It was a cold wintery Monday morning, and Sylvia wasn't feeling well. She went up to her mother and told her, “Mom, I’m not feeling well, can I stay home from school today?”
“Did you take your temperature?” her mother questioned her, “If you have a fever, then yes, you can stay home today.”
Sylvia turned around and went to get the thermometer to check her temperature. The thermometer showed her that she had a fever of 99.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Her mother allowed her to stay home that day and rest.
Her mother called Sylvia’s teacher but left a message when no one picked up, “Hello Theresa, Sylvia will be absent today because of a fever. Just wanted to let you know. Have a nice day, let's get together sometime soon for a ladies' night.”
That day, Sylvia stayed in bed, read books, watched TV, and ate some nice warm chicken noodle soup, Yum!
Later that day, her mother came home and called out, “Sylvia, how are you feeling? Any better?”
“Yes mom,” Sylvia called out from her bed, “I’m feeling a little better after resting today.”
“That’s great sweetie, you can go back to school tomorrow, and make up for all the work you missed today.” Her mother responded.
Sylvia groaned with displeasure at the thought of making up for the missing work from today. “Yes mother, I know how it works,” She then turns around and drags her feet back to her bed, sulking. She forgot about having to make up for the work she missed. She hates make-up work. It's new work on top of old work, luckily it was only one day, but Sylvia still did not like the thought of double work for tomorrow.
The next day, Sylvia arrived in class and everyone crowded around her. They all asked Sylvia, who was absent, why she wasn't there yesterday. The teacher saved her from having to answer their questions, by announcing the start of class and began teaching. The bell rang, but the sound was off. Instead of the normal ding-dong sound, it was more of a beep beep beep sound.
Sylvia slammed her hands down on the alarm clock to turn it off but missed. She sat up with a groan and rubbed her eyes with one hand, while her other handle fumbled around for her clock and turned it off. Today was the first day at a new high school, a private, hard-to-get-into high school in fact. It was September 1, 3048 A.C and Sylvia turned 15 just a few days ago.
“Awe man!” Sylvia grumbled under her breath, “I was just having a nice dream! How sad, now it's time to start my first day of high school in a new town. Hope everyone is nice.” Sylvia got up from her bed and had a nice long stretch then went downstairs to get some breakfast.
“Hey mom, did you make breakfast yet?” Sylvia asked her mother.
“Yes, there are some eggs for you on the counter. Just make some taste to go along with it,” her mother informed her.
“Okay,” She said, “Thanks.”
After breakfast, she went back upstairs, took a shower, brushed her teeth, and put on her school uniform. Once she finished getting ready for school, she went back downstairs and bid her mother goodbye, hopped on her bike, and rode to school. Sylvia arrived at school and locked her bike and went to the entrance. There was a staff member at the school standing by the entrance welcoming old students back, greeting and directing the new freshman to the auditorium that is next to the cafeteria.
She went into the school building, and there were tons of other students sitting around the cafe and talking with other people. She saw some students heading off to the right side and decided to follow them since she thought they might also be new students heading for the auditorium, which they were. She sat down in the middle of the room for a good view to see what would be going on on stage. Soon, more people entered the auditorium and filled in the seats around her.
After the bell rang, a person walked onto the stage and tapped the microphone, “Ahem, attention please, all new freshmen. Welcome to Asterai High School,” the person said to the crowd, some kids whooped with happiness and excitement. “I am the student council president from the Senior class that came here to tell you a little about this school.” The crowd calmed down and listened to the person speaking. “My name is Eleonora Littleman. This school is a great school. You will learn more about our history and how we came to be here, in a world full of magic from a world without one," she paused for a moment, "You will learn how to use magic and weapons, like swords or bow and arrows, to fight and protect our country from other kingdoms and enemies, as well as make, hopefully, life-long friends with many people."
"This is the best school in our country so do your best here and be proud that you passed the school entrance exam and got in. Not many people have passed. Only about 300 out of 100,000 applicants got in this year, so give yourselves a nice pat on the back. Congratulations everyone!” The girl paused again to let the information sink into the crowd, “Okay now guys, I have to go to class now, the principal will come in and tell you about some rules we have at this school, and give you your schedules. After that, you should be directed to your first classes in this school. Good luck everyone. Just ask people in the hallway for help if you get lost." Eleanora put the mike back onto the stand and walked off stage.
