Chris Cottenburg is a High Elf at the school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A student at the School of Magic, he is one of the students who befriended Lewin Randit. Lewin was the object of jokes, derision and ridicule at his old place in the Swordsmanship section of the school, but now that he's joined the Wizards, he finds out that it is Chris who seems to be teased here.
Chris has a magical crystal fitchet that he wears on his brow, but when a bunch of bullies pull it off, he goes from the calm and friendly person everyone knows to enraged. He tries to get his crystal back, but when he can't snatch it from the bullies' hands, he resorts to calling on an elemental spirit of the wind to get it back for him. But when the Bullies throw the fitchet away, he loses control of the magic and passes out.
The other students and professors come to his aid, but Chris does not awaken. It seems he cannot. Was the crystal pendant so necessary to his magic and nobody expected it, or was it Lewin's fault, as Lewin seems to feel, for feeding him chocolate sugar corn flakes for breakfast?
As the professors try everything in their power to wake him up, Lewin and Chris's other friend Soela attempt to find his necklace for him. Meanwhile, back in the infirmary, Chris's body is slowly disintegrating, which leaves the professors no choice but to resort to a forbidden magic to try and save Chris's life.
The magic allows her to see into Chris's mind and travel through the three levels to try and find his inner self and see what might be holding him back from healing and awakening. But inside his head, she finds a shocking sight: before his entry to the school, his waking mind seems to have no memories. And in the third level, she finds that the truth of Chris's past doesn't match what is written in his file.
But the happy memories of his childhood drag her along to a future that may not be nearly so nice or happy. What is the truth of Chris's past, and what happened to his parents and brother that made whoever allowed him to enter the school put him down as an only child when he has or had a twin brother? And what happened to his parents?
The story in this volume may have been interesting, but due to issues of guttering and how the volume was printed, any dialogue balloons that fell near the spine of the book were mostly hidden and generally unreadable. What I could read was just fine, but the publishing company, Del Rey, really should have known better when it came to printing the manga.
The art and dialogue balloons are otherwise done well, but the story did have me a bit confused at the beginning, because instead of focusing on Lewin (the main character of the last two books) or Chris and Soela, it focusses on two of the professors, one of whom which will be the one entering Chris's mind later on in the story, and that made me do a double-take, as I wasn't expecting such an abrupt switch.
The art is a bit wispy for my taste- the lines used are a lot thinner than in most manga, so the manga has an airy feel, but the problems with the layout make this volume only okay. I wouldn't spend my hard-earned money on it, and if you're wise, neither would you. But of course, YMMV.
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