Chapter 1.3: The Opening Ceremony

9 a.m., Taimadou Academy, Concert Hall

"Once again, welcome to Taimadou Academy freshmen students, we welcome you with open arms."

Even though it was the end of her speech, Hasumi's voice could still be heard clearly in the hall. Her beautiful figure and lovely appearance, along with her clear and concise voice, caused everyone to pay attention solely to her for the past few minutes. The male population seemed more focused on her than the females, which caused some form of jealousy to rouse.

"And with that, seniors, please leave the hall. Thank you very much for your attention."

The seniors proceeded to leave the hall, leaving only the freshmen inside. At the same time, Hasumi herself left as well.

"Freshmen, please move to the seats closer to the stage."

An unknown voice sounded from the front of the hall. The figure that stood before the numerous freshmen was a woman in her thirties. She carried a mature, composed appearance, along with her cool demeanor, befitting of a teacher. On her face was a small smile.

The freshmen walked down towards the seats of closer proximity. While Rin was on the way down, he noticed that there was a female student on the ground.

"That hurts…"

The unknown girl gruntled painfully.

"Are you okay?"

Akane offered her hand out. Rin stood beside her with a slightly concerned look.

"Yes, I think I'm fine, thank you very much."

The girl took the hand she was offered and stood up. She was a petite girl with long yellow hair and a pair of spectacles. Looking at the duo in front of her, she pondered in thought.

"Are you both part of the Hitotsu clan?"

Akane and Rin were slightly surprised at her sudden question as this was the first time they met this girl.

"I knew you both were from Hitotsu. It's nice knowing you both. My name is Daichi Hana. I'm from the Daichi clan."

'She's from Daichi huh…'

Rin was rather wary of her introduction. As members of higher-tiered clans, it was good practice to keep similar-tiered people on your radar, just in case.

"It is nice knowing you as well, Hana. I am Akane and this is my little brother, Rin."

While the three of them were exchanging pleasantries, a voice suddenly spoke out loud.

"Shall we start the distribution?"

What the supposed teacher mentioned was their class distribution. In magic academies, classes were arranged using the English alphabet, from A to F. Each class had 30 students, which collectively summed up to 180; the number accepted each year. These students were split into different classes based on their magic abilities. The argument that students should not be split solely based on magic prowess had been brought up before, but among the magic schools in Japan, there was a majority vote against the change in the current system. As such, the system was still being utilized for the newest batch of freshmen.

"With that, come to the stage when your name gets called."

"We'll talk again later in class. See you."

Hana left the two of them to find a seat closer to the stage. This statement would normally be bold, for she had already assumed she would be placed in the same class as the two siblings. However, to the duo, they could already be considered classmates.

Soon after the teacher's statement, another person appeared from behind the curtains, pushing a metal table with wheels attached underneath it. On the table was a cube with a length of a meter. This cube was a magic cube, specially designed to measure magic levels. It could detect the amount of mana reserve that a magician had in their system and was connected to a display ranging from a value of 0 to 1000. Certainly, this sort of measurement was indeed flawed. For example, what if the student cast a magic spell not long ago? Would that not affect his score?

To the school, however, it was not that relevant of an issue. The students themselves knew that this was the method with which they would be judged and putting themselves at a disadvantage would be their own fault. To put it shortly, the magic academies did not really care. This was not entirely to blame though, as classes were redistributed every half-year based on the student's performances in relation to several different factors.

This magic cube was specifically calibrated to be in the range of a student's possible mana reserve. It was given a smaller range due to extreme values impossible for a student, making it more accurate with its remaining values.

One by one, students were called onto the stage in alphabetical order based on their given names. After their mana values were taken, their respective names and scores were shown on a large screen above. So far, there was only one person with a value above 800, while the others had values closer to 500. This got a few murmurs among the freshmen students.

However, the real surprise was about to come.

"The next student, Hitotsu Akane, please come up onto the stage."

The entire freshmen body became quiet. All eyes were on the stage. Most of them were taking a glance at Akane, trying to physically evaluate her. The others were looking towards the count display, waiting for her value. Lastly, Rin was looking at his own hands, for some weird reason.

As she was told, Akane placed both of her hands in front of the magic cube. After a while, she was told to put her hands down and wait for the result. She stood in front of the magic cube, waiting for a few seconds.

"953…"

"That's crazy!"

"As expected of the Hitotsu clan."

"Isn't she too strong for a freshman?"

These multiple exclamations were heard throughout the crowd. In response, Akane simply went back to the vacant seat beside Rin. Diagonally to their front-right, Daichi Hana was gripping her fist tightly, having attained a new resolve.

