Chương 7: Academy Days (4)

"People call me gifted because they do not see the graves that taught me." – Sivaro Filo, the youngest Siurim in Korsivir's archives

"Like you would ever be promoted to Tarim! Didn't you barely pass last year's written exams?" Sikkar Rumiosi jeered as he slicked back his blond hair, making the rest of the class start sniggering at the taunt. Aloric huffed.

"I was in the middle ranks, thank you!"

"Eh... It's the same thing," Sikkar smirked.

"Or maybe that's the best a clanless kid like you can do..." The twins gave each other a high five at another successful jab. Clanless? The word stung. Aloric really, really wanted to go and smash the bastard's face into the floor, but he didn't seem to have any energy left for a fight after hearing that there was a possibility that he might not even be allotted to a squad. At all. And it wouldn't change the fact that he really was clanless. He didn't even have any parents...

He ignored the annoying twins and looked at the teacher, waiting for a reply. Sikkar glared at him for being ignored, but Aloric didn't want to make it seem like the taunt had affected him so much. Teacher Daisor just shook his head at the twins in irritation, but didn't say anything, which actually made the Rumiosi boy even more annoyed. Aloric smirked at that as the teacher looked at him and finally gave the explanation.

"You need to focus on graduating from the academy and becoming a Nourim first, before you start to worry about the Tarim exams. That's years in the future." He sighed.

"Anyway, you really should have listened better to my lectures." Daisor looked at the rest of the class.

"At least the rest of you might remember that not everyone in this class will be assigned to a squad with a Siurim leader." He glanced at Aloric.

"I'll still repeat it for those who must have been sleeping in class when I talked about it. Siurim are the highest-ranked manaweavers in Korsivir—not counting the Vazaag, of course—so they are the ones who take the most important missions for our country. That means there simply aren't enough of them to teach every new academy graduate. So only those students who get excellent scores in the graduation exams will be allotted to such elite squads.

Those who get the middle ranks in the exams will get a Tarim as their squad leader, while the remaining graduates will go into the Nourim reserve force." Aloric winced at being reminded about the Nourim reserve force. That place was a dead end for a manaweaver's career, if there ever was one. Nobody wanted to be put into the reserves where they would not get any dedicated instructor at all. Or a team. He really, really needed to do his best to at least rank somewhere in the middle in the upcoming exams.

He might still do fine if he got a Tarim as his instructor, but not being allotted to a team at all? He didn't even want to think about it! Teacher Daisor smiled, trying in vain to lessen the horror visible on the faces of the students who usually ranked the lowest in the class tests.

"Don't worry, there is still hope for those who don't immediately get assigned to a squad after the graduation exams. Whenever a senior squad has a vacancy, they draft a Nourim from the reserve force into their own squad—anyone who meets the skill requirements for an upcoming mission—as their fourth member. Usually, it is temporary and done only for a single mission, but they can even offer to include you permanently if you show good competence on that mission and impress your squad leader."

"Otherwise, after you graduate, you'll just have to keep practicing to learn new skills and techniques in one of Korsivir's numerous training grounds, as well as studying in the central mana library, while you continue taking the E-rank missions for which you are usually eligible by yourself. Later on, after you get some experience and meet the minimum requirements, you can even take the higher-paying D-rank missions by forming a temporary squad with other like-minded people based on the mission needs.

And in the future, if your skills grow into the required skill set for what another squad needs, you will likely get drafted into one of the various squads that suffer a permanent injury or lose a member while out on a mission." Many of the students flinched on hearing about the high likelihood of dying out there. Becoming a manaweaver was not a safe and easy career, after all. It wasn't like they didn't already know about it.

Nearly half of Classroom One's students hailed from a clan, so they knew exactly how dangerous it got out there, with many of them having lost an uncle or a cousin while they went on missions. But sitting in this classroom, sheltered by the mighty stone walls of Korsivir, made it easy to forget how dangerous the world beyond them truly was.

Outside the city, traveling without hiring proper protection often meant never coming back alive—whether because of enemy manaweavers, mutated beasts lurking near dormant rift sites, or the bloodthirsty monsters that would emerge whenever active dimensional rifts opened again. Teacher Daisor glanced at Aloric with a smile.

"So don't give up even if you aren't allotted to a squad after graduation. You might still get promoted to Tarim in the future if you keep working hard." He looked at the whole class.

"You all know that your past performance in the academy also counts for a certain percentage in the final exams. Your previous scores can't be changed now, but you can still give your best in the finals to increase your chances of being drafted to a squad. Of course, the graduation exams are still two days away, so there's time for you all to brush up on everything you have been taught until now so you can get better scores." Aloric nodded, not feeling hopeful at all about getting promoted to Tarim in the future.

Even the teacher was saying that he might become a Tarim in the future... That meant even the teacher didn't really believe it would happen if he didn't get allotted to a squad. But maybe it wouldn't come to that... This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Aloric had never been able to get a high rank in the class, but he rarely got a low rank either.

He barely managed to pass the written tests, because focusing on a book always gave him a throbbing headache—bad enough that it felt like his head would split in two—even if it wasn't as terrible as it used to be when he was younger. But on the other hand, he always had excellent stamina and perception, so he got good scores in all the physical tests.

That meant he usually stayed in the middle ranks of the class, which gave him hope that he would at least be allotted to a proper squad after graduating—even if that squad was only led by a Tarim instructor instead of a Siurim. However, he also knew that the two dozen hopeful students in this class weren't his only competition this time. There were many other such classes in the academy in every graduating year—including from his own Classroom One, and continuing to Classrooms Two, Three, Four and so on.

