Chapter 1: Prologue: The Beginning

The sun shone through the window, emitting a faint glow. It was a beautiful morning for two reasons. Reason one, I awoke with no trouble. Normally I have trouble waking up: it’s like the bed has another sentient being, begging me to stay longer with them. If I only had another person to share the warmth of bed with. 

Actually scratch that, I like my current life as it is. While I’ll gladly welcome a partner in life, like all things in life I need to be patient and wait until it happens.

Whoa, getting off topic here. 

Anyways, the second reason is due today being a very special day. My first day of school! I know, I know, I feel the same way about school! 

However, there’s nothing much I can do about it. I neither hate or love school, my mood varies depending on the day. 

Well, today is my first day attending Avrora Magic Academy. 

This prestigious magic academy boasts about securing a future as part of the government in this country. Of course, it is the honor of most students to serve the kingdom. 

But that is not all that it offers, you can pretty much get any desired job through the recommendation of the school or a few important figures. Graduating in this school doesn’t automatically guarantee you your desired path. You have to prove your worth in some way or another. 

A positive side about that, is the chances of being recognized isn’t the hardest task in the world. Kew word being recognized. As you guessed, the person or people who recommend you greatly matters. 

All in all this school mostly is a meritocracy with very few exceptions. Those being the children of important nobles or influential people. Although the number is low, the reason behind that is not because they don’t give favatersism, but due to most of the top students fitting the previously mentioned descriptions. At least that’s what I heard about from the rumors, you can’t really fully trust them instead taking them with a grain of salt. 

I yawned as I got off my bed. Grabbing my newly bought uniform, I change into them. Making a tight fist, I could hear the sound of my bones cracking. I went downstairs, being greeted by the sight of a woman in her late thirties. Her long navy blue hair gently swayed as she turned to me, this person was my mother. 

“Oh, you’re awake already? You have a whole hour before you have to get ready,” she remarked, slightly tilting her head to the side.

“Well, I was planning on visiting the market square. There aren’t many times when I can spend some money on the open market,” I replied.

“Is that so?“

“Yeah. I’m sorry for not joining you for breakfast. I really am. I promise this will be a one time thing,” I repeatedly apologized, phrasing them differently each time.

“There’s no need to apologize. It isn’t often you indulge yourself in buying things. I was getting worried as to the reason, but I’m now relieved you’re buying something. After all, that’s the purpose of money.”

I clearly understood that I couldn’t spend money freely with no consequences. In the first place, my family had moved to this town for the purpose of me attending school. Both of them encouraged my enrollment, even if it meant them having to pay the whole tuition fee. 

But you mustn’t misunderstand, my family still has enough money to live a comfortable life. Nonetheless, I don’t want to burden them by using their hardworking money when I haven’t been working as much as I have lately. 

I guess my love for my parents makes me disregard some of my views. There’s many things I do and would do in the future for them. I just find it so beautiful that they do this because they love me with no ulterior motive. 

“Okay, I’ll be heading out. See you later, mom,” I said, heading towards the door.

“Have a safe trip!” 

“I will!”

After a few minutes of strolling around I found myself in the market square. The town has been considered a market town due to the school being so close to here. Many students come here in their free time. 

Various stands meant competition. Due to this some have resorted to filling specific niches since most students at this school are pretty rich. If they ended with a marginal profit, of course. Even with this being the case most stands sold 

common things like food, clothes, weapons, etc. 

The currency of this country is pretty simple: the coins are divided into five groups: copper coins, silver coins, gold coins, platinum coins, and lastly holy coins. 

While copper and silver coins are mostly used for everyday things, that does not include extra luxuries, holy coins on the other hand are rarely used. Most of them are used by the royal family aka the wealthiest people around. 

I have a certain budget that I won’t go past. The limit being twenty gold coins. That may be expensive, but keep in mind that is the limit which means most things won’t touch the high budget I placed. 

With this in mind, I walked through the busy market place. I heard many shouts of people advertising their products when one particular poster caught my attention. 

“Hmm, an slave auction…” I muttered to myself as if wondering what my decision should be.

In approximately half an hour they would be holding an auction for slaves or more specific demi human slaves. 

The trade of human slaves is illegal in this country, Lexington. Since demi humans are stronger than humans without magic, they tend to be the main target to be enslaved. As a result of the boost, the market solely was comprised of demi human slaves, added with the ban of human slaves led to the discrimination of demi humans.

