Chapter-04

The time to get back home was much shorter as we ran the whole way. There was a wide grin on Uncle Hillman's face and I was also smiling in anticipation of what the immediate future would hold. The mood seemed to be infectious as Bebe was also squeaking away in excitement and made me laugh a bit at seeing his cute celebrations. The mood was in fact so good it had Uncle Hillman in such a trance that he did not even notice we had reached Wushan Town way faster than expected, let alone my magus talent no one was even aware of my attainments as a warrior yet and I planned to keep it that way for as long as possible.

We reached home a little before lunch and found father still busy with paperwork of managing the town's affairs. "Old Hiri, don't skimp out on the food for lunch and prepare for a feast, also bring out the best wine we have." Uncle Hillman loudly calls for Grandpa Hiri as soon as we are through the main doors.

"Now Hillman, I don't know what has got into you but there is certainly no need to act like that within the lord's manor." Grandpa Hiri walks in to the foyer from the kitchens while reprimanding Uncle Hillman. We had made quite a lot of noise after all, what with banging the door open and Uncle Hillman's loud call for a celebration.

"What is all this fuss about? Hillman, why have you and Linley returned so quickly? Did you finish the magus assessment test, how did it go?" Father also steps out from his study to see what was happening before changing topic and questioning us upon seeing our earlier than expected return.

"Lord Hogg, the Ernst Institute! It's the Ernst Institute! Linley was accepted by the Ernst Institute!" Hillman said excitedly. Father seemed to have turned into a statue at the moment, he felt as though his brain had suddenly been deprived of oxygen, as everything went blank for a moment.

"Ernst… Institute…" Father mumbles a bit as if he still couldn't believe it, looks like he still had some doubts even after the heads up I had given him so I handed him the acceptance letter to really drive home the point. He fumbled with the document for a bit before going through it and confirming the truth for himself, once he was done there was a confident flame of YOUTH burning in his eyes.

"Hahahahahahaha! Elders of the Baruch clan, there is hope for our clan again!" Father suddenly lifted his head to the sky and laughed wildly, so much so that tears began to flow. "There is hope for our Baruch clan again! Hillman, Grandpa Hiri!" Father then looked at the two of them. "Tonight, I am going to host a banquet. Quick, make the arrangements! Today, I am very happy, extremely happy. To have such a son, even if I die, I will be able to proudly face the elders of the Baruch clan."

Right… I thought to myself. Don't go dying off on me pops, I know what happens in canon and hopefully I can keep you from getting yourself killed doing something stupid. Uncles Hiri and Hillman set out to make all the needed preparation to celebrate the good news and father calls me to his study to discuss some more matters again.

Father got so excited that he gave me a tight hug and loudly congratulated me in joy once more after we were in his study, that unfortunately woke up Bebe who was napping in my inner jacket pocket. "Squeak squeak!" the little guy loudly makes his displeasure known and I had to spend some time calming/bribing him to calm down.

"Shadowmouse. A magical beast, Shadowmouse? Linley be careful, get away." Upon seeing the little Shadowmouse with me, Father's facial expressions changed dramatically.

"Father, it's alright." Linley was afraid that he would strike, so he hurriedly said, "The little Shadowmouse and I have already entered a soulbinding pact. This was the cute animal I had found in the rear courtyard and my magus teacher helped me form a pact with him. His name is Bebe." I manage to hurriedly explained and threw Grandpa Doehring under the figurative bus to account for any implausible issues my story had.

"… Is that so, good good." Father responds now calming down after the shock. "But Linley, there are some more things I wish to talk to you about. While it is good that you have been accepted into the Ernst Institute and even have a Saint Magus teacher, I want you to continue working hard. All things considered I think it would be best to consider you a grown up now seeing as you are now the main pillar of our clan. I can now be assured and pass this on to you without worry." Father continues before turning around to the wall behind his desk. He opens a secret compartment that was hidden behind a painting there and pulls out a thick tome.

"Is that the secret Dragonblood manual, father?" I pre-emptively ask him much to his shock as by all rights I shouldn't know about its name let alone its existence.

"Yes, it is Linley, where did you hear about it?" Father questions me in turn after answering me first.

"My teacher told me father, he was aware that all the 4 supreme warrior clans have their own secret training methods and he was also aware they each of the 4 clans had a copy of the methods of the other clans as well to be used as a safeguard for each other, only…" I hesitate a bit here. Originally Linley only got the secret dragonblood manual but this time around I knew we had copies of the other clan's manuals and I wanted those as well, I reasoned that by using my powerful teacher I could finagle the others well.

"Only what Linley?" Father asks me again but I can somewhat see from his facial expressions that he now somewhat believed my story about my teacher a bit more. The fact that he seemed to be privy to our clan's secret seemed to cause my father to relax his guard a bit so I went in for the kill to get what I wanted.

"Father, you know how I told you that my teacher was looking for us after his long seclusion and it took him some time apparently. He had earlier requested me to help him procure copies of the training tomes of our clan so that he may help me train, he knew our ancestors after all and he told me that he could give me some pointers from what he remembered during his time with them. Also, he wanted to try and find the descendants of the other 3 clans as well and help them out as a way of honouring the friendships he had, so he wanted their manuals as well. I hope it is not too much trouble?" I ask, hoping for the best.

