012 – The School of Arrays

The first day of Lucian's classes ended, and the next day he was pulled from bed early to ensure he would be on time for his first class on arrays.

Lucian yawned the whole way and tried to find a sense of pleasure in the shaking of the carriage as it barrelled through the morning traffic.

Shouts echoed across the wide roads, with the frequent cursing staining the air, and before long the carriage veered off the main route and into the royal district where the academy for the three schools of creation was housed.

The building had a clean neat look, the grounds looked like every individual blade of grass was cut to precision, and several water fountains released an endless stream of water, a light mist created a light veil over the cool courtyard of the academy.

The academy was already bustling with activity when Lucian arrived, various students and teachers were moving into their social clicks and groups as they discussed and complained about a long list of things, the only complaint of which Lucian could sympathise with were the ones claiming to have a lack of sleep.

As he passed through the double doors at the entrance the first sight that greeted him was the statue of the founder and first headmistress of the academy, with a date that reached back into the early days of the seventh age.

By looking at the walls and floors one would be hard-pressed to believe that the academy stood for almost one hundred thousand years, of course, it experienced a couple of remodels and restorations over the years, but still it was a feat unto itself.

There was no special orientation for newcomers as the attendance of most royals was optional, students could come and go as they pleased for the most part, and everything that would be thought could easily be found in a book.

It was for the parts that required a series of explanations and live demonstrations that most teachers would hold lessons to help the students.

The teachers would put up a notice on the areas they were going to teach, and students had to sign up before attending, and students could also put in requests for lessons on areas they found hard to understand.

There was no such thing as an annual ranking to get to the next level, students would enter a field of study and take on the tests when they felt they were ready, the tests would evaluate skill, knowledge, and efficiency.

By completing these tests students would gain access to higher levels of knowledge and be granted the status to attend specialised lectures.

But for beginners, there was one class they all had to take before choosing their path, and that is where Lucian was currently heading, the Class for Array introduction.

Lucian entered a class with almost two dozen students already seated, they all turned to look at him as he walked through the doors, the boys and girls quickly started whispering as he climbed the stairs to reach his desk on the highest platform.

As he passed by he heard a few whispers, "…totally heard my mom mention that prince's number before," a girl was saying with a pondering tone.

"Of course, you've heard of him, his the one with that moniker, The Lazy Prince," the boy next to her added.

"Maybe we should ask him to join us for lunch, my father is always telling me how important it is to introduce myself to the main lineage," another girl in a pink dress whispered to her friend.

Lucian paid no mind to the chatter and sat down, a few seconds later the door swung open, only this time an older woman with several strands of grey running through her black hair entered.

She walked up to the front of the class and looked at the students with slanted eyes until they all settled down, "I am Mathilda Eshbah' Umbar and I will be your instructor for the day," she introduced herself and walked to the board.

Her long emerald green and black dress puffed out at her waist and hovered just an inch from the floor completely hiding her legs, with the way she walked it was almost as if she was floating.

Lucian sighed after hearing her introduction, his instructor was a member of the Umbar branch family, and he had little doubt that his wench of a mother had something to do with his current instructor, there was almost nothing in the Royal Capital that she couldn't influence.

Mathilda continued, "I am sure that many of you have at one point, wondered why the School of Arrays is compulsory for all of you to learn,"

"Arrays are a fundamental part of the world, and it is important that you learn how to identify the various arrays and their uses,"

"Arrays are helpful in building and creating, but also to anyone who wishes to become a mage, it is the most important skill to master," the mention of becoming a mage was the first thing that sparked anything in the young students.

Noticing the change in expression Mathilda's eyes sparkled as she recalled her dreams of becoming a Sage, the creases around her eyes softened and she continued.

"Arrays may grant you the power to command the elements, they make the process of forging and alchemy easier, and with it, even the ideologies of the schools of creation can be merged," she said.

Lucian's eyes widened at the last part; it was the only thing she said so far that he did not understand what she meant.

"But before you delve into the arts of sorcery and magic the basics must be learnt and that is why I am here today," she said with a slightly amused smile on her face as she saw the children looking disappointed by the sudden change.

She walked up to the board and picked up a stick of chalk, the chalk squeaked as she dragged it across the surface of the board and wrote in bold letters, 'NATURE RUNES', 'NODES', 'RUNES OF ORDER'

"These are the three aspects of arrays and what allows them to work,"

"To begin we shall start off with Nature Runes, as is implied these runes pertain to the nature of things, for instance, the four elements of air, earth, fire, and water, these runes grant power to your arrays and determine their nature,"

"There are hundreds of such runes, perhaps even thousands,"

"Next are nodes and runes of order, these two are connected, nodes are made up of multiple runes of order that are combined together,"

"The runes' of order allow you to command and control your arrays, it's like a series of instructions you combine together to form a node, and once a nature rune is attached to a node and fed enough energy it shall complete the array and perform its effect,"

"Observe," Mathilda brought up her hands that released a blue glow of energy, her fingers traced along the air and several small runes appeared which she connected with an intricate web of lines.

Once that was done she focused on two of her fingers and began to draw a rune in the air, the rune was different from the others, it didn't take on the shade of her energy but rather it looked like a flame that came into life.

She slowly brought her two hands together and the fire rune attached to the node, and suddenly the entire thing shrunk into a tiny circle on Mathilda's palm.

Mathilda opened her palm for the entire class to see and a thin flaming sprout crawled up, soon it resembled a stem and a flower bloomed on the top, its petals were dancing flames, and as the seconds ticked by a full bouquet of burning flowers appeared.

Then Mathilda clenched her fist and the magic circle shattered along with the flowers.

"To complete this class there shall be three requirements, first you must be able to identify 15 nature runes, second you must be able to identify 100 runes of order and third you must be able to draw the connections that make a node work,"

"Inside your desks, you will find a sketch pad, over the course of today's lesson, I will display several nodes and you shall be required to draw them,"

"If you find it hard to draw these connections then you should know that drawing them with energy is ten times as difficult, but fear not the passing condition of this class does not require you to use energy to draw the connections"

"Also, if you find that you have a hard time drawing the nodes I recommend attending art lessons, and mathematical knowledge of geometry will be beneficial in the long run, now let us begin," Mathilda said giving them all the advice they needed to complete the class.

The rest of the lesson was just a series of repetitions, Mathilda would draw the nodes and they would copy her.

After a while Lucian could already see where the future lessons would go, there would be lessons to understand the numerous runes' of order, as well as lessons to use fewer runes of order to generate an effect, also there were likely certain nodes that would work with some nature runes' and be completely useless with other natures.

The sheer number of possibilities was almost endless, and this was just one of the three schools of creation.