Waking up from yet another relaxing sleep, Sebastian began his new morning routine since arriving at the academy. Despite him not liking some aspects of this place, such as how complex everything was, the sleep alone was enough to forget all of his complaints. Every day tired him mentally, quite literally, from what he had learned about focus, but that exhaustion made the refreshing feeling in the morning even better.

Knock knock

Sebastian just finished changing into his uniform when someone knocked at the door. This had not happened before, and he knew for a fact that he wasn't late, there was a big clock attached to the wall, and the arrows pointed the way they do around 15 minutes before Mathew showed up. But, he was safe here, there would be no guard trying to kick him out into the streets here, so he hoped.

"Oh, you're already done?" As he opened the door, the one he saw standing there was Mark. Despite only seeing him once he clearly remembered his appearance. The man's face was very plain, with no strong features, except for his eyes: dark blue, yet another new color Sebastian has seen on someone, they seemed to analyze everything in front of them, making fast but small movements constantly, a clear contrast to the man himself who was always silent and didn't move much. There were a few differences in his appearance from last time, too. His suit looked a little more relaxed, and instead of the color scheme of the school uniforms, that of brown with a red outline, his had a blue outline. There was certainly a theme each teacher had, as Sebastian remembers Vernon's uniform had a green outline, and Anabelle's was orange. Mark was also wearing glasses now despite his vision being good, he did read the rules to Tom and Sebastian without wearing any.

"How interesting." Mark thought, his eyes shifting to Sebastian, who's been looking at him "He's not simply staring at me like before, he's analyzing me. I wonder what lead to this development…" Leaving that thought behind for now, he spoke out loud with a smile "I was knocking to see if you were awake, you didn't need to hurry."

"Oh, no, I was done when you knocked!" Sebastian hurried to explain. He did not feel like the man was annoyed at him, but he still did not want to be misunderstood.

"Haha, very well, I trust you, don't worry." Mark looked at Tom's door, but seeing as the other kid was not out yet, he turned back to talk to Sebastian. "You are probably confused about why I am here, but I will explain when Tom is out. Until then, how about you tell me about your time at Venesicia? I'm aware your welcome wasn't… the best, which is my fault, so I really want to know if you have any complaints or…"

"No, no! I don't have any complaints, I love it here! I have food, a very nice room, a bath… this is more than most adults had in Ardeal."

"Ardeal… ah yes, Adam mentioned it. Is that the city you grew up in?" Mark knew that the only reason why Sebastian had nothing bad to say was due to his living conditions back then. Ardeal was one of the most western cities of Thera, the central kingdom of the continent. And, being central, it was already half-overtaken by corruption. The only reason he could think of why the city was still intact was its huge distance from any rivers, which, while it did prevent the spread of corruption, it also meant that the city would be quickly abandoned when the kingdom was under attack. A double-edged sword, simply delaying the inevitable.

"Yes, ever since I can remember." Sebastian answered.

"I see… I think I got the general idea, but if the accommodations are fine, what do you think of the people? I hope none of the teachers did or said anything offensive." He remembered the day they hired Anabelle, a teacher from a mortal town, something they don't do often, and for a good reason. The woman not having or knowing about magic was not the problem, even in mage cities not everyone was a mage, but she had a few biases, like when she accused one of the students of stealing for simply picking up fruits from one of the trees on campus. He could only hope the time spent here had changed some of her views.

"Oh no, they're both very nice! And… and they helped me learn! I know how to read and write now."

"That fast? That's very nice to hear."

Before Mark could ask him any more questions, the door on the other side of the hallway opened as Tom was finally ready "Oh, good morning mister Markus."

"Good morning, Tom. Now that you're both ready, let me explain why I'm here. Today, you will be taking a break from classes, as I have decided to give you a tour of the academy."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Really? But, isn't it too dangerous?" Tom questioned him, tilting his head a little.

"Ah, it is my fault that I said that. It can be dangerous if you do not know the place and the rules we have, but I should have solved that instead of simply telling you to ignore it, I apologize. This guide is to make things right. Make sure both of you pay attention so you don't get into any trouble, ok?"

