"Vuiblooour." The class repeated after the teacher in unison.

"No, no, no. You're doing it wrong," the teacher said in exasperation. "Stop trying to use your tongue, use your nose instead. Vubuluur."

Such a class. Gaus would have never expected enchantment to turn out so boring. For one hour straight, they repeated the 'babbling' Tongue, and the teacher refused to give up.

"We'll continue this in the next class. Each of you must learn how to speak the Tongue with fluency," the teacher said before walking out of the class with her quill in hand.

Cara: with fluency? Fuck no.

Gatan: patriarch Gaus, can you shift this class to the last period? I don't think anyone is enjoying it.

Antelina: hey, shut up, the teacher is trying her best.

Raya: I think I'm starting to get it. We just have to use our noses.

Gatan: hahaha...

Shortly after the teacher had left, a man of dark complexion came into the class.

"Prepare yourselves," he said as soon as he came into the class. "I want to see two meters between your seats."

He was dressed in a fine leather jacket and white pants. A black bunny rested on his left shoulder, occasionally playing with the buttons of his jacket.

"Now," he said loudly.

In response to his words, everyone took their seat away until they were two meters from each other.

"I'll be teaching you 'how to tame a spirit'. Call me Badwin. How's the enchantment? You must have impressed the old cat if she's willing to teach you enchanting phonetics in your first class."

"...."

"...."

Badwin was surprised at their silence. "Weren't you impressed? She is the best in enchantment. Even I know that."

"We know, sir, it's just difficult to concentrate when your throat is torn apart from pronouncing impossible syllables," Antelina said.

Badwin smiled at the remark. How good to be young.

"Enough with the chitchat. Everyone out." He sent them out of the class and prepared the seats himself. When they came back, each table had a question paper, ink, and a quill.

"Answer the questions. You have fifty minutes."

Gaus looked at the questions in silence.

1. What is a spirit?

2. How to tame a spirit?

3. List five risks of the spirit realm. Explain in detail how to avoid the aforementioned risks.

It would have been a disaster if Gaus hadn't studied before coming to the academy.

Spirits were difficult to define mainly because they were so varied that no single definition could cover everything. It was just like trying to define a human. Still, many scholars believed a spirit to be a magical creature that was sentient, intelligent, and capable of sharing its magic with mages.

A mage had one chance in their life to tame a spirit. If successfully done, the mage would gain the ability of the spirit or at least some part of it. There were many recorded ways to tame a spirit. However, archmage Delinguer in his Spirit Tamer mentioned that no human magic worked in the spirit realm. According to him, no magic from this plane could function in the spirit realm so it was utterly useless to try anything when taming your spirit. A few scholars who followed Delinguer's teaching published a series of books on how spirits recognize their masters and bond with them. Saying it was more or less an instinctual thing from the subconscious, not one's effort.

The dangers of the spirit realm included the denizens of the realm who for some reason weren't interested in bonding humans. They were dangerous and unpredictable. Another danger was the misty mountains where the spirits hide. Both the portals that connected the multiverse to the spirit realm and the portals that returned people opened into the misty mountains as underground tunnels. You could easily trip and end up in one of those return portals that would take you somewhere you didn't intend. There had been reports about mages fighting amongst themselves and throwing their opponents in the tunnels.

Most parts of the spirit realm were also under the effect of 'temporal misunderstanding'. A phenomenon defined as the difference in the flow of time between the multiverse and the spirit realm. The worst part of it was time flowed faster in the multiverse than in the spirit realm. It was said that a single minute in the spirit realm was equivalent to an hour or more in the outside. You wouldn't be the first to get stuck in a crater for a few hours only to come back to the real world and realized you had spent days.

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Gaus silently wondered how the loop would affect such temporal misunderstanding, not that he was going to test it. Another thing he could remember was mana drain. Spirits fed from your mana during the bonding process thereby causing a permanent reduction in your mana reserve. If your spirit got greedy you might end up with nothing. Last but not least was the failure to get a spirit. Every mage would only have one chance in their entire life, and out of ten mages that tried to bond a spirit, only two would be successful. It was said spirits only allowed you to tame them if they like your mana and if your affinity with spirits was above 50%. That said, spirit taming was generally a safe process especially because it was strictly monitored by many interested parties.

The test was over and Badwin collected the scripts. He took his time to look through them while the class was silently waiting.

"Either you cheated using the class interface or you've received the questions from your seniors, what is it?" Badwin asked unable to accept that they'd all passed with flying colors.

