In the morning before class, it was common to see students gather in the track fields, run laps and then use the training facility in the Student Hall. The training regiment was recommended by the instructors.

Nico took a little longer than his roommates to feed his plants. Once done, they ran off to the track field.

"So, what's your first class?" Jack jogged steadily closer to the edge of the track.

"Herbology 101," Nico replied running in the middle.

"We're all in the same class together!?" Asked Jack.

"I think so, but it didn't indicate a room. I think there should be many halls teaching 101."

The Academy had an open ended series of lectures that students may choose to attend. The level of the lectures were restricted by ranking. The first lectures the Academy offered was Herbology. There were only 100 classes with varying levels, but levels a student could take depended on their ranking.

"Is the number on the right our ranking?" Asked Jack about the schedule they were given.

"Yep, I'm ranked #19591 in Herbology," Nico said proudly, out of 19879 students in the entire school.

"I'm #19799!" Jack was sure he got 2 questions right. "What did you get Vincent?"

"#19800."

Ashe were stupefied by their ranking.

"What rank are you?" asked Jack.

"Number 7465," Ashe's number was unusually high for his age.

"Wow, we have a smartass in our dorm room. What class do you take then?"

"Herbology 203."

"So this testing tower place, we can only test out once a month to increase our rank?"

Jack looked at Nico, who had idea.

Nico shrugged and looked to Ashe for answer.

"Yes, the Testing Tower is where you take the tests to be reevaluated," Ashe explained. "You may elect to test one time in each subject. The tower will reevaluate your knowledge and provide you with new ranking."

Nico, Vincent and Jack all glanced at Ashe to continue with his explanation.

"Didn't any of you pay attention to the orientation?" Ashe shook his head in annoyance. "If you increase your ranking, you are allowed to attend higher level lectures."

Ten minutes before nine, the clock tower chimed three times to notify everyone that the first lecture would begin soon. The clock tower had a magical sound property; no matter where the students were, they could hear the sound of the clock tower.

Ashe left for Herbology 203 while the remaining three searched for the Herbology 101 classroom.

Herbology 101 was easy to find. There were over 50 halls offering the same course in the Academic Hall.

The three roommates walked into one of the empty lecture halls with a pretty instructor standing in front.

After all the seats were filled in the lecture hall, they noticed that they were once again the tallest and oldest in a hall of around 150 students.

At the start of the lecture, the instructor, a young Miss Irene in red robe, bowed gently down to the students.

"Hello everyone! This is my first year teaching, please treat me kindly!"

The young students, ranging from seven to nine, were easily charmed.

"Today, we will learn about the basic parts of the manaherb, specifically the manarose," she began to explain.

A crystal on her desk projected an image of the manarose on the screen, which immediately impressed most of the young students. They had all seen it before during orientation, but they were seated closer to it today.

"I won't go into depth the physical structure of the plants as you will learn it in botany class," she explained as the students quieted down. "What is herbology? It is the study of manaherb. What is a manaherb? Plant that have powerful energy and manacore.

What are the differences in the different parts? The roots are used for earth and water property roots. The stems, especially the thorns, are used for adding sharpness property. The leaves have light and air property. The flower, fruits and seeds varied widely across different plant species.

What are the benefits of manaherbs? The benefits are seen mainly through alchemy because people can't process manaherbs properly. Herbology is one of the foundations of alchemy..."

She then went through a list of 50 different manaherbs for the remaining hour...

Half the class was drowsy by the end of the lecture. Never underestimate teachers' ability to cast sleep without mana.

"She is kinda boring," Jack whispered.

She was basically reading information from the screen word for word without engaging the students.

"It wasn't that bad..." Vincent remarked. His notes were filled with information copied from the screen.

"Can we leave?" Jack wanted to leave for the next class.

Sigillogy 101 was their next lecture, but they didn't have to leave. The same hall was also used for Sigillogy 101. Typically, the 101 classes were taught in the biggest halls because there were more students in need of 101 classes.

Instructor Irene waited nervously to see if there were any changes to the student body.

Should we leave? The students closer to the front stared at each other, and then nodded.

They raised from their seats.

