Is it up here? Adion thought to himself as he tried to locate Hall C, where the first class of his time at the Academy would take place.

“Adion!” Relmon’s voice sounded from above. Adion looked up and noticed the newly appointed rank 9 of the diamond class calling for him.

“Is Hall C up here?” Adion asked as he came up the stairs and greeted his classmate.

“Yeah, it’s over there,” Relmon said as he pointed out a lecture hall with open doors further down the hallway.

“What are you doing out here still?” Adion asked as he headed to the hall.

“I was waiting for you,” Relmon said, “I want to know how you managed to reach Silver so young. Surely you have some time before the class starts?”

“I did just like everyone else,” Adion said, tired of answering the same question once again, “I guess I just do it slightly better.”

“That’s it? No secret method?” Relmon asked.

“If I had a secret method, telling people about it wouldn’t make much sense, would it?” Adion asked.

“I guess that’s true,” Relmon slowly nodded, “So you do have a secret method?”

“No,” Adion responded.

“But that’s what you would say even if you had a secret method,” Relmon said.

“I guess I would,” Adion nodded.

“...So which one is it?” Relmon asked.

“Haaah,” Adion sighed, “I promise that I don’t have a secret method. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

Relmon scrutinized Adion’s face closely, trying to see if he was telling the truth.

“Anyway,” Adion said, “You should focus on your own strength instead of mine. I’m sure you’ll have a tougher time defending your position than me.”

“Yeah,” Relmon said, “No one would be stupid enough to challenge you. But I think I’m far from in the clear. Keeping a position in the top 10 is a constant struggle.”

“You’ll have to work hard then,” Adion said as they entered Hall C. It was a pretty small auditorium, filled with the students from the diamond class. A lot of people turned to Adion as he entered and started whispering about him. As basically everyone already knew about his strength, Adion didn’t bother hiding it anymore.

Adion spotted Sell sitting next to Felicia further in the back. She gave him a small wave when she saw him. Adion smiled and headed up.

“You can’t exactly relax either,” Relmon said in a low voice, “More than discouraging anyone, I think you have just made everyone more determined to improve. When someone reaches Silver, I’m sure they’ll challenge you.”

“I know,” Adion said. He had no intention of standing still.

The seat to the right of Sell was still empty, so Adion sat down and turned to her with a smile.

“Good morning. How was the family meeting?” Adion asked.

After training together after the tournament the day before, Sell had received a letter that told her to head over to an Amyss family meeting. She had no idea what it was about, so Adion was curious how it went.

“I’ll tell you later,” Sell said, “Anyway, you sure are cutting it close. It’s only a few minutes until we start.”

“It is?” Adion asked. “I thought I’d arrive with a lot of time to spare.”

“You don’t have a watch?” Sell asked.

“I tend to go by the sun,” Adion answered.

“The sun?” Sell questioned with a teasing smile.

“What’s wrong with that?” Adion asked.

“Nothing,” Sell shook her head, “That explains a lot. I think I’ve caught you staring up at the sky even when it is dark. I thought you were looking at the stars or something, but it turns out you were looking for the sun.”

Sell tried to hold down her laughter, but it still caught the attention of the students nearby.

“I look at the stars sometimes,” Adion muttered.

“Do you know the name of a single star?” Sell questioned.

They have names?

His expression seemed to have given him away as Sell started laughing even harder.

“What are you two-” Felicia leaned forward to question them but stopped herself mid-sentence as someone with a Diamond mage aura entered the classroom.

Adion looked down to the person he had seen during his introduction. Professor Tenami looked through the students, who had all quieted down when they noticed her, as she made her way to the blackboard. Adion thought her eyes lingered slightly when she looked his way.

“Welcome to ‘History - From the Mysterious Past to the Complex Present.’ I’m Professor Tenami, and I will teach you all to the best of my ability during our time together,” Professor Tenami said in a clear and loud voice.

She placed her bag on the chair behind the desk at the front of the classroom.

“I’m sure most of you in the diamond class already have received an excellent education, and some of what I teach you might be familiar,” Professor Tenami continued, facing the just below a hundred students. “But please do pay attention. Cyalis Academy is not known as the best Academy for nothing.”

Hopefully, she’ll still cover the basics. I’m afraid I’m far behind most other students here.

Even if Adion had received a pretty good education from teacher Francis during his childhood. It couldn’t compare to what children of Noble families had access to.

