The Door of Death

“Flame Wheel!”

Lily held her sword so that it stuck out in front of her and pulled her body into a ball. Flames sprang out of her sword surrounding her as she flew towards the ground.

“Eep!” Meimei squealed as she pushed out an explosion of air from her long silver staff, flinging her away from the incoming flaming Lily.

Lily slammed into the ground creating a crater. Flames erupted from around her like a volcano.

“This isn’t a date at all!” Meimei yelled out in frustration.

As the smoke and debris cleared, Lily came into focus. She moved her long black hair behind her, striking a comically cinematic pose.

“Promotions are coming up soon, that means a bunch of weirdoes are going to be challenging you to duels.”

“I know that, but when you promise a girl a date you should give her a date. You could have just asked to spar with me, and I would have agreed!” Meimei retorted in frustration.

Lily let out a sigh and rested her sword on her shoulder.

“Sorry Meimei, I just know how it went last year… I don’t want to you go through that again. Actually, if you get that swarmed with duel requests again because people think you are weak maybe I will just take care of them all!” Lily raised her first in a fighting motion.

“That would get you expelled. You know you can’t interfere in duels.” Meimei said with defeated eyes. “Anyway, we do have classes today even though it is a half day, so I am going to go get cleaned up.” Meimei started to walk away. “Feel free to come by after classes though, if you want.” Meimei said with embarrassment, still facing away from Lily.

Lily let out a slight laugh at how cute Meimei looked.

“I wish I could, but I am going labyrinth diving after class.”

“Hmph, fine.” Meimei said as she stomped off.

Lily smiled as she watched Meimei walk away. Brookewood Magic Academy was an upper-tier school for magicians. The school was split into several houses which focused on different magic specializations. Lily’s house, Moltensand was a house entirely focused on fire magic. Greenclaw, Meimei’s house, was focused on support and nature magic. Greenclaw and Whitelight had a famous rivalry, as Whitelight focused on holy and light healing magic.

Furthermore, students were ranked using a star system. New students at the academy typically started with no stars, earning their first bronze star after completing a few basic exams. Obtaining more stars becomes exponentially more difficult as you climbed the ranks. Collecting up to three bronze stars only required passing academic and live exams. However, graduating to one silver star required that the three-star bronze student defeat a student of one silver star or higher in a duel. Of course, if there were duels going on all the time it would distract from academics, so there was a specific time of the year that promotional duels were allowed. That time was coming up. Lily rarely received duel requests, as she was known to be nearly unbeatable, but Meimei was often swamped with requests during duel season.

Lily had come to an impasse. She had reached three gold stars some time ago. The next rank was platinum, the highest rank obtainable at the academy. Whereas most academies had no platinum star magicians, Brookewood, being an upper-tier academy, had four. However, one could not simply challenge a platinum star magician as one could any other rank magician. In order to be considered worthy of challenging a platinum star magician one must clear a labyrinth first. That is why Lily had been busy diving into labyrinths lately. She had hoped to clear one before the promotional duel period, so that she could challenge one of the platinum magicians to a duel.

As today was a half day Lily only had one class, a two-hour foundational magics class. Lily made her way out of the duel arena and into one of the main inner-court buildings of the ancient castle that made up Brookewood. Supposedly Brookewood was originally built to defend the entrance to a labyrinth which was ruled by a devil whose name was lost to time. The devil was capable of using forbidden magics to spawn large numbers of monsters and would often send armies from the labyrinth. The devil was defeated long ago, but the castle and the labyrinth still remain to this day.

Lily’s foundational magics class was taught by Professor Dein. The professor was in his early forties, though he appeared far younger. His piercing green eyes were known to both install fear and admiration in his students. Lily arrived at the classroom. The classroom was made of oakwood, and had benches set up on multiple levels like an auditorium. Lilly walked up the stairs on the left-hand side of the arrangement and found a seat towards the end of the bench. The class was nearly empty, as many students had simply elected not to show up for the short day. Besides Lily only a half dozen other students were scattered throughout the large classroom. Professor Dein walked into the classroom and all of the students stood. As the Professor sat his items down on his desk, he motioned for the students to sit.

“Hello students, I am glad to see some of you decided to show up.” Professor Dein was obviously unimpressed with the students who decided to skip that day’s class.

“Today we are going to be covering magical affinities, including special affinities.”

A few of the students in the class sighed. This was a lesson that was taught to the youngest children; however, it was often repeated to remind them to be creative with their magical imaginations. It was often said that magic was only limited by imagination- though there were, of course, some other limitations too.

“I know that this may seem repetitive, but do pay attention, this information could save your life and inspire greatness in you.” Professor Dein shifted his weight before continuing, “It was Lord Xera II who started the requirements of reteaching fundamentals every year to all magic students.”

Professor Dein turned around to the large chalk board behind him and picked up a white piece of chalk.

“The requirement to reteach magical fundamentals every year came about due to the defeat of the great Magic King Xera II by, what he considered, a simpleton of magic.” The Professor continued, “Lord Xera II was considered by many to be the greatest magician of his century, however, one day during a magic duel he was defeated by a young man of no background and no status. This young man was able to defeat Lord Xera II not with intricate spells and beautiful magic circles, but with the most basic of magics.”

