*GROWL*
"Oops… Pardon ," Zen awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, "I guess the sll from the cafeteria already has my stomach rumbling."
"It does sll good, though…." Reyna nodded.
The tantalizing sll emanating from the lunch hall had all of them salivating.
Even Arvell and August weren't fairing any better.
"Just hold out for a few more minutes. The cafeteria is just around the corner."
Reaching a pair of large double doors, Arvell pushed them open to reveal a long line of students.
They appeared to be standing in wait to reach the service counter, which was being manned by a team of what appeared to be cafeteria staff.
"So we just ask them for what we want, right?"
Watching the students at the front of the line get their food, Reyna asked.
"It looks like that," Arvell agreed.
He couldn't quite hear what they were saying even with his heightened senses because of all the surrounding noises drowning them out, but from reading their lips, he could get a general estimate of their conversation.
After waiting in line, the three grabbed their food and headed to the courtyard.
Finding a nice quiet spot under the shade of a tree, they plopped down on the soft grass and enjoyed the view.
"Hey guys, I finally found you!"
Lydia popped her head out of a nearby window and waved to her new friends.
"Hey, Lydia, you should co and join us!" Reyna responded with a smile, "the sun's nice."
Lydia looked up at the sky and smiled to herself.
"I'll be right there!"
Rushing down the hallway, she opened the doors and joined Arvell's group in their al.
After finishing his pasta dish, Zen fell back on the grass with a satisfied look.
Basking in the sun, he looked at peace.
"Man, I expected the horoom introduction to be boring, but it was quite interesting. Nothing like the orientation speech… That was a bore."
"You're too carefree, Zen! You need to keep up your image more." Reyna knelt over him, blocking the sun from falling on his face.
With the sun out of his eyes, Zen opened his eyes fully and looked at the slight pout on his fiance's face.
"I know… But I can't help myself. Father pushed to the brink since I got ho, so I'm completely exhausted."
"Even so, just try to bear with it. If you get a bad reputation from not showing proper conduct, It'll get much harder for you in the future."
A slight smile ford on Zen's face as he placed his hand on top of Reyna's
"Thanks for worrying about ."
Feeling his touch on her hand, a slight blush ford on Reyna's cheeks, but she didn't try to shrug Zen's hand off.
"I-I'm your fiance, so this much is normal!"
"Um… You two rember that Lydia and I exist, right?" Arvell pointed out while gnawing on a slice of pizza.
On the other hand, Lydia watched the two of them with a blush as red as Reyna's.
It seed that their actions were too stimulating for the young thirteen-year-old girl.
Zen and Reyna's eyes went wide as they imdiately separated their hands and looked in opposite directions with embarrassnt etched on their faces.
While Arvell found the current situation sowhat amusing, he also felt a pang of guilt for ruining the mont.
"Hey, I'm not saying you two can't flirt… But that's the kind of thing you save for when it's just you two."
However, Arvell's words only caused Reyna to bury her head between her hands.
She looked like she was about to die from embarrassnt.
"A-ahem!" Zen cleared his throat, "anyways, were we again?"
Reyna pulled her head out of her arms with renewed vigour, as if changing the topic of their conversation would save her any more embarrassnt.
"We were talking about the professor's horoom."
"Oh right," Zen nodded, "hearing about all the classes was quite interesting. I can't wait to choose my elective courses!"
"Zen… that's next year," Arvell pointed out.
"I know, but still. So of those sounded right up my alley, like the wind magic specialization course and the agility training course."
Even if Zen was from the house that was considered the head of expertise on wind magic throughout the country, learning how other people apply the sa magic would do wonders for his understanding of the specific magic archetype.
Zen wanted to learn wind magic from the academy and combine it with the Silvercolt arts to form a more personalized combat style for himself.
Abstenantly sticking to just learning his family's techniques would never allow him to grow and adapt as a warrior.
"Oh, the agility training course? I was thinking of taking it too." Arvell nodded in agreent.
"The two of us rely mainly on our speed, so training our agility is essential for us."
Professor Orfina had given the students a general layout of their academic progression while at the academy.
Essentially, the first years only had 2 main courses: one for arcane warriors and the other for arcane mages.
This was done primarily to give the students a general feeling of which fighting style they wished to choose.
While it was also technically possible to train oneself as a hybrid of both, sticking to one style was generally advised.
Being a jack of all trades was considerably worse than mastering one of them properly.
After the students got a general idea of how they wanted to use their magic, they were given the option in their second year to follow the electives they wanted.
There was far more choice for second-year students.
Most first years shared their classes except for a few lessons oriented towards arcane mages and warriors.
Thus, even if their group had to split up so that Arvell and Zen trained to beco arcane warriors, they could still et up with Reyna during horoom and their other classes.
Being a specialized beast tar, Reyna excelled in strengthening and buffing the beasts under her command, so instead of increasing her own body's strength as an arcane warrior, the better option was to beco an Arcane mage.
"So… now that the new student orientation portion is done do you guys want to go exploring?" Lydia proposed, "I kind of want to see more of the campus."
Realizing her suggestion made sense, the others nodded their heads and pulled themselves to their feet.
Since they got through their horoom and the new student orientation, they had the rest of the day to unpack their belongings in the dormitory and familiarize themselves with the campus.
Sothing that their rry band of four was more than happy to do.
Leisurely strolling through the streets of the massive campus, they passed by countless other first-year students also taking in the sights.
"The academy is quite beautiful," Arvell muttered as he placed his palm on the bark of a nearby tree.
From how the surrounding Nether acted around the tree, it was plain as day to Arvell that the tree was brimming with life.
Whoever cared for it had put their heart and soul into maintaining it.
'This is a Virol tree if I rember correctly. The fruits from this tree serve as a component in 2nd-grade healing potions….'
Arvell turned his head to find a building with a logo displaying an odd-looking flower.
'The flower of salubriousness… So this is where the onsite hospital was.'
Arvell rembered seeing countless injured examinees carted off to the academy's hospital, but he didn't know exactly where it was.
While losing himself in thought, Arvell continued blankly staring at the door.
At least until the doors opened with a slam.
"Oh no! I'm going to be late!"
A young-looking man wearing a lab coat dashed out of the building hurriedly.
"Please, please have so food left for ! Preferably noodles… I want noodles soo bad."
Running down the stairs to the doorway, he noticed the three kids watching him with perplexed expressions.
His eyes widened slightly as he froze mid-run.
It was as if Arvell had the full-ti-stop capabilities of his Aether powers.
"I-I didn't see you all there!"
Before anyone could blink, the man quickly re-arranged his appearance.
If before he looked like a ss, with unkempt hair covering the majority of his face, now he looked like a proper civilized human.
A good-looking one at that.
"Sorry about that, kids, even us adults ss up sotis! Hahaha…ha…"
The teacher politely nodded to the four of them before walking past them and heading toward the school cafeteria.
Even after the man left, there was a hint of awkwardness.
"Um… Who was that?" Zen asked.
Reyna shrugged her shoulders.
"No clue, but from how he was dressed, I assu he was one of the staff working at the hospital."
"Well, that's kind of obvious."
"I was here with you the whole ti. How could I know sothing you didn't?"
"That is true…."
While Zen and Reyna were talking, Arvell tried to process the recent encounter for himself.
'That rich herbal sll… There's no doubt about it, that man's an alchemist. A highly skilled one at that.'Arvell turned to look behind him, hoping to find the man, but he was already long gone.
'Hmm… I can work with this.'
A small smile ford on Arvell's lips as he turned to the dical facility.
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