3 Astra Magic University

Anton woke up being thrown into the air, due to a sudden stop on the ship. He flew out of the chair into the ground, and stayed there for a couple of seconds. He lifted himself up from the floor, and went to the window of his cabin to take a peek.

Astra Magic University, more commonly known as A.M.U. was a hell of a sight to behold. Anton felt his breath taken away just by looking outside the window, the sun starting to set, shining through the buildings.

The University was not built upon bare terrain in Gaia's land, but instead built on top of a flying island that seemed to have come out of the continent itself. The island flew itself around the world, seemingly ignoring all laws of physics, and held a high concentration of mana in the area around it, making it a perfect environment to study spellcasting. The whole island was covered by a semi-transparent bubble, called "The Aegis", which protected all of the terrain and buildings, except for the entrance, which stood as a giant metal gate on the skirts of the island, just outside the Aegis range. Several air docks extended forward from the land in front of the gate.

The University itself was composed of 6 huge buildings, all at least 10 stories tall each, arranged as a hexagon, with pathways connecting all of them. The buildings stood tall and looked daunting, their walls made out of stone that was whiter than marble, and ceilings that were pointy and made of stone blacker than basalt.

In the middle of the buildings was a tall, round concert hall, with an obelisk extruding out of its ceiling, colored blue, a blue purer than any other Anton had seen. It reached up into the roof of the Aegis, and was filled with runes that radiated white, softly illuminating all the pathways, the buildings, and the forests that surrounded them.

Anton wished he could capture the scene forever, as a picture in his mind. The sun was shining it's soft orange glow in between the gaps of the buildings, setting just against the ship's direction. The tip of the obelisk covered the massive star, creating a shadow that set itself against the entrance and its path.

He sighed, and looked at his brother, who was still sleeping soundly.

"Wake up Frank, we have already arrived!" Anton knocked on his brother's forehead, making a satisfying 'thud'.

Frank jolted awake from the bed. "Finally! Alright, let's get going!" He picked up his bags from beside the bed, and bolted out of the door. Anton picked up his own bags, and accompanied his brother towards the exit of the ship.

Anton felt his breath taken once again when he looked around, taking notice of the dozens of ships docked, and the hundreds of students that were flocking in to the gates that were open. The gates, that were made of thousands of interlocking metal bars, looked more and more massive the closer he was to them, almost like an optical illusion. He tugged his brother's pocket, and stuck close to him among the crowd.

The crowd itself was incredibly different from what Anton was accustomed to seeing, with many different races and species mixed in between. Elves with their pointy ears and royal-looking clothes, Beastfolk of many sub-species of animals, Kaedras with their elemental bodies, different demons and even some of the more intelligent beasts and monsters of the world coming together in search of knowledge. Some flew above the crowd in direction of the gates, others landed behind to join the huddle of land-walkers.

As they approached the gate, Anton felt a chill on his spine, and turned to look back into the crowd. He didn't notice anything unusual, but he looked onto the sky and saw it. An Ice Wyvern, that was descending in the direction of the gate at high speed. The beast was magnificent, if not frightening. It's stature was big, about the size of a troll, with frosty scales, and ice shards in place of its claws. Its deep blue eyes locked with Anton's, causing him to shiver. The dragon flew above the crowd into the university, letting a cloud of ice shards in its wake; a particularly big one falling on Anton's head. He held it on his hands, and stared at it for a while, with a bothered expression.

'Deja…Vu?'

"Anton, let's go." Frank poked Anton, and then pulled him further into the gates.

Standing in front of the opened gates, Anton could clearly see the outline of the Aegis, a thin layer of mana so concentrated that he could see it with his bare eyes.

The students now formed several lines, and each student would pause right before crossing the threshold of the bubble. As it got to Frank's turn, he quietly whispered something to the air, touched the Aegis, then crossed the bubble, which seemed to eat up his bags.

Anton stood in front of the bubble, and a neutral, robotic voice whispered into his head.

"Identify yourself." The voice said, directly into his thoughts.

"Anton Kurona Voya." he whispered quietly into the air.