“Today, we shall have a brief history from the beginning to the present. And we will dig deeper into certain periods in the coming classes. But for now, let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” Professor Tenami said, “We are all aware of the Age of Wonders, but what came before it? Who here can answer this?”

No student offered any response to Professor Tenami’s open question.

“I’ll give you 20 credits if you answer correctly,” Professor Tenami added.

Suddenly, a few hands shot up into the air.

“You there,” Professor Tenami pointed to a brown-haired girl in the front row.

“As far as I know, before the Age of Wonder, there was presumably a Dark Age, from which sapi slowly built up power over hundreds of thousands of years,” The girl answered.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“That’s not a bad explanation,” Professor Tenami nodded, “But it's wrong. Or perhaps incomplete is a better word. But I’ll still give you 10 credits for participating in the class.”

That’s generous for a wrong answer.

“We don’t know much about the history before the Dark Age. Our current Age is pretty much all about discovering the knowledge lost from the Age of Wonder, after all. But we still know a few things. We will go through the methodology in a later lesson, but let’s just say that through countless old books and documents, a picture has slowly taken form. And from this, we can deduce a few things.

“There have been more Ages than we can perhaps ever imagine. We only know of five of them, including the current one. How do we know that there are more than those Ages? That the world simply didn’t begin with the Age of Gods, as the first Age we know of is called? There are several factors, but the most clear evidence, I believe, is the Primordial Story. For those of you who are not aware, the faelin has a story that is passed down from generation to generation. You will never meet a faelin who does not know the story by heart.

“But the Primordial Story is a topic for another day. What the story is very clear about, however, is the existence of a race called the fae. And though there are some scholars who doubt the validity of the Primordial Story and the existence of such a race, most of us believe it to be a fact.

“That leads us to an incredible discovery by Sage Tevolisis. Around 700 years ago, he discovered that the faelin was an existing race even during the Age of Gods, and much speaks for there not being any fae during that time. This would mean that the Primordial Story is much older than we had previously believed, and the world is far more ancient than we can imagine.

“Unfortunately, we know very little about that time. We don’t even have a single surviving remnant from the Age of Gods. Only through the mention of such an Age through old books have we become aware of it.”

Professor Tenami saw a raised hand and pointed to the student. “A question?” She asked.

“Professor Tenami, why was the Age of Gods called that? Were gods truly around at that time? Where did they all go?” The student asked.

“Well, that’s very unclear, I’m afraid,” Professor Tenami said with a smile, “We know that gods have existed. Even during the Age of Wonder, there seemed to be plenty around. As for why the Age of Gods was called that, maybe that was the first Age any being became so powerful. But we can only guess. As for why they are seemingly gone now, we will get to that.

“Now. We do not know why the Age of Gods ended. There are theories, of course, but it is all speculation. But we do know that it ended, and we do know that the Age after was called the Age of Mysteries.

“We know very little of this Age as well, as the information we have is mainly from people talking about this Age in documents from the Age of Wonder. But it is an Age not as far out of our reach as the Age of Gods, and a lot of interesting theories exist concerning it. But we will not dig too deep into any of that. If you are interested, you can talk to me after the class is over.

“The Age of Mysteries ended, and with its end, the Age of Wonder began,” Professor Tenami continued. But she noticed another student had raised their hand, so she prompted them to speak.

“How did the Age of Mysteries end? Do we know?” The student asked.

Professor Tenami was quiet for a while, seemingly in thought. After a while, she smiled slightly at the student who had asked the question and answered, “The Age of Mysteries is actually an area of particular interest to me. It is the reason I became a scholar. I wanted to find out more about that part of our distant past.

“I will be truthful to you,” She said and looked to the rest of the students, “I will be truthful to all of you. I have a lot that I will not share. That is not my decision but just the way the world, and in particular the world of scholars and Sages, works.

“This class is meant to give you a good overview of our history. And I believe that it is the best overview given at any academy on Shiora. And even at Cyalis Academy, you here are given more information than most. Don’t think that the other classes gain the knowledge of the Age of Gods and the Age of Mysteries. That is a privilege only the best of the best can receive for free. If other students want the information I give you, they’ll have to pay for it with their credits.

“But just because you are in the diamond class doesn’t mean that you can gain access to the same information as me, or the other top scholars at the Academy. It wasn’t until I became a scholar that I was made privy to more secret information about what we know of our history. And it didn’t come for free.

