The children had gone up to their room and focused on studying quietly. The room they shared only had two beds but because they were birds, the beds were useless for now. Above the beds were many wooden perches on the wall.

Each of them landed on one and quietly began to absorb and digest the information within the spheres on their necklaces. Most of the information inside actually related to different aspects of science.

Vogel realized that most of the information inside related to things like the anatomy of different species of animals, the properties of air along with aerodynamics, physics and so on...

"This information is very similar to the sciences on earth" He thought to himself.

There was no information about magic inside but the children didn't need it. They could utilize their existing knowledge of wind and body magic along with the information that they just received to make their own style of magic that suited their needs and desires. Their knowledge of these different sciences could help them in creating their own skills in the future, skills that suited them best.

****

The children arrived at the school early together with their mother. When they asked where Edith went, their mother told them that she had work to do. They were sad to hear that and in order to cheer them up, their mother decided to go with them to the school.

They arrived about half an hour early for their first class which was body magic. They chatted together for a while about the school until it was time for class. Their mother bid them goodbye as they entered into the beginner magic school building.

"You think we'll learn how to crush stones and slice through metal with our bodies in this class?" Maethas spoke to the group as he made grabbing and cutting motions with his tiny talons. He was already lost in his dreams.

"It's a BEGINNER class" Iola ruthlessly woke him up from his fantasies.

"Hey, you never know. We might actually learn some cool things" Vogel was also excited about the class.

"I hope our instructors will be nice" Seva said.

They arrived at their class while they were talking. They already knew where it was from the map that was in front of the building, outside.

As they opened the door, a room full of very different sights entered their eyes. It was similar to a lecture hall from earth. There were stacks of creatures inside, all of them were animals that had no aspect of a human body on them. Most of them were children like Vogel and the rest, with a very small minority that were older. The birds had perches on the ceiling to rest on, Vogel and the rest flew to sit on them.

The sounds of all the different animals mixed together in a cacophony of noise. Their vocal cords were still also that of an animal's so they could only communicate through their minds for now.

This way of communication was an enchantment that all of the new borns would have imprinted into their bodies. By learning magic later on they could remove it themselves or do with it as they wished. It was only a way to fascilitate the communication between all the different species from a very young age.

"Hey, that's that kid. The officer's son, from yesterday" Adrian said to Vogel as he gazed at him from above. The kid he was referring to was the golden furred cat that was sleeping on officer Bezir's hand yesterday. He was sitting on a mat with a bunch of other animals, they were chatting with each other normally.

"He seems to be getting along well with everyone. Maybe you should try to do the same. Don't let that talk about this 'incident' occupy your whole mind. We're just powerless kids who are just starting their lives. Enjoy it a little!" Vogel knew that Adrian wasn't focused since he heard about that incident from yesterday.

"Aren't you even a little curious about what happened back then?"

"Of course, I am. But that isn't something we should care about right now. Right now, I want to enjoy learning about magic and have fun with all of you guys, not worry about something that I have no control over"

Adrian shifted his gaze to the front of the room as he thought everything over.

"Look, if you can't get over it that much, we can ask around after the classes are over. For now though, please try to enjoy yourself a little bit. You're dampening the mood" Vogel said with a chuckle.

"Fine, fine, I get it" Adrian said in an annoyed tone, but he couldn't conceal a hint of a smile that appeared on his bird face.

Right after they finished talking, a muscular dark skinned man with four arms walked into the room and stood in front of the class. All the talking immediately quieted down and silence filled the room.

"Good morning, everyone! I'm instructor Welford. Welcome to the elementary body magic class. In this class you will be taught how to manipulate your physical characteristics using body magic. You should all have already used your information spheres to study the material relevant to the class..."

The four armed man was their instructor for the course. He went on to speak about the details of body magic and the class. After, he explained to them how to imbue their mana into their body to gain the body magic skill.

"Gaining the body magic skill is your first step to being able to metamorphose. It will also open up the door for you to start learning many skills related to your bodies. Now, everyone begin imbuing your mana into your bodies"

Metamorphosis was a body magic skill that allowed the user to change his appearance to that of other species by changing his very organs to that of the other species. That included everything from the skin and blood vessels to the internal organs themselves.

