After waking up and washing I grabbed a bag with my things and headed to the head mare's office and knocked on the door "Come in" as I entered the office, I see Magree the mare who brought me to the orphanage years ago. "Morning Shade you ready to go?"

I nod "Yes mam" she nods back.

After a few moments she gathers her things we leave the orphanage. As we walk through Canterlot we pass through the shopping district and move towards the older part of the city as the buildings get taller and more fancy. We come to the entrance of the library we stop.

"Here" she hands me a packet with my documents "You've been a good colt these years and you've grown so much" she tells me looking me up and down some "Now you behave ok I don't want to hear about you starting trouble now" I give a small simile to her.

"Of course mam, and thank you for taking care of me all these years."

She gives her own smile before giving me a nod and passing me a small piece of paper with some numbers on it "This is the orphanage's address for any mail you want to send and make sure to tell me if you help."

The last part is mixed with some sternness in her voice. "I will, I promise, and thank you again" I say as I put the slip of paper in my bag "Goodbye."

And with that she nods and starts walking back to the orphanage. I turn back to the city library the building is much larger than the others around it. Its style is very similar to the old Roman buildings. With large stone pillars and bricks, and a large front entrance with a fair few ponies coming in and out.

As I make my way inside, I approach the front desk. An elderly unicorn mare is sitting there checking someponys books and putting them in a bag. I wait a few minutes for them to finish before approaching the desk. "What can I do for you sir”? she asks.

"I'm here for an apprenticeship, it should be under the name Shade Evergreen."

She looks a bit surprised. "Oh so you're the new colt joining it's good to see some young ponies interested in learning" she says in a happy tone. "Do you see the door over there" she points with a hoof to a door on the left wall In between some bookshelves. "Go through there and take your first right then it should be the first door on your left."

"Thanks."

As I turn to the door after a few moments I'm at the door I reach out and knock.

"Come in it's open." As I open the door, I see a light green unicorn mare with a blue mane. "Oh so you're our new apprentice" I nod as I enter the office.

"Yes, I'm Shade evergreen nice to meet you."

She nods to a sitting pillow on the floor. "I'm Daisy Scrolls nice to meet you too" As I sit she brings out some forms. "So you will need to sign this it will make you a government employee and this one is for your room" as I look at the papers nothing really noteworthy stands out mostly just a simple document for taxes.

"I was surprised this was a government job to be honest I would have thought it would be under the city's control" I ask as I read through the pages.

Daisy chuckles at that "I thought the same when I took the job but apparently the princess likes to keep the library well-kept most of our funding even comes from her" I pause at that.

"Ha, I never would have guessed that." After a few moments I finish reading and sign my name on both documents. Getting a surprised look from her as I don't use my hoofs but my TK field.

"Well that's a neat trick."

I smile. "Ya I think so too" As I finish signing, I pass the papers back and she looks them over before nodding.

well, everything looks good." She puts the papers on her desk "Follow me I'll give you a tour of where you're going to work." We leave her office.

After showing me the library's layout. She brought me to a breakroom. The room has a few long tables with some cushions to sit on. "This is our break room you can eat or just relax on your break food is served in three meals so you can get breakfast at six, lunch is at two and dinner at seven."

After that we move to a wide hallway full of a few dozen doors as we walk down the hallway. We stop at a door numbered fifty six she hands me a key "This is your room key don't lose it you'll be fined for it."

"Thanks" as I unlock the door and enter the room it's larger than I expected around fifteen by twenty-five feet the left wall has a bed desk and dresser on it the front wall has a decent-sized window the right a small kitchen, a counter top, and oven along with another door leading to a bathroom with a shower and toilet.

"Lot more space than I thought."

Daisy nods "I have your schedule here" She passes it to look at it. I have work tomorrow at seven.

"Thanks again." She smiles.

"No problem, don't forget breakfast is at six, and have a good night Shade" I nod.

"You to Daisy."

After she leaves. I close and lock my door before unpacking my things. Mostly drawing supplies on the desk. :Now that I think about it I don't own much do I? Well, I can buy some stuff when I get paid: It's not too late, so I decided to drop my bags and go read in the library. After locking my door again I made my way to the main library.

As I wander the bookshelves, I see many sections before finding the one I was looking for, runic magic. Only a dozen or so bookshelves for this subject. And being in an out-of-the-way part of the library. I decided to try and find a book for the basics of the craft, hoping to find one to let me improve on my basics. I didn't want to blow myself up so best to start small.

And after some time, I found a book that looked good. It's mostly about different kinds of basic runic spells. And after a bit more time searching, I found another about forming a runic matrix. Most other books seem more advanced than these. So I take them to the front desk and check them out before heading back to my room and getting comfortable.

And after some reading and practice, I go eat the food that's being served. The food itself is nothing really special, mostly some raw and cooked vegetables, fruit, and some hay fries. After saying hello to Daisy, I head back to my room and read some more before showering and heading to bed. I don't want to be late for my first day of work.

After waking up I take a shower after drying off. I go grab one of the books that I got yesterday. And after reading some of it I found out my earlier presumption about a matrix only having math was wrong. Although in hindsight it makes sense as despite the ponies of this world having more knowledge than you'd think they are still less advanced than humans.

The main thing I missed in the first runic book I read was the term symbols. I thought this meant things like plus minus and other math symbols and they do but they also have symbols for other things. A good example is light. If I wanted to show light in a matrix, I would have to use something like the speed of light or its wavelength so the spell would have a starting point to work off of.

