Week 1, Day 6

“We’ve got auxiliary subjects today.” Andrew asked as they met earlier for breakfast. “Are you planning to go?”

“What the hell is an auxiliary subject?!” Ethan wondered. He rubbed his eyes, still sleepy from Andrew's morning call.

“You clearly were not paying attention to the speech. It’s non-compulsory side topics, stuff like crafting knowledge, if you deal extensively with crafters, herbs and monster research, magic research, core and elemental studies... stuff like that. Rift-studies and theoretical stuff like that.”

“That actually sounds pretty useful.”

“If you like them. There’s plenty to choose from.” Basil admitted, as he collected his breakfast from the canteen. They had stale bread, again, but it was ‘less’ stale in the morning. At least the butter and jam wasn’t that bad. Some of the wealthier commoners couldn't stand it though, and brought their own food.

Ethan looked out of the windows of the district 4 canteen, and past the rows of the district 4 homes, and saw a large pack of birds in the sky-

“What the hell is that?” Ethan pointed to a group of black winged things hanging about in the sky-

“Just birds, probably?” Andrew answered, turned his head to look at it, and panicked. “Those are not birds-”

The sirens blared, and then a pleasant voice made an announcement through the announcement gems spread throughout the Garden.

“WARNING. GARDEN DEFENSE PROTOCOL 2 ACTIVATED. WARNING. GARDEN DEFENSE PROTOCOL 2 ACTIVATED. ALL INSTRUCTORS TO BATTLE STATIONS.”

A huge dome of magic enveloped the sky above them, as those black things attacked. Their magical blasts landed on the barrier, but didn’t get through.

“CLARIFICATION. THE THREAT IS A LEVEL 43 RIFT BREAK. WE REPEAT, A LEVEL 43 RIFT BREAK. ALL STUDENTS PLEASE SEEK SHELTER.”

The cook looked at everyone and shouted. “Alright, listen up. This happens every other month. The canteen actually happens to be the right shelter for District 4, so this is the right place to be. Just hang in there, and the Grandmasters will sort it out in a jiffy.”

At that point, Ms Violet Whitetower, who just also happened to be in the same canteen, looked visibly panicked. She muttered quietly, but her fingers trembled. “Ohno, oh no.”

“Violet, you’ll be alright. We’ll be alright.” Two girls gave Violet a hug. “The Grandmasters will protect us.”

Ethan kept his eyes on the sky, and saw someone step up to the tower, and then flew up to the pack of monsters. In a flash of golden light, a huge blast of holy energy rippled outwards. Almost all of the flying monsters vanished.

The cook, whose eyes never left the skies, clapped his hand. “Grandmaster Macbell’s Holy Blast is incredible to watch as always.”

Yet, one of the flying creatures remained, the largest of them. It didn’t engage Grandmaster Macbell, but instead, charged towards the buildings below. It had a target. Something. It’s strange heads and eyes kept looking, searching. It flew above the buildings, and zoomed overhead, over their canteen.

Grandmaster Macbell somehow gave chase and another blast of golden energy tore the giant creature apart.

The cook clapped when the second blast vaporized the creature, it's entrails leaked.

“That’s-” Ethan noticed that the creature had the same energy sensation as the dark energy dogs. Violet looked visibly uncomfortable and was on the verge of breaking down. She had a small group of people around her, and one of the girls comforted her with a hug.

The grandmaster’s magical blast was brief and blinding, and the creature was destroyed.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“THREAT NEUTRALISED. PLEASE WAIT 5 MINUTES WHILE WE CONFIRM THAT IT IS SAFE.”

***

Grandmaster Esser Macbell marched up to the office of the grandmasters. When the doors swung open, Grandmaster Nocter Plagos and Grandmaster Seville Greenwood were already seated.

“Well done slaying the creatures, Esser!”

“I see the two of you have already started, but that is not the core of the matter, Nocter. Those creatures were spawns of the dark goddesses. The dark leakage at the very end of its death is clearly a marker, a product of the dark goddesses. Something is not right, we must investigate the seal.”