"I see, well in that case I have no issues. I will have copies of the manuals made before you are to head to the Ernst Institute. On one hand it might also be better to let the Senior have a copy of them as a safeguard, seeing as there is no harm since only our respective families can use most of these special methods." Father agrees to give me a copy of the whole set to hand over to my teacher.

He just doesn't know that the one actually using them would be myself. I reasoned that if our clan's manual had methods for training in some high tier Dao like style the others were bound to have some that I could learn too and I did actually want to find the other clans and uplift them as well. I already knew I would have to give the tigerstriped and undying manuals to Delia, Dixie and the Armand brothers respectively so might as well as get them now.

After a few more discussions, father dismissed me from his study so he could finish all his pending work and attend the banquet without anything hanging over his head. I then headed towards the kitchen to help with food prep, I didn't really need to but ever since I found that I could train my spiritual essence by controlling the cooking fires I had made a habit of preparing at least one dish per meal.

"Big Bro, where you going? I want to play with you too!" I ran in to Wharton on the way to the kitchen. Poor kid, everyone seems to have sort of forgotten about him in their excitement of the moment. This will not fly; both my Linley and Transmigrator halves cannot bear to see my little brother looking sad like that so I decided to bring him along to watch me cook. Who knows? It might help him later as canon Wharton was practitioner of the Laws of Fire.

"Hey Wharton, how would you like to learn to cook super delicious food like your Big Bro? That way you will always be able to eat yummy foods whenever you want." I decide to also spend some time to teach him some simple stuff as well as give him some pointers that he can hopefully remember to use later. I had no intention to let the kid get up to anything dangerous at this young age but a few lessons in basics would help him in the long run. With my plans set I led my little brother to the kitchen to enlist his help, surprisingly Bebe joined in after seeing Wharton participating and I got to see the sight of one cute little kid and one cute little mouse covered in flour. They were easily distracted and prone to waste the ingredients if no one was overseeing them but under a stern instructor who sometimes let them play a little, they did good job learning the basics.

The evening celebrations were a huge success as all the manor guards and other important personages from town attended and they all toasted to my success in future endeavours. The food was great, the atmosphere and attitudes of people were nice and the whole feast was a pleasant experience for me. All that meant nothing much though as from the very next morning things at Wushan township went back to normal and father went back to being the super hard-arse task master with picking up my education and training.

For the next three months until the beginning of the new school year of the Ernst Institute I focused on mostly training up my body, I was still holding back on increasing my rank as a mage. Most of the usual meditation time to absorb mageforce, I now spent solely on trying to deepen my understanding of the Laws of the various essences or strengthening my spiritual essence. I even tried to focus on wielding or channelling the Laws with my body during physical training but that was giving less results than I expected, either nothing at all happened or the precious few times I was able to use far more strength than I should, caused me to hurt my body quite badly as well.

This once again confirmed for me that my physical body also must be at a certain level for me progress further and only focusing on a single aspect was not the way to go. With that said I was quite proud of myself for pushing myself to peak of 4th rank as a warrior before I was to begin my magical school life. A little discreet snooping around confirmed that I really needed to keep all my progress under wraps, as even for the faster development rate of warriors I was advancing too fast. It was only natural after all as I was using the natural essences to temper my body, the Blood Essence Refining technique was also an aid and any damage that I did inflect on my body I was able to heal back stronger due to my water, light and life magics. This all resulted in me progressing far faster in body tempering than anyone else on this plane.

I also roped in Wharton and Bebe in some of my training but did not push them too far due to their young age. I had to convince father a bit by telling him that these were some of the training methods my teacher taught me and I wanted to share them with the family before he let me train Wharton, he also occasionally joined in as well and I had no issues with that. He also thought that yoga was really strange but after 3 months of practice he saw that he was improving, he had stagnated at the 6th rank warrior level for so long due to not having the required dragonblood concentration to practice our Qi methods till now. He was still not able to use our dragonblood Qi but this gave him a chance to progress with strengthening the physical body past the normal limits regardless so he was really into yoga now.

The day of my departure for the Ernst Institute came all too quickly and after a tearful farewell with Wharton and a rather sombre one from my hard-arsed father, I left for boarding school life with Uncle Hillman chaperoning me once again till we reached my new magic academy.

"Squeak squeak!" Bebe called out to me and sent me some motivational and cheerful vibes. He was still too young to communicate using a language even through our bond but he still sought to lift my mood in his own way.

"Thanks, Bebe. You're right, this goodbye is not forever and I won't be alone since I have you. Let's work hard and grow strong together Bebe." I reply to Bebe and also give him some head pats. He appreciates that a lot as he gives out content thoughts and his eyes become half closed in relaxation.

"Hehe, that's right Linley. Even if you will now be spending most of your time studying to be a mage at the academy, we all will still be family. I'm sure that you will become a fine strong man one day and will make your family proud, just give it your best like you always do during your training back in town." Uncle Hillman also encourages me and I nod in response. The rest of the journey passes by mostly in silence and we soon reach the gates of the famous Ernst Institute.

