One cannot simply get his powers - in order to have them you need to have parents which are users of magic too. At least one parent must be a user.
The magic usually starts showing properly at teenage age, early signs of it may appear in childhood too but the years 16/17 are the years it usually shows it's full potential.
The magic is usually inherited by the parents so if a person has two fire users as parents most likely he/she will get the gift of fire.
Or for example, if parents of someone are users of fire and air - their children might get the gifts of fire, air or even electricity.
An especially interesting thing about the appearance of magic is the fact that the elements do fit the personality ( in most cases at least). As well as some family behaviour lines pass from parent to child so do also the elements that occur. Fire is often given to bad-tempered people which can be quite untactical at some moments. Water users are often calm, ground controllers are quite down to earth and rational and the air users often drift away and have a perky nature.
WATER
The gift of controlling water usually appears at calm and calculated people who have a lot of patience - even though it's not sure whether the people become that way because of the element they carry inside them or the element appears because people are that way... This element makes it easier for it's users to focus and bring logical decisions. The water users feel especially calm around water surfaces and enjoy the silent flow of the rivers.
AIR
The gift of controlling air usually appears at people who are perky and cheerful. Those 'free spirits' are much like the wind. They let themselves be lead easily not worrying much about the consequences.
Since air users tend to change their moods quite often, some of them have problems with controling their power when a stronger emotion comes along. That results in occasional weather changes which are quite short ( a few seconds) but happen quite frequently since there are quite a lot of air students in the school.
FIRE
The gift of controlling fire is a quite dangerous and destructive power in the wrong hands. Of course water puts out fire, but water isn't always there to save everything from burning.Fire users are quite bad-tempered and aggressive. Already little things can make them mad and they easily lose their control. That's why they are taught control more than the others - still sometimes not even that helps...
GROUND
The gift of controlling earth and it's segments may seem as a boring power to some. But to feel the ground and it's power - to actually be able to control growth of the plants and far more are something ground users adore. Ground users are not as quite nasty as fire users but they do have a note of inner conflict in them. They do prefer to be rational and look objectively at everything - still they have problems with their rage outbursts that appear occasionally.
SPIRIT
Spirit consists of 2 forms in which it appears. Body control and Mind/Soul Control.
Body Control
Users of the spirit which enables body control are able to increase or decrease their speed, strength or even change some body parts, adjust their height, muscles or similar. Some spirit users of body control are able to heal the physical injuries. Body controllers are often good at sports and physical activities are a piece of cake for them. What seems impossible for others - seems quite easy for them, it's easy to spot them training outside, doing all kind of stunts others could only dream of.
Mind/Soul Control
Users of spirit who control mental functions are still quite of a mystery. Some of them can use compulsion (control people), others manipulate with your feelings, fears, wishes or even dreams. Scary? Well, it kind of is. Still, spirit users drain a lot of energy when doing such difficult things, it is a complex human mind in question after all - so they are not keen on doing it on a daily basis - it's difficult enough to keep up with classes - who has got the time to manipulate others?
MIXED ELEMENTS
Mixed elements are rare and quite hard to handle. To specialize a mixed element you have to specialize both of the 2 elements that are mixed. Mixed elements are also harder to control and they don't really belong to either element but have the specifics of both so their specialization is individualized. Some of the elements can come in 2 but create no mixture, meaning you can control both but if wanting to specialize more than one element your specialization will last one year longer.
Mixtures so far:
Fire + Air = Electricity
Fire + Ground = Lava
Water + Air = Ice
SHAPESHIFTERS
Shapeshifters are born in a shapeshifter family - at least one of the family members must be a shapeshifter for the gene to pass on to the children. They can change their human form to any animal. Changing shapes into a human is prohibited on school grounds since it is way to risky - and is considered offensive. Many shifters that tried to change to another person have had problems with returning to their original body. But not all shifters are capable of doing that - there are only a few that would be good enough to succeed in it.
Crosses between shapeshifter and element users tend to happen but since the shapeshifter gene is dominant the half-lings tend are always shapeshifters and only sometimes shapeshifters marked with an element.
WEREWOLVES
Werewolf do change shape but unlike shapeshifters they do not control their change. Their change comes at each full moon and cannot be stopped or controlled. During the period of full moon they are hidden in the depths of the Canticum forest. YOu can become a werewolf by being bitten by one - or by bloodline.
When a cross of a shapeshifter and werewolf appears the shifter is only able to take up the form of a wolf. He is able to control his shifting always BUT on full moon. He changes on full moon regardless of his wishes.
VAMPIRES
Real vampires are not the Twilight version where they sparkle on the sun. Vampires won't burst into flames on the sun either, but their skin will slowly start to get burns and decompose - that happens with direct contact with sun. When the sky is cloudy and there's no sun in the air they can pass unhurt but still feeling uncomfortable - it's their sleep time during the day. And yes - they do sleep, but they are not dead when they sleep - they are quite light sleepers and almost every noise wakes them up.
They do eat on regular basis but are in need for real human blood too. They have to take blood every three or four days - if not they feel exhausted and weak.
Their bite does sexually excite humans but if they wish to they can make it painful.
On school grounds they are not allowed to feed on someone - they are given blood bags every few days in the school ambulance. They are free to take their meal into their rooms for some privacy.
Vampires are not able to control any element, but they do have their own abilities. They do have way better speed and strength than humans do and they can use compulsion and they can dream walk.
Their classes are separated from the regular ones.
HALF-DEMONS
Since real demons do not go to school and actually live mostly in a complete different dimension than humans do, there are only half-demons to be seen around. Even those are rare since demons are not so keen on entering the human world - unless there is some interesting damage they could do.
Half-demons don't need to be evil , but it would be wrong to say they were not dangerous. They are. The demon part of them is concealed with the human part of them - still there is a possibility they just go mad one day and start acting like a demon all of a sudden. Then again they return to normal and are completely aware of what they did, but they could not control it and the possibility of that happening again is something that scares them the most.