Matupa City, the majestic floating city, hoovered westward over the expanse of the South Pacific Ocean. The city was originally in the southern continents. When the otherworld field appeared, mana engulfed the area and ripped the entire 4,000 square miles of land into the air. Whenever it rained, water from the western and southern basin spilled out, creating waterfalls in the sky. From the ground, it resembled a giant floating orb with a piece of landmass sticking out.

The torn section outside the otherworld realm barrier offered a unique opportunity for human habitation on the flying island. In 1982, amidst contentious territorial disputes, global leaders arbitrated an agreement to establish a central city dedicated to the study of mana. The Matupa Academy emerged as the cornerstone of this endeavor, its establishment marking the birth of a localized government centered around the pursuit of arcane knowledge and understanding.

In the late 80s, construction began within the otherworld realm. The Matupa Academy’s scholars, masons, and builders worked together to build the city walls. Over time, a quarter of the city developed within the confines of the otherworld realm. As an S-ranked otherworld realms, Matupa had no defined SP limitation. The last census recorded the combined SP of 233,200. With additional visas added every year for new students and workers, there didn’t appear to be any restrictions.

Inside a small classroom of the Lidden Hall, Kane drew three blank lines. As a first-year graduate student, he was assigned the role of a teaching assistant to tutor the freshman students. He primarily taught basic internal protection spells to the freshman. As a prerequisite for graduation, most students were required to know internal protection spells. However, the students in Kane’s class were a special breed. Like his brother, they possessed an innate aptitude for mana application, but had poor understanding of the mechanics.

“Can anyone explain to me the three basic paths of mana control?” Kane asked the freshman.

The eight students in the class remained silent. They remembered learning about it, but they don’t remember what it was. Any students entering Matupa were considered geniuses, but the title became meaningless in Matupa. It also wasn’t indicative of intelligence—a fact underscored by Kane's own brother, Logan. Despite lacking common sense and many brain cells, he was still considered a genius.

Kane sighed with a slight hint of agitation, but still explained to them. “The three paths are all based on the different mana control class: physical, environmental, and specialized.”

“I thought they were warriors, magicians, and specialists,” said one of the students.

“Raise your hands next time.” Kane breathed in and out to calm himself down. “There are other naming conventions. Warrior, mage, and specialist became popular terms in the late eighties to follow popular trends. However, there are also many people who dislike the classification since all the paths could be learned by anyone. Generalists learn a bit of everything.”

“But aren’t generalists rare?” asked one of the students.

“Generalists are rare, but not in the early days. In the first decade of the otherworld realm appearance on Earth, many rankers learned as many abilities as possible. Overtime, people realized it was better to specialize in a few abilities. Although some people still try, generalists are shunned from parties as they lack usefulness in coordinated team attacks. Our Academy is based on training individuals in different paths or disciplines.”

One of the students nodded off as Kane was explaining. Kane held his temper. He wanted to shoot fireballs at him. Maybe it was fine a decade ago, but students on social media were too aware of their basic human rights.

Suddenly, a loud snore from the muscular student with an unkempt beard triggered an echo throughout the classroom. Kane shot the fireball. The fiery ball the size of a soccer ball pounded toward the student’s head. The force of the impact knocked the entire body backward. The chair cracked into pieces as it hit the ground while the other students cried out in a horrified expression.

“Hey! That was uncalled for!” The muscular student screamed out loudly. The slight red marking on his forehead swelled up. He stood up, revealing his large frame.

“It’s not like you can’t handle it,” Kane responded. The student was the only person on the student’s roster that Kane wasn’t concerned about getting sued. A monster who could create a body armor spell in his sleep, the lieutenant of the Matupa Academy 5th infantry division, and his oldest brother, Logan. “Sit down or I’ll take off a point.”

Logan gumbled, but grabbed another chair and sat down. The other students were impressed. As freshmen, they had little battle experience.

