Akai had woken up in the morning right around sunrise to the sound of bells in the city and elsewhere in the academy tolling. He didn’t know what time it was exactly, but if he had to guess it would be a bit before 6am. He wasn’t used to being woken up by bells so it did startle and confuse him at first. Kidd woke up a moment later with a similar reaction before just smiling and starting to get up. The two put on their shoes and head down. Unlike what they were used to, the dormitory had an inbuilt and plumbed room for toiletries and bathing. Sectioned for privacy but there were only so many spots available so they needed to wait their turn. But it was nicer than needing to use a wash basin or outhouse as was the norm in their village.

  Once they were washed and dressed properly, most of the teens were hanging around a simple common room. Sofas, lounge chairs, more proper sitting chairs, but there admittedly wasn’t a lot to do in their dorm right now.

  After killing time, one of the students pointed out one of the staff members approaching. It was not one of the head professors, it instead was a different guy. Dressed in a simple worker’s attire, an old man probably in his 60’s was approaching. He was walking at a casual pace before waving at the students. When he got closer, he said “Hello! My name is Karl and I’m here to give you all the tour of the academy grounds.”

  He approached and stood, resting thumbs in the pockets of his canvas trousers. He looked over the kids and said “Well, some of yall at least. Can’t rightly take you all at once.”

  He scratched his head which was a greying head of light brown hair. “What did he say again..?” He muttered to himself before speaking up. “Ah, I don’t reckon I can do quite that much walking anymore. We’ll make it work, all of you come with me. Just don’t run off, please.”

  Karl turned and began walking, not checking to see if the kids were following. He had a gentle smile on his face and trusted them to listen. After a moment of looking and some mutters amongst themselves, all the boys were following behind. Karl led them down the road in the direction of the mess hall. Halfway there, though, he turned through the grass and started heading off. He said “Normally I don’t like people walking across the grass, but I’ll make an exception for you lot this time.”

  They then ended up by a building with an attached overgrown garden. Karl stopped infront of it and said “This here is Miss Riza’s area. That’s her garden and this is where you’ll go when she holds lessons on Alchemy and whatnot. Just don’t get too close to that garden without supervision. Some of those plants are pretty rare, some of them are dangerous, and some are actively hostile to anyone but Miss Riza.” he said.

  “Actively hostile?” one of the boys asked, Akai turned to look as did about half the other boys. Their attention was brought back to Karl who waved a hand. “One of them will try and bite you. Had a kid snooping around after hours lose a finger from it. I don’t remember which one it is so just say away from em all, okay?”

  Many of the kids did gulp audibly before Karl began walking again.. It didn’t take long before the group of bos followed him, walking along the border of the school grounds. Wrought iron fence with most of it had a well maintained trellis with vines growing along it, but the section around Miss Riza’s garden was thoroughly overgrown.

  They followed and went around the rear end of the small village. There were small farms and gardens around the back and Karl said as they walked “There’s the place where many of the folks working here live. There are two sides to this campus you know, Teaching awakened like you how to control your abilities. And a general education for the children of rich and powerful families. Staff lives here for security purposes after an incident before my time.”

  Karl went on to tell a story that happened a little over a century ago. A family managed to make some powerful enemies and in retaliation, the staff was compromised to get an agent inside and take revenge against the scions of the family. Since then, staff live on campus and there are many enchanted objects around the campus to detect an intruder, even if they mimic a staff member.

  After quite a while of walking and more stories about previous happenings in the academy, They found themselves close to the entrance they originally walked in.

  “Here’s the front gate and admin buildings. That one right there is where you go to ask for permission for stuff, and there’s an academy sanctioned job board. Make some money if you need it, or put some things you learn to the test. That's the adventurer’s guild’s way of helping you kids improve yourself, the academy’s rep, and their own standing.”

  Then they turned and started heading to the training field from the look of it. They saw a class of older kids being worked over by Sigurd and a couple other people wearing staff uniforms.

