The students found their way to Workshop Delta, a large, high-ceilinged hall that smelled of herbs and minerals, polished stone, and the faint, metallic textured walls. Unlike the high-tech amphitheater of Mana Theory, this space felt like a hybrid between an ancient alchemist's lab and a modern engineering bay. Workbenches of dark, scarred wood were equipped with crystal prisms, copper wire coils, and basins of different elemental substrates—pools of water, beds of soil, braziers of cold flame, fans generating gentle breezes, and insulated lightning rods.
At the front of the room, leaning casually against the central demonstration table, was their teacher. He was young, perhaps only in his late twenties, with sharp features, clever eyes, and an easy smile that seemed to promise both knowledge and mischief. He wore the standard instructor's grey, but his tunic was unbuttoned at the collar, and he had the lean, ready look of someone who'd seen recent field work.
"Welcome to the sandbox," he said, his voice carrying a warm, confident timbre that immediately quieted the murmuring students. "I'm Instructor Kael. This is where we take that spark inside you and learn how to not accidentally set your trousers on fire with it. Or, in some cases, how to actually manage to set something on fire."
A ripple of nervous laughter went through the room. Oliver, Leo, Elara, and Ilana found benches together near the middle.
"Practical Applications is divided," Kael explained, pushing off from the table and beginning to pace. "I will handle the theory behind application—the principles, the laws of interaction, the 'why' behind the 'how.' The actual hands-on drills, the sweat and singed eyebrows, will be run by my fellow instructor, Proctor Vex. Consider her… my more physically demonstrative counterpart. I leave her to your imagination for now." He winked, and a few students exchanged wary glances, having already met Proctor Grath.
"But before we dive into making you marginally less dangerous to yourselves," Kael continued, his tone turning more focused, "we must address the ghost in the room. The thing haunting your every glance, your every comparison in the mess hall. The *Grade**"
He snapped his fingers, and a large, complex diagram shimmered into existence in the air above him. On one side was a simple, vertical scale divided into six sections. On the other was a list of the five card tiers.
"Confuse!, I shall dispel it. Your Awakening measures your innate potential—your starting point on a very long road. Every living being have affinity toward, all five basic elements( wind, lightning, earth, fire). But! after your awakening ceremony your affinity solidify into two state, first 'dormantstate' and second is 'activestate'. This active state of your affinity is** ElementalAffinityResonance Stage.**"
End of chapter