The Ernst Institute was located nearly 2 dozen kilometres south of the city of Fenlai- capitol of the Holy Union. It was founded, run and financed by the Radiant Church which was a major power on the Yulan continent so their campus was naturally amazing. It was only natural I suppose as it was considered this world's premier magic institute, thankfully as a citizen of the Holy Union I got a full scholarship and didn't need to spend even a single copper in fees. The number of new students admitted to the school each year did not cross 100 and even if many rich people wanted to sink in large fortunes to enable their children to enrol, they couldn't. To be a Magus you needed talent and the Ernst Institute only accepted the very best, though that still did not stop them from charging ruinous rates for students from outside the Union.

I was internally scoffing while all these thoughts were running past my mind, the main intent of all this was to instil some goodwill with the students originating from the Union and later hold this over their heads like a debt. All the talented and powerful mages who manage to graduate will find themselves beholden to somehow return the favour to the Radiant Church, but not me. I was aware of the Church's dirty secrets and they had also hurt my family as well, no way was I ever going to get along with them. I would take every advantage I could get and not think twice, there was an odd sense of karmic justice I thought that the one to end the cult of sparkling blow-hards was someone they raised.

As we arrived in front of the imposing gates of the institute, I noticed another kid younger than me and his 2 adult chaperones speaking with people who looked to be admin staff for the institute who had setup on the sides of the gates to welcome the new students to the academy. By the looks of things this might be another new student and from my transmigrator memories I was pretty sure that this was Reynolds from the O'Brian Empire.

As if to prove my guess correct, the boy greeted me as soon as we also stepped forward to register- "Hi there. I'm from the O'Brian Empire, and my name is Reynolds." he warmly greeted me, I noticed that he was about half a head shorter than me. He was also well built for someone his age and appeared to be carrying a pair of staves or short club type weapon with him. That caused me to quirk my eyebrows up a bit as I was well aware that in canon Reynolds did not train as a warrior and was in fact quite lazy with his training just like Yale. The only reference I had to explain these differences was one of the really good fanfictions of Coiling Dragon I had read that was called 'The Burning Fiend', that story largely followed the journey of Reynolds into OPness and was an interesting read despite not being completed before my death in that other world.

"The O'Brian Empire, really? That is really far away, you must have spent a lot of time travelling. My name is Linley, I'm from Fenlai Kingdom." I respond to him, no reason to be rude and not respond even though it was a bit of a shock on finding out that this world is truly an AU. In one way that was good as I did have some plans to strengthen my dorm bros and it would help tremendously if they had a strong drive to get stronger. I had no intention to let the events of canon happen in some cases and let my close friends and family suffer under the non-existent mercies of powerful, sick and twisted psychopaths. I would only let up once I'm sure they can at least escape with their lives even if they cannot win against some powerful combatants outright.

Reynolds blinked, and sighed emotionally. "Fenlai Kingdom? Then you had it nice and cushy. It took me a full year just to get to Fenlai Kingdom from my home. It didn't take you too much time, did it?"

"Haha, yes it was a very short journey. It only took me about half a day to get here from my home." I respond back casually and was rewarded with a very shocked expression from Reynolds.

"That is so unfair…" he started to whine a bit but before he could get any further one of the administrators called for him.

"Students please hurry up, there will be plenty of time to get to know your peers and socialize later." One very official type fellow in white robes that gave off a very secretary like vibe rushed us to finish our registrations.

Reynolds piped up and rushed forward to finish registration, he submitted his acceptance letter and proceeded to undergo the verification tests. "Reynolds, age 8, elemental essence affinity- fire element, exceptional affinity. Spiritual essence 38 times more that the average individual." The institute administrator called out. I was surprised that Reynolds had a higher spiritual essence than canon Linley, he really did have potential.

"Linley, what is it? Amazed just by this?" Reynolds said dismissively after seeing my stunned face. "This is the Ernst Institute. Each year, they accept only a hundred students from across the entire Yulan continent. Which one of them is not an amazing talent? My results can only be considered average, across the student base."

I had to agree to that, no wonder everyone around me was so excited when I got admitted to this place. I guess my exact situation hadn't really sunk in for me just yet but in a way, this was what I was looking for, after all it would be much easier for me to hide my actual abilities when there are so many other talents for the over seers to focus on. I stepped forward to finish my own admission process, I manipulated the results for element affinities to be the same as what I had previously shown but had increased my spiritual essence to 24 times the average individual, it had been close to 3 months since testing after all and this much growth was considered natural.

"High spiritual essence, exceptional elemental essence affinity? And exceptional dual-element affinity for earth and wind and affinities for fire and water as well?" It was now Reynold's turn to be speechless. Guess he assumed I was less talented than him, the Radiant Church was kind of partial to people of the Holy Union after all, what with half of the 100 new admissions to the Institute being reserved for Union citizens.

"Reynolds, don't just stand there looking silly. Let's go." I tell him and we proceed to finish up the last of the paperwork and receive the keys to our new dorm.

"Linley, my young master has the same residence key as you. The two of you should be living in the same residence. I hope that in the future, the two of you can help each other out." One of the old men accompanying Reynolds said.

Reynolds said unhappily, "Okay, Grandpa Lomu, Grandpa Frey, you can go back now. I've already arrived at the Ernst Institute."

"Uncle Hillman, you can go back as well. I can take care of myself." I said to Uncle Hillman with a smile, and he nodded back, satisfied. "Linley, then I'll go back now. Work hard." he encouraged, to which I smiled and nodded.