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

“What Lieutenant Logan displayed is an example of physical enhancement, armorization,” Kane described. “By infusing the body with mana, it can produce varying effects. Armorization spells were once the staple of otherworld exploration until researchers found ways to farm enhanced cotton. Production is still limited, but with funding by various government entities, every checkpoints have protective clothing for explorers to lease. Nevertheless, the best type of protective clothing are ones dropped by humanoid type monsters like goblins and gnomes. With protective clothing and effective teamwork, magicians were able to ignore training armorization and focus on offensive spells. Today, the most basic and used defensive ability is internalization, which infuses protective mana into the vital organs. It is an important ability that every magician must learn in order to protect themselves from deadly internal attacks. Without utilizing defensive mana, magician type monsters could crush anyone’s internal organs.” Kane stopped himself from repeating the previous lessons. He had already explained the concept of internalization twice already. It wasn’t his responsibility if they couldn’t execute the spell. “I am going to say this one last time, internalization is the one basic skill required by all freshmen by the end of the school year. If you cannot learn this skill, you will not graduate from this school. In other words, if you fail this class, you will be expelled.”

Logan was a special case. He had the ability to use internalization, but the reason he remained in the freshman class was his lack of control. He couldn’t freely use internalization.

Kane opened the textbook to chapter nine. “I hope you have all read through chapter eight last week. It describes the different types of mana that can be used in internalization.”

The students all groaned. They all learned mana elements in elementary school, and would rather study practical magic than theoretical magic. Kane wrote down the key ingredients of a spell on the chalkboard.

Thermo

Kyro

Plasma

Stereo

Ygri

Aerio

“Can’t we use English!” The student asked.

“No. As I was saying… The body has three states of matter, internal protection spells are considered tri-elemental spells, consisting of ygri, stereo, and aerio infusion. In addition to the states, elements may be added. Thermo and kyro being the most used elements in internalization. However, more elements means the spell becomes more complex and difficult to predict. Most people use 20% stereo, 65% ygri, 10% aerio and 5% of the element they believe will be the most useful. In an ice field realm, you would allocate the last 5% to the kyro element.”

“Do we really need to focus on all those numbers?” A student complained.

“Some of you don’t need to think about it, but the majority of people need to keep their method consistent to increase the casting time. It is like doing a long division in your head. The more you practice, the faster you will get.” There were certain geists that allowed rankers to bypass the processing of magic, but the majority of rankers needed systematic instructions. “When casting internalization spells, you need to understand your own body. If you have a fever or hypothermia, you may need to alter the formula with thermo and kyro to increase efficiency.”

The students grumbled again.

Kane shook his head in exasperation. If the students couldn’t handle the numbers, how were they going to handle studying glyphs?

At the end of class, Logan and Kane headed toward the Konsys Bar in Matupa's safe zone area. Their living quarters were within the otherworld realm, but they occasionally entered the safe zone to access news from the real world.

To enter the safe zone, they bypassed two checkpoint gates. One through the iron gate enhanced by magic and the second through an electrified stainless steel gate. Even with Logan’s security clearance, it took them an hour to pass through. Once inside the safe zone, they turned on their phones. To their surprise, a long chain of messages appeared in their update screen, all from their family regarding Ian. By the time they got to the end of the messages, everything appeared to have resolved itself with Ian sending the siblings a separate set of messages.

The two brothers continued on their way through the crowded streets. In contrast to the eclectic style of clothing worn in the otherworld realm, the majority of people in the safe zone wore modern clothing. It was like being teleported to different worlds. Tall towering steel and glass apartment complexes surrounded a plaza. Although the city was small, it was crowded with people.

Inside the Konsys Bar, Logan and Kane took their usual seats by the end of the bar.

“Are you heading back to check up on him?” Kane asked Logan.

“Probably not, I have to prepare my unit for the next raid,” Logan replied. Logan’s unit was the ground infantry, one of the more dangerous frontline positions during a raid.

“Is it really that serious?” asked Kane. He was asked to attend the multi-disciplinary hearing to prepare for the monster raid. Assistant professors were typically not invited to attend, but Kane was invited to attend by his professor.

“I don’t have all the information, but there’s a chance we will need to enlist more people for the next raid,” said Logan “You still have time though, are you heading back?”

“Probably not. He did say not to bother. He’s not the type to jump off the bridge unless there is a pot of gold underneath it.” It was concerning that in a separate message, Ian suspected he was drugged.