Classes

"Seat yourself." The voice of the middel aged teacher was unfriendly, he did not tolerate latcomers.

They were on time, technically. He had looked at one of the large sun dials scattered across the campus and Vincent was certain.

"Hey," He wanted to complain, jet Typh only gave him a small jab in the rib. Annoyed he swallowed his sentence.

Sadly, they were forced to seperate and sit on the only two empty spots. 'I hope at least my seat neighbours are good.'

The room they had their first class in was shaped similar to modern classroom, jet there were no desks, only benches.

Wax tablets were handed to them, so that they may practice writing.

Vincent threw a small glance at the others, and he spotted the white haired kid from yesterday. No reaction.

There were seventeen students and a single teacher. He was a stern man with a white toga and sandals. His brown eyes looked at the two latecomers with scepticism.

"I am Demetrios and I will be your teacher for mathematics, history, rhetoric and philosophy.From today on we will see each other daily, so I hope we can get along."

He waited a moment and mostly got a lacklustre responses.

"You may wonder. What has that to do with you?" His hands held the teachers desk with a firm grasp. "And I might ask you in return, what makes you different than a beast?"

Silence. Only after a moment did we understand that we were supposed to answer.

A petit gir raised her hand in shy motion. "We.. look different, and we can talk?" A sly smile surfaced on the teachers lips. "There are many animals that come in all kinds of shapes and forms. Some, we have observed, can even communicate between each other."#

He let his words sink in. "Our reasoning. Logic and rationalety are the true quality's that make up a human. Learn to think about the world around us, or it would not be wrong to question the difference between you and a featherless chicken."

The professor saw that most at least pretended to listen now and started with the curriculum.

"We will start with reading papers of famous philosophers like Platon and learning the Arabic number system."

Clapping echoed through the room as Vincent started to applause the wise decision – the Roman numbers were shit.

Everyone ignored him.

"What do you mean, Arabic numbers?", a rich kid asked. Vincent was at the edge of his seat ready to pounce at the sceptic. Sadly his teacher was even faster.

"They are part of what we learned in our communication with the eastern schoolars. Far superior to the numerical system you use."

The rest of the two hour long lesson dissolved into a heated argument about the themes of the class. Most of the richer kids frevently defended their numbers.

You would think Demetrios would be upset about the development, jet only a smile was etched on his face as he mercilessly destroyed any and all of them in a battle of words.

At the end they got a twenty minuet breake before they were expected to arrive at the second lession.

"What did we even learn those numbers for, if we are now taughed a better version."

Only now did Vincent notice the black haired kid glooming next to him. His clothes were messy jet clean and his shoulders slumped.

"Hey I remember you, we took the same ship to Rome!"

The ten year old looked up, dark bags lying heavy under his black eyes as deep as the abyss.

"I have no idea." He let out a deep sight. "So are you going to hate me now?"

Shaking his head he mumbled."Ruined my chances to make friends at the first day."

Vincent let out a short laugh.'Is he a secret clone of gorge? Same cynical humor.' Sadly his friend died from malaria years ago.

"Hey do you want to be late again?" Typh dragged him out of the small room with impatience.

~

Dust flew up as sandals drummed on the dried earth. Vincent raised his water skin, revelling in the cool sensation flowing down his throat.

Swat was dripping down his face as the sun cooked him alive. Carefully hidden by his clothes he raised his middle finger in the direction of the petite Spanish instructor. Without so much as a greeting she forced them to run laps around the dirt ground in the middle of the training field.

At least they were surrounded by tall stone walls blocking the older students from mocking them.

"Do you need any help?" Typh jogged next to him, completely unaffected.

Vincent shook his head and glanced at the instructor defiantly.

"I will pull through."

Only his immense focus and terrifying control allowed him to speak while constantly fixing his crumbling body with his magic.

He did not dare to increase his muscle mass jet, fixing things was one thing, building something from scrap another.

Right now the class was split in three factions. The pure mages like him, who were barley slouching along the track, the magic warriors who had the aptitude, but lacked training or resolution and those like Typh.

"Hurry, you could do more!!" He heard a blunt object cutting through the air and a heavy impact behind him.

The poor bastard was completely blind sided by the sand filled leather ball that almost knocked him out.

It was one of the reason he tried his best. He could doge them, yes, but who knew what the consequences of that would be...

"She should throw more balls at that proud asshole in the front." The silver haired youth was once more closer to overtaking them as he did another extra round.

Was that his secret plan? Annoy them to death?

His face was stoic as he ran with his head held high and his back straight.

"We are not doing a damn parade."

~

"Many of you may wonder why we even bother to run around, when not all of us are able to temper our body with magic."

Mencía our instructor leaned back, relaxing while most were lying on the floor, out of breath.

"The answer is simple. While it is true that you should focus on one of the disciplines, learning from the other is never a bad idea."

She eyed some of the frailer apprentices, who did not even manage to jog a few hundred meter. They had more than one bruse.

"Our body gets stronger and more resilient when we advance tiers, but the amount is miniscule without proper training."

She shouted at those that already closed their eyes, not bothering to listen.

"Do you want to become a third circle mage, a commander and senator, only TO DIE FROM FALLING DOWN THE STAIRS?"

Her voice was coarse and angry.

"Get your shit together, you could perish at any moment. You should be GRATEFUL that I am trying to prevent that."

No matter how motivational your trainer is, if you do not see the reason nor fun in doing something, it is bound to be exhausting.

Vincent spoke not a single word during the training.

"Hey cheer up, next is probably magic theory." Typh patted him on the shoulder, still full of energy.