Mason

Mason is one of the supporting characters in Tales of Concordia. He is the Magister heir apparent of Pacis.

Backstory
Mason and his sister Madison were born on April 26th 15 years ago to Sofia the Magister of Peace and Grand Sorcerer Magnus. He is the heir apparent to the Magister throne but he was born with a magic level that’s even lower than the average citizen.

Expectations
Since Magisters have always been known as the most powerful sorcerer in whatever type of magic they specialize in, Mason felt very insecure about his low magic level. This self-doubt was instilled in him by his father who believed that your capability in magic was what defined your worth as a human being. Magnus spent more time doting on Madison because she had the high magic level expected of a future Magister. This caused Mason to be envious of his sister since he thought that she was lucky to have gotten the potential to be a great sorcerer instead of him and he also felt that she was ungrateful since she wanted to squander the talent that he longed to have so she could create sweets. But unlike Magnus, Sofia loved Mason no matter what and told him that it was more important to be a good leader than a good sorcerer. But Mason disregarded this since he wanted to appease his father not her.

Happy Birthday
His resentment only grew when Magnus gave him a spell book for his birthday while he got Madison a personalized wand. After Sofia left to attend some business, Mason decided to study these spells to impress his father. He holed himself up in his room practicing them for hours completely oblivious to the fact that his father was abusing Madison at the time. He was frustrated that he couldn’t perform advanced spells but he was able to use the low level ones as a base to write a spell of his own. After simply reading through the book, he actually managed to write a brand new spell in a matter of hours while it takes most professional arcane scholars months or even years to develop such procedures. When he finally stepped out of his room, he saw Madison crying over her broken toy oven. He decided to test the reparation spell he wrote and it proved to be a success as it instantly fixed the busted curio. Madison was astounded by this feat and she hugged her brother while shedding tears of joy.

Influence
When his father disappeared, he was so devastated that he waited up for him every night for months. He still wanted to meet Magnus’s expectations even though he was gone so he spent almost all of his free time training in a vain attempt to heighten his magic level. He eventually enrolled into the White Knights Academy; the school in the upper ring of Lucidus that trains the future law enforcers and soldiers of Pacis. There he met Caleb, a boy who enlisted into the academy to become the first Norman White Knight as well as a fighter pilot. Mason was impressed by his firm dedication and sense of honor towards East Concordia despite his West Concordian heritage and the two quickly became best friends. They kept contact with each other even after Mason ended up dropping out of the White Knights Academy due to his failure to execute advanced spells.

Humiliation
Sometime after turning 14, Mason met a talkative but nice Norman girl by the name of Fumiko Miyamoto. The two of them actually started dating and everything was going fine; until Mason confided in her about his low magic level. Fumiko unwisely told a few of her friends about this and the secret quickly became common knowledge beyond the upper ring of Lucidus all the way to Shadowgate. Mason was humiliated and outraged to the point of breaking up with Fumiko almost immediately after discovering this was her doing. Not only did he now have to cope with his inferior magical potency, but he had to face an entire city that knew about it and looked down upon him because of it.

Opportunity Knocks
He started to train himself at home completely drowning out Sofia’s insistence to embrace his spell writing talent and get him to focus on his competence as a future leader but he still refuses to listen since his father’s influence has affected him too greatly. Shortly after his 16th birthday, Sofia had to go forge an alliance with a Norman country and Mason pleaded with her to let him watch over Pacis instead of her advisor. Since 16 is the age when a future Magister gets a rite of passage he wanted this chance. Sofia gave in but told him to call her should an emergency come up. When the town is overrun by Obscuras, Mason tries to handle the situation almost singlehandedly in order to redeem himself.

Personality
Mason is proud, courageous, and overzealous to a fault. He takes extreme pride in his duties as the future Magister of Pacis and constantly worries about his ability to fulfill this role. But he seems to be more preoccupied with his perceived honor rather than his actual honor. He's quite sensitive to the opinions of his people to the point of trying to use the Obscura situation as a means of redeeming himself in their eyes instead of treating it like an actual state of emergency. The tradition of having the most powerful sorcery specialists serve as Magisters is a rule he takes very seriously as he genuinely believes that he can't become a proper leader with a low magic level. He thinks that the traditions of his culture must be upheld in order to maintain honor and balance even when there isn't any tangible gain to be had from following certain rules. This false sense of pride often causes him to make foolish or even dangerous decisions at times and he all too often has to get set straight by Madison.

Although his pride is usually a detriment, he also recognizes hard work and respects people who engage in it accordingly. (instances of hardworking people personally humiliating him notwithstanding) He was the only student in the White Knights Academy who respected Caleb wholly for his dedication and perseverance and had no reservations about his Norman heritage. He's also shown respect towards Lucinda for her loyalty as his mother's personal inventor. Another virtue he has is his dedication to what he cares about. Regardless of his internal jealousy, he loves his twin sister and is quite understanding of her anxiety to the point of having calming medication on hand in case she suffers an attack. He has also been known to hold her hand when they walk through large areas so she won't get lost or overwhelmed by crowds.

Mason's most notable and useful talent is his arcane scholarship or ability to create new magical spells. He discovered he had a natural knack for it when he used children's spells as a base to write a new spell; Reparation, which is now used by his mother and many light magic users in relief efforts today. Most arcane scholars spend the entirety of their lives locked in libraries to master their craft and only come out with a handful of spells to show for it, but Mason has been crafting dozens of spells at an exponential rate since childhood. This natural and almost effortless talent shows that Mason is actually quite intelligent when he's not letting his pride cloud his judgement. Sofia has told him that he could undo much suffering if he just focused on this ability instead of trying to become stronger, but his determination to uphold tradition makes him reluctant to lean back on this skill. Regardless, his spells come in handy various times in both battle and casual life.

Powers and Abilities
Fencing: Mason is quite the skilled fencer as it's one of his favorite hobbies and his means of combat. His wand is a gilded foil sword with ancient engravings on it that amplify magical power. When in battle, he performs sweeps and thrusts with his sword that are enhanced by his light magic.

Glyph Casting: Mason's casting method consists of expelling light magic through glyphs. Glyphs are circular symbols whose uses have a vast range depending on what's written within them. Mason writes old arcane characters in his glyphs to cast spells. This is considered to be a rather obsolete way of casting since directly expelling one's magic is quicker than writing glyphs. He forms them by literally writing with his lance and using light magic as a substitute for ink.

Arcane Scholarship/Spell Writing: Mason is well read enough and intelligent enough to not only comprehend the inner workings of magic, but also craft brand new spells often from the ground up. His first original spell Reparation, was written when he was only 5 and it's used to instantly repair and restore things that have been torn apart, burned down, or otherwise destroyed. His understanding of magic is so deep due to both natural intellect and over a decade of studying. He later uses this ability to create a purification spell that exorcises the Obscuras although it has to be performed by Chryssy.