"Are they still looking?"

"Who cares if they are, Trin?"

"I do. It's uncomfortable."

"It's irrelevant."

Trin sighed as she fixed her eyes on the bowl of cereal she had in front of her. It had been a month since she literally woke up in a different world. She thought that her peers would find something more interesting than her to gossip about other than her by now. But that was a tall order for anyone to ask of them. Her presence was a sign of looming darkness. And it helped nothing that since her first burst of magic in Captain L.J's class, Trin did nothing of significance in preceding lessons.

Conjuring was about as easy to Trin as pigs grasping the concept of flight. Sometimes she thought it was down to her lack of exposure to this world as compared to all the other rookies in her class. 

But that notion just didn't hold because of the abnormality that was called Kay Lee.

The girl was a natural for one who wasn't of any known Amargon decent. Captain L.J himself could not fault her conjuring when the two girls began his class. She was almost Captain Star's equal in that regard and Trin knew only a matter of time would show how good her friend was going to be.

"You aren't the one who's a signal for darkness' decent. You'd feel different about the stares."

Kay Lee opened her mouth to speak a response but thought better of it and turned back to her breakfast. She had lived with Trin long enough to know few things could cheer the girl up when she got moody.

Fortunately, one thing that did the trick happened to be their next class with the handsome Captain L.J. Practical training was a reprieve from the stares and whispers as people were too busy trying to understand how they were going to manipulate their magic. That and Trin got to openly stare at L.J's face for at least three hours without it seeming weird.

"Good morning, Rookies. Another bright day in the lands of Sage means another fabulous morning for Conjuring."

Trin wondered if there was anything that dampened that ever sunny mood of the wild captain. He was perpetually smiling slyly when she passed him in the Jade Palace hallways. Sometimes it felt like he was watching her, waiting for the moment only he knew would come.

He was hot enough that Trin thought he should get away with staring at her intently and walk away smiling.

"Today, I have a nice little surprise for you. But first, Sir Elton has specifically instructed me that I must under no circumstance-" he paused to draw a paper from his jacket's breast pocket, "-allow the students to attempt anything above the level of a Rookie unless I favour severe punishment as a good form of pass time activity."

It was still surpassing to Trin that her father was the leader of an entire nation. Going by the information Kay Lee gave her, the Amargonian lands were as huge as countries on Earth. It was also a sad notion that she had to find out her father's name when she was seventeen years of age, but she chose not to be bothered by it. Aside from his visit to her in the Infirmary a month ago, they had never crossed paths again in the palace. She and Kay Lee were among the few to live there along with the multitude of servants.

Kay Lee's reason was that she had no house in Amargon. Trin's was because the castle was her father's property and her home by default.

"Such a shame," if Trin did not know any better, she would have actually thought the crestfallen look L.J had now was humour. The man was known to be unconventional in his way of life. That note just might save every Rookie in the captain's class today.

"Back to business though. All of you seem to have a good command of the very basic concepts of Conjuring. Now I'm about to show you how to put all you've learned from theory and practice into actual combat."

L.J unceremoniously stripped off his jacket and tossed it on a nearby tree branch, leaving him with a tight-fitting black vest that seemed to accentuate every curve of his abs. Kay Lee's longing sigh almost had Trin laughing out loud. She completely understood how her friend felt.

"Up until now, I've taught you the very basic steps of what Conjuring is. Your energy merging with the energy of your element is basically all you need to produce a simple conjure. Concentration and focus determined the shape and power of the element you infuse your own aura into. But there are times when your element is not particularly close to your aura... or rather you need an extra bit of power to overcome an enemy. That's when you turn to your two greatest weapons; Gim and Gom."

The captain joined his palms together, the tips of his fingers facing towards the ground and closed his eyes in concentration. There was a moment of silence before Trin felt a shift in the air around her. There was a slight rumble in the ground before the soil started to swirl and rise in the shape of a gate before them. Kay Lee was just about to touch it when from both its sides erupted more soil that surrounded them all and took shape of a closed fence.

"Ok, that was pretty amazing," Kay Lee's comment went largely unheard by all the exclamations of wonder and amazement at L.J's conjure. Until now, all they had been doing was raising inanimate objects that didn't move about on their own. Even in Captain Destro's hand-to-hand combat classes, the martial arts training which Trin detested almost as badly as Captain Star's theory lectures, they rarely ever made anything to fight each other with except for weapons like soil shields and rock swords.