But as far as I can tell the beings of Equis don't know the speed of light or about light wavelengths so how do they use something like a basic light spell well they use a symbol to represent light instead as a substitute. This is why there are different names for a spell matrix. There is a pure number matrix for the ones with only math which are the most powerful but also most complex the second type is a mixed matrix having both numbers and symbols being somewhat less stable and weaker also taking more magic to use. And finally, there are pure symbol matrix's being the weakest and least stable taking the most magic to create the same effect.

Although most ponies outside of researchers or spell scribes don't use or really know these terms as it's mostly for somepony doing spell creation. Speaking of spell creation, I've found some texts about it in the small library at the orphanage mostly in warnings about its dangers because you can get hurt when a spell becomes unstable this danger and the difficulty most ponies seem to have with more complex math makes spell creation an uncommon career to attain as higher education is needed. This is one of the main reasons that even in an empire as big as Equestria there are only a few real magic schools, most ponies just don't have the talent or drive to try.

And even then, most only modify a preexisting spell. Only a few truly new spells being made every few years, most being released by the crown, some being made by Celestia herself every so often. For my own mental sake I've decided to abbreviate the matrix names to P.N.M and M.M and finally P.S.M to keep better track of them as an example my first spell would be a P.N.M as it's only numbers.

Another thing is the symbols themselves. Most being words of ancient languages. Although I don't know why they would use an older language rather than a new one. After learning all this I decided to find a book on the runic languages later today although I've realized many of these runes are unnecessary for me as a lot of them are for concepts and things. I already know enough about to use that anyway.

A good example of this is the light spell I practiced last night. I tried to change it by using a specific wavelength instead of the symbol they used and after some minor tweaks. I got it to work, the spell being more stable and giving off more light even using around a quarter less magic to maintain the spell.

But after learning about some of the dangers of modifying a spell I decided to only try on weak spells until I get more experience with the craft. The page I'm reading right now is one of those basic spells being one to create a small flame only about the size of a candle flame. But the spell is one of the more complex beginners' spells.

As I start to draw out my rune matrix. I'm interrupted by a few knocks on my door. I pause my drawing to pick up my key from my desk with my TK field and move it across the room to unlock my door. And after a moment I get the door unlocked and bring my key back to me "It's open come in" I give a light shout.

As the door is pushed open I see Daisy coming through the doorway "Morning Shade sleep well?"

She greets me as she enters my room "Yes you?"

I ask back and she nods "Ya so you ready to go?" I nod.

"Yes, do I need to bring anything?"

"Just your key" After grabbing my key we leave my room. And as we walk down the hall she asks me something. "So what are you reading?"

"Some books on runic magic, why?" she gives a bit of a surprised look.

"You practice runic magic? Wow, I've never met a non-unicorn that uses it."

I turn to her "Really? I would have thought there would be at least a few you've met."

"Nope most ponies that aren't studying it never even learn much about it, I myself know some but not much."

As we entered the break room, we paused our conversation to get food before sitting down and continuing. "Who taught you how to do it?" before I could answer we were interrupted.

"How to do what?"

We turn to see an older-looking pegasus stallion. The stallion looked to be on the older side, some of his main graying and a few wrinkles under his orange eyes. His coat being almost the same color of orange and his red main still visible even with its graying. "Oh hay Blaz have a good sleep?"

"Just fine, so this is the new pony working with us?"

I nod to him "Yup nice to meet you names Shade" I greet him.

"Same It's good to see some colts still care about knowledge, ah but where are my manners I'm Blazing Flame but most just call me Blaz nice to meet you." He says as he sits down at the table with us. "But back to my first question how to do what?"

Before I can answer his question Daisy does so for me. "We were talking about runic magic apparently shade here practices it" Blaz looked at me sharing the same look of surprise Daisy gave me earlier.

"Well, now that's a surprise, who taught you if you don't mind me asking?"

Daisy pipes up. "That's what I was asking."

"Well, no one taught me, I found a book about it and decided to try to learn it" Both looked even more surprised now Blaz being the first to speak.

"Do you know any spells?" he asks. I look around for a good example and I spot Blaz's tea.

"Is your tea cold?" I ask.

He looks at his tea before taking a sip. "Yup."

I grab his cup from his hoof with my field and start to draw the runic matrix. Over the past two years I've had only two spells to practice the heating spell and the floating spell, so I've gotten fast at drawing both. After around thirty seconds I finish and start powering the matrix and after a few moments I stop letting the spell disappear before giving blaz his now hot cup on tea "here you go."

Both looked shocked at my display "WHAT was that?"

Daisy asks. I give a light smirk "The heating spell."

she looks back at me. "I know what spell it was but how did you cast it so fast."

"Well, I don't have to picture it in my mind, only draw the runes and feed it magic so as long as I'm fast and don't mess up the runs it doesn't take that long."

"Still colt she's right I've met a lot of unicorns that take longer to cast that spell, how long have you been using it? Blaz asks me.

"Well, it's the first one I learned so a little over two years now."

"How many spells do you know?" Daisy asks.

"Well, I know heating and float from the first book I had on runic magic, magic light and candle flame I found books for yesterday so I'm still learning them."

"Well, you've got me beat when I was your age, I only learned one" Daisy says while finishing her meal.

"We should get moving you ready?

I had finished my own food a while ago, so I nodded "See ya Blaz."

"You too Daisy same with you Shade hope you like working here."

"Me too Blaz."

Author's Note

[thanks for reading :D ]