Everyone in the class started to concentrate on their bodies at that moment, trying their best to gain the body magic skill. Instructor Welford was satisfied to see that everyone was trying hard until his eyes landed on Vogel. Vogel had already gained the body magic skill and was at a loss for what to do.

"Why aren't you imbuing your mana into your body like everyone else, kid?" Instructor Welford spoke telepathically to Vogel in order not to disturb everyone else's concentration.

"I've already gained the skill, sir" Vogel answered him honestly.

"Oh... That's quiet good. You must come from a family who specializes in body magic" Instructor Welford said "in any case, since you've already learned body magic, start working on the metamorphosis skill. To gain the skill, just change some part of you to that of another species. Use your knowledge of anatomy to help you. I'll give you a small tip, try changing your vocal cords, they are very easy to manipulate for a beginner"

"Thank you for the advise" Vogel replied. He immersed himself into gaining the skill after hearing instructor Welford's instructions. He recalled the anatomy of a human's vocal cords from the information he got from the sphere and then recalled the anatomy of the syrinx of his own bird body.

He then slowly let his mana cover his vocal area and began molding his syrinx to resemble that of a human's. His neck slowly swelled until he had to revert the changes he had done because he started to have trouble breathing. The larynx of a human was too different to that of a bird's syrinx.

"Maybe it's better to change them into another bird's vocals that way I'll be able to adapt easier" After deliberating for a while he decided on changing his vocal cords to that of a parrot's. A parrot's vocal cords enabled them to speak like a human would. Vogel missed having a human voice after so long and was only focused on trying to become more human.

[Metamorphosis lv1] Sub-skill Gained

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

After much trial and error Vogel finally managed to change his vocal cords. His siblings were visibly surprised when they heard his high pitched voice as he gave out a sound with his new vocals.

"I've barely managed to learn the body magic skill. You've already learned metamorphosis?" Adrian said.

"I guess I have a knack for body magic" Vogel couldn't hide the smugness in his tone.

"Whoa, bro! That's awesome. Tell me how you did it" Maethas said.

Vogel didn't hide what instructor Welford told him from his siblings. He also explained to them his brief experience in order for them to learn the skill faster.

***

The children all learned the metamorphosis skill by the time class was over. Many others had also learned it in the class. Those that couldn't gain the skill in class had enough knowledge to learn it by themselves whenever they wanted to later on.

It was now time for the water magic class and Seva was the only one who was going to attend it. Her siblings stayed with her until class started. She had to fight the nervousness of being alone in order to enter the class by herself.

The inside of the class was very similar in looks to the body magic class. However, the seats were pushed back away from the instructor's stand in order to leave room for what looked to be a swimming pool in the middle of the room.

There were a lot fewer people in this class compared to the body magic class. That was obvious because of the fact that the elementary body magic class was considered obligatory by many people. The other magic classes were for those who wanted to specialize in a field they liked, or excelled in.

Seva nervously flew over to a perch and waited for class to begin. She couldn't put her mind at ease without being surrounded by her family.

"Ah"

Seva was pushed out of the perch from behind by another bird. She managed to hold her bearings in the air.

"Oh, sorry! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that, I didn't see you there"

A panicked female voice sounded out inside Seva's mind before she could even turn around to face the culprit. A snow owl that was at least 5 times as big as Seva was seated in her place, looking at Seva with great panic in her sharp yellow eyes.

"I'm really sorry! I'm such a klutz. These things always happen when I'm alone... I always have my siblings with me and when I'm not around them I tend to get too nervous and make mistakes and.." The snow owl kept going on and on and just didn't stop talking from her nervousness.

"I... I also get nervous when I'm not around my siblings" A small voice interrupted the owl's speach. The owl looked at Seva with a surprised look.

"... I'm June" The snow owl, June, said.

"Hi, June! I'm Seva" Seva spoke lightly.

June gave way for Seva to sit on the perch with her.

Seva flew over and sat beside her. The mood turned awkward, for a moment.

"So, you like water magic?" June tried to start a conversation.

"Ah, Yes. Me and my siblings recently went to a pond, the water was so nice there..." Seva's nervousness subsided slightly as she remembered the time at the pond.

June looked into the distance, as if reminiscing about something "Ah... I know that feeling, when the water washes over you and warms your body. It makes me remember my mother's embrace"

"Right?! It just feels so comfortable"

The two girls giggled.