“It was, and we will investigate the seal.” Grandmaster Plagos nodded.

"We'll also need to brief the stude-"

“The students must not know.”

Esser was stunned, and stared at Nocter Plagos for a moment. Then, he slammed the table with his fist, and cracked it slightly. “Preposterous! The dark goddesses' spawn are searching, and they look to touch our students, and we do not warn them of their seduction?”

“The Dark Goddesses are a foe we cannot confront directly. We must act with subtlety.” The principal said, undeterred. “We warn the students, and what does that tell the dark goddesses? We can sense them, we know they are there, and it will force them to hide from us. Worse, it drives some students toward them. We must find them, and flush them out at one go. Let this one go, Esser. Work with me, trace all those already trapped, and find their agents. Give us time.”

"How long?"

"One year, and we'll keep the students safe through other means."

Grandmaster Esser Macbell thought for a moment, and frowned. “...fine, Nocter. I’ll give you that. We’ll play cloak and dagger for a bit, but if it escalates, I'm making an announcement.”

Nocter Plagos nodded. "Good."

“We may not have to do much. The goddesses of light have also made their move.” Grandmaster Greenwood interjected.

“What-? Where?”

“In my class, there’s a girl. Kaname Kaga. I suspect she is likely to be one of the lights’ agents.”

Nocter Plagos leaned back on his big grandfather-chair. “The Garden has always been home to the plays of light and darkness. Their conflict nourishes our young seedlings, and our role as the Caretakers of the Garden, sometimes, is to stay out of the way. Reasonably.”

Grandmaster Macbell frowned, but kept his disagreements to himself.

“Should we inform the other two?” Seville asked, referring to the other two grandmasters of the Garden.

Nocter shook his head. “The other two already know.”

Esser Macbell frowned again.

***

“I’d like to be like that, someday.” Andrew said, as he reflected on Grandmaster Macbell’s attacks. They joined the soul and magic research class, and the class size was quite small. Slightly over thirty sat in the class.

Ethan surveyed the class, and then noticed Camelia Everfrost seated in front, along with those that claim to be her friends. She had a small group of girls happily seated next to her that did most of the talking, and she seemed to ignore them, even if they attempted to ingratiate themselves.

“Of course.” Ethan nodded, they sat at the back.

The instructor was a tall lady dressed in a dark blue robe. “Greetings, I am Antonia Argos, this is this year’s first Soul and Core Magics Research class, where we try to unravel the latest discoveries on what makes the Core function. It’s an optional class, as many are already familiar with the operations of a core, but this should prove interesting to those more attuned to the finer details of what makes a Core ‘tick’, and our latest knowledge on the soul-synchronization issues.”

“Oh she’s part of the Argos family.” Ethan whispered to Andrew.

“I heard she’s not formally part of the greater Argos family, but more of a peripheral member. The fact that she’s an instructor here, instead of holding a more prestigious role in the Argos heartlands-” Andrew stopped when the instructor’s gaze locked onto him.

“Shh.”

Ethan tried, but there was something about lectures, and their rhythmic voices that induced sleep. Ethan thought that anyone feeling sleep deprived should be forced to sit in one of these classes. Antonia had sound technical knowledge of the core and souls, but he found it hard to pay attention. The words entered his ears, and found their way to his sleep-muscles, instead of memory.

It really was a struggle.

He got the gist of the message, however briefly, that everyone’s soul had a natural disposition. As to why this was so, it’s still a matter of research, but what mattered, was this natural disposition led to compatibility issues with the harvested cores. High compatibility led to higher output, stronger skills, and tougher cores, and so on.

Ethan couldn't focus, and frankly sleepy, but he eventually survived the three hours. But as he zoned out, his mind drifted and thought about his ability, and he had an epiphany. He realized he could send Kaname to go to some other classes, and have her update him at the end of the day.

If he had summon limit for it, it'll be like an executive summary, and it was an awesome way to utilize his summon.