I got a letter from my son a few days ago. It described his classmates. Normally this is not something he bothers me with, but despite being in the same class as the crown prince, I have been getting told by my own son that apparently the class is filled with the monsters our Empire fights against! I demand to know what is going on over there!
-A letter sent by a worried parent to the principal of the imperial academy
Gazing upon my fellow classmates I can tell that the joke is written by reality. There is a dwarf fiddling with a crossbow, who quickly locks unto my crossbow with a hungry gaze. There is a pale woman with red eyes looking with a different kind of hungry gaze. There is a skeleton that looks completely out of place with the school uniform. There is an orc crammed into the male school uniform, with a goblin covered in feathers and bones sitting next to him. A huge Lamia with the school uniform, but also a headdress straight from the ancient Aztecs on her head. There are two others with religious clothing, one of which is wearing plates under white robes, the other one is a cow woman type Mazurian. Her teeth remind me of the British, no matter how bright her smile. A set of Arabian twins are whispering loudly to each other, most likely from the far south. There is also another royal mermaid, and who I'm pretty sure is Alicia, sitting next to someone who kind of looks like her.
"There is some space in the back. Go sit there and don't disturb my class any further than you already have." I move to in between the dwarf and Alicia. The latter of which looks at me in surprise. The dwarf doesn't hesitate to go for what he wants.
"I'm Urist, mayor of Crystalspear. That's a mighty fine piece of work you are carrying around. Mind if I take a gander?" With everything I heard from dwarves, this wasn't exactly unexpected.
"I'm Esstrey, and yes, I would mind. I killed the person who made it to keep the design hidden after all." The dwarf grumbles, and I think Alicia overheard since I notice her going slightly closer to her other neighbor.
"Now, on to what I was saying before. Mana is a fundamental force of nature. Improper wielding will result in unpredictable results. Basic mana manipulation can easily be achieved by feeling the mana within you, and then moving it around. As for aptitude of magic, you don't need to worry too much about that. Anyone is capable of magic, but not everyone can become a mage. Some people just have a bigger fuel tank for mana than others, or just cast more efficiently. Make sure to practice plenty in your spare time, mana manipulation is the most important class in this entire school without a doubt." Shit, I think I already missed some major bits. Whatever, I'll just ask Kyla later if I don't know something I guess.
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"Professor, every teacher here says they teach the most important class. The dueling teacher said the exact same thing yesterday." Some dude with blonde hair says. Yet again, I am impressed by some people, as most of the human population is still staring at Cathy and Kyla.
"The dueling teacher is entitled to his own opinions." The professor is clearly not happy with said opinion. "Now to the known elements. Since we have some new people in the class, I will go over them again. Nearly all magic has an opposing force, it interacts with that force the most, to the point where the weakest light barrier spell still has to be destroyed for dark magic to effect you. All magic and their opposing side are as follows: light and dark, water and lightning, heat and cold, life and death, earth and air, sound and sight, space and time. There are some other forms of magic of course which do not fall in this category, some examples being the unpredictable chaos magic or the magic inefficient pure magic. These forms of magic however are generally not good for combat. There's also a whole heap of sub-elements, and unique magic spells which are harder to define. Blood magic and the transmogrification spell being some well known examples." The pale woman perks up slightly at the last bit, clearly not expecting her slight movement to be noticed.
The class goes on for about half an hour, by the end of it the professor points us to the backyard training area. From what I can see, most of the Mazurians of the class are all crowding Kyla, who is clearly overwhelmed by all the attention. The exceptions to that rule are Cathy and me.
"Come, lady Esstrey, I look forward to watching you [punch/apply physical force/beat] to the spawn of the northern nobles." Cathy is from the north? That actually makes sense if she is the product of some cult trying to reach beyond themselves. Urist walks next to me.
"I'll cut ye a deal, let me improve some of your works, and in exchange ye let me pick yer brain on some things ya won't kill me over." Clever little man, I'll bite.
"Sure, that seems like a lovely idea." Especially considering that if my assumptions on most of these students being closer to diplomatic delegations being correct, I would need all the allies I can get. What I certainly don't think is a good idea is letting all the delegates fight.