A long gray-haired handsome-looking man came up and took the microphone and started speaking. "Hello, my dear new students! How's it going? Are you all excited to be here? Well while you're here, I hope you will have lots of fun." The principal says with a big goofy grin on his face.
Sylvia thought that this headmaster looked a little silly and carefree for being the head of such a prestigious high school but she put her thoughts aside and listened to what he had to say.
"So, as Eleanora said before, you will learn many things here. Some people have chosen to stay at our dorms since they live far away while others will be commuting back and forth from home." Some kids started to murmur to each other in their seats.
"Ahem, now calm down my friends, you will be given your schedules in a minute now. You will all be taking one mana sensing class, a spell casting theory class, and a fighting theory class. You will also be taking a history class. You will have history class and will have one period for lunch and a free period. The last remaining free period will be filled with gym class," Mr. Headmaster told them all while still having a big grin on his face. "This high school is more like a college or university, so you will be in school from September 1st, today, until December winter break. This will be your first-semester schedule. Your second semester shall start around mid-January, till the end of May. You will continue to have a gym and history class, but there will be no more mana sensing class, as that is just to see if you can use magic. Instead of that class, you will be taking a more specialized class that you will discuss with your guidance counselor right before winter break starts. You can replace spell casting theory class with a magic lessons class for specific elements or keep it if you feel the need. Fighting class can be changed to a specialized weapons class or you can keep it too. Each class will last for 1 hour while lunch will last for 2. Everyone will have the same lunchtimes and there are multiple cafeterias throughout the campus for you to eat at.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Suddenly the Principal’s face turns serious, a huge contrast to his carefree smiling face, as he continued, “Just a heads up, there will be absolutely no discriminating against different classes or races. If I or any of the professors catch this type of behavior, you will be expelled. This is the only warning."
His face changed once again to a kind silly face as he said, “That's all for now. Hope you’ll have a great time here. Work hard and have fun. No fighting in the schools. You can set up mock battles with others to deal with any grudges or disagreements. Another thing to note is that there will be a curfew for all students staying in a dorm which will be discussed later. All students commuting to and from school every day, must leave the campus by 7 for safety reasons, don't want any of you cute kids to get into an accident right? He lets out a little chuckle.
“I think that's all for now folks. I don't know about you, but boy, I'm hungry! Let's go to the cafeteria and get some yummy food! You will go to the gym once you finish eating and get your system activated and see your current stats with a status window. This system also connects to the universal trade system which you will find out about later in your history class. after you get your system activated, you can spend the rest of the day getting to know each other.” He puts the microphone off the stand and walks off stage leaving the other kids in the auditorium murmuring amongst themselves.
Hmm… the headmaster sure is an interesting person. Sylvia thought as she looked at her phone to check the time. To her surprise, it was already 11:38 a.m. "Wow, the time just flew by somehow? I didn't even realize it was so late." She stood up and grabbed her bag which held a few books about magic and battles. She really wanted to be an archer and use a bow and arrow. They always looked so cool on TV.
She stood up and exited the auditorium and went to the cafeteria which already had several students from the other grades in line. She went to the seafood bar and got some fried shrimp to eat with some fries then went to find an empty table by a window. After walking around for a bit, she found a small round table with two seats and sat down at one, and started eating.
While she was eating, another girl with slightly wavy blond hair came up and asked her in a quiet shy voice, "May I sit with you?"
Sylvia was surprised by the sudden appearance of this girl but nodded her head and said, "Yeah, sure. That's no problem. I'm Sylvia, what's your name?" Sylvia noticed the girl had two ears on her head and a small tail as well. 'She must be one of those beastmen. She has cute ears though, never saw ones as pretty as those,' Sylvia thinks to herself as she looks at the blond girl.
"My name is Anastasia, it's nice to meet you." She then proceeded to sit down in the empty seat, and the two girls started conversing and soon became friends during lunch. It turns out that they have a few classes together: gym, fighting, and their free period.
Anastasia was staying in the dorms. She didn't have a roommate, so she would be in a room all by herself, unlike other freshmen because she was one of the later people to register for dorms.