"That, my precious students, is what happens when you infuse both Gim and Gom into your conjures," L.J drew everyone's attention back to him, "Until now, you've been using the negative side of your Aura to produce conjures. This is your Gom, which in ancient Arcian language means dark. Gom is the physical side of your Aura, the literal energy one needs to run a mile, lift a sack of wood and all that strenuous stuff. When we infuse Gom into the Earth, we have the ability to make inanimate objects emerge, like the gate here."

Trinity wondered if that was the same thing he had been teaching them because of every inanimate object any Rookie was conjuring in L.J's classes, only Kay Lee's could come close to resemble the amount of detail his gate conjure had.

"Infusing Gim into your conjure is a completely different scenario. If your Gom is the dark side of your Aura, then Gim is the pure light of your spirit that doesn't bend to your will easily. Gim can best be described as energy from your life force. Breathing, thinking and emotions are all a part of how your Gim functions. That's why infusing Gim Aura into conjures is... problematic. Can anyone hazard a guess as to why that is?"

Like the rest of the times when a question has been asked in class, the well-manicured hand shot up straight to the sky, its owner standing on tiptoes to try and have it seen by L.J. The girl's codename was Princess, a topic Kay Lee found too good to pass without further enquiry as to why the girl chose that name. The reason ended up being boring according to Kay Lee as the girl simply viewed herself in that light.

Trin thought that she was alright since she stared and whispered less than everyone else behind her back. Maybe she was too busy playing royalty in her head.

"Because too much of your life force leaving your body means you die?"

"Preciously. Magic is not part of our original makeup as human beings. When we use our Gom Aura too much, our stamina depletes until fatigue makes us immovable. Not an issue as you just rest and you're good as new tomorrow. But when we infuse too much Gim, we risk death by our own sword. That's why knowing one's aura limits is as essential in any battle as the rain to the crops in the fields. And that's what I will attempt to lead each one of you in discovering today."

Captain L.J's lesson proceeded with more complex notions on the different stances and mindsets needed to manipulate Gim. True to his words, none of the Rookies, not even the brilliant Kay Lee, could produce one conjure infused with Gim. It seemed almost impossible to Trin that any other energy existed within her. All she managed to do was make inanimate objects that could barely survive a single hit from an enemy before they crumbled back to the ground.

"I think we'll call it a day here," L.J spoke up and barely dodged the block of stone that was hurled his way by someone's unsuccessful Gim infusion, "Wouldn't want you all fatigued before Champion Selection next week."

There was an eruption of murmurs all around as L.J disbanded the group. Times like these reminded Trin that she was not quite at home here in Sage. The event L.J mentioned must have been long-awaited because no one was looking her way when she and Kay Lee were walking back to the palace. They were in their room when Trin realized Kay Lee was just as excited about the news as everyone else had been back in training.

"Finally! It's finally starting!"

Trin couldn't help but smile at her friend squeaking like she was ten again and rolling around on her bed. She looked so carefree that Trin was reluctant to ruin her pleasure with the question of just what Champion Selection was.

<Would you like me to elaborate?> It had been a long while since Val last spoke in her head that Trin did a small jump before she asked the dextor to proceed.

<Champion Selection is an annual event in the Lands of Sage to determine who is eligible for the Inter Clan Ranking Exams. That is where one's rank is upgraded, or downgraded, depending on the display they put forth. It is also a tool used to measure the level of power from each clan of Amargon.>

Trin immediately understood why her friend was happy with her eligibility to participate in these competitions. Since her coming to these lands, Kay Lee had always been treated as an outsider. Not equally as bad as Trin, but still someone many people recognized as inferior due to her unknown heritage. Aside from the Captains and the General, many individuals thought she had no business joining the ranks of Sage Conjurors.

"We are so going to kickass at the tournament," Kay Lee's voice sounded from the bathroom and Trin sighed. Just like Kay Lee, she wanted to prove she was just as good as everyone born in Sage. The problem was unlike Kay Lee, she wasn't very confident in her conjuring skills.