25 The Academy

The two wagons continued non-stop the whole journey. No one was in the mood to talk, they only whispered in worry about whatever huge monster that made the commotion earlier. Everyone just wanted to reach the safety of the academy, as quickly as possible.

During the way, Foo was yet again being distracted by the voices, that had came back when he woke up. They distracted him too much to be able to focus on the journey at all, so all that he could do was focusing hard to ignore them.

Because everyone was freaked out, Foo's strange behavior and lack of response did not strike anyone as odd. And as such did the hurried escape continue, all the way to the academy.

Only when they could see the academy in the far distance did Foo finally succeed to somewhat block out the voices of the trees. Using the relatively short distance of silence, Foo could finally relax a bit.

Although the wagons were making noises due to the high speed, now that he had blocked out the voices, everything just felt peaceful. Not that he dared to enjoy it too much; one never knew what that evil system would come up with next...

After taking some time to rest up, Foo inspected the academy. However, all that he could see was high walls. According to Yorick, the academy was like a big city. With a huge tower in the middle, that they could see reaching far above even the huge walls, the circular city was separated into three equal parts.

The parts in question housed the warriors, the wizards and the `Magic warriors`. However, as there had not been any `Magic warrior` in a really long time, that part of the city had lost its former glory, and was now just a slum of undesirables.

As the academy had an ancient rule to accept everyone with talent, they had many students that had too little talent to be desired, but too much to be denied enrollment. As they could not change the ancient rules of the academy, when they noticed that they had a whole third of the city unoccupied, they decided to just put them there.

As that section of the city had no one to take care of it, the buildings had started to collapse and so. Now it was really looking like a slum, including its residents.

From being a open academy that cared about everyone, and giving everyone a chance to succeed in life, it was now more like a meritocracy, where those with talent were groomed, and those without talent were just thrown aside.

Yorick was one of the `undesirables`, and although they were all students of the same academy on the papers, they were treated more like servants. A clear class difference had appeared.

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The wagons finally arrived at the gates, and the horses fell down in exhaustion. Luckily, they were still alive, and would recover with some rest.

Before the gate stood one warrior and one wizard, guarding the gate and inspecting those who desire to use the gate, both who were stunned by the sight of the poor horses.

The warrior hurriedly asked the warrior leader: "Did you encounter the anomaly?" Clearly aware of the disturbance in the forest.

The warrior leader, that now could take a sigh of relief, as they were in the safety of the academy, answered: "We still have no idea what it was, but it seemed to be right in our tracks. I need to report this issue with the higher-ups."

At this moment, the wizard added in: "We should call for a emergency meeting."

However, this statement made the two warriors frown; Why should the pathetic wizards butt in? It was only the capable warriors that could handle such a situation. But after some thought, they both came to the conclusion that this matter was probably too big to let the conflict between warriors and wizards cloud their judgement.

The warrior leader thus agreed: "Indeed, this matter is of great importance. The appearance of a danger in the forest threaten all that pass through it. It must be taken care of as quickly as possible. And we still do not know if it can pose a danger to the academy itself."

The wizards had many ways to uncover information, with their help it should be easy to find out what were lurking in the forest. Even if it was a monster that could hide from the wizards' spells, as long as it was still in the forest, they should at least be able to find out how strong it was.

Intending to report this matter as quickly as possible, the warrior leader then turned to the trio, and said: "You should borrow a new horse and take the wagon to your residence. The entrance examination will have to wait, as everyone would be busy with the emergency meeting."

After thinking for a while, he then threw them two tokens, and explained: "You two can enter as my guests for the time being. When the matter has calmed down, go and take the entrance examination for proper registration."

With those words, he took his apprentices and rushed into the academy. By using the authority of their new tokens, the trio then sent for someone to fetch a horse, and then entered the city-like academy with the wagon.