The Academy of Arcane Sciences in the capital city of Oakhaven was a fortress of limestone, brass astrolabes, and noble arrogance. Derek stood in the testing chamber, his ragged commoner’s tunic drawing snickers from the velvet-clad noble applicants.

Professor Vane, a sour-faced archmage with a monocle, pointed at a three-ton block of reinforced ironwood. “Candidate Derek. Demonstrate your mastery of the Tier-1 Firebolt spell. You have three attempts.”

Derek didn’t recite the standard twenty-line hymn to the Fire Goddess. Instead, he observed the ambient mana particles in the room, calculating the oxygen-to-nitrogen ratio with his trained chemist’s mind.

He snapped his fingers. A blue, laser-thin beam of pure pressurized thermal plasma shot from his index finger. It didn't explode with loud fanfare; it silently bored a smoking, two-inch hole straight through the three-foot ironwood block and melted the granite wall behind it into liquid glass.

Professor Vane’s monocle dropped from his eye and shattered on the floor.