  A number of them were being made to run laps and were doing so pretty quickly. Others were doing exercises like push ups and sit ups. And a group were sparring together using their powers. What cause most of the kids eyes were the flashy uses of their powers during the sparring. Particularly someone with a lightning affinity taking a bare knuckle boxing stance and swinging at another kid with a lightning affinity who was bobbing and weaving around the punches. Both were moving fast enough to almost be blurs as bright flashes and crackles of energy come from them. Then they saw them switch, seemingly taking turns between attacking and defending to see how fast they can push themselves in a fight.. Kidd stared and felt like he would have a very hard time keeping up with them but it wouldn’t be impossible.

  They walked past, Karl not needing to say anything to explain. But then they moved to a further area where Camilla was holding a practical test for students on the sorcerer side of things. Most were using arcane magic mixed with an element, some were pure arcane. But the impressive ones were a few using pure elemental abilities to perform the same feats as the arcane. There was a very small girl who was among the 3rd years throwing out various spells using just fire. She summoned barriers of fire, sent out whips, threw bolts, and was keeping up with a test that seemingly was a strange game. Two teams trying to pull a boulder to their side while defending against ranged attacks of the enemy. Camilla was standing by and supervising.

  Karl said “Ah, Rockpull. Always a fun game to watch. Tricky part is not breaking the boulder, the team that does is disqualified.”

  As he said that, one of the many games of it going on ended with the boulder suddenly bursting into rubble and Camilla raised an arm, barriers forming and ending the spells on that play field. One side was cheering and the other was yelling at a boy who had not been careful with an arcane spell.

  As they continued to walk, They found themselves smelling smoke in the air. Looking forwards, they were approaching a building with various smoke stacks.

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  “This is Grinwald’s workshop. Here, he teaches people how to make just about anything.” He said as there was a sudden explosion. Knocking open one of the doors on the side before a student covered head to toe in soot walked out and fell onto the grass. Karl sighed and said “And Grinwald’s safety measures are pretty important to follow.”

  A few other students came out and after a moment, began picking up and heading in the same direction the group was going. Heading to the buildings close to the center, near where the mess hall had been.

  “Central building is the primary academy, the library and many classes are held there for your actual academic studies. The exterior classroom buildings are for more niche lessons or tests.” He said, then stopping by as they watched the kit covered in soot be helped into a side building.

  “The infirmary, you’ll need to be familiar with where this place is in case you get hurt.”

  After the few hours of walking, the group was finally led back to the dorm. Karl stood over them and counted, making sure no one had wandered off and gotten lost. After a headcount, he was satisfied everyone actually followed.

  “Right, that’s about all these old bones can handle. Y’all are free to do what you want as long as you don’t get into trouble.” Karl said, then turned and began walking away again.

  Kidd and Akai looked at each other before they both nodded. Knowing exactly what to do now that they were allowed to roam for the remainder of the day. And half an hour later they were standing on the training field, Sigurd giving them a side eye as he was conducting a fitness regimen for a different set of students. They were on the sparring field so he felt no real need to intervene. They just better not make a mess of things. New students always had a hard time with control.

  Sigurd would be in for a pleasant surprise a moment later as Akai and Kidd launched at each other. They agreed ahead of time to do what they saw the others doing. Pushing their speed as fast as they could handle and try to up it with a spar. Wisps of flame tightly swirled around Akai as cracks of electricity did the same for Kidd. Most of Akai’s wisps were a mundane orange, but a new were an oddly bright yellow as he carefully channeled enough of it to not hurt himself and match his friend.

  The two began sparring. Dodging, blocking, and countering strikes to one another. Each one of their attacks did not cause any excess power to escape and tear up their surroundings. They had been sparring like this for years at this point and knew how to control themselves during it now.

  Kidd surged his energy and pushed to move faster and Akai had to do the same to keep up, they struggled to keep up with the fight as they went as fast as they could handle. Unlike the spar they saw before, neither were taking turns practicing defending or attacking. They were going by their usual rules, until one of them either gives up, can’t continue, or a clear winner is obvious. Akai and Kidd felt exhillerated being able to spar again like this after spending so long in the caravan and being introduced to their new surroundings. They both had smiles on their faces as this was great fun.