Their conversation continued until the water magic class instructor walked in. The instructor for this class was a woman with ocean blue hair and a very soft body. Her body looked as soft as jello.

She introduced herself as instructor Amina and began to detail what the students were expected to learn in this class and so on...

The class immediately began with gaining the water magic skill. The students were instructed to enter the swimming pool in the middle of the room. Those who could swim could enter anywhere and those who were unable to, were directed to enter into the shallow parts of the pool so that they could stand while immersed in the water.

[Water Magic lv1] Skill Gained

The class picked up on the skill quickly and they moved on to learning the sub-skill, Stream.

Instructor Amina used her own water magic skill to make a water ball from the pool water. The pool water gathered slowly in the air as it spun into a sphere. The water began to freeze over from the inside until the whole sphere froze over completely and white mist effused off the, now, ice sphere.

"Using your ability to move the water with your mana, I want you to make the water into a stream and hit this with it" Instructor Amina pointed at the suspended ice ball.

The students were shocked out of their stupor by instructor Amina's words. They began to focus their mana and followed her instructions.

[Water Stream lv1] Sub-skill Gained

By the time class was over, many of the students had acquired the skill. Instructor Amina told those who couldn't gain the skill to train on the skill on their own by using rocks or other materials.

Seva and June were among those who were able to easily acquire the skill.

"I was afraid I wouldn't be able to focus in class. Thankfully, I did alright" Seva gave a sigh of relief as she spoke.

"Hehe... You were really engrossed in the class. It was like you were in a trance" June said. June had stayed with Seva for the first half of the class because she had already gained the water magic skill. The snow owls had an affinity with water and air magic, they could excel in both. When a snow owl learns water and air magic she could just as easily pick up on the more advanced ice magic.

"I guess I just really like water magic" Seva said.

Both girls went to meet up with their siblings while chatting.

There was a hall on the first floor of the building where students could rest, eat or wait for classes in. There, Seva joined up with Vogel and the rest and June joined up with her own siblings.

"I see you've made friends" Vogel remarked.

"Yes, that was June. She is a snow owl and she's enrolled in the same classes as me. I'll introduce you guys later"

"Well, we brought food. Want some?" Iola said as she waved a small box of food in front of Seva with her small talons.

The four of them decided to go home quickly after Seva went entered the class. They ate and chatted a little with their mother before coming back.

Seva ate the food quickly as she talked about what she learned in the water magic class and how much she liked it.

***

For the wind magic class, it was a breeze for Vogel and his siblings. They did get to learn one new sub-skill called gust, though. Gust, as the name suggests, was a skill for making a gust of wind to push or knock-back objects or people respectively.

The children were now ready to go, except for Maethas who still had his earth magic class left. Seva said goodbye to June and her siblings and everyone went to escort Maethas to his class.

At the entrance to the earth magic class room, they saw officer Bezir's son there standing with a bunch of friends. He was also enrolled in the earth magic class.

"I'm going to go ask him something" Adrian said out of nowhere.

"Hold on, we don't even know the guy" Vogel knew why Adrian was going but still tried to stop him.

Adrian whispered to Vogel "You promised me we'll look into the incident after classes were over and he might be our first clue. You could see that his dad was really hateful of that incident, he might have said something that his son heard, so, it only makes sense to ask him about it"

"His father mentioned how it killed both his and his wife's parents. Even if he mentioned it in front of the guy, I doubt he'd happily share his information with us" Vogel argued.

"Look, I'm going. Are you coming or not?"

Vogel still didn't like the idea but decided he would go with Adrian to at least mend any potential damage or stop it from occurring if possible.

Adrian and Vogel turned around and were just about to fly to him, before they stared dumbfounded at what they saw. Maethas was there already speaking to him casually and the golden cat was responding to him in great enthusiasm. If one didn't know you'd think they'd been friends for years.

"Yeah, he is! You should see him when he trains, he's a BEAST. He doesn't just break rocks, he PULVIRIZES them, and then, and then he remakes the rocks himself. Or when he wears that golden armor, he looks EPIC..." The cat was talking to Maethas and his friends. He was almost frothing at the mouth from speaking so quickly.