"Linley, let's go." Reynolds warmly grabbed me by the hand, and began to run into the Institute. We took our time admiring the layout and all the grandeur of the Institute on display as we walked towards the dorms. The ponds and lake, groves full with large trees, magnificent bridges over the many streams and the breath-taking buildings that still held the aura of the many glorious years of the Institute's history.

"It really is something. It isn't nearly as gaudy as some of the newer institutes. This is what is known as 'sophistication'." Reynolds curious eyes took in their surroundings while he spoke. I simply nodded along, that was when Bebe poked his head out from my jacket to also take a look around.

"Oh my word, Linley what is that?" Reynolds asked in shock while pointing at Bebe. So, for the rest of the way to the dorms I introduced Reynolds to my magical beast companion Bebe and shared some of the details of how we met. Suffice to say that by the time we reached our dorm (no.1987) Reynolds was passionately saying how it would not be long before he had a magical beast companion of his own.

"Hey, just put it down there. Right. Put the box down there. Put it down carefully. If you break it, there's no way you can afford to compensate for it!" From within dorm 1987, the clear voice of another youth could be heard. We glanced at each other, then entered curiously and immediately upon entering, saw several muscular men busily moving things about. The voice that had just spoken belonged to a gaudily dressed youth who was directing everyone from the centre.

Immediately upon seeing us, the young man's eyes brightened, and he excitedly ran over. "Haha, you guys are my dormmates, right? I've waited so long for you guys. Up till now, it's just been me here. Lemme introduce myself. My name is Yale, and I suppose I just barely qualify as a member of the Holy Union."

"What do you mean, you just barely qualify as a member of the Holy Union?" Reynolds mumbled, and then said, "My name is Reynolds. I'm from the O'Brien Empire."

"My name is Linley. I'm from the Holy Union's Kingdom of Fenlai." I smiled and introduced myself as well.

"Oh, Reynolds, Linley, I am so happy to see you fellows. Hey, where did my exercise equipment go?" Yale turned his head and stared at his servants.

"Exercise equipment? What do you need those for, are you planning to train as a warrior too?" Reynolds asks with a tone of curiosity. I knew that Yale had no such plans (until I hijack his training that is) but it still surprised me that this Reynolds was a lot more serious about his training.

Yale wrinkled his nose as he chortled. "Although I am a dignified magus, I still need to work out and have a good physique. Otherwise, how will I be able to seduce beautiful women? There're many beautiful women amongst the ranks of the magi. And the female magi of the Ernst Institute are not only pretty; they are also very classy. Plus, there's a lot of face to be gained by being able to brag to others that I have an Ernst Institute student as my girlfriend."

"Uh…" Reynolds was speechless. I was expecting that but still, to hear such a shameless declaration said out loud was something. I made plans to ensure that Reynolds at least won't follow the way of the pervert and become a deviant under Yale's influence, it was too late for Boss Yale though.

We talked some more and like most boys, after the talk about girls (mostly Yale mouthing off) we spoke a bit about ourselves, our age and established a sort of seniority rank based on it. There were also a few weird conversations like losing our virginity before 12 and such (again, blame Yale) but thankfully I managed to distract both Yale and the innocent Reynolds by introducing Bebe. Sigh, the lengths a big bro goes to ensure his cute innocent little bro remains as such.

Grandpa Doehring seems to be enjoying himself as he watches over us, he really is living vicariously through me. Well, there is not much he can do yet so I will let it slide, any way classes don't start until the day after so after picking out our rooms we opt to settle in before going out to get some lunch.

"Mm. You can leave now. Go back and tell my father that in the future, if there isn't something urgent, not to bother me. Oh, right. Remember…every year, he can't forget to transfer money into my magicite card. He should know very well that a magus needs a lot of money for his magistaff and socketable gems." Yale said casually before sending off his servants as we were now all set to head for lunch.

"Magicrystal card?" Reynolds stared at him in amazement. "The magicrystal card is only offered by the 'Golden Bank of the Four Empires', which all four of the great empires established together. I heard that the processing fees for requesting a card totals a hundred gold coins."

"Right on." Yale was quite knowledgeable about this. "The minimum starting balance for a magicrystal card is at least a thousand gold coins. But I'm afraid that a thousand coins wouldn't be enough to even sustain a month's worth of expenditures for me."

Upon hearing these words… "Rich guy." I sighed to myself.

Father gives me only a hundred gold coins each year for living costs. In fact, for me, a hundred gold coins was more than enough. After all, most commoners would only make twenty or thirty gold coins in wages after a year of hard labour.

"You really are a rich guy. My dad only gives me two hundred gold coins a year." Reynolds mumbled. "And he even said that he wants me to spend my time focused on studying magic."

"Just a hundred for me," Linley laughed. "But for a simple life, it's enough."

"Bah, we are bros now, my money is your money. If you run out, just come find me! In the future, we'll probably be living together for decades. We'll be bros for decades. Why quibble about 'yours' and 'mine'?" Yale was extremely expansive, but just as he finished speaking…

"Yeah, I don't think so. I have no desire to waste that much time, I have been told by reliable sources that these will be the most important few years in our life and after just a decade we will finish our growth spurt. We would be wasting all our potential if we don't work hard and make the best out of the next few years." I respond in the hopes to cut off the laziness of my dorm buddies.

