We were in the middle of a massive dining hall on the main floor of the clock tower. Surrounded by circular wooden tables, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and serving counters off to the side.

"The clock tower is the central student center," Principal Pine said. "You would eat your meals here with your friends. Sometimes people come here to study and practice their skills, but you can also go upstairs and find offices for other staff members like myself, Jonathan, and even the groundskeeper. We sometimes use this dining hall as an event space. However, we see fit."

A few older-looking students were still sitting at tables, slowly eating and chatting amongst themselves.

"Hello, Principal Pine, hello, Jonathan!" a girl said from a table not too far from us. They both waved and returned the greeting.

"Usually, there is a big crowd here for breakfast, lunch some students skip, but it still gets crowded around then. And then dinner time, nearly the entire student body is always in attendance. Any questions so far?" Principal Pine asked.

I shook my head.

"Very well, let's visit the primary lecture building," Principal Pine said.

We stepped outside on the breezy but warm autumn morning. Students were still walking around. Some of them hung out under trees, chatted with friends, or read a textbook. Every which way, there was a building. Each one had its own architectural style. The grass was lush and green, and the path we walked on was made of smooth white hexagonal tile. It was by far the fanciest place I had ever been. The campus felt like a peaceful garden.

Principal Pine pointed at the Greco-Roman structure with white pillars and white steps. It made me feel like I was in ancient Greece. It was wider than it was tall. "Rollie, students attend Attleton for 6 years. The first two are dedicated to honing your basic elemental mage abilities, like the elemental spark that we all start with and grow into a bolt. From years 3 to 4, we focus on going from a bolt to a strike, a more powerful utility for an elemental mage. There's also arcane magic training at that level -oh, and do you see this here?"

We stopped in front of a large sculpture that was two stories tall. It had six cloaked individuals reaching their left fists together towards the sky. They all had smiles on their faces, and they each had an elemental emblem on their back.

"This is the Attleton Unity Statue. Even though we all might live and grow with mages of our own ability, this reminds us that we are all united as one group." Principal Pine smiled. "At first, you are surrounded by people of your ability. But in years 5 through 6, we focus on your career path, giving you time to try different things and simulate the experience of something you would love. And you meet other people."

"Wow, I wish we could do something like that back where I'm from," I said. "Do people figure out what they want to do?"

"Yes, our students are usually able to find their passion by at least the end of their sixth year. Then they go off and start a career they have a fondness for. Even if things don't pan out, we allow students to come back and try other things through a special program, but it rarely happens. Jonathan helps facilitate many things and keeps us in good relations with other businesses and institutions,” Principal Pine explained.

"I gotta say, I'm really impressed so far," I said, and I meant every word of it.

We went up the white marble steps of the lecture hall complex, and students passed us to the left and right. Some greeted Jonathan and Principal Pine, and others carried on without looking over. Entering the massive building, the ceiling rose high, and six different hallways branched out before us.

"Rollie, let's see where you will have most of your classes for your first year." Principal Pine stepped to the left side of the building. We walked through a corridor of classrooms, all of them to the left, they all had arched wooden doors but no windows to look inside. No one else was around except one student in an emerald cloak drifting to the bathroom.

"Is this where all of the classes are? Could we go inside one?" I asked.

"Of course, that was my intention." Principal Pine approached one of the doors. It was labeled with a Roman numeral to the side. I thought it was strange that he didn't knock on the door before opening it, but we entered a classroom, and a bright blue bolt shot toward me.

"Ahh!" I shouted, jumping back, but Principal Pine, without hesitation, had a violet bubble shoot from his hand, clashing with the bolt and turning into nothing. I felt a bone-chilling breeze come from the collision.

"Sorry about that. Are you all right?" Principal Pine asked me.

"Yes, that just freaked me out a little bit, but I'm good," I said.

I had a chance to look at the rest of the room, which was filled with 20 students standing a few feet apart. There were no tables, just targets at one end of the room. A girl covered her mouth as she looked at the three of us.

"Oh my gosh! I am so sorry!" the girl yelled out. She wore a light blue cloak.

"It's all right," the adult in the room said. She wore a red cloak. "Hello, Principal Pine and Counselor Jonathan. How are we this fine morning?"

"Sorry for the interruption Professor Shia. We're just showing a prospective new student around the campus." Principal Pine waved.

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"I hope we didn't scare you at all," Professor Shia said.

"Nothing to worry about. Carry on with your class; we'll leave shortly," Principal Pine said.

Jonathan guided us further into the classroom up against the wall. I watched as Professor Shia stood beside the student with the light blue cloak.

"It's okay, Lindsey. Try this again, aim your hand at the target, and focus. This time, adjust a little to the left. Your bolt hooked right last time."

Lindsey nodded and put her hand back up. While she focused and went through a breathing exercise, I gazed at the rest of the room. It was sparsely decorated, just a resilient marble wall lining the classroom. Three wooden circles were at the other end. I focused on Lindsey, and she shouted, "Ice bolt!"

A sky-blue sphere with frost trailing at the end flew out of her fingertips to the other side of the room, but it completely missed the targets by going too far up. Lindsey groaned.

"Don't beat yourself up over it. It's all right," Professor Shia said. “You're doing extremely well so far."

"This is where you would focus on your initial elemental mage ability," Principal Pine whispered to me.