The mana in the bubble thickened, and an incredibly complex rune appeared in front of him. Anton stared at it for a while, trying to decipher it, but all he could recognize was the fundamental of the rune as 'permanency'. It looked as if someone took all the runes and stacked them on top of or by the side of each other, creating a sprawling, complicated shape that was twice his size.

He touched the rune with his hand, and an armband materialized in his right arm. It held the Astra royal sign: An Ancient Dragon, colored in a soft shade of blue.

"Welcome to Astra Magic University, Anton Kurona Voya, son of Levi Kurona Voya and Lilith Kurona Voya. Your baggage shall be teleported to your room. Head for the gathering hall, and await there for further instructions. Dianoia Einai Dynami." The last of the words rang out for a while in Anton's mind.

He stepped inside the Aegis, suddenly feeling the air grow saturated, and his back lighter. He could feel the gigantic quantity of mana this place concentrated, and it was a feeling like no other. His veins flowed with a rush of energy, he could feel every sense of his tingle and go to full attention, and he couldn't help but get excited. He rushed to Frank's side.

"Frank, this place is incredibly saturated with mana. I have never seen anything like this before" Anton said, looking to all sides.

"Yes, this feels incredible! It is overwhelming, but incredible at the same time!" Frank replied. "But don't wander off, yes? We have to get to the meeting hall."

They followed the pathway to the building, and Anton quickly realized that he knew the entire layout of the university already, as if it had been imprinted onto his mind by living there for decades. When he thought about going to the meeting hall, he knew exactly which path to take, which doors to open and which hallways to traverse to get to the place he wanted to be as fast as he could be. He imagined it must have something to do with the runes on the obelisk, or it could have been the incredibly complex permanence rune. Either way, he immediately made a mental note to learn about this spell later.

'This is incredible', he scavenged his mind, looking for more information that had been imprinted into his subconscious. *I wonder how they somehow applied Myalomancy to an entire barrier, or maybe it was something else?*

They quickly reached the meeting hall making use of the mental map, not giving him much time to think.

--- --- ---

Anton was starting to get annoyed at having his breath taken so many times. The architecture of the hall looked very different on the inside. While the outside was a plain round building, the inside was incredibly beautiful. Carpets of blue covered the floors, torches that burned neversmoke floated close to the ceiling, golden portraits and paintings of powerful wizards of the past marked the walls. Every column was adorned with golden symbols, and most of the walls had deactivated runes printed on them, which Anton couldn't recognize. If the entrances of the hall were this beautiful, what would the insides look like?

Entering the inside of the hall, it was incredibly dark, with soft floating lights that cruised above the red cushioned seats. The hall was almost full already, both with intelligent beings and chatter. After finding some seats close to the stage, which seemed to be covered in a blanket of darkness, they sat down.

And waited.

After what felt like hours, the floating lights faded, and quiet filled the hall.

A light pierced the darkness, quickly illuminating the stage. It came out of the obelisk's runes, which shone revealing a suited man with blue hair holding a staff that seemed to be made out of glass. He tapped the bottom of the staff on the ground twice, and a magic circle appeared above his head, as if it was a halo.

"Welcome to another year at Astra Magic University." The man spoke with a quiet, low voice that somehow tapped directly inside Anton's mind. "I, current bearer of the insignia of the Astra house, am proud to announce that The University opens its doors for the thousandth time since its founding by my ancestors. For a millennia, we have recorded and spread all the knowledge that was bestowed upon us, and for all of eternity, we will continue our mission."

The man's voice grew more and more powerful as he talked, accompanying a sense of overwhelming presence.

"My name is Khan Astra Marcarte, and I shall be the headmaster of the University for this year. Let this be a year full of knowledge, in service of Gaia! Dianoia Einai Dynami!" He bellowed upon the crowd, which answered in a chant back, repeating the greek phrase.

"For all of you who return this year, welcome back," Some of the crowd cheered quietly. "the University welcomes all of you with open arms. For the new ones, I shall give a brief explanation of how the University works, for it's different than you might be used to."

"The gates of The University open once every year for registration, but after you are registered, you can go in and out of the island freely, as long as you keep your armband close by. All of you are here reunited under a common goal: to learn. And thus, the University is here to offer you the most vast deposit of knowledge that can be offered. There will be classes offered for every single science, and in regards to Magic, there will be excellent lessons of the 10 paths, and a new one shall be taught this year: Manamancy." Anton's attention was suddenly caught. Manamancy? He had never heard about it before, in all his studies.

