The lesson took place outside.
Along with twenty other students, you sat in front of a sorcerer - your instructor. Her familiar was a lizard with a horn. It scampered up her, trailing white mist that faded away.
"Consider," she said, "this stone." She nudged a pebble by her foot. It spun once before coming to a halt.
You peered at it intently; everyone did. Each and every one of you stared at it intensely, trying to pry some meaning from it.
Eventually, a girl ventured: "It's a pebble?"
"Precisely. There is nothing special about it. It is merely a pebble, an object made up of the same things that make up the floor you are sitting on right now." She paused. "Now, consider yourselves. Tell me what you have in common with this pebble."
A boy answered immediately. "We're made up of the same things that make up it."
"Exactly. In a sense, you could say that this makes up you." The instructor bent down and picked up the stone. She threw it. The pebble bounced off the ground once and came to rest a few meters away. "And despite us being made out of the same things, I had complete control over it."
She scanned the crowd, making sure that everyone was paying attention. They were. You all were. "This is your first lesson, and it is the most important. Things hold dominance over that which creates them. Remember this."
<->
And indeed it was your most important lesson. It formed the basis for how magic worked, after all. If a man could hold such power over a stone, despite being only slightly more complex and complete, then how much more power did the spirit realm hold over this one?
The answer was: it had absolute dominance.
At its core, sorcery was simple. By stepping over into the spirit realm, one could mould it with their will and imagination - it was, after all, a place of dreams and thought. And by expending energy, a sorcerer could temporarily make the two worlds one for a moment. In that moment, the spirit realm would overlay this one, and overwrite it. In this way, sorcerers held absolute dominance over the physical world.
The effect was also seen in familiars - the presence your sacrificed half had on the spirit realm was significant enough that it distorted it, therefore causing a physical effect to manifest on the physical realm as well.
Of course, a question was asked: "Why? Why were things that way? Why was this relationship this way, instead of the other way around?"
The answer was that it simply was. Oh, there were hypotheses, of course. A popular one was that in the beginning, before the spirit realm was so defined, humans saw the effect they had on their surroundings and that belief on how they related to the world around them caused this fundamental aspect of the spirit realm to emerge.
But in the end it was all just conjecture. Ideas that no one could test nor confirm.
What was not conjecture, however, were your final lessons. Your last month here was spent getting used to your weakened body, as well as practical lessons in magic.
You learnt about the Image - the imprint a sorcerer would form upon the spirit realm with his will. How that once an Image was formed, it was difficult for anyone other than the sorcerer that formed it to change it, as they had to contend against the will of the sorcerer and the stability of the Image itself. How that even though it was difficult to change it as a whole, it was possible to make small changes even if a sorcerer was far weaker.
Techniques on fighting other sorcerers. How that one could make a small change to an Image and merge the two realms, hopefully resulting in something that was beneficial to you. How to pace yourself making mergings so that you didn't become exhausted, and that the amount of energy a merging required depended on its area. That merging caused the slate to be 'wiped clean', so a well timed merge could allow a sorcerer to seize the advantage. The absolute territory - a small area around that you could always mould to your liking due to the distortion your other half formed in the spirit realm.
You also spent some time familiarizing yourself with your familiar. It possessed tremendous physical strength and could make tentacles that was as small as a ribbon, or big enough to haul enormous stone blocks around. Sadly enough, it hadn't shown any peculiar abilities yet - or if it did possess them, you hadn't found out yet.
<->
You take a look around the courtyard. A month ago, it was nearly filled.
Now, it held seventeen. Those who had survived.
The man that spoke to you the other day was one of you, though his legs were paralyses now and he required a contraption to move around. A wheelchair, they called it. He kept fiddling with his pendant in nervousness.
Well, everyone's nervous as well. You keep clenching and unclenching your hands. A girl hugs her familiar - a white, spherical blob.
A door at the side opens and an old man walks out. All of you fall silent.
Lord Danus. The oldest, and almost certainly most powerful sorcerer alive.
He wastes no time making introductions.
"As you all know, we do not care for status or wealth. We accept all who are capable of body and mind, and we do not place any obligations on you when you leave, nor do we enforce any kind of behavior on you, save for your own morals and ethics." His eyes are a piercing green, and when they pass over you you feel as though he's looking at your soul at the same time. You don't doubt that on some level, he is. "There is only one exception.
"And that is to defend the barrier, and aid in its reconstruction should it ever fall. Should you be found to be derelict in this duty, you will be killed. Do not take this as a threat; it is merely a fact." His eyes pass over you again. "That is all.
"You are dismissed."
Following that, he disappears back through the door from which he came.
For a minute, everyone stays in place. They the man in the wheelchair - you never learnt his name - moves away, his familiar fluttering behind him. The rest starts to move as well, most of them with purpose.
Which is something you don't have. You haven't thought about it until now, but what do you want to do?
[X] Become an adventurer. Or less charitably, a mercenary. Survival's important, after all, and you certainly have a head start in this field.
[X] Take on barrier duty. Maintaining the barrier is the sole responsibility sorcerer's as a whole have. While it provides steady pay, you might have to fight the occasional wild elemental, and if you're unfortunate, a god.
[X] ... banditry? To be honest, this is pretty distasteful, but you have no doubt you'll be successful. You'll have to worry about people hiring other sorcerer's to go after you though.
[X] Write in.
The University provided you with enough money to get to any of the seventeen major nations, if you forgo protection. Obviously, they expect you to be able to protect yourself. Where do you go?
[X] Yelind. Primarily known for bordering a sea, it is a country that survives by maritime trade, although it does produce some things itself.
[X] Incal. Rolling hills and forests are what makes up most of it. Primarily known for housing the Immortal Child.
[X] Vellanda. A forested country, it is notable for the lava elementals - demons -that reside there and provide it with enchanted weaponry.
[X] Write in. So basically, I don't have the patience (or the time) to develop seventeen distinct places right now. Just write in an environment (pretty much everything from deserts to tundra to mountains to on the sea is acceptable) and stuff of note about it. It can be from floating to advanced technology (this makes sense). Heck, you can have a floating country kept flying with tech. Just give me a bit of room to work with. I retain the right to veto anything to ludicrous.