Most of them regard them as animals due to obvious reasons. As such they get treated like one. A sad reality of this country. Unfortunately getting rid of it is impossible. The slave trade is a major part of the economy. Giving it up would only hurt them. Anyone there would be against the ban of slavery.

I should kill some time while I wait for it to start. Wait no, I should inspect the slaves to check their quality. That sounds horrible, well if people look back in the past no matter what they will see how horrible we were. That’s besides the point as I made my way to the building, I bumped into someone. 

“Sorry,” I apologized.

“Nah, it’s good. I wasn’t watching where I was going,” the boy replied, clutching his head in pain.

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Hm? A student uniform. Before I could inquire about it, he beat me to it. “Huh? Isn’t that the school uniform for Avrora Magic Academy!?” He exclaimed.

“Now that you mentioned it, it seems both of us are going to attend the same school given this is our first day.”

“I see, I see. Nice to meet you man, my name is Nelson Forster.”

The blond boy with blue eyes introduced himself as such, he raised his hand in what I assume was him wanting to shake hands. I responded accordingly and shook his hand, greeting him back.

“It’s a pleasure, I’m Taetel Chaim.” 

“Quite the strong handshake! We’ll definitely get along,” he laughed, slapping my back.

“But what are you doing here? Isn’t class about to start soon?” He said to himself.

“What?” 

My confusion must've been way too obvious as he responded. “Yeah, you didn’t know? Class starts in around forty minutes.” 

“You call that soon?”

“Well, y’know it takes a bit of time to get a ride and then get to the school. Unless you want to walk. Plus it’s the first day we should be early just in case,” he casually explained.

“Ah, forgot about that.”

I guess I’ll forget about the auction. And I was looking forward to it too. Sighing, I head towards the carragis heading to school. Surprisingly Nelson accompanied me the whole time, though we made brief conversation. 

“Isn’t it exciting to attend such a prestigious school?” Nelson spread his arms in awe.

“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t,” I replied. 

“I wonder how it’ll be,” he said like an excited child.

“I can’t blame you. I’m also curious about this so-called magic academy.”

Most humans and demi humans have the ability to use magic and control it. Using simple spells like fireball are known to everyone. By pouring mana through our body we can strengthen it past normal limitations of the human body. Demi humans struggle more with it, in addition to having lower potential.

Potential is what determines the overall power you can achieve. As unfortunate as it is, high potential is only given to special individuals. It's like playing the lottery, praying to be born with it. There are many known ways to determine one’s potential, one being magic. Potential is ranked A through F with F being the lowest one can get. 

Fortunately potential can be raised, while there’s no way to raise it some individuals have surpassed their given potential. 

This is called true potential. This takes everything you do from what you eat, how much you sleep, how much you train, etc. However since there are so many variables that need to be taken into account this cannot be measured by magic. We don’t even know how much one’s potential can be increased. 

While we were on the way with a few other students Nelson decided to talk again.

“Hey, do you know which class you've been placed in?”

“No,” I shook my head.

“Thought so, I guess they’ll tell us once we get there.” 

“That’s probably the case. It’s better that way, I’m not trying to listen to some students boasting about their placement,” I complained about certain people who do things like that.

“Haha.”

Our conversation died down after that, but on the topic of the placement of classes, there’s an actual high importance on it. We were actually tested a while back as an entrance exam to see who could join. That’s why when they heard I was accepted both of them decided to buy a house and live here. 

There are six classes A through F, with F being, of course, the lowest. Each class contains forty students with there being three different school year students, me being a first-year student.

The higher the class you are placed in the higher the education is. Meaning that students in the lower classes get treated differently than the 

students of higher classes. There are ways to increase which class you're placed in. Due to this some students go for this option. 

I say some because simply going up a class doesn’t really do much if you are too weak. As I said, this school is a meritocracy. For example if you are the strongest one placed in Class C even if you transfer to Class B you would need to pray that you're stronger than at least half of them. 

Why? It’s because the better students get more focused than the lower performing ones. Even though both students can be from the same class it’s not an equal treatment. After all they want to nurture us, they can’t do that if the forty strongest people were placed in one class, it’s inevitable you give more attention to one than the other. Therefore being placed in a higher class isn’t always a good thing. It might ruin your plans. 

Soon my vision saw a luxurious building that seemed to sparkle in my mind. The amount of money that was spent here is an amount I cannot fathom. Various other students walked near me. 

I gathered my thoughts as I walked to the gates of the academy. I took a deep breath in and out. I prepared myself to where I would be spending the next three years of my life. 

Time to go, huh?

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