Chương 5: Academy Days (2)

"I ended a war with a firestorm. The world cheered—and I only heard the screams." – Sir Ganisaar Hagnaar, the Sixth Vazaag of Korsivir Before the argument could escalate any further, Teacher Daisor slammed his fist on the lectern with a loud bang.

"Sit. Down. All of you! Or I'll deduct twenty points from your final scores. From everyone!" The classroom immediately fell quiet, and the students took their seats again, while some of them groaned about a missed chance to see a fight. Aloric glared at the twins again, but they were already giggling while pointing to a different part of the classroom, likely having fun at someone else's expense now—perhaps by surprising someone with one of Sulia's ash beetles, which was one of their favourite tactics.

That made him even more irritated, as if he didn't even matter to those rich bastards. And the truth was, he probably didn't. Those twins were the class troublemakers and pranksters, and apart from each other, everyone else was fair game to them. He took a deep breath and exhaled. There was no point in holding a grudge any longer... Just a few more days, and he would never have to see those idiots again. He looked back at the front of the class, where Teacher Daisor was starting to speak again.

"This classroom is not a place to fight! You will get to do a lot of that in the physical section of your graduation test." He gestured at the whole class in general.

"You all are going to be allies after graduation, fighting to protect our city and our country. Your classmates are going to fight alongside you against our enemies, so you should try to help each other instead of insulting your future allies at every opportunity." Many of the students gave nods in acceptance, while others, mainly those who came from clans, just gazed ahead coolly, seemingly uncaring about it. Teacher Daisor's gaze roamed over the whole class for a moment, before he smirked.

"In fact, it seems like you all have a lot of energy to spare today. So after the class ends, we'll have a round of mock fights between you. Consider it a practice test before the final exams." Immediately, there were a lot of groans and complaints from some students, while a few looked excited to show their strength to the class one last time.

"Hell yeah!" Sikkar Rumiosi taunted the whole class as he slicked back his blond hair.

"I'll show you all!" Beside his desk, Karro lifted his head as if he understood the promise of a fight better than half the students in the room. Velron of the mighty Rudox clan, also grinned. He was the undefeated champion in the mock fights, so he had good reason to be excited.

"Come on, Teacher..." a clanless student complained.

"We need time to revise for the exams..." Teacher Daisor grinned.

"That's what you get for causing trouble in the class. Now, let's get back to doing some revision. Who can tell me the ranks and responsibilities of Korsivir's manaweavers, that is, our city's military force?" The short redhead Arla was the quickest to raise her hand as usual, and she stood up to speak at the teacher's gesture.

"Once we graduate from the academy, we will be drafted into Korsivir's military force as Nourim, who are the lowest-ranked mana users, and they usually perform E-rank missions within the city of Korsivir, as well as D-rank missions outside our city anywhere inside the Kingdom of Varrenia. The first promotion after clearing the Tarim exams in a few years would be to become, well... a Tarim. They are the ones who go on long-duration missions, including those outside Varrenia, mainly on C-rank and B-rank missions."

She continued, "The third and final official rank is Siurim, and any details of how they get promoted from Tarim are not included in the academy's curriculum. I even checked all our books for it!" Once the teacher nodded with a chuckle, Arla added, "Siurim are known to be very, very powerful, and they are the ones who are usually the leaders of four-man squads, whether those squads are composed of three other Nourim or even Tarim.

Siurim are also sent on solo and long-term missions, and they are the ones who take most of the A-rank missions. Of course, there are also some rare S-rank missions, but any details about them are way, way above what we're allowed to know—so highly classified that anyone who blabbed about them to someone who wasn't allowed to know would be executed immediately."

"Ooh... The shortie knows her shit!" one of the Rumiosi twins jeered.

"I thought she just cheated in the exams, which is why she can never get the first rank!" the other twin responded immediately, both of them sniggering at their own joke.

"Be quiet, the two of you!" their teacher scolded them, before he looked at Arla—who was glaring at the twins with annoyance—and smiled at her.

"Good answer!" Arla beamed at the praise, and quickly glanced at Velron—her crush—but he was just glaring at the wall in front of them. Their teacher looked at the rest of the class.

"Now who can tell me how many major types of mana there are, along with their names?" Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. As expected, Arla was once again the first to raise her hand. But Teacher Daisor kept looking around the room until his eyes fell on Aloric, and he gestured to him to speak up. Aloric stood up nervously, while trying to smooth his blue hair.

He shakily glanced around at the rest of the class, knowing that he had never been able to become good at the theory part of the curriculum. But this was a very basic question. He looked at the teacher, who was still waiting patiently.

"There are five major types," he answered, "and uh... two minor types of mana that I can remember. The major types are air, water, fire, earth, and nature mana." Teacher Daisor nodded.

"After graduation, once you meet with other manaweavers of Korsivir, you will find out that there are a lot of other minor types of mana, but the minor ones are rare enough that we don't include them in the curriculum of the academy, so your answer is good enough." Gesturing for Aloric to sit down, he looked at the class again.

"You all have been going through the hand signs needed for weaving mana techniques for years now, but I still want one of you to list them out."

"That's easy," Arla called out once again with a raised hand. Teacher Daisor seemed to be looking around to see if anyone else was willing to answer, including the weapon specialist of the class—Ralovit Vayot, from the Vayot clan—but he gave up when nobody else had raised their hand and nodded to her. Arla stood up once again.