We continued with the tour, walking into a history class, an elixirs class, and another class that seemed focused on arcane magic. Each room felt like it belonged in some expensive private school.

Back home, I would never have a shot at attending a place like this.

Our walk was focused on the first-year wing. There wasn't much else that Jonathan and Principal Pine felt was important to show me. "Unless you would like to see the other hallways and what those classes are like?" Jonathan asked me.

"Sure, I think it would be cool to see some of the older kids and how good they are," I said.

We went to the 5th-year hallway to the one classroom focused on elemental strikes.

"Everyone starts with the elemental bolt, and then they learn the elemental strike their third year, but it takes considerable time to master. Students in their 5th year can usually shoot out a strike easily. That's the technique Frank and I used on the boat on our way here to take care of the hellions," Jonathan said.

Strolling down the 5th-year hallway, we visited a classroom near the end of the stretch. All the rooms were on our right side, and a courtyard could be seen on the left, with more brilliant white pillars separating us from the outside.

Inside the next classroom was a kid with a purple cloak; he looked older and had some muscle. All the students stood back as a shadowy figure chased him around a small sectioned-off arena. The student ran out of reach from the shadowy figure and held up his hand, shooting out a long purple beam. It had a bubbling appearance, but it struck the shadowy figure, making it disappear.

"Bravo, bravo, Killian," a professor said. He clapped and stepped towards the arena.

I don't think anyone had noticed that we came inside. We stood there and watched another student go in and battle with a shadowy figure. The student planted his feet and held his hands up, trying to get a charged power going, but they couldn't. The shadowy figure sprinted from one side to the other and swiped the student, but he didn't appear to be harmed. The swipe went through the student as if it was a ghost. Hanging his head, the student walked away from the arena.

"That's alright. I know sometimes we might want to stay there and charge our power because, eventually, it will surge through, but sometimes you must keep running and dodging before you can get a good shot off. Even with older and more disciplined mages, situations like that can still happen. You never know how fast a perpetrator or evil beast might be," the professor said.

I could stand there all day watching the class go on. I didn't know how much time had passed, but I looked to my right, and Principal Pine and Jonathan were already drifting toward the exit. Following them out into the hall, they smiled at me.

"Well, what do you think so far?" Principal Pine asked.

I thought about it for a moment.

"It's left you speechless, eh?" Jonathan chuckled.

"Yeah, that's a good word for it," I said.

We returned back to the central part of the building, and a kid wearing a light-blue cloak with a snowflake emblem on the back approached us. He had short black hair slicked back.

"Hey, Jonathan! What's going on? Oh, and Principal Pine too, how are you? And I don't recognize this guy, but you have sweet hair, sir," he said.

"Hey, Bradley. We're all doing well." Jonathan beamed. "Bradley, this is a prospective student here. His name is Rollie Magpie."

"Right on, a pleasure to meet you, pal." Bradley shook my hand and had the warmest smile. "Seriously, that hair of yours is awesome. I'm jealous, actually. If I had that hair, I think my parents would kick me out." He snickered. His laugh was infectious, making Jonathan and I join him. Principal Pine's lips curled up.

"Well, I don't want to keep you all tied up, but a pleasure to meet you, Rollie. Hope you end up coming to school here. It's a terrific place." Bradley winked and waved goodbye.

"Ah, perhaps a potential mentor for you. We'll make a note of that," Jonathan said.

"Well, that's pretty much the lecture hall," Principal Pine said as he stretched his hand out towards the building. "Is there anything else we should visit on our campus tour? Sorry, Rollie, it's been a few years since we last had a student come from the Nomagi World."

It would be good to show Rollie where he would be staying. Not to mention, he's a fan of sports, right? So we should show him the stadium," Jonathan said.

“Stadium?” My eyes bulged. “It's not like a field? It's a stadium? Like in my high school, we play football, but we just have risers. Hardly a stadium, so instead, we call it the football field.”

Jonathan smirked. "I think you'll be thrilled to see what we have. We'll save that for last." Jonathan and Principal Pine strolled ahead, and I followed.

We went back outside on the campus and walked towards a red brick tower with a roof that had four turrets on each corner. It was one of the largest buildings on campus. Windows were evenly distributed on each floor, tall, slender, and arched. White crown molding framed each window.

"This is where all of the fire mages live. Years one through six all stay here. Four students to a suite," Jonathan said. "It's the second highest structure on campus, but where the other mages stay, their buildings are a little wider. This one was built to be tall and narrow."

I loved everything about it. It looked like some fancy hotel within an amusement park. Nothing this nice existed anywhere near my home. We took a step inside the lobby. There was a front desk to the left and a space devoted to cushiony couches and chairs. A few students in scarlet cloaks sat around and sipped a beverage from a red mug. The air smelled like freshly brewed coffee. A girl working behind a counter waved to us. "Hello Principal Pine and counselor Jonathan! Is there something going on here that has earned your special presence?" the girl asked with a broad grin.

"Just giving a tour to a prospective student," Jonathan said and waved. "Shall we go see the stadium then?"

"Yeah, that would be awesome!" I blurted.

"It's quite a walk, but we could also take a little train into the stadium," Jonathan said.

I couldn't believe my ears. "I've never been on a train before."

"Now is as good a time as any," Principal Pine said. Returning outside, we walked to what felt like the edge of campus.