"Where are you going students?" Instructor Irene inquired sweetly.

"To stretch Instructor Irene," one of the smarter children replied.

The students left, mainly to stretch, but never returned.

Jack wanted to leave, but Vincent felt too lazy to move.

Sigillogy was the class Nico was most interested in since it involved the understanding of symbols. He should give Instructor Irene a chance, he felt a little bad as more students were leaving. The poor woman looked like she was about to cry.

A tall female student from the front was about to leave, but she stopped in front of Vincent.

"Ah, Vincent, good to see you again, can I have a seat?" asked the female student.

"Um, sure?" Vincent tilted his head.

Nico and Jack wasn't sure if that was a proper response. She sat on a vacant seat by Vincent.

"Who's the girl?" Jack leaned to Nico and whispered.

"Anya, she took the exam with us. "

"Oh, right! Hey, you made it too!" Jack gave her a thumbs up.

"You're Jack and Nico, right?" Asked Anya. "I guess that means the five of us made it through the exam."

Nico counted the heads, one, two, three, and four. "Who's the fifth?"

"Xavier. He made it into the Academic Branch," said Anya. "He was ranked pretty high on the list. He was also in my tour group during orientation week."

Nico haven't seen Xavier, but the school was big like a college campus, so it wasn't unusual.

Instructor Irene was relieved when she saw students heading inside, most likely due to the lack of seats from the other classrooms.

Soon, the seats filled back up.

"Good morning everyone," Instructor Irene began. "If you do not know already, I am Instructor Irene. We will start with a definition. Sigillogy 101 is the study of mana through Persona and Shadow symbols."

Kelseran definition of Persona and Shadow closely resembled Nico's interpretations.

"Mana have many forms, and the best way to understand them is to feel them with our roots, meridians and auras," Instructor Irene continued, she was a lot more animated than she was in the previous class. "For centuries, scholars have been studying the structure of mana. Our understanding of mana is accumulated into the study of Sigillogy. So far, Sigillogian scholars have uncovered more than five thousand Personas and 100 Shadows.

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Sigillogy is the foundation for talismans, inscriptions, and many magical fields.

Personas are the faces, the names, the descriptions, and the language of mana. If we want flame, we need to use the flame persona. If we want water, we need to use the water persona.

Shadows are the hidden face, the power, and building blocks of mana. If Personas are our skin and personalities, the shadows are our organs.

Manacores and many raw materials consist entirely of shadows.

Whereas, alchemy pills consists entirely of manas that are reformulated by Alchemist, so we call it the Ego."

Ah, is that why I can't analyze anything from the Boost Strength Pill? Nico wondered and scribbled down notes.

"Over the course of this class, I will help you become familiar with the different shadow symbols first," Instructor Irene explained. "Then we will move into Personas, which are more numerous."

Nico raised his hand. "When do we learn about the combinations of symbols and Egos?"

"That's the more advanced class, starting with 301," she explained. "But you should focus on memorizing the shadows first, then the Personas."

"Are there books we can borrow and look through?" asked Nico.

"Books on Shadows and Personas are quite rare. Because they hold a certain amount of power, a normal layman can't easily write them down." Irene walked to a board and chalked down a simple water persona symbol.

The water persona symbol faded away soon after she wrote it down.

Nico jaw dropped.

"Wow!"

"Amazing!"

The kids were in awe.

"Shadow symbol and personas can only be written with special mana-ink."

Nico had always used mana-ink from various manabeast innards. He had never attempted writing with regular ink.

"This isn't the only reason why Sigillogy books are rare," Irene continued. "A book containing more than a dozen symbol, written correctly, may combust on its own. It requires a special binding to hold the book together.

Okay, back to today's lesson."

The Constantine's 108 Fundamental Shadow Symbols was fine, did it have a special enchantment? Oh S***, my journals! Wait, they haven't self-destructed yet, it should be fine, Nico hoped.

"That was actually helpful," Jack said after the class and stretched both arms out wide.

"Yeah, she explained it better than some of the books I've seen in the library," Nico commented.

"It's lunch time!" Jack suddenly woke up.

Nico also wondered what food the Academy was offering.

