Chapter 17:

Chapter 5.0, Classes in Session

Don't Worry, We Have the Best Supporter in Our Team


3:00 PM. 

They made it back to their apartment in Adventurer Academy. Before they settle down for a break, Jayce helped Alice to sort out her preparation for the classes she had enrolled, getting the books and scrolls from his magic gloves and lent them to her.

“Are you sure you don’t need these?” she asked, worrying that he might need these for his lessons.

“I don’t need them anymore. Anyway, go get yourself ready for dinner. Oh, there is one more thing you need.”

He went to his room and came back, placing a large scroll onto the dining table and unwind it.

“This is the enchanted map I had made a year ago. It will be useful for you since you are not well versed to the Academy’s map. The map will indicate where you’re facing and it also provides the shortest possible route to the location you want to go to. Just use your mind to select your destination.”

“Thank you.”

She felt really bad for him to help her to this extent. She knew he had his reason to help her, but he did mention that he will answer that question when the time is right. So in the end, asking that question again wouldn’t get her anywhere. With that, she went to take a shower and had a nap in her bedroom.

When she left to her room, Jayce sat down in one of the chairs from the dining table. He took down his pair of glasses and placed them on the table. He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing, closing off his five senses and focus on his surroundings with his mind.

He began searching for any presences of abnormalities in their apartment unit, then the dormitory, then the whole academy. Once everything was clear, he slowly opened his eyes and looked at the time. It was now 5:00 PM.

“Time to prepare dinner. Isn’t Alice going to take a cooking class next week? Better ask her whether she wants to join cooking with me.”

He went to Alice’s doorstep and knocked a few times. There were no responses coming from her.

Still asleep. Guess I have to cook something light for her.

He went to the kitchen, sorting all the ingredients he had bought from the Moon Village. He managed to purchase a few bags of Luminous leaves, a few slabs of lamb, and also the vegetables they had at Irene’s place. He planned to use the lambs for today, but since Alice wasn’t well-rested, he would have to save it for tomorrow.

He placed a frying pan on the stove and activate it with his mana. Cooking equipment these days were mainly powered with mana. Some preferred to use firewoods to heat or cook their food, but the chimney or a ventilation channel system in their apartment weren’t meant for smokes produced from firewoods.

While the pan was being heated, he went to the kitchen counter by the sink to prepare the vegetables.

The dishes he had in mind was sauteed vegetables with mushrooms, topped with hollandaise sauce, and a cup of luminous tea. The entire preparation and cooking took him fifteen minutes to complete thanks to the mana stove. It allowed him to function it at a specific temperature to ensure the dish was cooked perfectly.

Once he finished cooking, he went over to Alice’s door once more to check on her. He knocked on her door again, but again, there were no responses.

Can’t be helped.

He went back to the kitchen and wrapped her meals and placed a note to it. After placing her portion on the floor in front of her door, he whispered to himself.

“Switching magic circuit to long-range combat: Magician.”

After switching his class, he reached a hand to her plate and a magic circle formed around it. The magic he cast was a combination of fire-based magic and ice-based magic, maintaining the temperature of the food. He also a set condition that the moment Alice had physical contact with the plate, the magic circles will disperse.

With everything prepared for her, he ate his meals and took some time reading his book before he went to bed. But there was one more thing he had to do.

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She got herself up from bed when she felt the irritation sensation from her stomach. When she opened her door, there was a meal waiting for her on the floor. What caught her interest was the multiple layers of magic circles surrounding the plate.

She crouched low to examine the magic circles. The maroon coloured magic circles were fire-based magic, but she found a hint of ice-based magic within its circle. She took note of it into her mind.

The inscriptions indicated this was a conditional spell. She had tried creating compound magic circles before arriving at the Academy, but none had succeeded as the magic circles ended up cancelling each other.

Her stomach grumbled again to remind her of her current state. As she reached out to the plate, the magic circles dispersed, signalling the end of the spells. The plate in her hand felt warm as if her meal was just cooked seconds ago. The mushroom salad was surprisingly light and the sauce worked well with it.

She moved on to the tea, she noticed it was the same tea they had from the Moon Village’s Inn. Compared to the Inn’s, this tea tasted slightly more bitter and it left a sweet aftertaste, cleansing her palette.

“He must have added something in it to improve the taste,” she muttered after finishing the drink.

After washing the dishes, she looked around the apartment. Jayce was nowhere to be found, probably sleeping in his room. It was already 11:45 PM, she shouldn’t disturb him during this hour. She later found a book in one of the chairs at the dining table.

Without thinking, she flipped through the pages and read the contents. The book contained research and methods of creating weapons. She brought the book with her to the dining table and read it from the beginning.