After Akane, more students were called onto the stage. Eventually, another bomb was dropped.

A score of 920 was shown on the counter display. The person who attained this score was Daichi Hana. Numerous murmurs echoed throughout the crowd; however, they were less than those that had been spurred by Akane. As always, even though Hana's score of 920 was beyond impressive, her score was still lower than Akane's.

Hana should still be extremely proud that she obtained an extremely high score. However, instead, she noticeably was feeling frustrated. Frustrated that she got a lower score.

Afterward, Hana returned to her seat. While walking back, she took a glance at the Hitotsu siblings. Akane was looking back at her, smiling, while Rin on the other hand was thinking to himself, lost in thought.

While Hana was in the middle of her measurement, Rin noticed something on the name list that was being displayed.

'Hijiri, you both applied here as well. I see…'

He had remembered something from the past, something that made Rin feel pleasantly warm inside.

While Rin was reminiscing his past, he was disturbed by someone tapping on his shoulder.

"Rin, it's your turn."

"Huh?"

He was awakened from his train of thought by his older sister, Akane. He was being called to the stage by a noticeably frustrated teacher who had been repeatedly calling him. He had not expected that time would pass by that quickly. As they said, time flew by when you were enjoying something.

Rin stood up from his seat after he thanked his older sister. Walking down to the stage, he was stared at by all the other freshmen. Among all the freshmen, there were gazes that he could specifically point out. Among all the murmurs going around, there was one that he heard in particular.

"I wonder which sibling will get the higher score."

Rin smiled to himself.

He went onto the stage and was asked to hover his hands in front of the magic cube. Although his mana reserve value had not been taken yet, Rin already knew the outcome. To him, it would not be of any surprise.

"0?!"

Multiple simultaneous shouts came from the crowd. This score was preposterous to be attained by a high school student. After all, the magic cube was calibrated to only display values possibly attained by students.

In other words, his getting a 0 meant that his mana reserve capacity was already beyond high school capability. As the value of one's mana reserve is directly related to the tier of magic one could cast, it would undoubtedly mean that he could wield extremely high-tier magic.

Or that should've been the case.

The teacher approached Rin and looked impressed.

"Congratulations, you'll be part of Class 1-A."

"Thank you very much, Teacher."

Rin replied politely at her praise. He had to maintain a façade.

"You're welcome. I'm not a teacher though, but a researcher."

The teacher was a researcher for Taimadou Academy. It explained to Rin why she had a different outfit compared to other teachers.

Rin walked back to his seat, ignoring the gazes upon him.

Around an hour later, each student's respective class was announced. They were dispersed and told to be in class in half an hour. The time given was ample to allow the students to tour around the campus freely and gain an understanding of where they will be studying from thereon.

Akane and Rin decided to go visit their dorm room as they did not have anything else to do.

Taimadou has a dormitory within its premise, with the academy covering a very large amount of land. The dormitory was located in the southwest area. Dorms were not split by gender. This was due to the fact that Taimadou supported relationships between opposite genders as duos in magic chess had a tendency to comprise different genders.

Besides that, dorms had other strict rules. For example, curfew was strictly at 10 p.m. as a magician allowed to wander around may pose a threat to the school's safety. Taimadou's dormitories also had excellent anti-magic measures. There were sensors in every single room that could detect the flow of mana. These were similar to the magic cube used in the class division.

The dormitory residence has three buildings which had 10 floors each. Rin and Akane received a dorm room on Floor 5. Upon entering the room, they both felt that it was sufficiently spacious. It was a 2LDK room; standard for two people. They could actually have chosen to simply not move into a school dormitory, but the principal specially offered them living residence, which was hard to decline, and at the same time, they had no reason to. Moreover, they both wanted to be able to be together alone, without the feeling of being constantly under surveillance.

Closing the door, Rin's facial expression suddenly turned grim.

"Akane, can you check if the room is bugged?"

This is a fairly common occurrence done by their family. It was logically feasible as their mover was hired by their father. Bugging his own children would not be too far-fetched of him. Other than that, there was the off chance the school themselves bugged the room.

Akane took around 15 minutes to look around the room. She checked every nook and cranny possible: in the closets, on the clothing hooks, on the balcony, on the underside of the toilet seat, under the bed, and more.

"I couldn't find anything, brother."

A point to notice was that Akane changed her abbreviation towards her brother as she believed that they were not under surveillance.

"That's good, sis. Thanks."

Rin, too, adapted to this change of circumstances and calmed down. They both preferred to call each other by their title, as they were usually called by their first name by fellow clan members. Akane looked around randomly before facing Rin.

"Rin, I need to ask you something."

Rin's face changed into a serious expression.