Class continued until midafternoon and when it was time to go home, Damion asked if he could take his book home to read, but the teacher did not allow it. He had hoped to go through the book and let the system record all the magic seals. What Damion did not realize was that taking the book home would not have resulted in him learning more magic seals. The only magic seal in the entire book was Minor Heal.
For the first few weeks of school, Damion was quite excited. He was able to learn quite a few new things, especially about magic and knights. One of the most surprising things he learned was that magic seals were not as simple as he first thought. A spell like Minor Heal was a tier one spell and it was the only type of magic seal that could be recorded on paper.
Tier one spells' magic seals were one dimensional, meaning all their runes and circles could be laid flat and recorded in a book. For higher tier spells this was not possible. Each tier of spell increased the complexity of their magic seals. Damion had yet to see a tier two or higher magic seal, so he was not sure what it meant to be too complex to be copied down to paper, but the question of how these magic seals were passed down when they could not be recorded in a book greatly intrigued him.
After the initial excitement of learning new things began to wear off, Damion started to get bored in class. He would do his best to pay attention, but much of what Mrs. Colman was teaching were things that he already knew or had already learned from reading the books his parents had. As the school days continued to pass, Damion took it upon himself to begin reading ahead in his schoolbook after he had finished the day's assignments.
Mrs. Colman at first wanted Damion to pay attention in class and not set a bad example for the other students. The day she got on to him for reading ahead and not paying attention, Damion turned in all the workbook assignments for the week. After checking his answers, Mrs. Colman found he had answered all of the questions correctly. Not wanting to risk further embarrassment, she simply asked him to make sure he kept up with his classwork.
By the third month of school, Damion was feeling his mental age and was becoming frustrated with his schooling. He understood the other students in his class were still learning and mastering things like written grammar and arithmetic, but for him such lessons were mind numbing.
One morning as all the students were arriving for class, Damion asked Mrs. Colman a question. "As I have already finished my work for this week, may I go read in the library?"
"Do you know the way?" Mrs. Colman asked in return, secretly thankful this bright little troublemaker would be out of sight and out of mind, at least for the day.
"I just follow the signs past the cafeteria," Damion answered.
"Alright, here is a hall pass for you," Mrs. Colman said hastily scribbling a note. "As long as your assignments for the week are done, you may read in the library whenever you like."
When Damion heard Mrs. Colman, he wanted to shout for joy, but he restrained himself to a simple 'thank you,' and headed to the library. His main goal in the library was to see if he could find a book with magic seals covering a wide variety of magic affinities. The hope was that one of the magic seals would allow him to figure out his magic affinity.
On arriving at the library Damion handed Mrs. Colman's note to the librarian, an elderly woman with grey hair and light blue eyes whose nameplate read 'Ms. Helga Teft – Head Librarian,' at the front desk who looked up from a large book she was ready to scrutinize the note and Damion for a moment before finally handing the note back to him.
"Are there any books in particular you would like to read?" the elderly librarian asked.
"Is there a book that has a lot of magic seals with different affinities in it?" Damion asked. If he could find a book that had magic seals with a variety of affinities it would save him a lot of time. Otherwise, he would have to leaf through a large number of books, which would undoubtedly be suspicious.
"This is not a school of magic," Ms. Teft answered. "Students here are all too young to learn or control magic, so we don't stock magic books."
"Then how are we supposed to figure out what our magic affinity is?"
"Every few years the magic schools in the White Zones send their teachers out to test kids in the Green and Yellow Zones. They have a tool that can read a person's affinity and their magic aptitude."
"Really!" Damion exclaimed. If such a tool existed, it would surely help him figure out his affinity and then he could work on figuring out how to get ahold of the right magic seals to learn spells.
"Shush" Ms. Teft said upset with Damion's outburst.
"Sorry," Damion sulked. "Do you know when the next time those magic teachers will be coming to our town?"
"Really want to be a mage hmm? Well, I haven't heard anything, but it has been a couple of years, so more than likely they'll come by in the near future. Six months, a year at most I would guess from their past schedules."
This news was both exciting and disappointing for Damion. He could get tested and find out his affinity, but he had to wait a few months, perhaps even a year, before he could get tested.
"Since you don't have any books on magic seals, can you perhaps suggest a book for me. I've already read all my class books."
"How old are you?"
"Six," Damion answered.
"Hmmm. Six years old is far too young to try and memorize a magic seal. But I do happen to have a book here that you might be interested in." The librarian closed the hefty book in front of her and placed it on the counter causing Damion's eyes to widen when he saw how thick it was. "This isn't exactly a book with a list of magic seals, though it does have quite a few in it. This book actually is all about the theory of magic and the making of magic seals."
Damion reached up and pulled the book off the counter. Its weight nearly knocked him over when it slid off the counter into his arms. The book was nearly as large as he was, but thankfully, he had been diligently exercising every day since he learned to walk, making him fairly strong for his age and he was able to handle the book.
Damion awkwardly carried the book over to a table and slid it up before climbing into a chair and got to work. The title of the book, 'Hermetics Study of Magic Seals' was emblazed in gold on the cover. The first thing he checked and was happy to find was a table of contents. The book was broken up into sections for various magic affinities. Judging from the chapter titles in each section, the book was a study of magic theories for different affinities and how they interacted together.
Damion was not sure if he was ready for such an in-depth study of magic, but he supposed now was as good a time as any to start.