The book started off with a basic of creating a mould. The starting point of creating a weapon was to have an image of the end product. As for the rest was preparing the ores and other chemicals for the furnace. After an hour, the weight of eyes became heavier and heavier. Before she knew it, she fell asleep.

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The next day, the first day of class in Adventurer Academy. Jayce and Alice were on the way to alchemy class. She had enough sleep from last night, but she didn’t remember anything about sleeping in her room.

Did I sleepwalk last night?

She looked at Jayce for an answer.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Did… did you sleep well last night?”

When the actual question about to leave her mouth, she decided to ask about him. It had been four days ever since they had just met. Part of her felt the need to know Jayce to improve their teamwork.

“Yes. What about you? You didn’t get enough sleep for the past two days.”

This time, he voiced his concern about her.

When she looked at him in the eyes, she remembered the time when the had a dance at the Luminous Garden.

“I-I’m fine.” She averted her eyes, hiding her embarrassment from him.

Did I do something that upsets her? thought Jayce.

They reached their destination, thanks to Jayce’s guidance.

When they opened the door, there was no one in their classroom. Alice guessed they were the first ones to arrive and took a front-row seat and Jayce sat right beside her. They wore their usual adventurer ensemble, but no weapons as they had to comply with the Academy’s policy.

Jayce withdrew the book Alice had a glimpse of its content last night from his magic gloves and read it, while Alice had nothing to do but wait. As she waited, the air around them became heavier. But a moment later, a door opened and a boy and girl around their age came in and a familiar voice came in.

“Is this the right place? What do you think?” asked the young girl who peered into the room left and right from the entrance.

“You do realize I can’t read a map, right?” The boy sighed at her question.

“Sure you can! You just have to— Alice!” She changed the topic the moment her eyes laid on her. She came running at her to give a hug.

Jayce shuffled further away from Alice, as Irene’s tackle caused them to fall to the floor. Alice shook her head to remove the dizziness that hung over her.

“I-Irene? Aiden? But how?”

There was a natural question to ask as they already knew they were not students of this academy.

“We’ve read the letter Jayce had given to us,” said Irene, who kept snuggling on Alice’s face.

“What letter?”

“When we got back to my place, we found Noir waiting by the entrance. I thought it was trying to kill us as it had given off a scary stare and a dagger sheathed on one of its forelegs, but we soon found that there was a letter around its neck. The letter turned out to be some sort of a scholarship for both Aiden and me.”

“…”

She turned her gaze toward Jayce.

“I was under the principal’s order to search and recruit potential students for Adventurer Academy. He even told me he was willing to provide the funds for the students I personally chose.”

His eyes remained on the book, the chapter he was reading was related to the blacksmithing techniques he had never encounter before.

“How many students did you recruit so far?” asked Aiden, who had walked behind them without being detected by them, taking a seat behind them.

“Two.”

“You mean…”

“Yes. Both you and Irene were the first ones I recruited as scholarship students for Adventurer Academy.”

They were baffled by his statement. They thought Jayce was the type of an adventurer who had many connections due to his capability to wield many different types of weapons, but they were off the mark by a huge margin.

“But that leaves the question, why was this class feel so empty? Shouldn’t there be more students by now?” asked Aiden.

“I had a feeling this was bound to happen. Not many students were assigned to this class,” said Jayce, flipping to the next page of his book.

“Why is that?” asked Alice.

“The existence of this class was not known to most students. Only a handful of lecturers knows about this class.”

“Then what kind of class is this, then?”

“This class was meant for students who were given special lessons by lecturers. In this case, we will be taught by well-known adventurers instead of the Academy’s existing lecturers.”

Alice and Irene didn’t have anything to say about that, while Aiden let out a whistle of amaze.

“But what kind of person would take their time to teach students like us?” asked Alice.

In most cases, well-known adventurers were asked to complete higher rank quests personally or directly from the Capital’s headquarter. She couldn’t imagine what kind of quest they had rejected just to provide tutelage to four of them.

Before Jayce could answer her question as if on cue, the door opened.

A young lady, holding a stack of book, casually entered the room and stood behind the podium and scanned the room. Her eyes went to Alice, Jayce, Irene and Aiden.

“Just four, huh? I thought there would be more than that,” said the young girl as she placed both hands on her hips.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Nora. I guess we are the only students here,” said Jayce, closing his book and gave her eye contact.

“It’s fine. Before we begin, my name is Nora, the Witch of Mysteria. I will be teaching everyone alchemy and magic.”

After her greetings, Aiden raised a hand.

“I can understand that we have to learn alchemy, but why do we have to learn magic?”

