Chapter 23: Chapter 22: entering the academy

Getting up and posing in front of the mirrors is honestly a pretty good way to start the day. This body does look good, and spending time in front of the mirror helps with the dissociation I originally felt. The wings are a nice touch too. 

Today, something is happening. I have a meeting with the principal of the academy. We never specified a time, but I was kinda hoping to do it before noon. But for now, I have to decide on what to wear. I can go in wearing something professional, since I have business suits. Both male and female variants from earth. Of course someone added it to the game. Trying on the male one first, It, like all my other clothing, fits perfectly. The black suit, white shirt and green tie looks genuinely good on me. The tie matches my wild hair, and the wings add that exotic flair. It’s a solid contender, though it probably looks quite out of place in this society. The female style also looks good, but not quite right. I can’t quite put my finger on the reason, but it’s enough to strike it from the list.

I could wear a robe to drive home the fact that I am a mage. So I try on a few different ones, some matching my colorscheme, others not. One even comes with a variety of bones and skull necklace. I think it was from one of the necromancers you defeat in the campaign. The best looking one is the one that caused me to fall down from the bed, and I’m still kinda annoyed at it. Might be slightly petty, but I’m not feeling it. 

I could go full on casual since it is not a formal meeting. Trying on a combination of sweaters, pants and skirts, breaking up sets and recombining them, I settled on a green sweater with a white butterfly on it and a black skirt. They are not from the same set, but they fit well together. Wearing the dress yesterday was fine, but seeing as I’m going to the academy, someone might ask me to demonstrate something, so I wear tights under the skirt.

With my outfit settled, I head to the common room, finishing the rest of the morning routine on the way. James seems to still be in his room, seeing as Jo sits alone at one of the tables. Her brown eyes light up for a moment as they spot me, but is quickly filled with worry. I can’t think of a reason for her worry, but then again she probably thinks me teaching her magic is a lot more tentative than I do and I did have a long talk with the other person who has a say in the matter.

I sit down and decide to ask her about it while I prepare my breakfast. The fruit I have had the last couple of days have been amazing, but I’m feeling like something else, so I take out something I bought locally. I don’t know what exactly it is, though it looks like a kind of food wrapped in a tortilla. The insides will remain a mystery until I take a bite since Jo decides to answer my question.

“I’m worried that you might leave me since you never returned from the talk yesterday. Seeing as Jools didn’t show up this morning, it left me even more worried.”

“I see. Our talk wasn’t related to that. He has decided to distance himself from some of his past and needed to vent for a bit.” I say, giving an explanation that’s not entirely untrue and hopefully making the name change easier for him.

Biting into the wrap, I find the content to be mostly vegetables, notably potatoes. It also has an odd tasting sauce. Overall the taste is good, but not exceptionally so. She seems to want to know more, but me biting into my food is not conducive to me explaining, not that I intend to elaborate further.

Our breakfast continues on in silence as we wait for James. Though soon after we finish our food, we start some idle chatter, primarily about magic, though she asks me how I get such high quality fabrics for my clothes. I decide to just answer that I accumulated it opportunistically over time, which is pretty true. I have seen some clothes of equivalent quality in this city, but most people have worse clothing and the stores that did sell it had pretty high prices. 

You are reading story princess Zena of Zendor at novel35.com

Eventually James shows up, and he smiles. This might actually be the first time I’ve seen him smile when coming out of his room. He might have smiled when I didn’t see him though. I wave at him and start the conversation with him.

“Good morning, how are you feeling?”

“Better. Yesterday helped a lot. I’ve sort of just been avoiding it for a while, so facing it with your help was nice.”

Asking him for his preferences for food, I end up giving him another of the wrapped mystery foods. His end up being different to mine and he seemed to like it.

He ended up explaining to Jo that Jools was the name he used as an adventurer, and he thinks it’s time to go back to his real name of James. It’s a decent explanation and fits well enough with what I told her earlier. After James finishes his food, I bring up my plans for the day. Namely that I’m going to visit the headmaster of the academy. I end up asking if either of them wants to join me, which James does not. He wants to spend the day just exploring the city, which is perfectly fine. Jo decides to tag along to see some of her friends that have yet to graduate. After agreeing to meet back during the evening, we head towards the academy, without my wings. 

The academy is a fair bit aways from the inn we are staying at, so we walk through the streets for about half an hour until we reach the front gate. The academy seems to subscribe to the same open door policy as the city. I guess that makes sense. The area is peaceful, as dictated by the developers and as such didn’t need to worry, though now that it’s become real, I wonder if the situation is going to change. The NPCs no longer have a fixed behavior and some might decide to cause havoc. Though the streets seem quite peaceful and the worst part I’ve seen is people ending up in a disagreement when haggling. 

Walking through the gate, we enter a courtyard. The walls surrounding the academy are not that tall and seem to mostly be there to stop stray spells from students. On either side of the road leading to the main building, there are students practicing spells, though only occasionally one of them manages to fire one off. They also don’t appear to be organized in any fashion, just loosely clumped together in friend groups. The main building is quite imposing with its walls built of large stones. It looks circular with a wide base and gradually getting narrower as it reaches the top.

Nobody stops us from simply walking into the building, though we don’t look all that different from the students, who don’t appear to be wearing any uniforms. I’m getting the feeling that the academy is quite disorganized, since there is a large group of people, some of which appear to be teachers, just chatting in the main hall. I decide to ask Jo about it, since she has been through it before. She explains that it is pretty disorganized. People just decide what they want to learn and ask people who know to teach them. There are occasionally organized classes if there are many people who want to learn the same thing, but it’s usually an ad-hoc affair. Some things are common enough that this regularly occurs, such as enchanting. So I further prod on how one graduates. Which she responds with that you graduate when you feel like you have learned enough to make it on your own. It is also customary to thank the people who helped you the most while you studied here, and to gift the headmaster an enchanted bauble. Not everyone does, but most, like her, do.

With some understanding of the academy, we start to look for the headmaster, who according to her, is usually teaching whoever wants to be taught in whatever location they happen to be in. This makes it difficult to locate him most of the time. As we look around for him, someone that appears to be a teacher approaches us.

You can find story with these keywords: princess Zena of Zendor, Read princess Zena of Zendor, princess Zena of Zendor novel, princess Zena of Zendor book, princess Zena of Zendor story, princess Zena of Zendor full, princess Zena of Zendor Latest Chapter