"I hear you, my grandfather said much the same thing to me. It is good to know that I will have good friends in my dorm to train myself with, I'm George by the way, from the Yulan Empire. I will be your dorm mate as well, please take care of me." A new voice politely responds to my declaration and the speaker introduces himself. Looks like the gang is all here and we go through one final round of introductions.

"Linley, right? You look like you're training up your body too unlike many conventional magi. My grandfather also told me that to progress quickly as a mage one must also have a fit and strong body, do you think we could train together sometimes or maybe even spar a bit." George asks me again once all the introductions were done.

"Hey, don't forget about me guys. I've also been training my body and Grandpa Frey has even taught me how to wield a spear, so count me in for any training sessions." Reynolds interjects and George and I readily accept him into our fold. All three of us then slowly turn to the very dejected Yale who seems to be somewhat appalled to find himself in a dorm full of training junkies.

"Fine… I can see where this is going. If that is how it is going to be then as the senior most of this dorm there is no way I will be left behind, I will join you guys in training too. Can't let people say that the amazing Boss Yale of dorm 1987 is some weakling who depends on his dorm mates to do the heavy lifting." Yale relents and resigns himself for what is to come. Poor guy, has no idea what he has signed up for, none of them do. Hehe… don't worry my dear bros, your dear third bro will plan it all out so that you will all grow up big and strong.

Just then Yale, George and Reynolds all felt a cold shiver go down their spines. "Whatever, we can discuss and train later. I'm getting hungry, let's go get something to eat." Reynolds tries to push past the discomfort.

"Squeak squeak!" Bebe loudly declares his approval to the decision to go eat before anything else and we all move out. Conversations still continued as we made our way to a restaurant and I got a more in depth feel for the characters of my dorm mates.

Yale was somewhat lazy due to his upbringing as a spoilt young master but was indeed talented. Otherwise, there was simply no way for him to be admitted to the Ernst Institute. No matter what your background you just can't get into this place without meeting their minimum requirements after all. I wanted to make sure he made full use of his potential this time; he did suffer quite badly when deity level combatants invaded the Yulan plane one after another from the planner prison.

George was again another surprise like Reynolds and seemed to be more interested in training his personal strength than in canon (Again it reminded me of another CD fanfic The Ouroboros). That still didn't detract much from his character as like in canon he proved to be quite the gentlemanly social fellow and knew about many of the people in the academy. He did confirm for me the presence of the super talent that was Dixie, with his monstrous exceptional dual element affinity and spirit power at 68 times the average individual.

Reynolds, again besides his training as a warrior and general zeal for self-improvement proved to be quite childish like in canon. Looks like I have to take extra care in making sure he does not get led down some weird roads curtsey Boss Yale, hopefully I'll be able to rope George in to this and protect the pure and innocent Reynolds from the bad influence of the evil and perverted demon Yale.

We eventually had a good meal interspersed with conversation. Reynolds continually tried to get Bebe to approach him with the use of food but was met with limited success, after the first few sniffs and bites the little mouse seemed to make a face and turned his pitiful mug my way. I could only sweat drop a bit, looks like I really spoiled him a bit too much. Now with a bit of coaxing I fed him the food that Yale was treating us with, it was quite expensive after all and still pretty tasty.

"I bet everyone hasn't had a chance to get a good look at the campus yet, right? Let's go for a stroll and familiarize ourselves, shall we?" George smiled as he spoke up once we exited the restaurant. Just like that the 4 dorm mates, a young magical beast and a ghostly Saint Magus began exploring all there was to see of the Institute. While my dorm bros were more interested in just taking in the sights, oohing and aawwing at some gaudy decorations that listed the achievements of the academy's past graduates I was interested in other things like the location of the libraries, other educational facilities and workshops.

Grandpa Doehring was pleased with my focus on the important things that would help me, he was disdainful of the achievements of past graduates- "Nothing more than some promising latter-day youths. This guy is actually bragging about killing a Violet-Tattooed Black Bear? A Saint-level combatant who can only kill ninth level magical beasts and not Saint-level magical beasts can only be considered a newbie Saint-level." Were some of his grumblings upon reading about the legends of past graduates.

Just like that we spent the rest of that day and most of the following day getting to know each other as well as the institute we will be staying in for the foreseeable future. Thankfully I was able to see many facilities besides the library that I was interested in, there were some workshops for those interested in things like runes, formations and enchanting, there were also quite a lot of student groups dedicated to activities that weren't directly related to magical studies such as painting, sculpting, business management and even just socializing. The average student had quite a lot of free time after all and it was not practical to have everyone only focus on increasing their rank as magi all the time, a little diversity in experiences would do us wonders.

"It's so easy here. Just one class a day. Oh, Linley is multi-element, so he has more classes if he is interested." Yale sighed, already preparing to goof off. "But the Ernst Institute is really relaxed. If you want to attend class, you can. If you don't want to, you can skip."

George calmly smiled. "Yale, don't grow complacent. Although there aren't many formal requirements for students, every year, there will be other assignments and ability tests. Only if you advance a rank in power can you advance a grade. If you don't work hard, do you plan to stay here for a century? What's more, the Ernst Institute has a rule that if one does not become a magus of the sixth rank in sixty years, one will be expelled, no exceptions."