“My hope for this class is not only that you will gain an understanding of what has led us all here, but I also hope to spark some curiosity in you. Most diamond class students tend to focus most of their attention on gaining strength. That is to be expected as that is what let you get the position you now hold. But do not forget what your strength has earned you. Make use of the privileges you have.

“When you graduate, you might graduate from the diamond class. But you will still only be a Silver mage among countless others if you haven’t focused on your studies. I hope to see some of you choosing to dig deeper into the history of our world. Because it is more spectacular than you can ever imagine.”

Professor Tenami noticed a few raised hands and pointed to a black-haired boy to let him speak.

“How should I go about if I want to ‘dig deeper,’ as you put it?” The boy asked.

“Excellent question,” Professor Tenami said with a wide smile, “First of all, you should pay attention in class. It is free information that you shouldn’t take for granted. Secondly, you should try to catch the attention of a professor teaching a more exclusive class, where you will be taught more restrictive information. But I will add that it takes a lot of credits to get into those classes.

“Most important of all is to become a scholar of the Academy. It is not easy by any means. But if you truly want access to all the Academy has to offer, that is the only way. So use your time here getting as close to that as possible. Use your credits on classes and at the library instead of wasting them on less important stuff.

“As I see it, you can spend your time here fighting to be at the top of the diamond class. It is not a bad thing at all. But you should figure out why you want to be there. Is it prestige? To impress your family and friends? Think about how long that will last for you.

“Hopefully, my class will make some of you see your fighting prowess not as something of value in itself but as a way to obtain something of actual value.

“Anyway, let’s get back on track,” Professor Tenami said, shaking her head, “The Age of Wonder is the Age we all strive to know more about. We will go through it in detail in coming classes, but we don’t have time for that today.

“I’m sure you all are curious about the Academy’s stance on how the Age of Wonder ended, and how we could somehow be brought to the state we were in during the Age of Darkness. I know that the Hellemi Church blames the Fire Phoenix, while the Fire Phoenix Church believes quite the opposite. I am not going to say that one is wrong while the other is right. I’m sure many of you have already made up your mind about it, depending where you come from.

“Instead, I will say what we do know. The Age of Wonder didn’t end in a slow decline. It was sudden and catastrophic. The world seemed to have suffered several big earthquakes, giant waves, thunderstorms, and, as the Hellemi Church so often points to, fire. For some reason, an incredibly strong fire is mentioned leveling not only civilizations here on Shiora, but on Quemer as well. If that was the Fire Phoenix or something else entirely, I leave it for each of you to think about yourselves.

“The result was basically a complete reset of the world. Not many people survived the calamity, and it took over a hundred thousand years before we built the world up to what we see today. We will talk about the Dark Ages in detail after we are done with the Age of Wonder.

“As for the Age of Discovery, we are only in the year 5815, but we know far more about this period than the rest of history because of how recent it is. The Age of Discovery will be the bulk of our class, with a special focus on Shiora, not only through the viewpoint of Quemerians who got here in the year 2362, but the Kuwamin and Sabamin as well.

“But I am not so rigid as to set my class in stone. I am aware that you might have particular periods of interest. So I will hand out some papers with questions for you to answer, and I will take into account any special requests on topics to cover.”

Professor Tenami handed out bundles of papers to the students in the front row, who then passed them along to the students behind them after grabbing a paper for themselves.

“Do you have any particular interest?” Sell asked in a low voice.

“Besides the Age of Wonder, I haven’t really thought much about it,” Adion answered.

“Yeah,” Sell nodded, “I’m not particularly interested in anything besides that. But I imagine she is already planning on telling us everything she is allowed to concerning the Age of Wonder.”

“I guess,” Adion nodded. His thoughts were still a little distant. Even if he was interested in the Age of Wonder, he was far more interested in the Age of Mysteries at the moment.

I have never heard about the Age of Gods and the Age of Mysteries before. That information can’t be very widespread. But while the Age of Gods seems to contain little more knowledge than its name, that doesn’t seem to be the case with the Age of Mysteries.

Adion had noticed that Professor Tenami had no problem saying she didn’t know how the Age of Gods ended, but when it came to the Age of Mysteries, she had gone on to explain that she couldn’t share certain information with them.

She knows how it ended. I wonder how much credits it will cost for me to find out too.

“Want to go to the library after our classes?” Adion asked Sell.

“Didn’t you have to go talk with your grandfather?” Sell asked.

“Oh, right,” Adion said. “Tomorrow then?”

“Sure,” Sell smiled.