"Yue-san, over here!" Negi called out to his student as the purple-haired apprentice.

"You wanted to see me, Negi-sensei?" Yue asked, stepping through the sands of Eva's resort easily, a minor wind spell brushing the sand away from her feet.

"Ah, yes. Since we've progressed so much and so far in your magical training, I was hoping we could do something a little different than usual. It's something that I, admittedly, am not very good at."

The fact that her child teacher was not very good at this aspect of magic he planned on teaching her was a very intriguing fact that spurned Yue to ask, "What is we're going to do?"

"I was hoping you'd agree," Negi grinned cheerfully. "Ah, and you might have heard of it since you read so many books. It's called scrying. Do you know what that is?"

"Scrying… which I think you mean looking into the past, present, or future with the use of a magical medium, usually in the form of a mirror, bowl, or water?"

"Very precise explanation, Yue-san," Negi praised.

"Ah, thank you sensei." Yue felt a slight burning start to spread to her ears so she quickly asked, "So how are we to go about doing this?"

"Well, I already have the materials needed. It's just a matter of deciding which one suits you best and then starting with the basics," Negi told her, fishing out three objects from his pockets.

"Now, be careful because these are all artifacts. I know you'll handle them with care but please don't break them and try not to be startled when I make them grow in size."

"Grow in size?" Yue asked, keeping a firm but gentle grip on the silver bowl that held a small square mirror and a vial of clear liquid which had no opening for which to put in or take out water.

Negi nodded and whispered a word in Latin.

Quite suddenly, Yue felt a surge of magic pass from Negi's aura into the small mirror and the vial of water. She almost jumped when the mirror grew in size until it was twice the size of the silver bowl it had once fitted loosely into. Simultaneously, the vial disappeared, leaving only the water within behind. However, the liquid did not drop into the bowl. Instead, it hung in the air and grew larger until it was the size of Yue's fist, finally settling into a perfect sphere.

"Wow," Yue gasped.

Negi smiled and told her, "You may try and use all three of them in our lesson today. Now, it's time for a quick lesson on the basics.

"We are not going to attempt to scry the past or the present until much later on for reasons I am going to explain now. First, the past is very stable and thus, has a very hard resistance to magic, because magic can be loosely called 'change.' That is also one of the reasons why time machines are unfeasible in our day and age.

"Next, the present is slightly less resistant to 'change' because many things can happen in one moment though it is still based on the past. So, the present is also not an easy thing to peer into.

"Finally, the future is the easiest because future means change. Every action you take in the past and present affects the future in multiple ways. The future has many possibilities and can never be taken fully serious unless each attempt refers to an event or repeats it often as in around ten tries in a row. The artifacts and objects used in scrying can also fail so that is another problem in believing what you see of the future. In the end, the future is the easiest to scry to because it has the least resistance to change but it is still not an easy task. Looking into the future is ranked in the 'A' category because of its difficulty.

"Today, we'll be trying the look into the futures of people you know. Understanding the people within the images you see is an important part in telling apart feasible futures and just plain ridiculous ones.

"So… any questions?"

"Just one, Negi-sensei; when do we start?"

Prologue – "The Beginning of Chaos" - Negi

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Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, own Negi Springfield, Yue Ayase, Eva's Resort, or Mahou Sensei Negima as a whole. If I did, I'm sure Eva's Resort would have a different name.

Next Chapter:

- "Don't wander as a ghost; you'll cause more trouble than you're worth." - Sayo