---
The sun crept over the horizon, bleeding light across the rooftops of the village. Mist clung low to the ground, curling through moss-covered stones like a living thing. Calem awoke early, as he had every day for the past month, his body already adjusted to the rhythm of this world.
He rubbed his eyes with small fists—still not used to the softness of this new form. His limbs were longer now than when he had first arrived, though still nowhere near adult proportions. Growth in this world, it seemed, followed different rules—or perhaps time flowed oddly here.
He stepped out of the hut Anla had given him. Dew chilled his bare feet, but he didn't flinch. Cold was familiar. Earth was real. Every discomfort reminded him that this body, this world, was not a dream.
I can't afford to forget where I came from, he thought.
Even now, the memory of his daughter's laugh echoed in his mind. The scent of his wife's shampoo. The dull hum of the city outside their window. He clung to those memories like lifelines, afraid they might vanish if he let them slip too far behind.
He glanced toward the village square where the others were gathering.
---
The training yard buzzed with life.
Children—none older than twelve—lined up before a wide circle of engraved stones. At its center stood Elder Nyren, the ancient mage with eyes like liquid gold and skin like weathered bark. His long robe shimmered faintly with patterns Calem had begun to understand as glyphwork—woven spells etched directly into fabric.
"Essentia flows from within," Nyren said in the native tongue. "But it is shaped by truth. Until you grasp that truth, your magic will remain no more than imitation."
Calem stood at the back of the group, listening. He'd spent countless hours studying Nyren's words, watching his hand motions, memorizing the structure of his sentences. He was far from fluent, but he understood enough now to follow the basic lesson.
Nyren raised a hand and whispered something barely audible.
A translucent circle appeared in the air. Within it, hundreds of glyphs spun and aligned in precise sequences. A moment later, a burst of blue-white flame erupted skyward—not chaotic, but elegant, spiraling like a dancer's ribbon before fading to smoke.
The children gasped. Even Calem was impressed.
"That," Nyren said, "is not just magic. That is attainment."
He turned slowly, letting the words settle.
"An Attainer does not merely cast—they become. To master fire, you must understand fire. Its hunger. Its warmth. Its destruction. Only then will it obey without rebellion."
Calem's eyes narrowed. This was it—his first glimpse into the deeper principles.
Magic wasn't just willpower or gestures. It was philosophy. Essence obeyed those who resonated with it.
---
Later that day, Calem sat alone in the hut Anla had set aside for him. He had asked for charcoal, and she'd brought him a handful. With them, he now sketched glyphs into the floorboards, practicing what little he'd learned.
🜁 – Air
🜄 – Water
🜂 – Fire
🜃 – Earth
Each glyph glowed faintly when he focused on it. Some fizzled. Others flared. None obeyed fully.
Because I don't understand them yet.
But he was beginning to.
On Earth, he had studied engineering—systems, logic, structure. This world's magic was alien, but beneath the unfamiliar language lay rules. He could feel it. The way energy flowed through glyphs, the way Essentia responded to intent—there was a framework.
In the evenings, he wandered to the edge of the forest where old stones stood like sentinels. There, he sat and observed the world—watched how animals reacted to magical flora, how light bent strangely near certain plants. Occasionally, he caught glimpses of robed travelers moving through the trees, their glyphs woven into cloaks that whispered against the wind.
He never approached them.
Yet one day, someone approached him.
---
It happened near dusk. He was etching glyphs into the dirt when he felt it—a presence behind him. Quiet, but deliberate.
He turned.
A girl stood watching him. Slightly older—maybe ten or eleven—with raven-black hair tied in twin braids and eyes the color of cold iron. She wore a faded apprentice robe, and a small book was strapped to her hip with etched clasps.
"You're not from here," she said in the local tongue. Her dialect was slightly different, sharper, but he understood.
Calem froze. No one had directly acknowledged that before. Not like this.
She stepped closer, eyeing his crude glyphs. "Those are wrong."
"I'm… learning," he replied cautiously.
She knelt beside him, picked up a twig, and redrew the glyph for fire. This time, it had two additional slashes across the center.
"This is kheran. Not just flame—living flame. Fire that consumes but doesn't die."
He stared. That was new. An advanced form?
"Your resonance is shallow," she said. "But there's depth hidden inside."
"Who are you?"
She smirked faintly. "Lira."
Then she stood, brushed off her robe, and turned away. "If you want to survive here, stop acting like a broken stone."
He blinked. "Wait—how do you know I'm not—?"
But she was already gone.
---
That night, he couldn't sleep.
Lira had spoken to him like she knew—not just that he was foreign, but that he didn't belong in this world. Was she from Earth? Another transmigrator? Or just perceptive?
He sat up and opened the cloth journal Anla had given him. It wasn't much—just rough parchment sewn together—but he'd filled it with notes. Translations. Observations. Theories.
He turned to a blank page and wrote:
> Attainments are not just levels.
They are internalizations of natural truths.
Each level grants not just strength, but understanding.
There is no brute path to becoming an Archmage.
One must resonate with the essence of the world.
If Archmages can bend reality, then perhaps… they can cut through it.
He paused.
And below, wrote:
> Goal: Become an Archmage.
Find a way home.
No matter what it takes.
---
Attainment Levels (As overheard in Elder Nyren's lectures and village whispers):
1. Flicker Initiate – Can produce unstable elemental sparks; glyphs barely resonate.
2. Ember-Touched – Minor control over one element. Glyphs show consistency.
3. Essentia Weaver – Able to channel Essentia smoothly; begins crafting compound glyphs.
4. Elemental Scholar – Understands elemental natures; can cast mid-tier spells with control.
5. Truth-Seeker – Gains insight into nature's "truths." Resonates with ambient magic.
6. Sigil Binder – Able to store spells, enchant items, and bind glyphs into objects.
7. Mystic Architect – Can manipulate localized space, create magical structures.
8. Worldlistener – Can sense fluctuations in ley-lines and natural laws.
9. Veilwalker – Rumored to transcend space, time, or reality itself. Rare.
10. Archmage – Unknown. No recorded path. Possibly myth.
---