“You should also be aware of the differences in our cultures relating to romantic relationships amongst two of the same gender. Unlike here in The Rathen Kingdom, in Aeoniara there are no rules aside that both parties are consenting adults.” Arthur looked at the captain as if he just said he just bludgeoned a man to death over a few copper pieces.
Captain Pelagius seeing the look on Arthur's face mistook it for confusion. “Unlike how here same sex relationships are only permitted if the dominant one is of a higher class or authority in Aeoniara there are no such distinctions. In fact they encourage it between the youth to bond and create lifelong friendships.”
Arthur now just completely blown away by the fact that two men or women could be in a romantic relationship. ‘Is her seriously telling me that there are rules when it comes to same sex relationships. Is this an important thing I need to worry about here?’
“The captain in the western district and his lieutenant for example are in such a relationship. It is a bit of an open secret but that is unimportant, the thing to take away from this is that if Zinon does come onto you it is likely because he sees you as an equal.” Arthur was silent for a few seconds just processing the information. “Are you alright Arthur?”
“Yeah I'm alright, I just did not expect that someone of your standing would talk about such things so openly.” Arthur leaned back in this chair as his entire view of the captain changed.
“I know, but there have been a few incidents here where he started coming onto some of his colleagues and let's just say culture shock is a very real thing.”
*********
After clearing up all the details with the captain Arthur found Alanus and Zinon waiting for him at the front entrance of the barracks. Alanus looked quite ordinary for a man of the Rathen kingdom with a square jaw, light skin, brown hair and eyes, and roughly average height. Zinon on the other hand was a bit out of the ordinary being a few inches taller than Alanus with olive skin and dark hair.
“Good morning sir. We are here to escort you to the mages guild.” Alanus said as he gave a small bow to the man who fought and killed a vampire single handedly.
“It is an honor to meet the man who killed a vampire on his own.” Zinon reached his hand out to shake Arthurs, who took it. “You must be a great warrior to accomplish such a feat at such an age.”
“I will try my best.” Arthur said as he took notice of Zinons equipment. The armor he wore was the same as the rest of the city guard with padded clothes covered with a layer of chain mail accompanied with a helmet and gauntlets. But the spear and shield he used were definitely of a different origin. The shield was rounded unlike the more squared design in use by the rest of the guard, and the spear he carried had a smaller tip and appeared to be better for getting in between the joints of armor.
The trio set off towards the mages guild, both Alanus and Zinon followed Arthur as neither had been to the guild before. When they reached the mages guild it was 9:40 in the morning but Arthur still wanted to get to class even if he was early and turned to speak to his escorts. “I will be attending a class until twelve o’clock, so you can go and do other stuff instead of waiting here for over two hours , just be back by then.”
“Of course sir, we shall leave you to your classes.”
********
Arthur entered his pyromancy class by 9:45 giving him fifteen minutes before class started to practice a bit. Arthur took out a candle he bought on his way back to the Free Parrot Bar and placed it on the table. But he quickly realized he had a problem, he did not actually have any way to light the candle. ‘Well now that is quite unfortunate. I suppose I will simply practice aeromancy instead while I wait.’
Arthur practiced alone in the class for five minutes before another student entered the class. The student was the spider person who was also the first to use pyromancy. He was a bit surprised at the sight of Arthur being in class before he was and quickly rushed to the back of the class where he took the same seat as he did the day prior. Over the next ten minutes the rest of the class slowly filtered in and filled up the seats. The only ones missing were the ones who wanted to do something to the students with actual skill.
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The last person to arrive was the teacher Eligius Sabinius who surprisingly had a smile on his face, but it was not a smile of happiness. More so a smile of twisted satisfaction. “Good morning class. As I am sure the perceptive of you can see, the four who were willing to cause trouble over their own incompetence have been expelled from the guild and imprisoned for conspiracy to assault on four accounts. It was a wonderful afternoon for me watching as they lost everything.” Eligius recounted the events in which the five students were stripped of everything they owned and thrown into a dirty prison cell to rot until they died with the same expression of a child recounting eating their favorite food. Needless to say it was a bit disturbing to watch.