"That's right, just because no one will be there to force us to take our training seriously doesn't mean we can waste our time. At the end of the day the only thing that matters would be our own strength and achievements, this is a very harsh world and one cannot tell what fate has in store for each of us. We just have to be strong enough to protect ourselves and our loved ones." I add with a serious look hoping to convey the seriousness of the matter.

"Woah, that is intense Linley. I mean, I've had it easy and all so far but even I know it would be no good to not have any strength. Regardless if I ever slack off too much and somehow get expelled from the Institute, I won't have any face to show my face in public any more, again that is if my old man hasn't already killed me. Just imagining what he would do to me if I somehow got expelled is enough to cause me nightmares." Yale responds to us.

"That's right, I saw a lot of things on my travels to get here and I agree. If you don't have any strength of your own you are likely going to be taken advantage of or worse killed out there." Reynolds in a rare show of mature insight adds to the conversation.

"Now enough of all this serious and gloomy talk, we are all in this safe environment to nurture our strength so I say we get to it. Who's up for some training and a light spar." I call out to my dorm mates to get them out of this funk and get some training in. Everyone including Yale readily agrees and we get to training.

"Let us start with training our bodies a bit first and then a light spar, once that is done we'll get to meditating as I've found that it has the best results after a workout and also has a benefit of speeding up the recovery of our bodies." I explain, as the strongest (not that they know yet) I take charge and put forward a training plan. Nobody objects and we all start training; Yale as expected is the first to tire out despite being the eldest but George and Reynolds surprisingly held strong for quite a bit. Thankfully after seeing all this Yale seems to want to take his training more seriously if for nothing else than to save face as the eldest and unofficial 'Boss' of our dorm.

"Damn, third bro… pant… you are not even out of breath. I thought I was not so bad after having trained my body under Grandpa Frey for so long... pant." Reynolds exclaims in between heavy gasps, looks like I was right. This is an AU with Reynolds and George having more training and more importantly, a greater drive to get stronger.

"Yeah…pant… I was also quite proud of my achievements before…pant… but now it looks like I need to work harder…pant." George also gasps out.

"Groan… I hate all of you…" Yale is lying flat on his belly, face down. All he wanted was to train his body a bit to get a toned physic that would impress the ladies but no… he just had to get stuck in a dorm full of training nuts.

After everyone had recovered some, we proceeded to a light spar with no use of spells, I guess that was fine as the others were not that proficient at spell casting. Here I was more careful to limit my strength as it would be totally unfair for a 4th rank warrior to spar against 1st ranks like George and Reynolds and well… normal people like Yale. I still had my work cut out for me though as despite being quite a bit slower and weaker than me, both George and Reynolds seemed to be far more experienced in a straight up fight, they were especially proficient with wielding their chosen weapons of staff and spear respectively.

Looks like I will have to add that to my training, it won't matter how much raw strength I have if I cannot use it efficiently. Sure, just overpowering my opponents could work for now but honestly that is only useful when you fight those weaker than you, against opponents of the same level, you will need skill and if you want to punch above your weight class you'll need butt-loads of skill. I decide to put some more focus on sparing to improve my combat skills, I focus on hand to hand for now, I'm still not sure what type of weapon I want to focus on even if I have prior knowledge on how to get some powerful artifacts.

Yale is completely dead to the world right now; I swear I could see some kind of white-coloured tailed ball float out of his mouth as he lays on the ground unconscious after being beaten black and blue in our spars. He's still fine, I made sure with my magic and even cast a discreet life attribute healing spell on him so he's not actually dying. Regardless we all decide to just take a break for a while before proceeding to meditation training, we all went to bed content with our first day's practice together after that.

Classes officially started on 10th Feb and I was looking forward to them. Not only will I be able to learn about more of the elemental affinities I have but more importantly, this was the day of Linley's first meeting with Delia in canon. The class schedule was as follows-

For the academic calendar of the Ernst Institute, every year, classes are held over 10 months with an entire month at the end reserved for the annual school tournament follower by a month-long holiday. Again, every month the first 28 days had classes and only the last two days were free. The time table for each day being- Earth magic classes from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM in the morning, fire magic was from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM in the afternoon, water magic from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM in the afternoon, wind magic from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM in the afternoon, lightning magic from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM at night, and light magic from 9:30 PM to 11:30 PM at night. Predictably we had no classes for Darkness magic or the other high magics derived from the edicts.

I had a few questions about that, seriously who was the genius that scheduled the light magic classes in the dead of the night? I had light affinity too though I had hidden it for good reason and I always found that the concentration of light essences in the environment peaked around noon each day. It honestly made no sense to me why these people were not taking advantage of that fact to make the most of the class. Even if you reason out that the time was better spent meditating on your own to absorb the light essence to convert it to mageforce, it was not beneficial in the long run. The short duration of the increased concentration ensured that the rate of gathering mageforce did not remain that high always, it was only a pitiful boost in the grand scheme of things. That time would be better spent on actually studying the properties of light essence itself in class as they were easier to observe during that time.

