Homeroom III

"The last topic of today covers the final ranking system we have here on Orvonia: Beast Ranking. Like Techniques, Beasts are ranked in Stars, with each Star representing the overall threat level of the Beast."

"Beasts in this case refer to both Demons and wild creatures that are capable of using Mana. Demi-Humans and Beastkin do not use this ranking system and instead follow the Alphabetical system instead. On that note, using the Star system on said Races is seen as highly derogatory and will likely get you killed, so please avoid that."

"The weakest creatures are simply referred to as Beasts and are 1-Star. Next are Monsters (2-Stars), then Abominations (3-Stars) and then Fiends (4-Stars). Once a creature reaches 5-Stars, they become a Terror and possess strength comparable to A-Rankers. 6-Stars is a Tyrant, 7-Stars a Titan and 8-Stars a Catastrophe. A 9-Star creature is called an Apocalypse and one has not been seen since the 2nd Era."

"The more observant amongst you would have realised that a 5-Star creature possesses the strength above its partners in the Alphabet ranking system. This is because Beasts are inherently stronger than Ascenders at the base."

"A 1-Star Beast does not possess the power of an F-Rank, but rather an E-Rank. Beasts are always 1 level above Humans and the majority of other Races, excluding Angels and Devils. The reason behind this is unknown, but scholars argue that Beasts are simply better suited for absorbing and handling Mana than other Races. The fact that Beast God Sulyvahn survived the longest out of the Ancient Gods seems to support this theory."

The mention of Sulyvahn caught Altair's interest, as he was deeply interested in the history of Orvonia. The 2nd and 3rd Era were steeped in mythology and bloodshed, with the rise and fall of many Gods being the benchmark of those epochs. In comparison to the 1st and 4th Era, where the various Gods took sides to duke it out, the 2nd Era was truly chaotic and sloppy with each God purely out for "Themselves" in the conflict. Such chaos was attractive to Altair, and he was greedy for more information on it.

Miss Quadreign did not seem quite finished with her lecture however, causing him to resume paying attention. "The classification of Beasts has changed throughout the eons. In the 1st and 2nd Era, any non-Human Race was classified as a Beast. In the 3rd Era, those with a Human appearance such as Mermaids and Vampires were removed from the list. Nowadays a Beast is a Demon, Dragon, Giant or any distinctively non-Human creature. Even then, the defining factors vary by Continent and culture."

The classroom was silent as its occupants digested everything that was said. Elizabeth was frantically scribbling notes, while Altair was more subtle about what he was taking down. Nezra and Alexander both made no moves to take anything down, while the rest of the class varied in effort. The next ten minutes passed this way, until Miss Quadreign cleared her throat and put an end to the scribbling.

"Now that your first lesson is out of the way, I need to tell you your timetable for the rest of the classes. You will cover basic history, geography, maths and literature with me. Classes such as combat, engineering, astrology and botany will be taught by other instructors in a different room. More minor studies, such as theology and foreign languages, will be held as well."

"You will come to homeroom at the start of every day, where I will take rollcall and teach one of the aforementioned subjects. From there you will go to combat class. No matter the day, these two classes will always be held. Every subject will be taught at least twice a week on differing days, so rest assured your education shall not be lacking in any regard."

Altair raised his hand once the teacher finished speaking, and she nodded at him. "Teacher, will topics about Gods be in history or theology?" he asked curiously. Miss Quadreign paused for a moment as she thought about the answer "In history, you will cover the various Era's and timeline of Orvonia. As such, the Gods will definitely come up, but it will be more about "Their" past than present. In theology, you will learn about various myths, legends and miracles "They" have preformed. It will also go into detail about the structure of the Churches."

After waiting for a moment to see if anyone else had any questions, Miss Quadreign moved on to the next order of business. "To finish of today's class, I will be handing out a test. This will help me determine how much you already know and adjust the course accordingly. There will be no rewards nor punishments, and your scores will not be revealed. Please prepare your desks for the test."

With that, she summoned a stack of papers and passed them out to her students. Altair took his and skimmed through the pages, which numbered only a few. 'Hmm, this doesn't seem too hard. But if the objective of this test is to gauge our pre-established understanding, then perhaps the questions get much harder as the test goes on.'

With that in mind, Altair began the first page. He lost track of time, letting it fly by as he worked his way through the paper. At first he breezed through it, but gradually slowed down as he neared the end. His hypothesis seemed to be true: the difficulty jumped entire levels near the back. He still had four largely difficult questions to answer when the sound of a bell rang out. Class was over.

With a small sigh of disappointment, Altair handed back up the test. He knew he had done very well, but failing to get 100% still irked him a fair bit. His pride demanded nothing less but the best, and a small part of him wanted to stubbornly insist on finishing the paper.

Once Miss Quadreign was finished taking up all the tests, she wiped away the board and prepared to leave. "Your next class in combat training. Head to the main hall by following the east corridor. Good luck on the rest of your day, students."

Alexander was the first to leave, still swaggering about as he walked. Next was Nezra and Nephelae, followed by Altair and Ophelia. As he left, Altair felt the burning stares of Gordan and Zeze trailing him as long as they could, making him subconsciously twitch.

'This is going to get very annoying' he muttered, tempted to turn around and beat some manners into the two children. Didn't their mothers tell them staring is rude! Of course, Altair was guilty of boring into the souls of plenty of others in his short lifetime, and had indeed been told off by Raphaniel and Sia but he conveniently forgot about that...

As he walked, Altair became aware of someone trying to catch up to him. He turned around to see the blue-haired Elizabeth stop and mile, before fully catching up. She stuck her hand out and smiled widely, her glasses flashing slightly in the light. "Nice to meet you, I'm Elizabeth Tortaga!" she introduced.

Altair glanced at her hand before turning away and continued walking. "Altair Atrazark" he answered over his shoulder. Elizabeth didn't seem to mind the blatant rudeness and maintained her smile as she followed. "I really liked your question in class just then. And how earnestly you were taking down those notes! I'm glad to see a kindred spirit of knowledge" she said, looking at Altair with admiration.

The bubbly attitude of this girl make Altair bewildered in how to respond. In the end, he just decided to roll with it. After all, Sia and Raphaniel had told him to try make some friends, hadn't they?

"Thanks. I was impressed by your work ethic too. You seem to have a deep thirst for knowledge?" he posed a question at the end, causing Elizabeth to nod eagerly. "I was raised in a type of...temple by ascetics who pursued wisdom and truths. For as long as I can remember, I was taught to explore and absorb information. Thanks to that, I have quite the mental vocabulary, hehe"

Altair nodded along at her explanation. 'A temple of ascetics who pursue truth...Zephylte perhaps?'

"Was the temple one belonging to the God of Truth?" Altair asked. Elizabeth tilted her head in confusion for a moment before laughing. "No, the temple didn't worship the Air God. I'm actually a worshipper of Ingrid, the Goddess of Knowledge and Advancement."