Chemical Reaction

It was a new day, the first day of his enrollment at the Royal Mage Academy.

Having showered and dressed already (the shower took an embarrassingly long time to figure out), he was using his map to head to his first class. There were two kinds of classes at the Royal Mage Academy: those for every student, and those for a specific Facet category. This last one had no grades whatsoever or was even something one could fail.

After the first year at the Academy, students would be moved to a class specific to their Facet. It was also what stumped Alessandra yesterday. Since his Facet existed in its own category, separate from all others, there was no specialized professor capable of helping him.

Alessandra, proving that her title of professor wasn't just for show, deduced through his Facet's name that he could benefit from every class category. This meant that every day was a flip-flop from one Facet category to the next.

It was Alessandra's hope that learning a little bit of everything about everything would help alleviate his lack of dedicated training. As for the other type of classes, those any student could take, he settled on five of the ones that appealed most to him.

Spell Composition and Deciphering was straightforward, he'd be learning how to make and decrypt Spells. Etiquette would teach him how to not behave like a moron around people of or from higher status, Physics would give him a solid grasp on the way the world worked, History would shed light on the past, and Enchantment Development would give him the knowledge needed to work his own enchantments.

Of course, two of these five classes were utterly useless to him as an Apprentice – One needed to be a Journeyman or higher to cast Spells, and Enchantments could only be worked by Adepts or higher – but these two were four-year classes that evolved and adapted as one advanced Stages.

Because of this, it was strongly recommended that you take them as soon as possible, to maximize your knowledge. Even if one never made it to the Adept Stage while at the Academy, a feat that very few could claim in the first place, these two classes would teach you everything you needed to know when you eventually reached that Stage on your own.

And if you were one of the geniuses capable of becoming an Adept before graduation, then you would be trained by the best professors the Academy had to offer in all of the practical applications of Spells and Enchantments. For now, he would have to settle for theoretical knowledge, but he was more than happy with that.

He found his way to his first class of the day, Elements. Upon entering the room, he was bombarded with the unrestrained powers of Mages looking to show off their Skills. The air was hot and dry with one step and moist and clingy the next. Here and there, a small tornado blew papers around, and over in a corner, a short girl with bangs was making various animals out of dirt she brought from outside.

Perhaps the flashiest of the students was the blonde-haired man with golden eyes, surrounded by twelve starstruck women that jostled and pulled at him. He weathered the storm with a smile, hand outstretched, and produced a spectacular light show. The women swooned and crooned, singing praise after praise.

The room was typical for a lecture hall, with a blackboard and desk at the front of the room and sloped-floor seating in a wide fan arrangement, each seat attached to an individual wooden desk. The right wall had a large, curtained window that took up most of the wall's surface area.

The professor was currently nowhere to be found. Fate ignored everyone else and took a free seat close to the door, pulling a notebook out of his backpack, both of which he had purchased this morning.

He then took out the textbook for Elements and placed it to the left of his notebook, leaning back in his seat as he waited for the class to start. He didn't have to wait long. The professor strode in ten seconds before class was slated to start, the door closing on its own behind him as he came to a stop behind his desk.

All of the students in the room rushed to their seats as soon as he appeared, the room becoming as silent as a graveyard save for the squeaking of chairs against the floor.

He was a scrawny man, with a salt-and-pepper beard and hair, both cropped short. His orange eyes lingered on every student in his classroom for three seconds apiece to memorize their faces, and his silver robes dangled loosely on his wiry frame. After what felt like forever, he turned and grabbed some chalk, writing his name on the blackboard.

"My name is Professor Van Brawen, and I will be your Elemental instructor." His voice was much deeper than his frame would suggest, and used in a way that allowed no interruptions. I have only three rules: show up on time, pay attention, and do not under any circumstances mock the Facets of your fellow students.

"Failure to follow these rules will result in a warning. Two warnings make a strike, and three strikes will see you removed from my classroom for the rest of the school year. Now, today we won't be getting into anything too complicated, just a basic introduction to the Elements." He wrote a word on the chalkboard, but Fate had no clue what it said.

"Fire is many things, but at its core, it is the process of combustion. Combustion is a special type of chemical reaction. I won't be getting into detail on this, so I advise all of you to pick up the Chemistry class if you haven't already, because all of the Elements save for Light and Dark require an understanding of chemistry. Water is a liquid made of hydrogen and oxygen, and Earth is…"

Fate scribbled furiously in his notebook, writing down everything that seemed even slightly important. Of course, he didn't know how to read or write in Ziob, but as a child, he had created his own language called "English."

He was proud to say he was the only one in the world who could speak and read it, although he only ever used it for the mundane.