The school was massive but could be divided into a handful of sections. The Spiritual Essence section. The Spiritsmith Section. The Occupation section, the battle section, the simulation section and the Spiritknight section

The spiritual essence section was all about learning about spiritual arts and the theory behind them. This was without a doubt the largest section of the academy because it was the only section that all students had to pass through. It took up over half of the academy. The other sections were not mandatory.

The next largest section was the Spiritsmith section. Regarded by the academy as the most important section within the school and more than half of the school's resources went into the section. After all, this was called Ethereal Forge Academy. The nexus of learning when it came to the creation of smiters, the cornerstone of society. This section took up 25 percent of the school and everything within was top quality and expensive. The other four sections only took up 25 percent of the rest of the space.

There were many other odd and unique occupations available only to people who could spiritual essence, Spiritsmiths being the most well known and lucrative. Healers who cured the sick, apothecaries who made pills with wonderous efffects, spritual engineers who made leaps in technological advancements, alchemists who created new and wonderful materials from other ones, beast tamers who had the ability to control spirits and even raise them, spiritualists who focus puley on how to better improve our understanding of spiritual essence and how to better apply it. These are also people who learned all the theorectical knowledge of of at least 2 occupations and assisted when they were needed.

Normal spiritual arts can be negated by spirit beasts. Why this is so is still uknown and under research. Rumor had it that one spiritualist who was also a great black smith and alchemist finally found a way to create smiters! She immediately disseminated the information all across the world, resulting in the rest of the world coming back to life, with hope that these vile creatures could be destroyed.

Ro and Darius discussed the above and matter other matters on their way to their first destination. Darius of course had done his own research in recovery, so Ro was actually filling in the gaps.

"Why is spiritualist the most common occupation?" asked Darius as they talked.

Ro puffed some smoke out and said, "Because to function at any occupation, spiritual essence is need. Hence knowledge of it would greatly boost your occupation. So if you intended to become a better spirit smith using the vast knowledge of a spiritualist then it would be a huge boon.

Most spiritknights have don't have an occupation and prefer to just be spiritualists or specialists. Specialists are spiritknights thtat focus on betering their strength through the skills in their smiters.

Although normal spirit arts don't work on spirits, they can cause damage when chanelled through a smiter. This is why spiritualists are still so imortant. Its the most common job but its not the easiest.

Gifted spiritknights would have one occupation and the most common occupation is spiritualist naturally. For one to be called a Prodigy they must have 2 occupations while savants have 3. I don't know if its possible to get more but you never know, the world is huge."

Darius nodded and thought about it. "I want to be an excellent spiritsmith, so spiritualism is a given. Alchemy or Apothecary would be really useful to me as well. An alchemist knows ingredients best while the apothecary is best at ctreating the dish."

While Darius was pondering on what to choose, he heard Ro mention one more interesting fact, "Ah yes, I almost forgot. There are plenty of odd and rare occupations, and through a stroke of luck our school just happens to have one. Not only is it rare, it increases the chances of one's survival!"

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Ja Mun Ro's words struck Darius like thunder from the ninth heaven. An occupation that focused solely on surviving, was this not his dream?

"What's it called? I would love to join it immediately!"

Ro smirked and brought out a data pad. He passed it to Darius and took another puff. The superb air conditioning ensuring that the smoke dissapeared in seconds.

As Darius read the information, his face contorted into an ugly expression. At this point, Ro chose to speak, "I have to tell you, this occupation is only for the elite and their requirements are stringent. So stringent that they only accept students who applied in the first our of their first day. According to my calculations, you only have 5 minutes to choose young blood."

Darius started sweating profusely. This did increase his survival by a lot. There was no doubt about that, but the details made his stomach turn. But he did not come here to have fun. He came here to gain power so he could live.

Darius gulped and slumped in his chair, "Ta-take me there."

Ro laughed and raised the pipe in his hand to Darius, "I knew you were not a pussy young blood. We are already here."

Suddenly the shuttle started to rapidly descend, cathcing Darius of guard. The shuttle landed and Ro swaggered out. Darius followed suit with anger visibly on his face.

"Shit, I have been played again! This time by this darn junkie! The old man is definitely behind this." The duo arrived at the skyscapper in front of them. Its name was written is large imposing letters at the front. Just reading the words on the front made Darius frown, but he had no choice! He wasnted to live!

The walked in and walke pst the imposing sign with these words written: Martialist Hall!

There was indeed an exclamation mark, which only made Darius frown. Indeed the name of this occupation was Martialist. These were people who looked to improve their martial arts to the highest possible manner, be it through spiritual arts or Spiritknigh abilities, it didn't matter.

There were 3 requirements to being a Martialist. The first one being a talent for the martial way. Martial arts were essentially spiritarts that had been enhanced by repeated trial and error till they reached perfection, hence the second requirements was being able to train past human limits. The last but not least was to have the knowldge of weakpoints for both humans and spirits!

It was said that a spiritknight who was a martialist could slay a spirit or human with only a quarter of the effort. Some martialists cultivated unique constitutions with odd abilities like poision immunity or accelerated healing. There was no doubt about it. In any situation, no one had a better chance of survival than a martialist.

Darius could not help but swoon at the thought of being immune to posion or some other life saving ability. There was a problem. Most martialists went crazy due to the training. Pain. Training as a martialist was grueling pain.

An example of this is basic fist training. You have to break your fist as you punch, have it healed then repeat the process, until the required level of proficiency is reached. To become immune to poisons, one would have to take multiple poisons and take the antidote later while cultivated their immune system. It was a gruelling process because the longer you persisted under the poison the better your results.

Darius had learned about this occupation but found out how rare it was. It was one of the rarest top quality occupations. He was stunned at the fact that this school had a place for it. He was happy, but he was crying on the inside when he thought about the pain he was bound to suffer.

"High resistance to pain eh? I would be an idiot to not think the old man set me up."

One of old man Laporte's requiremts was high tolerance to pain. This occupation just so happened to help Darius cultivate his pain resistance.

It was rumored that Master martialists who were not dismembered were never uncoscious. It was either they were awake or dead, capable of dying standing.

Martialists also made for superb assasins, so no one would willingly antagonize one unless they had one on their side. A master martialists could even push the emperor around. These were absolute beats, the creme de la creme of battle. They were arrogant and looked down upon the weak. It was said that killing a master martialist was as hard as ascending to the heavens, while becoming one was as hard as ecaping hell. This sentence alone was enough to cause Darius to be apprehensive.

But Darius did not forget all his encounters, especially his battle with the serpentis. If he had some accomplishments in martialism, he would have been able to kill the creature with greater ease. Every detail of that battle was as fresh as a newly plucked fruit.