Professor Dein wrote out several notes on the chalk board, summarizing what he was talking about.

“Due to this defeat Lord Xera II came to understand the importance of enhancing fundamentals and projecting magic using imagination. So, class, let us talk about the schools of magic which exist.”

The Professor drew a perfect circle on the board, a truly impressive feat, and then split the circle multiple times. The circle listed; Light, Nature, Water, Creation, Darkness, Wind, Fire, and Energy inside of the outer ring. The circle was then split once more on the inside to reveal other magics.

“As you are aware, there are eight elemental magical affinities, as well as two non-elemental affinities. I have written for you, on the board, the names of the elemental magical affinities. Who can tell me what the non-elemental magical affinities are?” the professor asked, scanning the room with his eyes.

“You, there.” The professor pointed at one of the students in the mid-section of the room.

“Holy, Divine, and theoretically void.” A pretty girl with freckles and glasses answered.

The Professor nodded his head.

“Holy and Divine are correct. Void is still a bit of a fringe theory and not one we will discuss in fundamentals.” The professor wrote Holy and Divine on the board.

“Now, who can tell me the difference between Holy and Divine magics? You, there.” The professor pointed at a boy sitting at the back of the classes.

The boy dutifully stood up to answer.

“Uh, well, Holy magic requires a god to fulfill the request and isn’t always guaranteed to work and divine magic is the god’s magic itself.” The boy paused for a second before sitting back down.

“Correct.” The professor turned around and began writing on the board again. “As you are aware, divine magic is a god’s very magic itself. The difference between holy magic and divine magic is that holy magic involves the god casting the spell on behalf of the requestor, whereas divine magic is the god giving the power to the requestor to use the spell themselves. Now let’s talk about the only three divine magic users in history.” The professor moved over slightly to make more room on the chalk board.

“The progenitor of human magic whose name has been lost to history, the first hero, and the first demon lord.”

The professor turned around, scanning the room again, stopping his eye on a boy who was slacking off. The boy shivered and sat up straight.

“We will discuss the history of these three in another class.” The professor walked back over to the circle with elemental magics that he had created earlier.

“Each person has what is called an inherent magic affinity. Magic casters are able to use this affinity without any chanting, magic circles, or alchemy. Magic casters are also able to use the magic of the affinity adjacent to them on this chart by chanting. A caster’s inherent magic will always be the strongest, even without a chant. The advantage to chanting and using the neighboring affinities is to create combination spells. As an example, a light user can use light magic mixed with chanted nature magic to heal.”

The professor eyed the class.

“This is why imagination is important. New combinations are always being discovered.”

The professor looked up at the iron clock at the back of the class.

“Alright, that is all for today, you are released.” The professor shood the students with a hand gesture.

Lily quickly stood up, leaving the classroom. She rushed out of the inner-court area and into the Labyrinth dive room, located outside of the main walls of the academy.

Lily arrived in front of large, stained marble megaliths. The Labyrinth dive room was located in the midst of ancient ruins of an unknown origin. The ruins curved outwards in two directions towards a central mausoleum which contained the labyrinth entrance. The ruins themselves had anti-magic properties that ironically helped contain the monsters within from escaping. Lily stared outwards towards the tower structures. The wind blew gently across her, bringing a rush of warmth and the smell of trees and grass. A smile broke out across her face. Lily had lost much in her life, but her feelings of pride from her magic and combat abilities gave her a feeling of control. She was excited to once again dive into the school’s labyrinth. She hoped to prove to herself that she was continuing to grow more powerful.

“Lily!” A young man’s voice called out from behind.

Lily tuned around, seeing three familiar figures. The boy who had called out to her was Ardi. He was a one gold star scout from the house of Lowdark. A house that specializes in shadow warfare and assassination. He was naturally gifted at intelligence gathering due to his sincere personality and extreme charisma. He had the ability to befriend anyone and find any secret. His dark hair and dark eyes seemed to glimmer even in their shadow.

Next to him was Manrin. Lily called him Manny as a nickname. Lily had known Manrin for some time, as he was a member of the same house as Meimei, Greenclaw. Manrin was a nature magician who specialized in plant manipulation. Manrin was wearing thick wood rimmed glasses and a green robe. Although Manrin struggled in areas with little plant life, in a forest he could likely easily defeat a platinum rank mage. That was his plan, as he was one of the few three gold star mages, along with Lily. Manrin pushed up his glasses as Lily looked at him. For Manrin, adjusting his glasses was a sign of respect and greeting.

Straggling behind the other two was the final member of the Labyrinth dive party. Wearing priest’s robes, the party’s main healer and anti-curse magician took their last few steps to join everyone else. The last member was the second female of the group, although she purposely tried to look as masculine as possible. The group never fully grasped her circumstances, but they knew it was probably something they shouldn’t dig into. Rel was a priest, typically a profession that only allowed men. However, her golden hair and soft face gave away the truth of her disposition.

“You really need to work on your stamina.” Lily sighed.

“Sorry!” Rel answered with a depressed look.

Ardi stepped forward towards the entrance to the mausoleum.

“Well, let’s begin our dive.” He said with confidence and excitement.

The party looked towards the crypt doors; a smell of death creeped out towards them. Labyrinth diving was exciting, but also very dangerous.