PftA (Revised) - Chapter 39

A/N: Only one chapter today since this is BRAND NEW CONTENT that I just wrote...today. So, limited revisions were done. I'd love feedback if anything stands out. Enjoy!

Chapter 39 – The Academies

The following week marked the beginning of October and the start of my beta testing as a dual Academy student. If I was considering my high school as an academy, it would probably be more accurate to say tri-academy, but I didn’t see them the same way.

With Rhona’s blessing, I had no trouble registering for classes, though I was limited to only attending part-time because of the time constraints involved with attending three mostly separate institutes of learning. Neither the Mage nor the Enchanters’ Academies recognized or followed Earth standard for measuring weeks. Instead, they were wholly committed to the five-day week model used throughout the Alliance.

That inevitably led to scheduling conflicts between my high school and the academies, but there wasn’t much I could do about it other than report it as an issue to be addressed by the ‘developers.’ Consequently, most of my classes were scheduled for evenings, World Junction Time (WJT). My schedule exceeded my beta testing requirements, but I didn’t mind. At this point, being a beta tester only enabled me to do more of what I wanted to do anyway.

Both magical academies required students to wear robes that reflected their affinities, which would have made things easy had those robes not been embroidered with the academies’ insignia. It wasn’t a huge thing to keep up with, but I was sure I’d wear the wrong robe to the wrong academy at some point since, aside from the school crests, the uniforms looked identical.

Thankfully, I alternated my schedule so I only needed to attend classes on one campus per WJ day. Firstday and Thirday were dedicated to the Mages’ Academy, while Seconday and Fourthday were reserved for the Enchanters’ Academy. Since it was Firstday, that meant I was headed to the taller of the sister towers that held the two academies on the rapidly expanding outskirts of the mega-city.

I noticed a handful of fellow beta testers among the student population when I arrived at the Mages’ Academy for my first class. They were easily identifiable by the floating user tags above their heads.

I’d been tempted to sign up for some less-magical classes like those that covered Alliance history and politics, but I figured I’d have plenty of access to information like that later. There was no reason to fill a class slot with something I could access elsewhere.

Though I knew classes on subjects like Mana Manipulationand Direct Casting would be theoretical – at best – I still signed up for both courses. Unlike any other beta testers who might take the class, I could actually practice the lessons I learned outside the game. It was possible someone who had been forcefully awakened might be a part of the beta program, too, but I doubted it based on the comments Rhona had made.

Aside from those two classes, I was only able to fit one other in my Mage schedule, so I chose an elemental focus class that specialized in Time magic. While it might have made more sense to focus on Space in the beginning, I’d had such a hard time learning anything about Time magic that I couldn’t help myself. I was finally being given the chance to learn more about my (now) strongest affinity.

Coincidentally, the Time magic class was my first class at the Mages’ Academy. Had classes started on the ‘alternate’ day, I would have been late due to the distance from my high school. It wasn’t very far, but any distance is too much when schedules nearly overlap. I was sure I could mitigate the issue with a strong enough Teleport or some Time manipulation, but that was something I’d have to figure out another day.

The classroom was sparsely populated with a handful of NPC students. None were players, which made me curious about how the entire academy setup was programed to work. Obviously, having empty classrooms would present an uncomfortable environment for those who enrolled, but dedicating that many high-level Ais (or their equivalent) seemed excessive.

Then again, most of the NPCs were practically indistinguishable from real people, so maybe it wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought.

“Time magic,” a Mage in shimmering robes said immediately after appearing in the classroom. Though it seemed to be some kind of teleportation, I assumed – based on his apparent affinity – that it was Time manipulation of some sort. “Each of you has it to some degree or another; else, you wouldn’t be in this class.”

The Mage’s robes were a color that didn’t translate, aside from ‘shimmer.’ The closest analogy I had was the mixed colors on a soap bubble – but blended together without getting muddy. It was a color I’d grown to love over the years.

The Mage himself was pretty bland looking. His hair was a amalgamation of multiple dark colors, and I noticed strands of blue and purple peaking through. Since he wore neither color, I had to assume the effect was either natural or a very detailed spell effect of some kind. It was possible there was some other explanation, but I doubted a magical society would bother with the time it would take to use mundane methods to create such an effect.

“How many of you have a second affinity?” the man asked, causing a few hands to raise – including my own. “Excellent. That’s more than I expected. What are your secondary affinities?”

We went around the small classroom, sharing our information. One of the other students had a secondary weak Life affinity, which immediately piqued our instructor’s interest. My Space affinity also intrigued him more because of its rarity than any genuine interest in the affinity.

