With no rhyme or reason to their seating arrangements, the usual cliques reformed. The groups varied between sitting on the ground or standing since no seats were set out for them. Most of the students were soaked and stained with black streaks.

Arthur scanned the place as he walked to the front with Gustav. The room was circular, with steps leading down to a podium. The area was fashioned like an auditorium with windows near the ceiling letting in gratuitous amounts of natural light. The old man from before stood squarely in the middle, observing the students as they made their way into the room.

“We unfortunately have no more time to dawdle.” He raised his hands and made a clenched fist while muttering. The students’ soaked clothes emitted bursts of vapor, drying in an instant.

“First, you’ll find that mana now surrounds you. Some of you may even see it now.”

Arthur himself couldn’t see anything resembling mana, but felt a tinge of electricity running across his skin. It wasn’t anything resembling stories he’d read in the past, and he certainly didn’t feel any stronger than when he was in his original world.

“And now I’ll request for your protections to be removed, brace yourselves.”

“kilam taratisla nim kildaf 'qilta katayamih.”

Seconds stretched themselves into hours. Their perception became their undoing. Unlike any naturally occurring sense, it assaulted them all at once. Some unlucky few fainted for a moment.

The overload of mana was short-lived. The flux ended as quickly as it started, the students felt their grip on reality tighten back into order. Labored breath and pained gasps filled the room. The mana invisible to them just moments before, forced itself to be known. A constant barrage to their new sixth sense. A similar sensation to gaining the ability to taste, and then dunking their tongue in a basin of salt. Not fatal but unpleasant nonetheless.To some, unbearable.

Arthur’s eardrums were ringing from the strain. If you had told him lightning had struck the podium, he would have believed you. A burning sensation crawled into his psyche as the initial wave passed over him. He felt charged with an unfamiliar sensation.

The world clicked into place for Arthur. Sunlight filtering in through the window seemed to take on new hues, and some puddles of liquid on the floor were emitting wisps. This was the form mana took to Arthur’s eyes.

Everyone around him had similar revelations, rubbing their eyes and gasping in disbelief. Yet just moments ago, they were completely blind to the phenomena of this world. This newfound Awe took precedence over their short lived agony. The students resembled tourists as they took in the room anew, dyed in the shades of mana for the first time.

“I see you’ve opened your eyes; I can safely say you all won’t need protection from mana. But this is only the beginning. The king of the curtain may have granted you all gifts, but that won’t be enough here. You’ll need to awaken your mana.”

“Awaken? We’re not from here. How are we supposed to use mana?” asked Collin standing to the front of the podium.

The old man chuckled and rubbed his chest tenderly. “Fortunately for you all, the King left a gift inside you. An additional heart, or as it’s called by mages, your primary mana core.”

Arthur took a hand to his veins and found his pulse irregular surely, but he doubted he had a second heart. Though he wasn’t the most stellar student at his academy, he knew it wasn’t possible for two hearts to work in sync. The human body cannot accommodate two regulators for its pulmonary system. As far as he knew, they may not even be human anymore, or at least the type of human that lived in his own world.

Amidst the murmuring, the man took out a slate with markings arranged in an oval covering it. The mana in the room had an instant reaction to its presence, drawing towards it like moths to a bulb. As each portion of mana touched it, it began emitting a pale blue glow that grew with each bit of mana it took in.

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“This will serve two purposes for you all, firstly to ingrain the feeling of outputting mana from your core, and secondly to determine your affinity for paths of mana. Line up here.” He motioned to the front of the podium and the students began making a queue.

Collin, being closest to the podium, was the first to go. Reaching out his hand, the tablet pulled him like a magnet. He felt his hand attach to the tablet like a suction cup as it began to glow.

He gasped.

Ice began forming at his feet and his breath became visible. The temperature dropped rapidly around him, enclosing him in a wintry circle.

“The first is water. Next!”

