Chp 4

The capital was beautiful. The architecture was huge, yet elegant. The aqueducts running through the city gave it a very Roman-like feel. Whoever designed this city deserves a cookie.

My father and I had some quality father and son bonding time as he gave me a tour around the city and bought me a lot of souvenirs, cool stuff and books.

We had lunch together in a fancy restaurant before he took me to the Academy.

“Well son, this is where we say goodbye. Take good care of yourself, focus on your studies and make good friends. I’ll come stop by every couple months or so when I have business in the capital.”

“Thanks dad, you take care too.” We hugged and I realized that I’m a lot taller now than before. I think I’m roughly five foot five. At 13 years old I don’t think that’s a bad height to be. My father is roughly six foot and I think I’ll be as tall as him when I grow up.

I saw a lot of other nobles with their children saying their goodbyes. I found myself at the counter where a receptionist gave me the key to my room and had someone guide me there.

The school was pretty big. It was probably the size of a small-scale university back in my previous world. 

My servants and I followed the guide as he led us to my dorm. I entered a small building and my room number was 8.

I entered the room and saw that it had a queen-sized bed, a couple of pairs of the school uniform on the bed, books, a desk, a list of my classes, closet and a chamber pot.

God. Why have you forsaken me?

After my family installed those new toilets we got rid of all the chamber pots, but now I have to go back to using these horrible things.

My servants dropped off all my belongings in my room and left. Students at the academy are not allowed any servants, we have to do everything themselves so that we learn to be self-reliant.

After organizing all of my stuff I decided to go on an adventure around the school.

I went outside my room.

“Oh, hey there, you must be the new resident of room 8. I’m Charles Norton, I’m a senior and am the residence advisor for this dorm. If you ever have any questions or need help with school work you can always come to me.”

“Hello, I’m Dominic Grayson.”

Charles had one of those charming faces that made him seem like a genuine friendly guy, so it was hard not to like him.

“Anyway, we’re going to have a dorm dinner where you will get to meet everyone tonight at dinner time so make you’re there.”

We parted ways and exited the dorm.

As I wandered around the campus looking at the various buildings trying to find my classes I bumped into Quintin.

“Dom! You’re here!”

“Hey Quintin! When did you get here?”

“I arrived yesterday. What classes do you have? I’ll help you find them.”

We’re both 13 now and Quintin is certainly growing up to become the pretty boy that I knew he would be. We’re roughly the same height but he’s definitely more handsome than me.

I notice that some of the girls are giving glances at Quintin when we’re passing by.

Turns out that Quintin and I have three classes together. We had fun exploring the school and it was my idea to talk to some cute girls because “we were lost”. So we spent some time chatting up those noble girls.

Honestly, they all seem like children to me. We’re all in a new environment so it’s easy to chat people up. It’s kinda like I’m back in college again.

That night I had dinner with my hall. There were roughly fifty of us gathered in the dining hall. The resident advisor, Charles gave a charming speech about starting the new year together as friends and encouraged us to get to know each other as we are going to spend the entire year together.

Most of the residents in this dorm were first years like me but there were several supper classmen also.

I socialized with my dorm roommates and went to sleep after practicing the breathing technique that mysterious old man gave to me.

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The next day we had an assembly in the auditorium where the headmaster who was an old man that…

“Holy shit!”

I cried out loud and everyone turned their heads and stared at me.

‘Oops.’

The headmaster is the same old man that gave me the breathing technique!

The headmaster looked in my direction and saw me. He gave me a friendly smile and began his speech.

He gave a short and simple speech about how we should all strive to study and work hard because we are the future of the kingdom and that our actions will represent the academy so we should be good students.

After that, the teachers split us first years from the upper classmen to send us to check our magic potential.

A lot of us including me was excited to find out if we had the potential to use magic.

We were led to a room with a crystal ball in the middle and we stood in line, going one by one.

There were about 200 first-year students all excited and whispering to each other about how they wish they are able to use magic.

One by one the students went up and put their hands on the crystal ball. Sometimes it lit up with a beautiful light but for the majority it didn’t light up.

The light that shined for each person was different. Let’s say, for example, if a student went up and touched the crystal ball and the light that shined was red then they are more suited towards fire magic.

Of course, it’s not that they’re limited to fire magic. They can use other types of magic as well, but it is much easier for that person to utilize and learn fire magic because that’s what their affinity is more in tune with.