"Wow, your dad is goals. I wanna grow up quickly and enter the military, maybe I could even work under him" Maethas and the cat's friends were greatly fascinated by his stories of his father, officer Bezir.

Adrian and Vogel approached the company cautiously.

"Hi, we're..." Before they could even finish the sentence the cat interrupted them

"You must be Maethas' brothers... he told me. I'm Edgar, nice to meet you!"

"When in the world did he tell you that?" Adrian and Vogel both had the same thought but refrained from saying anything.

"Hi, Edgar! I'm..."

"Oh, let me guess. You're Adrian" he pointed at Vogel "And you're Vogel" he pointed at Adrian.

"That's completely wrong and how the hell does he know our names" They both thought as they stared at him, dead-pan.

"Ahaha... Actually it's the other way around. Anyway, let me get straight to the point. Did your dad ever mention anything about an 'incident'?" Adrian tried to keep a straight face as he talked to Edgar.

"Oh, that..." Edgar put on a hateful expression as he remembered his father talking about it "my grandparents died in that incident, my dad always spoke about how it's all because of those technomaniacs that I didn't get to meet them"

"Technomaniacs?" Adrian asked.

"Yeah, my dad said that they're a group of people that want to exterminate all magic users from the world. Thankfully, our sage was able to stop them, or else we would all be dead" Everyone was listening attentively to Edgar as he spoke.

"Too bad he died. Now our new queen doesn't want us to fight back and instead wants us to hide here forever" One of Edgar's cat friends commented.

"It's ridiculous, we should strike back at them for what they did to us" a ram spoke.

"But if the sage is dead now, why haven't those technomaniacs struck back yet?" Adrian asked.

"The way I see it, they could strike back anytime" Edgar said while his friends nodded their heads beside him.

"Woah, that sounds dangerous" Maethas said.

"Don't worry, with my dad and the military's preparations if they ever come back, we'll finish them off for good" Edgar spoke as his tail wagged furiously.

It was time for the class to start and Maethas bid his siblings goodbye as he entered with Edgar and the others.

"Well, now we know what happened, happy?" Vogel said to Adrian

"There's gotta be more to this story. Like, why didn't Edith tell us that when we asked her, even kids know this stuff and why isn't this information in the stend's necklaces?"

"Oh, come on" Vogel said in anguish "...sigh, let's first go home and eat. Then, we'll go to Edith and ask" In the end, Vogel gave up on persuading Adrian and just decided to follow him.

***

Maethas and Edgar finished class. Maethas gained the skill earth magic as well as its sub-skill rock-formation, with tips from Edgar to guide him.

Edgar was already well versed in earth magic from his father's teachings. He was glad to help his friends in their training.

On their way out of the building, they came across the announcement board. On it were various announcements for study groups, events etc... Maethas noticed a particular announcement that struck his eye.

"Hey, the school is organizing a trip to the guilds in the city. Maybe we can visit the military, if we go we might see your dad" Maethas said.

"Hm, I've went to the place were dad works before but I would love to go there again. When is that trip scheduled?"

***

At the time the children separated from Maethas.

Vogel and Adrian separated with the girls on the way out, Iola wanted to check somethings out in the library and Seva went with her. Vogel and Adrian told them they were going straight home to not raise any suspicions.

The two of them used the stend's necklace to locate where Edith worked. The necklace could only give them the information of where people in Edith's profession worked. Using that information, they used jet-stream and flew to the periphery of the city where a military base was located.

Once they reached the entrance to the base, an eagle flew in front of them.

"State your business" The eagle spoke in human tongue.

The kids were surprised, they thought they could just fly inside but the eagle's appearance proved otherwise.

"Uh, we're looking for lieutenant Edith" Vogel said.

"Who are you?"

"We're..." Vogel looked at Adrian at a loss of what to say "She's friends with our mother"

"Scram, kids, this isn't a place for you" The eagle lost his patience.

"No, really. She told us to come speak to her whenever we needed something" Adrian made up some lie.

"Listen, kid. I don't care who you are, if you don't leave right now. You will get hurt" The eagle took an aggressive tone.

"Hey, maybe we should leave for now" Vogel was starting to get worried. Despite that, Adrian continued talking.

"Just tell her we're the children of lady Av..." Before Adrian could speak another word a hand grabbed him and Vogel in the middle of the sky.