  Though, the intensity they were fighting was catching attention of most of the students under Sigurd’s care right now. A lot of them stopped their exercises to watch. One took a moment to realize before saying “Those are first years?”

  A number of them were surprised because Akai and Kidd were fighting with years of experience under them. Kidd’s occasional dreamscapes where he trained with Ankhou brought his skill level far above what would be normal, and Akai had improved in kind by having to deal with it.

  About 4 minutes later Kidd was sitting on his butt and panting, both Akai and Kidd were sweating bullets. Kidd managed to push Akai to the point he started to feel a twinge of pain from using more of the phoenix fire and was getting hits through Akai’s defense as he wouldn’t push any further than that. Akai was going to have a few bruises now but Kidd was rubbing his hand.

  “Geez, you’re too tough..” Kidd muttered in complaint.

  The fight ended with Kidd landing a solid punch to Akai’s stomach, then tried to kick him away, but instead of blocking it Akai planted his feet and took the kick, catching Kidd’s ankle after it hit him and brought him to the ground. They stopped because both knew if it was a real fight, Kid would have been struck from above and unable to get away or properly block.

  “You barely even flinched from that gut punch I snuck in.”

  Akai gave a shrug and said “it did hurt, I just didn’t let it distract me. But you were getting too fast for me to handle at the end so I had to do something to stop it.”

  Akai and Kidd turned to look as they heard a shout come from a short distance. They saw Sigurd Hjarlson approaching. “Oi!”

  Kidd quickly got back to his feet and the two stood straight.

  “What was that?” Sigurd barked out as he stopped a few feet away from them. His eyes narrowed as he intently studied both Akai and Kidd.

  “We were sparring, sir.. We were told we were free for the rest of the day.” Akai said.

  The way Sigurd was looking at them, Kidd was getting a similar feeling as he got in his dreamscapes..

  “Who taught you.” he asked bluntly. But the vagueness of the question confused Kidd and Akai for a bit.

  Sigurd growled out “Who taught you that level of control over your power when fighting.” with a bit of visible impatience. Akai and Kidd realized and Kidd answered first. “We had been sparring with our powers at home for over 4 years now, sir.. We had both awakened when we were 10.”

  Both Akai and Kidd noticed the subtle shift of weight from Sigurd before he moved forwards. Both stepping back as his fist would have hit Kidd in the stomach. They felt the power behind it and the control over it, it would have hurt but not actually inured either of them. Though Kidd has been hit by a similar move enough times to notice it easily, and Akai had fallen victim to Kidd imitating it enough to recognize it.

  Sigurd stood up straight and said “Lessons begin tomorrow. I expect you here first thing in the morning. I will put both of you to the test to see exactly where you are.” with a still stern tone but one that held a modicum of respect for the both of them.

  Sigurd looked up from them as Akai and Kidd heard some footsteps approaching from behind. Then a familiar voice said “How did I know I was going to find the two of you here?”

  Lamorie stood there, finally free for the day herself and looked a little annoyed at them, but her expression softened and smiled.

  As Lamorie approached, Sigurd spoke first. Seeing them all 3 act friendly, he lumped Lamorie in with them mentally. “You are joining as well. First thing tomorrow morning, you will be coming here to the training fields.” After speaking, he turned around and went back to his students. Yelling “And who told any of you to stop! Get back to work! Everyone, even the most devastating mages, need a strong body!”

  Lamorie blinked and looked at Akai and Kidd. She pouted as she said “What the hell did you two get me into? I already have plans with Mr Cragfall to head to his forge in the morning.”

  Kidd chuckled and Akai rubbed the back of his head.. He said “I’m sure they’ll work something out..”

  After a few minutes, a bell began chiming from the central buildings. Specifically the mess hall, signalling that lunch was ready for everyone. The three and most of the other students didn’t hesitate to go and get some.

  Today there were loaves of sweet bread with nuts baked into them, savory tarts with eggs and vegetables, smoked meats, and a half dozen other dishes.