“My name is Aslane Blink. I earned my name by using my affinity to move faster than the blink of an eye. It isn’t very difficult once you understand the mechanics behind Time magic, and I expect each of you to be capable of the same feat by the end of the course.”

Mage Aslane started by having each student explain their understanding of the epic-rarity affinity. The discussions sparked as result took up the rest of the class period, much to my dismay. While hearing others’ understanding of the element and discussing some of the differences in our perceptions was interesting, it wasn’t ground-breaking or enlightening. I had no doubt we’d get to that level eventually, but I was feeling impatient.

There were a couple of players in my other two classes, which annoyed me when I realized I’d have to be careful about the questions I asked to not draw undue attention to myself. I hoped they would drop the classes when they realized the information gained would not be directly helpful to them, but I wasn’t going to count on it.

There were several more players enrolled in the Enchanters’ Academy when I arrived on campus the following WJ day. I’d drained a good bit of my mana pool holding Haste active to rush to class, but I was still a few minutes late. I’d added a note to my registration about the scheduling conflict, so I was hoping my instructor would be understanding.

When I entered to find Ms. Maker standing at the front of the class, I was initially confused. However, I followed her implied directions when she motioned to a nearby seat and quickly sat down.

Unlike with the Mages’ Academy, I’d had to take a placement test to enroll in the Enchanters’ Academy and register for classes. I struggled to limit myself to only displaying knowledge I could have feasibly gained since my return. Even so, I’d performed well in the assessment and was placed in Advanced Enchanting and Artificing classes.

I’d never considered myself much of an Artificer, even though I leaned heavily on the skill for much of my Enchanting work. The line between the two was often blurry, a fact that explained why Artificers were incorporated into the Enchanters’ Academy instead of doing their own thing.

“Emie, a moment of your time, if you will?” Ms. Maker said after releasing the class. When the rest of the students had vacated the room, she lifted the sleeve of my robe that covered my lightly glowing Fitmon. “Very interesting. I suppose if you are attending classes here, it makes sense why Administrator Rhona denied my request to have you work as my assistant after informing me of your status.”

I paused. The initial pulse of fear I felt at hearing her words were quickly pushed away as my brain finished processing her statement.

“Ah, yes. I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment.”

“It’s fine. Once World Junction releases to the public, this won’t count toward your work hours. I’ll just petition to have to join me then. You are much too talented to waste ‘testing’ a completely functional simulation. I’ll start limiting your materials to Tier One to get you prepared for the work. It shouldn’t take too much more effort for you to complete the assignments. You’ll just have to be a bit more creative than the rest of you classmates,” the woman said with a satisfied smirk.

Before releasing me, Ms. Maker casually mentioned I’d need to come up with something to keep from being late, mentioning using an Anchorto allow me to travel more quickly. I had both the Space Anchor and Teleportspells, and I already knew I could use the former to enhance the latter. I simply hadn’t thought about adding one of my limited anchors to shorten my commute.

It made sense though.

It wasn’t like I was holding one in place for anything else. While I could maintain up to three without it causing a continual draw on my mana, I’d never been one to keep anchors long-term. At least, not for spellcasting. Once the spell was adequately embedded into an item, the constraint no longer applied, and that was where I’d used the spell most often before.

Taking the woman’s advice, I hurried to the back corner of the room – a location I felt was least likely to cause a teleportation mishap – and set the Anchor. It was an easy solution for the problem and took much less mana that holding Haste active as I traveled the several blocks separating the high school from the Mage and Enchanters’ Academies.

I didn’t know either of my remaining teachers nor was I confident either of them were actual people instead of NPCs. Really, I had no way of knowing if any of the Atlas school teachers were NPCs, either. I only interacted with them in the simulation, so it was entirely possible they were the game’s version of AI. The only ones I was reasonably confident in were the teachers who claimed to be hired professionals from Earth.

Even that could have been a lie, though I didn’t really see the point in it. Atlas would need to ‘test’ the teacher role as well, I supposed.

The weeks flew by and the school’s tournament approached. I’d had to use my in-game Lisa to develop and help me stick to a routine to keep up with all the demands on my time. I’d also had her work out an ‘out of game’ schedule too, though it was a bit harder to manage since she wasn’t present outside of the game – yet.

Even with the built-in breaks and mini-vacations, I was feeling the strain of trying to fit so many extra hours into each day. While I wanted to go full blast all day, every day, my mind simply could not handle the near-constant training, so I had to dedicate any Fifthday that coincided with a weekend to completely breaking from the game and all magical practice.

It was a small concession, but one that made a huge impact. I was confident the small addition would go a long way toward holding off any potential burnout.