With both of them nodding, they began following Mark toward the academy. The park they had to walk through was very dense in trees, not enough to even be close to a forest, but enough to hide the giant building behind them. Time passed, enough that by now they would have been halfway through the first class, until they finally caught sight of the colossal school.

If the last time this side of the academy was empty, however, this time there were people. Sebastian could see a group of kids sitting on or near a bench, talking about something. They all looked older than him, and slightly older than Tom too.

"Those kids are second years. Well, technically they will be in three weeks. The first years have not yet arrived so you won't see any around, but older students tend to come earlier. A few don't even leave, actually… Let's keep going."

Little did Markus know, he had just avoided one of the most awkward conversations to ever exist, full of short sentences and empty time when the kids were simply staring at each other, as everyone lacked context about the other. Arguably the worst part is that the reader lacked context, a recurring theme.

As they were led inside through the immense hallway, unimportant doors left and right, Mark began speaking.

"If I'm not mistaken those kids just returned from a mission. I've talked with Mathew and apparently you were curious about the combat training part of the academy? You see, in our world exists this group of monsters part of what we call the 'corruption', they're technically just magical creatures, but they use another source of magic than us and normal magical creatures. And they're also violent, attacking humans and mages alike, expanding into their land. So, mages have taken up the task of defending human territories against them. The problem is, the mage population is very small, and combat mages are even less so. The mage cities are too busy defending the coast, as the entire global ocean has been corrupted, so the academy is the sole force defending the land. You'll learn more about this in the first class you take once school starts, actually, it's the only mandatory class we have."

"Wait, isn't that… very bad? Does that mean humanity is at war?" Tom asked him, worried about what Mark had just implied.

"Think about their individuality, remember Markus. Scaring them wouldn't be good, wait until they're more used to this life…" "Of course not. Do you know, cities use to send hunters periodically to lower the population of predatory animals in an area, like wolves? It's similar to that… Oh, we've reached our first stop."

In front of them all, stood a giant archway, more than double their height. Just the archway alone looked like a piece of art, but what was inside the room made it pale in comparison. Painting after painting were displayed, most of them on tripods, some unfinished, all looking like masterpieces, but the ones on the walls, a few times their size, were clearly not 'simple' masterpieces, as they moved, whether by a trick of the light, or magic.

"This is the painting workshop. As you can see, it often takes multiple days for the students to finish, so they simply leave the works here when they take a break. The ones on the walls were all drawn by at least 4th years, most of them imbued with magic. Why don't you take a closer look? I think you will be pleasantly surprised by what you see. Just stay on the path and don't try to touch any of the paintings."

Sebastian followed the path for a while, looking mostly at the different paintings in the middle. He could not understand what was so special about these, they did look beautiful, he could tell, but they were just paint on a canvas in the end. He stopped, thought, when he glanced at one of the giant paintings on the wall. He could understand what Mark meant by 'imbued with magic' now. At first, it was a simple painting of an ocean, with waves filling the entire canvas, crisscrossing and overlapping, but quickly it began morphing, changing, the waves were hitting each other, resonating, creating patterns he could not only see but feel.

"Wow… can magic really do something so… fantastical?"

"Ah, I see this piece has gotten your attention. 'Symphony of marea', one of the most impressive uses of psychology I've seen in a painting, the patterns trick the mind similar to an optical illusion, but in such a way that they resonate with the mind of the viewer. I do not truly understand how it works, it's not my field, but it does show the beauty found in the depth of every field."

"...so, it's not magic?" Sebastian did not understand everything that Mark just said, but he had heard the teachers talk enough that he could differentiate when they were talking about magic or science by now.

"No, it's one of the pieces that is entirely physical. Although, even this can interfere with your focus. You learned how focus can be recharged right? Through positive mental triggers. The triggers and even effects however can vary wildly. For some people, painting may be more effective than meditation in increasing their mental capacity, for example. Passions interact heavily with focus."

"...So being happy makes you stronger?"

"Yes, I guess you could put it that way. We should continue now, you've been staring at that for a few minutes."

"I was… hey, wait for me." Sebastian noticed that Mark had a few bad habits, the most obvious one being he tended to not look back to see if they were following him or not.