almost an instant he felt something slithering around his arm cold like chains not quite revealing themselves underneath his student outift. The fire instantly took shape, the red flame instantly flickered and waned under the laughing of students that were hoping for it to backfire again.
But then the flame quickly reappeared in a black violet ball, with a small shout of anger he flung the blast forward, it coiled forward much faster than a regular fireblast in its violet light mixed with dark shadows it did not set the dummy on fire like most of the other students had, instead it ripped a hole straight through the dummy and hit the cobblestone wall with a crack that indicated the cobblestone had ben cracked in several places.
Samuel felt his rage dissipating and with that whatever had coiled around his arm also flowed back when he sat back down with an angry sigh of relief. "Does that count?" He looked at Bregane first and then Leipeg who had been close to giving up on him.
Bregane seemed very impressed, while Leipeg stood with his mouth agape. The professor noticed the silence and students looking at him and closed his mouth and nodded. "You pass! But I want you to be able to cast the shield spell as well..." The professor trailed off when he saw Samuel get on his feet and instantly do a hand sign in front of him and the shimmer of a shield spell appeared. Leaving him shocked for the second time, while for Samuel it just felt correct to cast it. After all that anger and rage subsided and he felt calm he just wanted to try the shield spell that relied on a calm mind during battle, he remembered the signs and could easily cast it.
It seemed like the offensive spell was his biggest hurdle and now that he had passed it, he could easily cast other things. Although he knew that life magic was his weakest point so he didn't even bother trying that.
After seeing to it that every student had succeeded, the training continued for a few hours. Instructing students on where they could improve and do better, and soon enough most people improved their basics, when the lesson finally ended and all teams were leaving, no one looked at Samuel, instead many looked ashamed. They had all seen the fireblast he had produced and then they had seen the Professors shocked expression.
Samuel did not want to socialize with anyone but he had questions so he remained after the rest of the students had left and went up to the professor, "What did I actually do with my spell?" He quickly asked seeing that Bregane was waiting for him. "You harnessed, darkness and chaos and imbued it with your fire." Leipeg quickly replied. "Although it seems you were unaware of doing so, its still quite an amazing feat! So keep up the good work!" Leipeg quickly shut his books and left without another word, leaving Samuel a bit worried.
"You did good today kid!" Bregane quickly reassured him seeing as Samuel's eyes were filled with doubt. "Now for the next three days you are coming with me into the forest, where I am going to teach you how to handle those spells in a less controlled environment!" Bregane smiled. "But what about my day off!" Samuel quickly replied knowing that his day off would be missed if they went to the forest for three days.
Bregane rolled his eyes, "You mean to tell me you were not going to train magic on your own during that day?" He asked and Samuel lowered his gaze realizing Bregane was right. "We will still take it a bit easy on one of the days though. But we will be training and hunting, and I intend to teach you all about tracking!" Bregane said with a big smile.
Indeed Bregane had not lied, not even giving Samuel time to leave his things at his house they immediately went to the forest and indeed the next three days they spent in the forest training his basics and his newly learnt basics.
Samuel had a really hard time casting regular fireblast and they often became darkblasts instead, but eventually he got it right and learned how to switch between the imbued elements. While learning to block basic attack spells that Bregane casted at him, the final lesson was a match where they used the forest terrain to do battle. Where they ran betwen trees, trying to shoot at eachother and block with the basics.
Needless to say Samuel lost every single time, but he finally could cast first level magic properly he realized. Which left him satisfied and happy as they returned back to the college after three days in the forest, Samuel inwardly decided that tracking was one of the hardest things he had ever started learning, he was a quick enough learner, but he had only scraped the surface of all subjects Bregane shoved onto him.
Meanwhile Samuel's teammates had their own lessons with their mentors and were learning whatever their respective mentor thought best to improve. But unlike Samuel they all lazed about on their day off doing nothing special, at least... Ulma did not do anything special while Sonya had taken Erica down shopping at the capitol city, It was a new experience to go shopping with a friend so she thoroughly enjoyed herself. Erica was glad to have found such a good friend, and Sonya was glad to drag along a new friend and show her around the biggest city of the republic.
As for Ulma, the nightmares instantly returned, every night was a plague filled with new nightmares, although probably it was the same just on repeat. She could only ever remember bits and pieces and only the ending ever remained the same, fire, blood and waking up screaming.
She went back to her sour mood instantly and wished for the nightmares to go away. Even during her free day when she tried sleeping to get some additional rest, was she spared from the nightmares. How could she ever explain to someone that she had been plagued by nightmares for most of her life.
So why had she not had any nightmares when Samuel had remained sitting next to her holding her hand, did she simply need to hold someones hand to sleep proper. Maybe all she needed to do was get a dog for company. The thoughts plagued her, maybe she just needed to hold onto something in her sleep and when not even that worked she cursed the world for making her head like it was.
Life had been given to her, she was happy, if now only she could get rid of these final plagues that haunted her sleep. She could finally move on.