Since it was the first day of classes I decided to attend the lectures of all 4 of my listed affinities to at least get a ley of the land. How to say this… it was quite lack lustre I must say, including the introductions for the new students, half of the class time was taken up by the lecturers tooting their own horn and bragging about how their elemental styles were better than all the rest. What is with people putting down the talents and abilities of others, warriors and mages having a spat, people of different elemental affinities having a spat, etc sigh, I guess that is just human nature, still it would do me some good not to fall for those same pitfalls.

I was so lost in my ranting that I wasn't quite paying attention when I walked in and sat down for my last class of the day which was for the wind style. That was until- "Hey, Linley, have you noticed? There's lots of cute girls amongst the wind-style students. Check it. That little blonde girl just smiled at you." Grandpa Doehring, floated next to me and pointed as he spoke. "Based on what that little blonde girl just said, her name seems to be Delia. Such a cute name. Based on my 1000+ years of life experience, when this little girl grows up, she'll be a beauty for sure. Linley, smile at her and build a good foundation. That way, in the future, you'll be able to advance the relationship."

I nearly did a spit-take, damn old man, he really is living vicariously through his disciple. I nearly broke my serious and studious image that I was trying to build up, regardless I did take a quick glance of Delia and boy was she a cutie. There was nothing sexual about my appreciation of her right now, gods she was only like 8 or something, come on. Regardless one could not deny that she was really cute, causing anyone to want to pinch her cheeks or pat her head. There was just some need to protect the little innocent kid from all the dangers of this cruel world that I felt when I looked at her.

In the end I returned a smile to her and pretended to focus back on class, I had no intention to push too far too fast on this, again we were only around 8 for crying out loud. I (both Linley and Transmigrator) also did not want some short fling or something, I was in it for the long haul and I most certainly wasn't like some other people who sought multiple partners and harems. Gods, some people have no idea how hard it is to maintain one steady relationship, I really don't know what they're thinking chasing after other girls and risk losing what they have, and if by some plot they do get a harem I pity them for what they have to face to get it all to work smoothly.

Like that my days continued, I had a schedule of attending 3 classes per week for fire and water magic, 1 class a week for earth and I made sure to attend all classes for wind magic. Hey just because I wanted to take it slow with Delia did not mean I was going to waste opportunities, regardless I did not go there just to ogle at her, within a week of classes I may have showed off a bit and started to help my class mates. I even helped out Delia, George and Reynolds as I shared some classes with them and naturally, I focused on helping them out more than others.

Needless to say, I got very busy and was just glad to have my dorm bros also tagging along; though in the case of Yale it was begrudgingly. We sort of got into a groove of motivating and pushing each other to do better so we all made good progress, I sort of became an unofficial tutor for my friends since I already showcased my knowledge in class. That gave me a good opportunity to impart some knowledge based on the sciences of the Transmigrator's world to them, it was nothing too complicated or world changing, just the basics that will also encourage them to pursue things from different perspectives.

I also had to debate with myself on exactly how much knowledge to share and what reason to give for knowing all this in the first place, I certainly could not teach them all I knew right off the bat, we needed a certain amount of trust between us first. In the end after a few more magic classes as a reference I decided to only stick to the basics for now and only simplify what we were already thought with a little more detail on how they could be expanded to other concepts or even different elemental styles. I was going to leave teaching stuff like yoga, secret spiritual essence enhancing techniques via sculpting, cooking, etc and the Blood Essence Refinement technique for later, at least give it a year so we all get to know each other better.

As for Bebe's training it was only some light sparring and a few educational training sessions disguised as games for now, he was still too young to understand complicated stuff like structured cultivation techniques or meditation and I had no idea how yoga would even translate to his beast physiology; need to work on that. So, other that straight up sparring it was games like tag in complex terrains and hide and seek as I felt that would best fit his darkness affinity and speed talent, I finally managed to use my cooking to properly entice the little guy to train properly.

As for my personal training, other than standard morning and evening warrior training along with class work I spent a lot of time in the library. I focused on the basics of understanding spell structures and what sort of effects they will have depending on the element; my otherworldly knowledge of science and math helped a great deal here. I also took to studying runes, formations and enchanting to see how they too affect magic and the natural essences in general. Since the library was pretty much open in daylight hours and free to use for students, I made full use of it as there were no restrictions all the way till knowledge pertaining to 6th rank anything ranked higher was not available to the general public. It was the basics I needed for now after all and I was pretty sure I could extrapolate and build my own magics for higher ranks not to mention I had a cheat plot armour spirit-guide-in-a-ring in the form of Grandpa Doehring. We had many discussions every day on magical theory and we both learned so much as we bounced ideas off each other.

The other good thing now was that I no longer had to hold myself back at just 3rd rank mage, no one here was going to look in that closely for me among the sea of students and with everyone here being magi it would be difficult to get a proper read on my level. The testing for promotion to the next higher class wasn't so rigorous either, one only had to demonstrate by successfully casting a spell of the next higher rank in order to be promoted. With the way ahead cleared up now, I naturally spent most of my nights meditating to get my mageforce to properly reflect my full power. I was rushing to reach rank 5 at least as that would open up the earth style spell- Super Gravity Field, with that I can push my warrior training to the next level as well, Dragon Ball style.

Either way, a month went by before I even knew it and after taking pity on Yale's half-dead-giving-up-on-life state, the rest of us bros from dorm 1987 decided to give him some slack and follow his lead to hit the city of Fenlai for a round of sightseeing on our first month end holiday together.