"Can I join you guys?" Asked Anya.

"Sure." Responded Nico and Jack.

Vincent tilted his head down, it was barely a nod.

They walked to the cafeteria, located in the Student Hall. The first floor was for the general body, the second floor was for the green robes, and the third floor was the red robes and above.

The large open room was lined with tables lined with chairs. In the spring, all the doors were opened to allow fresh air and light inside.

They grabbed the trays and lined up to collect their food. As it was their turn, they watched as the grumpy cafeteria ladies poured the runny stew into a frail wooden bowl, slopped on the mashed potatoes and threw two slices of bread on their trays.

Oh, how he missed the food from Killo Restaurant Inn.

"Hey! Why don't we eat out for lunch next time?" asked Nico.

The Academy didn't restrict students from going out as long as they registered. Killo Restaurant Inn was only a 15-minutes walk, and afternoon classes were Academic classes like history, math, and physics. Nico was sure most of his roommates were planning to skip them anyway.

"Should we go to the Jantilo Restaurant?" Ashe was a green robe, but he usually sat with his roommates.

"Nah, I have a better place, and it's closer to the Academy." Nico suggested.

"Oh, hi, my name is Anya," Anya introduced herself to Ashe with a short bow.

"Careful with this guy, he's cold to everyone," Jack warned Anya.

"Beautiful miss Anya. I am Ashe of the Hartley Clan. I am beyond honor to make your acquaintance." Ashe took a hold of Anya's hands and gently kissed his other hand, for his gentlemanly introduction.

"What the..." The boys were shocked by the change in Ashe.

"Oh my, what a thoughtful gentleman." Anya bowed back. "It is so wonderful to see chivalry still exist in this generation."

"Can you stop talking like we are still in the Kinbarl era?" Jack forced a piece of bread down his throat to keep himself from gagging.

Ashe narrowed his eyes looking at Jack. Jack whistled and looked away.

After lunch, they skipped history and math to focus on training.

Nico returned to his room and reexamined his journal. It was the 12th journal he had written. The other journals were hidden in the cave behind his farmhouse.

The journal had 60 pages of notes written mostly in personas and Kelseran. The journal was bound together by cashmere thread from managoat and protected by the hide of manadeer. His oldest journal was still in tack and it was written when he had discovered shadow symbols through Minko's vision. The paper he had used at that time was regular linen paper.

Nico wrote a simple flame persona symbol on regular paper. After a few moment, the symbol disappeared.

The same thing happened when he wrote the shadow symbols.

Next, Nico tested a flame persona with the shadow characters using the regular ink. As soon as he completed, a little fireball shot out.

"Ah!" Nico quickly chucked the paper out of the balcony.

Good thing he was in the balcony and the fireball dissipated in the air.

That was close. Nico exhaled in relief.

It was good decision to head to the academy. He felt like an infant child in this world. There were still many things he did not understand.

During lunch, Nico introduced his roommates and Anya to Killo Restaurant Inn.

"Who's your friend?" asked Busho seeing Nico leading a group of students from the Academy into the restaurant.

"My roommates and friends from the Academy," Nico then introduced everyone.

Everyone said a friendly hello, but Ashe was a bit more extra.

"It is an honor to meet two beautiful ladies," Ashe performed his gentlemen kiss on both Lulu and Innes.

Jack wanted to poke his eyes out.

"It's good that you're here, Mumu has been so depressed since you're gone," Busho said.

"He's fine, he's just experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Maybe eating too much good food is giving him brain damage." Nico looked at the board. "Can you get everyone the special?"

"Sure." Busho started another flame. "I heard the Academy food is pretty good, why aren't you eating there?"

"It's just the second floor and above," Ashe stated. "First floor food is pretty plain."

"It's bad," Jack added.

"If it's bad, stop by here for lunch then," said Busho. "Nico has helped us out a lot."

The following days, they went to Beastology, Elementology, Mineralogy, Spiritology classes offered in the morning. The classes were formatted the same way as Herbology and Sigillogy, except it dealt with how mana affects beast, the elements, minerals/rocks and man.

They continued to skip all the academic classes in the afternoon.