"But, sir, you've jammed the interface connection as soon as you entered," Antelina pointed out.

Gaus tried to connect to the group but he couldn't. He didn't know that was possible.

"So it is your seniors then. Tell me, which class is it?" Badwin asked, dangerously staring at them.

Badwin knew there was no way for the students not to know about the questions, after all, he'd been repeating the same questions every time he was introducing students to the course. Perhaps, it was time to bring new questions.

"Then you are good to go into the spirit realm next week?" Badwin finally said after he realized he wasn't going to get an answer.

"Yes, sir," the class answered in unison.

Badwin thought about it silently before he nodded. "We'll have four more classes about how to protect yourselves in the spirit realm before you go in."

"Yes, sir!" The class answered in wild jubilation. They'd been waiting for it.

"By the way, XM5993 won't be coming today. You are excused." He said as he walked to the exit.

XM5993 was the famous swordsmanship teacher that everyone hated.

"Are we going to have another teacher in his stead?" The bald guy asked.

"No, that won't be necessary. He won't be gone for long." He glanced at his watch before walking out of the class. "Have a nice day, all of you."

Once the teacher went out, the class turned to the new class rep.

"Patriarch Gaus!"

"Our new class rep."

"How can we help you fulfill your duties?"

"Please do something about the enchantment class."

"We want more of the dark arts."

Everyone had something to say.

"How about you all calm down and let him introduce himself?" Antelina cut in. "Welcome on board," she mouthed, winking at him.

"The class is over. I'll introduce myself tomorrow," Gaus said, deciding he needed time to figure out how to deal with the whole class rep thing before he made any speech.

"Aye, honored patriarch."

The guy calling him patriarch was Gatan. A burly young man with missing front teeth.

"Antelina, do you have a minute?"

Antelina turned her seat around to face him with a questioning look.

"A word," he said.

"Here?" The former class rep glanced at the walls. "In case you didn't notice, this place ain't suited for discussions."

She was right. In the absence of the teacher, the walls and chairs had already started to 'wake up'.

"Patriarch, can I join?" Gatan cut in.

Gaus shook his head. "Another time, maybe."

Gatan frowned dramatically. "This is patriarchy, class rep, we should be around you all the time especially when you are around the matriarch." He gave Antelina a suspicious look. "You need bodyguards."

Gaus laughed. It was funny even if Gatan wasn't joking.

"See you later, Gatan."

They left the burly man there.

After leaving the class premises, Antelina took him to a garden.

"What do you want to talk about?" She asked, sitting on a stone boulder.

"Tell me what the class rep position is all about," he said.

Antelina smirked. After a moment of silence, she turned around to face him with an honest expression. "Do you want to be the class rep?"

Gaus shrugged. "I don't know. Tell me what the position is all about and I'll decide."

"Fair enough. As a class rep, you arranged timetables, you control the class interface as an admin, you can report any misbehavior of your classmates to the teachers and your word will be considered almost immediately, you'll also lead the class through the portal when going into the spirit realm. There are rumors about class reps getting powerful spirits and all..."

Gaus raised his hands to stop her. "Someone is hiding behind that tree," He whispered, pointing at the huge tree that appeared to be a mixture of oak and mahogany with yellow bark.

Antelina frowned. "Don't worry. It's my practice mate - Raya. She has been following us since we left class."

"Raya? The red-haired girl that was complaining about distance?" Gaus asked with furrowed brows.

"Yes. As I was saying, as a class rep you can even report a teacher to student affairs if you don't enjoy their class. The class rep will be the first to pick their mentor at the end of these five months. A class rep also has the opportunity to meet The Master face-to-face during the annual festivities. The list is endless. But it will also consume most of your time as you will have to report every class at the end of every loop week," she explained.

Being the first to choose your mentor and enter the spirit realm sounded good but there were things still not clear.

"Why do you want the position?" Gaus asked.

He could see desire, patience, and greed in her eyes as she contemplated his question.

"Answer my question first."

Gaus shook his head. "I'll answer your question but only after you've answered mine."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Why do you think I'll keep on answering your questions if you can't answer one of mine?"

"To get on the good side of the class rep?" Gaus argued.

"Haha..." she laughed, "you think I want to be friends with you just because you are the class rep now?"

Gaus narrowed his eyes.

"It's you who should try to get on my good side," she said. "Remember, you're up against Ariwen of the First World. You're going to need all the help you can get."

"What is it about this Ariwen girl that makes her so special? I think you're more impressive."