“Anyways, that's enough of my wonderful afternoon yesterday. We will of course continue with the art of pyromancy. First thing today is that most of you are too stiff when you manipulate your mana. You try to force the mana to follow a specific path, but mana likes to flow around so you need to let it reconnect to your stream.”
Using hydromancy Eligius created a small diagram while he spoke with one large stream of water with a small branch going off to the sides. “Most of you would try to force the mana in the small branch to go back the way it came and rejoin the rest of the mana that way. What an experienced mage would do is allow it to rejoin by flowing forwards like this.” Eligius made the small branch of water flow up and towards the primary branch and merge before the back end was severed and it all rejoined together.
“Now when you do this be sure that you sever the small branches when they are flowing back into the primary one or you could divide your focus and lose control of your spell. While losing control of a simple spell like the ones you are all familiar with is fine, when you start casting higher level spells it starts to become a problem.”
*********
Unlike the day before class ended at 12:00 as it was scheduled to and those two hours were brutal to everyone. Eligius was hard on everyone, even his favorite students were not spared from his harsh teaching practices. Even the spider person who was by far the best in the class was under a lot of stress.
When the class finally ended the entire class let out one collective sigh, everyone was eager to get something to eat. Arthur because he was the closest to the door was the first out of the class and he left straight for the exit.
When he got outside he found both Alanus and Zinon were waiting outside for him on a bench just off to the side. Alanus was the first to notice Arthur. “Good to see you sir. Are you going to go get something for lunch?”
“Yes, I know a place with some good burritos to eat at.”
“Very well sir, we shall accompany you there and back here for your afternoon class.”
*********
Arthur made his way to the free Parrot Bar where he found an empty table and bought five rice and chicken burritos. Three for him and the other two for his companions.
“I have a question for you sir, about the vampire you fought.” Zinon had already scarfed down his burrito when he broke the silence at the table. Arthur gave him a small nod giving him permission to ask.
“What was it like fighting such an unholy creature? Was it as hideous as it was vile?”
Arthur swallowed the burrito in his mouth before he answered. “The only thing that gave it away as not human was the deathly pale skin. Aside from that it looked no different from a regular human. Its strength and agility on the other hand were definitely something to be interested in.”
“So it was a powerful opponent.”
“Yes it was, but it did not see me as an enemy, it saw me as something lesser and something to be hunted. As a result of that he did not take the fight all that seriously until I stabbed him in the gut and slashed him across the chest.” Zinon looked at Arthur as if he was a child being told a story of a hero fighting an evil demon. “After that I pushed him into an unfavorable situation where he needed to escape to survive. But I was there to stop him and when I did I killed him by stabbing him through the gut.”
Zinon’s jaw dropped as Arthur finished his recount of the vampire’s attack. “That is incredible sir. Perhaps one day I will slay a vampire like you have.”
***********
After all three had finished eating they returned to the mages guild and Arthur entered alone while his companions waited outside. When Arthur entered the class for aeromancy it was 12:20 and about a quarter of the class had already taken their seats and started talking amongst themselves waiting for the class to start. Arthur instead chose to practice aeromancy a bit more before class started.
Like with his pyromancy class the teacher Faylin was the last to enter the class at exactly 12:30. “Good morning class and welcome back to the basics of aeromancy. Today we will be doing a lot of the same and reinforce the skills that you have started learning yesterday. Now the goal for today is to try and manually control the air that is about equal in space to a grape.”
Like the basics of pyromancy Arthur did his best to learn from his teacher how to manipulate air in such a way. The difficult part was not the amount of air Faylin wanted everyone to control, it was how far away the air was requiring every drop of focus for Arthur to keep control.