They went to the gym and saw some tables set up in the middle of the floor where all the new students were lined up waiting for their turn to activate their own system panel. Anastasia and Sylvia each went to one of the lines and waited their turn.
"The next person in line may step forward now!" The lady sitting at the table called and Sylvia stepped forward excitedly.
"Okay now miss, just put your hand on this crystal ball. You will hear a voice telling you that the system is activating or loading, and once it says the system has activated, you can go and take a seat on the bleachers. There will be a tutorial to help you find things and answer any questions you've got about it." The lady says and Sylvia nods, putting her hands on the ball which lights up.
"SYSTEM LOADING..." A few moments later, Sylvia hears a ding and then, "SYSTEM ACTIVATED."
She then sees a question on the panel,
"Start tutorial,"
[yes]
[no]
She thanks the lady and goes off to sit on the bleachers, then clicks [yes]
Her system panel floods with words, informing her about the status page and how the universal trade function works. She was shocked to find that the world was way more complex and bigger than she had originally thought.
She is the only one who can see her own status page unless someone has the skill, "IDENTIFY" and she can see her status page by calling out "Status" in her head or out loud. The same thing goes for the rest of the different pages
There was a "CONTACTS" page which was meant for any special contact you had made throughout the universe. The page was set up with a favorites list, a phone call, messaging tab, and a world chat which you could mute if you wanted. The world chat was mostly blurred out when Sylvia checked it out. She asked the system why that was and the system told her that she needed clearance to view certain messages. This clearance was either an increase in power levels or upgrading the system.
The next page that the system has was the "ITEMS" page, but that section was locked for now. She found out that you had to either upgrade the system or buy a storage item in order to unlock it. Sylvia looked up the difference between upgrading the system and buying a storage item and found that storage items had limited space and became more expensive with more items that they can hold, while the system upgrade storage space had unlimited space for items. But either way, upgrading the system or buying a storage item cost way more money than Sylvia had at the moment so she put that part aside for now.
The last page that she found was the "BANK" pretty self-explanatory. The system is connected to a universal bank system in which she can create her own account in, but she could only put the universal currency into it, which she currently didn't have. Earth currency can be converted to universal money in banks on earth for a fee. The exchange ratio was 2:1, Earth to Universal currency and the fee was 5% of the amount being converted each time.
The monetary value in order from least to greatest is: bronze, silver, gold, platinum coins, and then spirit or mana stones as the largest worth.
10 bronze: 1 silver
10 silver: 1 gold
10 gold: 1 platinum
10 platinum: 1 spirit/mana
To call out all these pages at one time, she just has to say "SYSTEM" and all the tabs would show up. She can switch between each one, but if she is in a hurry, she could just call out which one she needs at the moment. To close the system or other pages, she just had to think of it going away and it would disappear until she needed it. Quite convenient.
Sylvia decided to check out her system status page.
GENERAL:
Name: Sylvia
Username: ????
Race: Human (E)
Class: none
Level: 1 (0/100 exp)
STATS:
Status: Healthy
Vitality: 11
Strength: 8
Stamina: 10
Agility: 7
Constitution: 8
Intelligence: 3
Mana: 1
SKILLS: none
The average starting stats for Humans is about 10, so most of Sylvia's stats were good, except for Mana, which is at 2. Strength stands for how strong one is, Agility stands for speed, Stamina stands for energy, and Vitality stands for raw health. Pretty self-explanatory. Mana stands for how much mana one has currently, and Intelligence stands for mana sensitivity. Constitution stands for body strength and health, different from the Strength stat. The Status stands for the most current condition of the person if they are inflicted with poison, or something else.
The (E) next to Human stands for the rank of the individual's rank compared to everyone else. The Username is the name that everyone else will see when talking in the World Chat.
Sylvia finished looking at her system page and closed it. After that, she looked around the gym and noticed everyone else had finished getting their system activated. She looked around and found Anastasia sitting a few seats over studying her own system. She moved over and sat down next to her, waiting for Anastasia to finish.
The two girls finished looking at their system and then hung out for the rest of the day. Sylvia told Anastasia that she would talk to her mom about letting her stay in the school so they could be roommates and Anastasia was very excited and happy about that. Sylvia went to her bike and Anastasia went to her dorm room.