The Hunter Mage

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The next lineup had Nevil as the only boy and they got to work as soon Pam gave the signal. Vernon immediately heard a snap, he had been distracted by watching Vernon that it took him a while to realize where the sound was coming from.

Pam gasped in appreciation and clapped her hands together. Vernon looked down to find the seed in front of Nevil. For some reason, he figured it was his. He immediately spotted what he was looking for and shock immediately showed on his face.

The seed had cracked but not just that there was a little green leaf sticking out of it. He felt pride and then the usual feeling he got whenever he saw Nevil at work rushed through him, it was quite nostalgic.

He looked on expecting more, wondering how big Nevil would be able to let it grow. There was a huge silence as everybody watched Nevil even the rest of the people in his lineup stopped trying to get their seed to grow and concentrated on him.

However, it didn't take long for them to figure out that, that was it and the little seedling wasn't getting any bigger than that and it immediately became anticlimactic.

Nevil's magic was still better than the rest but it had started so well that they had all expected so much more so, it did feel a little let down when more didn't come.

Pam's clap interrupted the huge silence and everybody else followed her lead. Nevil looked prideful but the tinge of disappointment could be seen on his face.

"Would that be all?" Pam asked the rest of the students in Nevil's lineup. "Or you all still want to try again." They all shook their heads but Nevil looked puzzled. "What is it, Nevil?"

"Well," he started to say but paused a little. "It feels a little weird, for some reason I can't seem to expand it as usual. I keep wondering where the rest is coming from…" he paused awkwardly again but this time he didn't stare into space rather he looked straight at Pam as he waited for an answer.

Pam sighed before she spoke. "I don't have magic Nevil so, you're going to have to figure this out yourself or hope that someone else does and explains it."

"I know," he replied as he stepped away, frowning a little. He made sure not to glance in Vernon's direction as he joined the larger group.

Pam placed a new set of seeds in front of the new line up and they got to work. They were at it for a full five minutes before something happened. One of the seeds started to shake a little but that was it. There wasn't any c***k let alone anything close to what Nevil had done.

"That was very impressive," Pam said after all was said and done. She clapped her hands as she spoke, cheering the children on. "Vernon, do you want to try at it?"

Vernon's eyes widened in reaction to her question, there was no way he was going to try anything like that. It was already hard enough for the children who had nature magic, to talk less about him who didn't have any. "No, I'm good." He replied, stretching his palms out and taking a step back.

"Come on, Vernon. How else would you know if you can?" She asked with a cheery smile as she beamed at him.

Vernon closed his eyes tightly for about a second. He could tell there was no getting out of this and stalling was just increasing the amount of time people's attention on him. He sighed loudly, "I guess I could try."

Pam's already huge smile tripled and quickly shooed the children out of the way so Vernon could make his way to the stage. He slowly walked and when he got there, he stopped. Pam's reaction was automatic, she immediately placed a seed in front of him.

Vernon quickly looked around but not long enough that he made eye contact with anyone. Just ran a glance over everyone before concentrating on the seed in front of him. This was going to be beyond embarrassing. He could already tell.

He got into a weird stance as he was completely unsure of what to do and there was this assurance at the back of his mind that it was going to be a total disaster. He would probably laugh about it sometime in the future he hoped.

He had his right foot slightly in front of the left one, not directly in front that they were crossed rather in front but at a comfortable distance apart. He felt his nerves make their way from the sole of his feet upwards, slowly.

He swallowed and stretched out his hand like he had seen everyone do. Actually, like he had seen Nevil do and it felt kind of nostalgic. Him watching Nevil at the plant making some plant grow weirdly and then returning it back to its original shape.

He smiled briefly, about a millisecond as he wondered if he would even be able to do that. He closed his eyes and tried to feel for his nana like Cavin had taught him. He wasn't exactly sure what he was looking for but he figured if he found it, he would know.

He felt himself go warmer but he wasn't sure if he was imagining things but he figured he was definitely imagining things and it was just his hope causing him to feel like something was going on when in an actual sense nothing was.

He opened his eyes praying that some magic would work even though a great part of him knew it wouldn't but he wasn't completely hopeless yet and more than anything at the moment, he wanted to be able to use magic. He needed a little bright side to his upside-down world.

He was grabbling for scraps here but he was at the point where he would take anything even just the ability to c***k open a tiny seed. To feel he wasn't completely useless. It was funny how for years, he had tried to hide the fact that he didn't have magic, only to discover he didn't have magic. Oh, the irony.

If he thought that he could go home, he would have gladly taken it but Captain Robbin said that the fact that his eyes glowed meant that was completely out of the question for him. Was he a sham? Or he actually had magic and didn't know what it was?