"Be sure to get all the basic books and pamphlets at the administration office, in the Orion building, and register for the classes you desire before the period is over. All of you have a week to get adapted to your new living conditions, and then, the search for knowledge shall begin. In other words, classes will start. Remember, choose carefully the five arts which will carry you, and they won't betray you."

He stopped to breathe for a bit.

"Once again, welcome to Astra Magic University. Let's have a productive year! Dianoia Einai Dynami!"

"Dianoia Einai Dynami!" The entirety of the room answered back, and left the hall. Anton and Frank decided to rush ahead, to get to the administration office before anyone else.

--- --- ---

"Manamancy, huh? Have you heard of that before, Anton?" Frank said, looking at the dozens of pamphlets that he held.

"The word itself sounds familiar, and I can imagine what the path studies, but I can't say for sure I have heard about it." Anton said, taking a look at the paths pamphlet in his hand.

There were 10 of the most well developed paths. Aeromancy, Astramancy, Cryomancy, Geomancy, Pyromancy and Hydromancy were the 6 elemental paths, and Myomancy, Zoamancy, Psychomancy and Fosmancy were the 4 outer paths. Anton's favorite path so far had been Pyromancy, mostly due to the availability of the ambient mana it utilized, but he had been hoping to learn something new this year. He could vaguely remember his father trying to convince him to learn Astramancy, but choosing flames over lightning due to "the warmth".

Besides the paths that the University offered, there were dozens of other kinds of classes. Ancient History, Spell crafting, Runestry, Alchemy, Enchanting, History of Magic, Beast Taming and Handling, Map crafting, Physics, Geometry, Architecture, were some of the few that caught his attention. Anton was having a hard time deciding on what to attend, the possibilities of having so much knowledge swimming in his head.

"What are you thinking of attending, brother?" he poked Frank on the side. "Do we have a limit of classes to attend?"

"Yes, you can only choose 5. Well, really, you HAVE to choose 5." he answered, a bit lost in thought. "And yeah, I'm thinking of Furthering my Hydromancy, and Alchemy, obviously, but I'm still not sure about the rest."

"I'm interested in this Manamancy. Will you accompany me?" Anton poked again.

"No. Sounds boring." He poked back

The brothers walked into their dormitory hallway, with stacks of books upon stacks of books on leather sacks. Anton had to drag them through the polished stone floors due to their quantity. They bumped into other students once in a while, but the buildings seemed pretty empty so far. Anton thought it probably was due to everyone registering for their classes.

They barged into their room, and finally dropped all the books in the ground with grunts. Taking around a look at it, the room was pretty simple. 2 beds, 2 desks with 2 chairs, 2 dressers, 2 chests, 2 windows, 2 bookshelves, and 2 floating lights.

"So, littler brother." Frank said, looking satisfied with their work of carrying the heavy luggage across the campus, when he noticed their baggage on the corner of the room. He let out a satisfied sigh. "What did you choose to study?

"Manamancy, Pyromancy, Spell Crafting, Runestry, and Beast Taming." Those were the 5 disciplines Anton chose. Although they seemed like too few disciplines to him, just those 5 brought more than 40 books for him to keep track of, especially Spell Crafting with all the rune books. "What about you, bigger brother?"

"Alchemy, Hydromancy, Geomancy, Herbology and Zoamancy." Frank replied half-minded, starting to unpack the bags and put clothes on the small dressers in the bedroom.

"This is gonna be fun." Anton closed the door, and sat on one of the chairs. "I wonder what Manamancy is like."

"Like I told you, it sounds boooooooring." Frank gave up on unpacking everything, resigning the task to his future himself, and jumped on one of the beds. "Mine!"

"What? I wanted that bed, Frank!" Anton barked, lifting himself up from the chair, but…

He noticed his brother had already fallen asleep.

"For merlin's sake, does he always have to do that?" He sighed, and dropped onto the remaining bed, and fell asleep instantly.

This technique really was passed down by family.