"There are fourteen hand signs a manaweaver can use to weave techniques from his internal mana pool. There are ig, trae, fura, kumo; zeph, lumi, veka, ryn; sivi, dro, zarn, koru; thal, and sern. The names originate from the names of gods in an ancient tongue." Aloric snorted as the short redhead listed out the hand signs in a rush. That was basic stuff, and even first-year students were expected to know that list, but Arla never missed a chance to show off her knowledge.

Well, she was from the brainiac Farritz clan after all. It was a small clan, but they produced geniuses and strategists like it was nothing, and their clan provided the majority of the workforce for the research division of the city. He thought the girl was done, but Arla had more to say.

"The hand signs were created long in the past, when someone realized that there had to be a simpler way to call upon the techniques of the patron Gods for each major mana type. Before that, people had to recite a long chant to God Ignus to use fire mana techniques, God Hydrus for water mana techniques, Goddess Florus for nature mana techniques, God Terrus for earth mana techniques, and finally Goddess Zephyrus for air mana techniques. And so on for the minor mana types as well." She didn't stop.

"That was too slow in a real battle, and manaweavers would often be killed by even a lone sword-carrying bandit before they could finish weaving the technique. So, some unknown group of people created the five original hand signs for each god or goddess of the five major mana types, and later on, it was expanded to the fourteen hand signs we know today, through which we can use basically every known mana technique in existence.

That discovery began the golden age of manaweavers and allowed them to shape the world into what it is today." She shrugged.

"Or, that is what a history book I found in my clan's library says."

"That's a far more detailed answer than I expected, but it's good. Well done!" The class teacher smiled at Arla, and she sat down with a proud grin.

"I know that the topic of the patron gods was covered a few years back in your second-year curriculum, but now that it has been mentioned, can someone name any other patron gods? Or do you all completely forget the coursework of each year right after the exams end?" There were quite a few embarrassed chuckles at that, and Arla raised her hand again, but Teacher Daisor shook his head at her and looked at the rest of the class expectantly.

Yibleen Delacie, the tall, blonde beauty of the class, raised her hand hesitantly. On the teacher's nod, she stood up.

"I, uh... God Warpus is the patron god of the simple substitution technique we all use, and of anything related to quick movement between two points, but we aren't taught any advanced techniques in the academy. Similarly, the Goddess Deceptus is the patron of any kind of illusion technique, but those are highly advanced B-rank or even A-rank techniques, and are classified anyway. Uh... that's all I can remember right now."

"Glad to know that at least some of you still remember what you were taught in the past," the teacher praised her as she sat down.

"But we aren't going into too much detail on any single topic today. Moving on, who can tell me which of the five major affinities are offensive mana types? With examples." Arla Farritz was quickest to raise her hand as usual, but Teacher Daisor shook his head.

"I want someone else to answer this time." Soon, he pointed at the always-quiet Nemirie Qanza at the back of the class.

"It's your turn now." While Arla glared at the only person she could never outscore in the written tests, Nemirie stood up with barely any expression on her face, as usual, her green hair swaying behind her.

"Fire and air mana types," she answered succinctly.

"Examples are a fireball... and a violent gale of wind." As she began to sit down, Teacher Daisor interrupted, "That's not a complete answer, Nemirie... Although it's still correct enough." Nemirie just gave a shrug in response and sat down.

"As expected from the brainy one," one of the twins smirked. Teacher Daisor shook his head in exasperation at the twins, before he looked at the rest of the class.

"It is true that fire and air mana users are usually the vanguards in any assault squad, but they are often weak in defense. However, you have to keep in mind that the defensive and offensive focus of any mana type is just a general guideline. Water-type mana is actually the most balanced between defense and offense, since it can easily be used for both. Just like the other mana types can be."

He added, "For example, in the case of water-type mana, you can create a wall of water to defend against a fireball, which shows its defensive applications. But if someone is throwing a fireball at you, and you throw a much bigger ball of water towards the enemy, then assuming you have put enough mana into the technique, you can easily overpower that fireball and even injure the enemy, thus giving water mana an offensive application as well.

Of course, if you are quick and perceptive enough, you can launch your attack before the enemy has even created his fireball, so you can easily injure or kill him even without wasting too much mana." Aloric agreed with that, but he still believed fire mana was the best! Just like other students in the class, he would only be told about his own mana affinity after graduating, but he really hoped it would turn out to be fire mana.

Like every child growing up in Korsivir, he had heard stories of how the leader of their city—the Sixth Vazaag, Sir Ganisaar Hagnaar—had created an enormous firestorm and burned a whole army of Arkazaan to ash as it marched towards Korsivir, bringing an immediate end to the Second Great Continental War around two decades ago. However, Sir Ganisaar was ancient now, so Aloric didn't think he could do something like that anymore. But he certainly hoped that he could also achieve that kind of power one day.

He couldn't wait to graduate, receive his blue Nourim rank-marker, and start learning mana techniques too! They were prohibited from being taught to academy students, after all. The teacher continued, "You all might joke about the need to conserve your mana while sitting here within the safety of Korsivir's walls, but once you go out into the field, you will have to learn why it matters if you are ever to become a high-level manaweaver. Or just to survive long enough to even have a chance of that."

"Can't we just take mana pills to replenish our mana if we used too much of it?" Yibleen asked.

"I never had any need to take those pills yet, but that's what they are for, right?"