>Chapter 36<

"So, class, do any of you know what magic is?" A female, dark-elven instructor asked as soon as she came into the classroom. She had golden, short hair and golden eyes, which was apparently pretty rare for dark elves, the boys concluded after seeing the shocked reactions. She also wore a white scientist coat on top of her light blue military uniform, but unlike the headmaster, she wore a long skirt that reached up to her knees.

The class was silent. They expected the instructor to at least introduce herself after she just barged in as if she was running late, but it seems she may have forgotten to do that.

The female instructor looked at the stunned class and realized her mistake.

"Whoopsies, I almost forgot to introduce myself. My name is Nimi Rustica and as you can see, I will be your magic theory teacher, nice to meet you!"

A very light atmosphere permeated the classroom after she introduced herself. The students could swear they even saw flowers blooming in the background, along with a peaceful stream of water with a rainbow far above.

"Very well then, let's get back to our original question. Do any of you know what magic is?" The atmosphere may as well have been destroyed to piece by a giant hammer after she asked this and the students got out of their daze.

All of a sudden, a bunch of hands were raised.

Looks like everyone is very eager to please the teacher, the boys thought.

"Ah, would you look at that! Well then, I choose you!" Instructor Rustica exclaimed and pointed at a student in the first row. "Firstly, introduce yourself. Secondly, answer!"

"Yes ma'am. My name is Adam Tristis." The student practically shot out from his seat before he cleared his throat. "Ehem, magic is a mystical force we use to create different kinds of phenomena. For that we use a thing such as magic particles, which help us control magic."

"Umu," Instructor Rustica nodded at this answer. "A very simple but correct answer, now, can anyone tell me how we can control these magical particles?"

At this point, the boys grew very interested. They actually didn't know why they could control magic particles at all.

Another hand shot out, this time for the seat furthest from the front.

"Ma'am, the reason we can control the magic particles is because we came in contact with them during our growth in the womb. Because of this, unborn babies take way longer to develop. Since the time it takes us to get attuned with natural magic is estimated to be around five months, the development of a baby in the womb in the surroundings where magic is missing should take around nine months."

Our group of boys had solemn faces as they heard this. They didn't get born in this world and neither did they spend five months in this world, which is the average amount time to adapt to magic properly. So, what happened to them? How can they control magic if this was just their 11th day here? Though, they gave up asking these questions.

Not like they were getting an answer anyway.

"Great answer!" Instructor Rustica exclaimed and clapped her hands once. "One final question, how can people increase their magic capacity?"

She then pointed her hand at another student, who immediately started explaining in a lazy tone.

"Uhm… Well, there are three theories with only two of them being a confirmed way of actually increasing our magic capacity without us putting our lives on the line. The first one is to absorb a beast soul of a certain rank. We do it this way since our bodies are not strong enough to keep all this mystical energy or force in our bodies without them exploding. The second way is to strengthen our bodies. It is said that the sturdier our muscles are, the more magic they can hold in them."

"Okay stop, thank you, someone else can continue to explain… hmm… how about you." She pointed at another student whose hand was held high up into the air.

"The third and final way is not confirmed to be safe yet and is it considered as heresy from the human and elven side according to their religion. It is to merge with the beast core of a beast with a rank higher than Benitoite, since Benitoite rank is considered to have the same amount of magic particles as an average adult." The student had to take a gulp of saliva due to her dry throat. "The reason as to why it is considered to be heresy, is because it is the original way demons increased their amount of magic particles, though, in the past few thousand years, they started to get born with beast cores in their bodies, which caused some changes in their original body structure."

"Correct! I am glad to hear that you know all of this. This is just the starting line in what is called the wonders of magic. We will talk more about magic theory after we talk about some basic thing we do every start of a year, so let's get to it…"

And then, she started talking and unlike in the other lecture, the boys weren't as bored. The reason was quite obvious, actually.

The lecture ended with the boys leaving satisfied. Onto the next class!

This one actually wasn't taught in the underground complex, instead it was taught inside one of the forest areas that Caedis told them about when he first led them through here.

The problem was that they didn't know where the areas were, so all the whole class 1-A could do was to wait inside of their home classroom… and that was only until a certain man walked in.

His silver hair tied into a ponytail and his green smiling eyes that sent shivers down every student's spine as their hair stood on their ends. His royal blue instructors coat fluttered as he walked swiftly, but as elegantly as one could possibly imagine.

The boys widened their eyes and exclaimed in their minds, almost jumping from their seats in fright.

"He didn't tell us that he was an instructor at this academy!"