“What’s your name and class?” asked Nora, her expression remained cheerful, not a hint of anger shown on her face.

She sure enjoys being a teacher, thought Alice.

“Aiden. Assassin class adventurer.”

“Well then, Aiden. What can you tell me about this?”

With a snapped of her fingers, ten distinct magic circles appeared around him. Every magic circle was aiming directly at him.

Aiden was still calm in this situation, he was aware that lecturers can’t simply attack their students. But for some reason, his body felt heavy and his mind was distorted, leaving him unable to think rationally to get himself out of this situation.

“…”

“That’s enough, Nora,” said Jayce, who stood by watching his classmate being induced with illusion and gravity spells.

With that, she called off her magic circles. Aiden felt dizzy for a while, then shook his head to remove the lingering feelings in his body. He didn’t say a word to her.

“Even though you’re an assassin, you must know what kind of spells they cast. I understand that you’re are blind, but you have a keen sense of hearing. Am I right?”

Although lecturers had read their backgrounds, they still had to ask them for their name to teach them etiquette and preparing the right practice to teach them.

“…”

His silence suggested that she was right, and she moved on.

“Each magic circle have their own unique frequency, so you can identify them by hearing. As for your classmates, they have to identify them with your eyes and ears. But there is one flaw for us who had the ability to see and hear. Who can answer that?”

Alice and Irene gave a thought about it. After a moment, Irene gave a guess to her question. She gave a self-introduction to Nora before answering her question.

“Could it be that we will be in a disadvantage when there are multiple different sounds coming from our surroundings and the magic circles are hidden from our field of vision?”

“Close, but not exactly the answer. What are your thoughts, Alice?”

Before she answers her question, she imagined herself in a situation where she had thought the same way as Irene. But she remembered last night when she analyzed Jayce’s compound magic. From there, she traced her memories and she answered her question.

“We can’t analyse the magic circles when we perceive them with our eyes and ears. The information provided from both senses will contradict each other and take some time to process for us to identify the magic circles, leaving us to vulnerable to the enemies’ attack. It depends on the situation, you just have to choose either your sense of sight or hearing to identify them.”

After answering her question. Nora applause to both Irene and Alice.

“Both answers are right in their own way. Just like what Alice said, it depends on the situation. Every adventurer has to choose one sense to tackle their situations. Anyway, we shall now begin the alchemy lesson. Here are the books for everyone.”

With a wave of her hand, the books hovered over to them and she continued.

“Be sure to bring these books to my alchemy class every now and then. We will be covering the basics for now,” said Nora, strange enough, the air around them soften by her presence.

After the alchemy lesson, the class went on to swordsmanship, archery, general studies, and blacksmithing. Each class seemed to be normal, Alice can’t tell the difference between their classes and others.

“If you were wondering about what’s so special about this class, I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to that,” said Jayce, reading a book that was withdrawn from his magic gloves after the classes have ended for today.

“What’s this? Jayce doesn’t know something for the first time?” said Irene with a grinned.

“Come on, Irene. We’re in the same situation as his. I still find this setup a bit weird, too.” Aiden intervened to their conversation, he didn’t want to cause any situation get out of hand just because of Irene.

“It’s okay, Aiden. She was right. Anyway, discussing this topic won’t get us anywhere. I’m guessing they sorted out your accommodation as well?” said Jayce.

“Yeah. The accommodation turned out to be an apartment unit and the unit number is… What’s the room number again?”

“It’s room 4021,” answered Aiden, getting himself up from his seat to stretch his body.

They had been in the same class for the past six hours, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, including some occasions of bathroom breaks and lunchtime.

“Oh. That’s across the hallway from our unit,”

“Really?! That means we can meet up easily.”

Irene became more excited by that. To her, she found Alice easy to talk rather than anyone she had met, aside from Aiden.

During her time in the Moon Village, the only person she often talked to the most was Aiden, who was always there to listen to her. There were times they argued each other over trivial things. In the end, they did enjoy it.

But nowadays, she felt like Aiden grew more distant from her, despite that he was around her.

Deep inside, she knew this was all because for the training he had to do as an assassin by his parents. She did ask about this to Aiden’s parents, but they said the situation was a bit complicated. That was why she trained to be the best archer she could get with her parents’ training ground. All in order to walk by his side.

She didn’t have any special feelings for him. She just felt that it was her responsibility to be there to help him when he was in trouble, just like how he was with the bandit leader that was located at the outskirt of the Moon Village.

“Irene, we still need to unpack our stuff at the apartment.”

“We can help out.”

To their surprise, it was Jayce who suggested it.

“Besides, there wasn’t anything else for me to do for today. The first week of classes was meant to give an introduction to the courses.”