School

The demon-born schools are the best-funded schools, with the most resources and the best teachers; that said, even in demon-born schools, most of the teachers are ordinary people; only those teachers who teach supernatural subjects are demon-borns themselves. For teachers, being hired by a demon-born school is the highest honor; after all, the children they teach will one day become saviors and heroes; they are very well paid and have many benefits; it can be said that all teachers in the human civilization of this world strive to be picked as instructors for demon born schools.

There are six different categories of demon-born schools: E Grade, D Grade, C Grade, B Grade, A Grade, and S Grade.

E-Grade schools are for demon-born children with low magical talent, who aren't expected to go far on their magical path. Having low magical talent doesn't mean that these children are dumb; in fact, many of them are geniuses, but when it comes to magic, if one lacks talent, it is really hard to make up for it. Children assigned to these schools have nearly no chance of ever becoming battle mages; at most, they can become researchers at magic labs or civilian agents assigned to various non-combat-related roles. Even though they have a low chance of becoming battle mages, many of these children become ministers and parliament members; most teachers of these schools are ordinary people.

D-Grade schools are for demon-born children who have the potential to one day reach a level to be useful in battles. Still, most will likely not get good enough to get to that point. This grade has teachers who teach offensive and defensive battle spells, but the focus is still on the civilian side; most teachers of these schools are civilians, but the number of magician teachers is higher than in E-grade schools.

C-Grade schools are for demon-born children with a good chance of reaching a level where they can cast spells quickly enough to become battle mages. These schools have a balanced level of education between battle spells and civilian lessons; most teachers are still civilians, but there are also a lot of magician teachers.

To get good enough to cast spells quickly enough to become a battle mage, one has to be reasonably smart and have a quick mind. For those whose blood purity and concentration are not high enough, the only way to get stronger and possibly reach battle mage level is to improve their mental quickness. Of course, if one has very high enough blood purity and blood concentration, they might be able to cast spells with intuition alone; the need for mental quickness is highest for those with lower mage talent.

B-Grade schools are for demon-born children with above-average talent. These schools are more battle-focused, with limited attention to other matters. Children admitted to these schools have a very good chance of becoming battle mages; most teachers are mages themselves, and there is a lot of on-the-field training, too.

A-Grade schools are for children with great talent. Anyone admitted to these schools is nearly guaranteed to reach the level required to become a battle mage; this is because only children with high blood concentration and purity are admitted to these schools; even if they are dumb, their talent will carry them over the line. These schools receive a lot of government resources and are focused mostly on combat spells and ethics; the reason for the focus on ethics is that these children are destined to become the backbones of the battle mage army, each with great personal strength. It is paramount to teach them to be good, upright fighters. The students here are trained as combatants from the beginning to the end; the teachers are all great magicians; many of them are retired mages who served long years and are solid and upright people.

There are only five S-Grade schools in the entire human civilization:

S-Grade School of the North: Specializes in research and theoretical magic. The students who are most talented in research are invited to this school. Those admitted to this school are not expected to become battle mages; their sole responsibility is to research the basics of magic.

S-Grade School of the West: Specializes in training commanders, high-level officers, and generals. Students who are admitted to this school are talented in the art of leadership, and most are talented enough to be admitted to A-Grade schools. The school picks its students from among all other lower-grade schools.

S-Grade School of the South: Specializes in training future specialist battle mages, such as those good at cursing magic, blessing magic, healing magic, sealing magic, etc. This school receives the second-highest resources among all individual schools and accepts its students from all other lower-grade schools.

S-Grade School of the East: Specializes in training red students; those who are categorized as red are usually mentally unstable and might go wild at any moment. This school is equipped with everything needed to manage these types of troubled students. Graduates from this school are usually strong battle mages.

Central S-Grade School of the Capital: The most talented students from among the lower-grade schools are invited to this school. Students of A-Grade schools can join this school immediately if they pass an entrance exam; the entrance exam is a test of intelligence and quickness and has nothing to do with magic talent; it can be said that the biggest difference between this school and A-Grade schools is that students of this school have great mental capacity, in addition to having magical talent, while those in A-Grade schools are only talented in magic, and may not have great mental intelligence; of course, there are exceptions; some especially talented students, such as Mike, are directly sent to this school, regardless of their mental capacities.

...

Mike was sent to the Central S-Grade School of the Capital. His talent for becoming a battle mage was amazing, especially his 99% blood purity, so the school made an exception and invited him right away; usually, those with blood purity of over 80% are directly invited.

After reaching the age of three, Mike was officially sent to the school. It was six days a week, 16 hours a day, so he barely had time to see his parents. The government didn't want its most talented battle mages to have time with their families; it intentionally took the children away at a young age to reduce their loyalty to their parents and family and direct it toward the government.

The first year of school was bland. Three-year-old children could barely talk, so expecting them to learn spells was just delusional. Even the S-Grade school of the capital couldn't change the fact that the age of three years old was too young to learn anything complicated.

Therefore, the year was spent mostly on teaching the students about the alphabet, how to read and write, and some common sense knowledge, such as washing hands after going to the bathroom.

Of course, some more independent children might have been able to go to the bathroom by themselves, but many still could not. Being a genius in magic and mental capacity didn't necessarily translate into being able to do these sorts of tasks.

The first year of school was as much 'school' as it was 'childcare.'

The second year, though, was different. Mike was four years old, and he had already been taught how to read and write; in his second year, he was given slightly more comp[located books to read. Of course, as someone with an adult soul, these things were extremely boring for him; still, he didn't show his abnormality at all and just acted like an ordinary child.

The second year of school also taught the children some elementary knowledge about magic and spells. At the end of the year, the children cast their first spells. This was unimaginable for other grades of school, but in S grade schools, where everyone is a genius, it happened every year, with nearly every child being able to do it.

The third year was when the school became more serious. By the end of last year, the students could cast a spell, and this year, they learned many more.

By the end of the third year, Mike had learned over 20 spells, some quite complicated. These included Fireball, Iceball, Windblade, Shadow Jump, Farsight, Wind Shield, Water Shield, and the most complicated one, the Fireworks spell.

The Fireworks spell included many different complicated components. It was useless in battles, as fireworks usually wouldn't kill anyone. Still, for training and learning how to operate complicated spells, fireworks were very suitable because working with them was both fun and challenging and quite safe compared to many other spells.

The fourth year, when Mike was six years old, things in the school got much harder. They started teaching more complicated spells, and at the same time, the teachers started pressuring students to cast their spells in under one second.

Technically, all mages could cast all spells; the biggest difference between talented students and those without talent was how fast they could do it.

In battles, speed is everything.

If one took ten seconds to cast a fireball, it would give the enemy enough time to approach, take cover, and attack.

High-level battle mages could cast hundreds of spells per second.

By the end of this year, Mike had learned many useful spells, such as Heal, Unlock, Break Curse, Creation, Summon Food, Clean, etc.

Even though healers, cursers, and blessers had their own specialized S-Grade school, general battle mages still had to learn at least a little bit of everything. In battle, there might not be enough time to find a specialized mage to remove curses.

He also learned complicated spells such as Mirror Attack, Physical Marking, Spiritual Marking, Shield Soul, Detection, Firestorm, and others.

There was no end-of-year exam until the third year, but there were exams from the fourth grade onward.

Mike earned first place in the end-of-year exam with a perfect score. He was very quick in casting spells and had perfect judgment and aim.

His teachers were extremely pleased.