Preparing for Academy 4

Jerod was brought to a small building a distance away from the courtyard and main mansion of Lord Yama. Here he found himself in a room that was outfitted with a number of bookshelves and a few desks. This brought back many memories for him, while small, this was essencially your typical classroom. Being a teacher for many years in his past life, Jerod had never thought he would find himself being a student again.

Just as Jerod was reminiscing about his past the door opened behind him. A young girl was about to walk in when she noticed a boy standing in the way.

"Are you the boy that is going to do lessons with me?"

Jerod jumped hearing the sound behind him. He quickly turned around to see a girl who was a little taller than him with short curly black hair. She had crisp blue eyes and a round face that still had some baby fat.

"Uh. Y.. Yes. My name is Jerod, I am sorry for standing right in front of the door."

The girl laughed and said "It's okay, this is our first day of lessons so I am excited too. My name is Anastasia but everyone calls me Ana. My father is Baron Yama. You are the first person my age that I have met! I am four and will be five in the winter. I was so happy father decided to let me do my lessons with another person. I want to be able to read and write but it would be boring to do it alone. You are here now so it should be fun!"

Jerod was taken aback at how much this girl talked as soon as she opened her mouth. He didn't even have a chance to speak before another person appeared behind Ana. This man was tall with grey hair and a grey goatee. He had a monocle and was dressed in the typical butler outfit.

"Cough.. Miss Ana, it is time to start lessons. Please take your seats both of you."

Ana jumped in fright as she did not hear this person walk up behind her. She turned and smiled at the man before walking over to her seat and sitting down.

"Yes Alfred. I am ready to learn!"

"Mhm.. Now young Jerod allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alfred, I am the head butler of Baron Yama's estate. I have been charged with teaching you reading, writing, and court etiquette. I will arrange for your lunch on the days you have lessons. We will hold lessons every three days and I will quiz you after ten lessons. Lessons will last from ten bells in the morning to four bells in the afternoon. I will teach until three bells to allow you some time for self study and questions before the lesson comes to an end. Now I will start the lesson for today."

And so Jerod began to learn how to read and write. With Lindsay's help he was able to learn very quickly but he didn't want to stand out so he pretended to learn at the same pace as Ana. Time passed and Jerod had successfully learned to read and write, he learned court etiquette and was able to gather more information about the world he lived in. He maintained his routine at home on the days he did not have lessons and successfully learned how to produce the light and dark magicles.

During this time he successfully increased his stats to the point they wouldn't raise any further no matter how much he trained. Jerod was able to successfully replicate the earth spike spell and with his visits to Madam Zell he was able to convince her to show him more spells allowing him to start to experiment on his own with magicle structures.

...

A week before academy begins...

STATUS

Jerod LV. 1 EXP 0/50

HP: 10/10

MP: 25/25

STAM: 15/15

SPIRIT: 25

STR: 10

AGI: 10

LUK: 5

SOUL ENERGY: 110

MAGIC

Earth Spike

Fireball

Water Shot

Frost Lance

Whirlwind

Light Heal

Destruction Bolt

'Okay Lindsay, we only have a week left until academy starts. Now that we can't raise my stats through training I think we should try to level up a few times.'

Jerod left his farm and entered the woods nearby. He was now almost six and was allowed to explore on his own. Since he used the time between his lessons to teach his siblings how to read and write he was never expected to do any of the farm work. His parents knew that he would be leaving to learn magic so it wouldn't help him to be doing farm work all day. This allowed Jerod to focus on the teachings that Madam Zell provided for him and they knew this would be in his best interest to ensure he was accepted to the academy.

As Jerod went deeper in the woods he used his spirit magic to kill the animals he came across. This time instead of burning their corpses he put them into his inventory instead. He brought a sack with him so that when he returned later in the day he could provide some meat for his family.

After killing 50 rabbits, birds, hogs, and deer, Jerod saw the familiar white flash indicating his level up.

(Congratulations you have leveled up!)

(You are now level 2 and have obtained 5 stat points. Please allocate to the desired stats)

(You have gained +5 HP, +10 MP, +10 SOUL ENERGY)

'Jerod, this level up is different from the last one. I don't know if it is because before you were level 0 or if it is because you trained to the plateau of your stats but you get to put the points into your stats however you want now.'

Jerod thought about it for a while, he decided that for now his STR and AGI were probably not worth putting points into. Aside from the people he was unable to see stats for he had never found anyone that had 10 points in either stat. This probably meant that he was at the top of a normal person's ability which is also why he couldn't train it further.

'Seeing how I am a magician I should put my points into either my spirit or my stamina. What do you think Lindsay?'

'I think the decision should be up to you. However I can provide some pros and cons to help you decide. Increasing spirit would be good since we have found that it helps with the speed and the quantity when gathering magicles. Stamina would be good since holding a spell for a longer period of time drains stamina, this would allow for us to have an advantage against other mages. You could also increase either your HP or MP. It seems that every 1 stat point is equal to 10 HP points or 5 MP points. You also have your luck attribute that we have not found any way of improving. It does not seem like you can use stat points to increase SOUL ENERGY.'

'Way to make my decision harder... However you do have some good points. HP and MP have gone up with the level and since I will be attending school I don't think I need to worry about those just yet. I like the idea of having more luck. So far we haven't really seen any affect to it.'

(Increase luck by 1?)

'Yes'

(Luck increased by 1!)

'Uhm.. Jerod... You might not be happy about this. When you increased your luck I was able to learn a bit more information. Bad news is to increase your luck by 1 point you just used all 5 of your free points...'

'What? 5 points to go up 1? That is harsh... I guess it takes the decision out of my hands though on what else I should put points in.'

'That is one way to look at it haha. Well then you may be happy with the rest of the information I was able to learn. Luck is a mystical attribute that affects your fortune. Having 5 luck is neutral, which means you have as much good luck as you do bad luck. This is why we haven't really seen any results from it before. Now that you have 6 points you should find yourself luckier than most people. However, before you start thinking of just continuously increasing your luck, it seems that every time you increase your luck it will require more stat points. Since this affects fortune it requires more energy to increase. So to move from 6 to 7 you will need 20 stat points.'

'20!?! Presuming I get 5 points per level that would mean four levels to go up 1 point. That is a bit extreme... Well no use in thinking about it for now. It is still pretty early so let's go deeper into the woods. Now that I am level 2 I need 250 experience to get to level 3.'