The queue moved quickly, each student successful in drawing out their mana for the first time. With a large array of paths manifesting between them all, it varied between seven mainly. The first to manifest Water, then following it with Fire, Earth, and Air. Besides those four were Nature, Astral, and Death, as the man called them. No one was necessarily restricted to one path, either. In the man’s words, it was possible for one to take up as many as they had the time to pursue, even without the talent for it.

When it came to be Arthur’s turn, a look of recognition flashed across the man’s face. Arthur felt the weight of his expectation in his gaze as he offered his hand like all the others. A sound like static filled the air, and a dim light formed an irregular shape around Arthur.

“Astral, how fitting. Unsurprising though, you may want to take an additional path. Most Astral practitioners do the same.”

Finishing his turn with the tablet, Arthur stood aside for Gustav, who ended up awakening a mana aspect towards Earth. Arthur thought it was quite fitting for him, though he wouldn’t mind also awakening an earth aspect himself. The man had mentioned to him as such, so he started configuring combinations in his head. Although he hadn’t really understood what exactly Astral was, he interpreted it as some sort of relation to the stars. Could he conjure meteors with a second path in earth? Or was it more of a metaphysical path? Could he interact with concepts? Ideas raced in his head as the awakenings closed.

“I’ll be frank with you all now. While being a mage is an accomplishment for the residents of this world, you’ll die like dogs as you are now. Gifted or not, all of you are untrained in combat, and unaware of the depths of the magic you possess.”

Silence pervaded the auditorium. These students, little better than children and still in the middle of their education, had died and been thrown into another world. None of them asked for this and yet they were expected to save the daughter of a being indistinguishable from a god to most.

Impossible.

What were they to do? If they wanted a chance of getting back home, if there was even a way back, they knew they’d need to get stronger. If there was an opportunity in front of them to escape this world, they needed to be able to seize it at a moment’s notice. There wasn’t any time to waste.

“We, under the King of the Curtain, are few. Eroded by pretenders playing at God, we’ve been left with only a single church far from the coast of the middle continents. All but the most loyal and powerful have been killed in wars for scraps of territory. We who remain are the legacy of all who fought to keep this ground you walk on unsoiled. Please enter, esteemed teachers.”

An enormous set of wooden doors at the rear end of the auditorium swung open. Revealing seven figures in white robes, each embroidered in a different color reflecting their path of mastery. They were a varied group, both old and young, with a nearly even split of men and women. One master in particular had pointed ears over 6 inches in length, with porcelain skin that almost seemed to let light seep through it. Next to them, in stark contrast, a man whose age defined him more than any of his other features could hope to, sagging to a point almost in defiance of death itself.

They each stood in a line with a sizable gap between them. Mana coalesced above their heads, representing their paths.

“Masters Saga, Hussam, Kamron, Gulale, Iris, Hestia, and Maat will be the ones to guide you. Your duty is to learn under them, all other things will come with it. ”

The leftmost master, the long-eared individual named Saga, glowed a dull white above their head, similar to the glow Arthur experienced during his awakening. He made his way over to her as he brushed shoulders with a familiar face. Jeanne, right next to him, was walking to the same mentor. Caught up in the chaos of their transfer, Arthur hadn’t said a word to anyone except Gustav. Not entirely close or distant with Jeanne he nodded at him and flashed a smile hidden behind fake enthusiasm. Jeanne returned the gesture, but Arthur had no way of telling if his was any more genuine than his own.

When all the students had finished sorting themselves, Arthur noticed that he and Jeanne were Saga’s sole disciples. Arthur glanced at the other groups and locked gazes with another mentor, the old man Hussam, who seemed to look at him with a tinge of pity before he continued sizing up his new disciples.

When Arthur looked back at Saga, she flashed a bright smile as she looked down at them. Saga, a solid six and a half feet, had no trouble doing so.

“Kneel and grovel, you mongrels.” Said Saga.