That's why he needed to get a good enough score to be ranked high enough amongst all the graduating students of this year. But if he didn't score high enough and got sent to the Nourim reserve force...? He shuddered. It was scary to even imagine such a future.

It was his dream to become an expert at using mana techniques—he often imagined himself throwing fireballs at his enemies one after another to burn them to a crisp from a distance—but if he didn't even get assigned to a squad, it would make that dream practically impossible. He still wasn't sure why he had even been assigned to Classroom One when he got the offer to join the Mana Academy at the age of ten. His score in the entrance test was far from the worst, but it wasn't close to the best either.

He was firmly in the middle, which was why even his sister had been surprised when he had been assigned to this elite classroom filled with so many clan kids. It was almost a certainty that most of them would be drafted into the elite squads led by a Siurim instructor after they graduated, while Aloric sometimes wondered if he would even manage to graduate at all. So why had he been assigned to this class with his average scores? It didn't make any sense... And yet, it had happened.

Not that his written test scores had gotten better in the past four years, not with those blinding headaches he got any time he picked up a book or a scroll to read... He gave a defeated sigh. The same problem that might ruin his written score and send him to the Nourim reserve force would follow him there, too. If he could not learn properly from books now, how was he supposed to learn mana techniques from library scrolls later? Dammit!

Aloric watched a reddish-yellow autumn leaf drift gently through the courtyard outside the window, letting his eyes follow its path in an attempt to distract himself from his gloomy mood. Just like every kid in his generation, he had grown up hearing about the exploits of legendary manaweavers like Sivaro Filo —who was probably already an S-ranker—or the venerable ruler of their city, Sir Ganisaar Hagnaar —who was the primary reason Korsivir City was still standing after the Second Great Continental War.

While others may consider it childish or even laughable for an academy student like Aloric to compare himself to such giants, he had always wanted to become a legendary manaweaver just like them, to protect Korsivir from all the dangers of the world... But would that ever happen for someone as average as him? He couldn't even think of a more average student in the whole academy! His height? Average! His blue hair color? Average! His academy results? Average! Even his given name was so average!

Why couldn't he have been given a cool name like Shazharon Rudox, the mighty Fourth Vazaag of Korsivir. Or like Ganisaar Hagnaar, the current Sixth Vazaag of the city. But he was just Aloric Sigast... Of course, he didn't belong to any clan, so his civilian surname Sigast sounded just as average as he himself was. He hadn't heard of any other Sigast apart from his sister, and that wasn't enough to make that name sound special. He sighed again.

Did that mean that he would remain average forever, no different from those leaves outside—drifting without control, pushed this way and that by the wind until they finally settled on the ground? Aloric turned his eyes back to the classroom, his gaze lingering wistfully on the clan kids. Sikkar's words had hurt only because they were true —clanless kids like him could never hope to match the resources that clan kids took for granted.

Most of the students in Classroom One were from large and powerful clans, with relatives and cousins who had been teaching them about mana from the moment they were first able to feel it. It didn't really matter to them that teaching mana techniques to anyone before they graduated from the academy was prohibited. Some clans were powerful enough that, as long as they only taught their children the most basic techniques, the Vazaag looked the other way. That wasn't true for the smaller clans.

They couldn't risk the wrath of the city leader by violating the rules so openly, while clanless students like him had no one to teach them mana techniques anyway. Perilia certainly knew more than a few techniques, but she couldn't afford to break the rules and risk being thrown out of her job—it was her paychecks from the City Police that put food on the table for both of them. Still, Aloric would have loved to learn how to create even a simple ball of mana light properly.

It was the only real mana technique the academy officially allowed its students to practice—and even required them to learn. Yet, even after practicing for years, he still hadn't managed to form a standard ball of mana light. Any time he tried, the ball came out looking twisted or uneven, with barely enough power to brighten the air a couple of feet around it. He clenched his fists in anger. Why couldn't I have been born into a big clan?

If he had been born into the Hagnaar clan—like Sir Ganisaar, the Vazaag of Korsivir—he would have been nearly guaranteed a strong fire mana affinity, which was the coolest mana type in his opinion. Those from the Rudox clan—like Velron, the sparring champion of their class—were known for their precise mana control, no matter what their affinity was. It allowed them to strike exact points on an opponent's body using only a little mana, often disabling them with a single hit.

Then there were the Qanza—like Nemirie, the usual top ranker of Classroom One. They were only a small clan, and yet highly respected by everyone for maintaining the rune-barrier around the city. Their children were taught about runes before they even started learning to read. That meant they were virtually guaranteed to become highly valued rune specialists—or even rune masters —in their future careers. And who didn't know about the Rumiosi clan, where the twin troublemakers of the class hailed from?

The plethora of secret medicinal herbs and food ingredients they grew in their huge clan compound were famous throughout the kingdom, and they had grown so damn rich by selling them to anyone who was willing to pay. On the other hand, Aloric was just a civilian, with no clan or even parents to support him... Dammit... Couldn't he have been born into one of those clans? Couldn't there have been something that made him special too? Dammit!

His mind came out of his brooding thoughts when Teacher Daisor clapped his hands loudly to gain the students' attention and asked the first really interesting question of the day.

"Alright, class. One final question for today's revision. Who can tell me about relics?"