Some people have multiple color lights shining while others have only one. The brighter a light shines the more magic potential they have.

‘Oh? It lit up for Quintin. His elemental affinity is for water. The crystal ball shined pretty bright so he must have good talent.

I’m next. I nervously walked up to the crystal ball and placed my hand. The ball shined dimly in a light green color. That meant that I have affinity for wind magic but I don’t have too much potential.

I was slightly disappointed but as long as I’m able to use magic I’m still happy.

Quintin started to laugh at me for having less magic potential than him but then I reminded him that I’m going to beat him up during training and he quickly shut up.

In terms of martial prowess I’m vastly superior to Quintin and he knows it. We’ve had a couple spars in the past couple years and he’s never won.

I guess it’s because I’m able to use aura and he isn’t but I’m still able to beat him even when I don’t use my aura.

Out of the 200-ish first years only about 40 of us were deemed to have the potential to use magic.

Now they added an extra basic magic class to our schedules, we were sent to attend our classes.

Each class period is roughly an hour and a half long and I had seven classes as followed: math, etiquette, politics, governing, weapons training, foreign languages and finally basic magic.

The classes were pretty boring as it was the first day. What I was more excited for was magic class.

Weapons training class was kind of interesting. The first thing the weapons teacher had us do was run three miles around the track. This was a piece of cake for me and Quintin but I saw that several of the noble children were having a hard time.

Because they’re nobles they were probably spoiled a lot and so several of them were quite overweight. Plus, we’re only 13 year olds. It’s kind of harsh to expect children of our age to be running 3 miles.

Quintin and I and several other classmates have received training since we were young which is why we’re able to do so.

He had those that couldn’t finish the three miles run for the rest of the class period while he had the rest of us that passed pick up a wooden sword and swing it 500 times.

I’ve done this hundreds of thousands of times and I was kind of annoyed that I had to go through with this so I was just half-assing it. And suddenly the teacher called me out.

“Dominic Grayson. What do you think you’re doing? What’s with those half-hearted swings? Do you think you’re too good for this class?”

“N-no sir.” Damnit. How annoying.

“Come up here and spar with me a little. I’m sure there’s something that you can teach all of us.”

‘This bastard is using me as a demonstration to keep the other kids in line…’

I slowly walked up to him and took my stance.

“Be careful kid, I’m not gonna go easy on you.” The teacher said as he rushed towards me with his practice sword swinging down.

I was able to easily block him and counterattack by sending a kick to his side. But he saw it coming and blocked with his arm.

“Hoh. Not bad.”

He came at me again and this time his swings were much faster and stronger but I was able to keep up with him. The teacher was honestly a strong opponent but he’s not as good as instructor David who’s a complete monster.

So, I didn’t have that much difficulty fending him off. I saw an opening and thrusted toward his stomach.

The teacher abruptly activated his aura and gave me a kick to the side and I was kicked several meters away.

“Oh crap! I overdid it!” The teacher came rushing towards me to check if I was okay but I was pissed. I mean, who the fuck kicks a 13 year-old with their aura?

As he got near me I activated my own aura and sent him a punch which he was not expecting right to his face and sent him flying several meters back.

All of the children had expressions of disbelief.

“Hahaha!” Quintin roared with laughter as he saw my actions.

The teacher got back up and spat out some blood to the side. His expression was one of fury and he activated his aura.

I was pissed of too and mobilized my own aura to show him that I wasn’t intimidated.

Of course, none of the other students could see that we were using aura but the teacher seemed genuinely shocked that I could use aura.

In fact, the size of our aura were comparable. The aura we emitted was able to reach roughly half a meter away from our bodies.

The thing about aura is that the farther away it goes when you activate it, the stronger the person is, usually. So, if a person is able to emit their aura one meter from their body and their opponent is able to do two meters, then their opponent is going to win because they’re able to use their aura for a longer duration and their aura has more strength.

We stood off, facing each other for a few breaths before we both rushed towards each other and covered the distance of a dozen meters in the blink of an eye and we were both in mid-swing when suddenly I felt immense pressure and fear press down upon me like a mountain and slammed to the ground.

The same thing happened to the teacher and we were both drenched in sweat.

“Ho ho ho! You youngsters sure are hotblooded!”

I turn my head and see the headmaster standing, looking at us. The man who gave me the secret breathing technique to improve my aura.