Manaless

With the tension leaving his body Andy lead Satay through the dorms to the front court-yard. A fountain at the center.

"I'm sure you've already seen it, but here's the courtyard, plants are maintained by upperclassmen who have water and earth affinities. Plenty of space to relax. "Andy said as he pointed out the benches near the centerpiece fountain.

The area was decorated with well-trimmed bushes and other plants. Along the circular stone path around the fountain were flowers of pink and yellow. "Oh, and I know you saw that." Andy said and pointed to Satays right.

There was a statue of a barbarian warrior facing a centaur.

"Hey wait a minute..." Satay said inspecting the statue closer. He already had a glimpse of the statue before coming in, but something was amiss he felt. His eyes widened, realizing the statue's design. The barbarian and Centaur were crafted in the image of Mr.Pandesal.

"No way..." Satay muttered. Andy nodded, confirming it was the man. They both looked at each other and laughed at the statue. After they laughed Andy beckoned Satay to follow him to the next building over.

Andy leads on to the biggest building that Satay had seen before. Viewing its spire along the way, Andy and Satay entered through the doors. Unlike before this building didn't have sets of doors on each side upon entering.

Andy signaled to his left to a pair of wide-open doors. "And here is the lunch hall." he said, in front of him, were an assortment of wooden tables with clothes above them, each cloth bore triskelions.

On the far left side was a lone door, with steam coming from under it. In front of it a stand with its own cloth bearing a triskelion. The boys could smell food.

"Every other day they serve up the greatest roast dumplings in the land. But I heard they go fast. I'd probably never make it time." Andy explained, with a frown.

"But, we're here now," Satay said, coyly nodding to the trays of fresh dumplings being sorted on at the end of the hall.

Andy looks to see the seats empty and food being prepped out. His eyes glint with a greedy smile and Satay joined him. "Think they'd let us?" he said. The pair made their way over to the servers and requested 2 batches of dumplings. Taking seats they each began to sample the food shamelessly.

Finishing quicker than they anticipated, they could only savor the taste of the dumplings and put the plates away before leaving. With his belly full, Andy lured Satay across the hall, to a room with an even bigger door than the lunch halls.

"Here's the gymnasium, open after school hours. Aside from the usual weights and such, we have rings." Andy explained pointing to the multiple rings aligned in rows of five, across the wide space.

"The sparring rings, a place for us to practice our magic head to head. Not a bad place to get yourself known." Andy said.

"I wonder if they'll let us come by later?" Satay said eager to see his classmate's magic.

"What do we have here?" a voice called from behind Andy and Satay, and it didn't sound too friendly. A young man who was slightly taller than the other two approached them, boldly brandishing his short robe that left off the hips, bearing a triskelion on each shoulder. From the tail ends on his legs they could tell that beneath the robe was the school uniform. Behind him were two other students who looked about the same age.

Andy's face filled with disgust at seeing who was before them. The older boy had combed reddish hair that looked rather slick. Contrary to his white-pale skin, he had mikado bright eyes.

"Greetings freshman, shouldn't you be in class now? It's almost noon. " he said. Twisting a strand of hair, with a deceitful grin.

"Our orientation is at a later date, so we're just looking around, we're probably not allowed to use anything yet." Satay said, taking no notice to Andy's discomfort.

The older boy smiled sinisterly with a plot. "Nonsense if it's an early preview your upperclassman can provide. (I can't believe his mana's so low.)" he thought.

Andy noticing this looked to escape the gym. "Actually, we should just-" he tried to find the words, but couldn't think of anything to talk their way out.

"Sure, if it's ok." Satay said bluntly, making Andy responded in a cringe.

"Non-sense, step into the ring." The upperclassman said. He beckoned Satay to him towards the centermost ring. His two followers followed after Andy as if to make sure he doesn't escape, but even without this, Andy felt uneasy on his own.

"Here we go." One of them said, eager to see their friend in action.

Satay jumped to one side of the ring, while the red-haired boy took the other.

"Let me give a warm welcome to your ring debut. " he said as he waved his hand summoning various manner of beast from thin air.

Two were reminiscent of a lion, but blue, and looked like it was made of iron. The last was a two-headed black dog, but was the size of a bear. It stood in the center of the two blue lions as if the leader of the pack.

"Behold your royalties conjure magic!" the supposed prince said loudly.

As if on cue a student poke through the door of the gym and called out to the others outside. Students began to fill the gym and center on the ring standing Satay and the prince.

He purposely let the crowd gather around first before he commanded his beasts to strike. He noticed however Satay was calm and without tension. "I've gotta say for someone with weak power, you sure are holding your ground. I mean you practically have no mana." the prince said in a cocky tone, twisting his hair strand into a curl.

One of his lackeys stirred at hearing this. "None? Wait..." he began to grow pale as he looked harder at Satay.

"Eat this Freshman!" the red-haired boy, commanded his beasts to attack, the two lions dashed side by side snarling towards Satay, with the two-headed in their center ready to strike.

"Wait, prince, he's manaless!" the follower yelled intending to halt his attack.

The prince only smiled and beckoned his beast to continue. "All the better, he can't even help himself." he said.

"You idiot, if he's manaless he's..." the student quieted at what he knew would happen next.

Satay reeling back a punch, let out a sonic boom through the magic monsters in one blow, gushing upwind at the prince, knocking him upward and out the wrong ring on top of his lackeys.

"Aaaaagh..." the royal let out a groan, as he collapsed on his minions.

"He's Lyncan..." the student finished, now being crushed under the weight of his beaten leader.