"Finally… I thought I was going to die." Yale dramatically exclaimed as we waited for the escorts he'd arranged for our city visit. "You guys have no mercy at all, especially Third Bro, you are a real slave driver." He continued ranting.

"Haha, it's for your own good Boss Yale. If I let you be just as you are, you will just goof off and laze about flirting with girls. No brother of mine will be a weak push over if I have anything to say about it." I respond with a smirk that caused a shudder to run across all my dorm bros. Hmmm… maybe I'm taking this too far…naaah.

"Really, and I thought that the instructors my family had hired for my training back home were harsh." Reynolds adds while reminiscing about home.

"Don't get me wrong Third Bro, I'm really grateful for your help as I've seen great progress over the last month but sometimes you get a little…carried away." George adds in diplomatically after seeing my guilty look. The other two catch on and also thank me for the help I was giving them.

"Fine fine, I got your point. I will tone down the training a bit." I relent and all three of them let out a sigh of relief. I suppose I may have ignored our difference in strength levels and innate physique and pushed them over the edge, I need to be more careful in having training plans more suited to their levels and physique.

"There they are." Yale suddenly shouted loudly. Grabbing our attention as he pointed towards the group that was headed our way, I guess calling it a full caravan with armed security would better describe what I was seeing instead of an escort group. From afar, there really was four carriages and hundreds of mounted guardsmen hurrying towards them en-masse. Above the formation, there were even seven or eight Griffons, and of the hundreds of riders, over ten were riding magical beasts such as the Vampiric Iron Bulls or Windwolves.

"Damn, your clan guard divisions are so formidable Yale." I couldn't help but feel shocked. The eyes of Reynolds and George also shone. I already knew Yale's identity and with the way he usually behaved even George and Reynolds had probably figured out he was some big-shot but still to see proof of it in this manner…

"Second Uncle, what took you guys so long?" Yale said unhappily. To the lead person who had stepped forward.

This 'Second Uncle' of Yale's immediately laughed and said, "Haha, did you grow impatient? Alright, your carriages are ready. The last one is filled with some goods; I'll have them clear them out so you have a place to sit."

"Cass, take three others with you. You are responsible for protecting young master Yale." This 'Second Uncle' called out and a tall bald man dismounted his ride and strode up to our party to introduce himself.

"Cass pays his respects to young master Yale and his friends." He introduced himself and next to me, Grandpa Doehring's eyes lit up and he said, "Linley, this brother of yours definitely is extraordinary. Based on how he dismounted and his eyes, I can feel that this Cass is an expert who is a good deal stronger than even your Uncle Hillman. In addition, that hawk on his shoulder should be a magical beast of the seventh rank – the "Blue-eyed Thunderhawk."

Yup, Yale is doing a totally shit job of trying to blend in and hide his identity. Why doesn't he just come clean already, it's not like we can't figure out the power and influence he holds even if we may not know his exact identity. Regardless we all boarded the carriage and set off to the Holy Capital, Fenlai City.

George and I still curtailed some of Yale's wilder tendencies otherwise the first place he would drag us to would be some high-class brothel or something. George and Reynolds were new to the city and even I was not all that familiar despite being from the kingdom so we did the normal tourist thing and visited all the city's highlights. The main attraction was naturally the Proulx Gallery, I got to see the various art works on display and Grandpa Doehring got to diss 95% of all the sculptures in the building.

"Terrible, terrible. How can people have the face to bring out artwork of this quality to show others?" Doehring Cowart said unhappily, only I could hear him of course.

"Relax Grandpa Doehring, this is only the main hall for simple works. There is still the hall of experts and hall of masters to see ahead, though I must admit a lot of these works seem so uninspired even to me." I communicate mentally with him. I am no art aficionado by any length of the term but Grandpa Doehring has been teaching me in the ways of his straight chisel school of sculpting since a few days after I entered the Ernst Institute so I guess I had some say.

It was only basic lessons so far as I didn't even have a chisel, I need to buy one on this trip after all. He only guided me on how to feel out the boulders and rocks in general with my spiritual essence so far as well as telling me to focus on increasing my wrist strength so that when I do start to actually sculpt something, I'll have an easier time with it. Thankfully due to my high ranks as both a warrior and mage the basics were easy to pick up on and I was very eager to begin the next stages.

"Not bad. These at least can be considered accomplished." Grandpa Doehring sighed with praise once we moved to the hall of experts where the sculptors were of some renown displayed their works and each had an individual studio. "But compared to the works of Proulx let alone my works, there's still quite a way to go."

After we all had our fill exploring the various works in the expert's hall, we moved on to the hall of masters. It must be said that to reach the pinnacle of any field was an arduous task and few manage to persevere till the end and the same could be said of stone sculptors with few reaching master class. Most masters had at most 10 pieces to their name that they could somewhat with confidence say were their best works, all in all there were no more than 30 pieces displayed from the dozen or so master sculptors right now.

"Oh, not bad, not bad. I didn't expect that in five thousand years, the art of stone-sculpting would reach such a height." Grandpa Doehring said in amazement. "If these can improve a bit more, they will be able to approximate Proulx's level." I could only shake my head at that, even to me these sculptures were breath taking but that was the only reaction the old man had. I seriously wanted to see some of Proulx's works now or even Grandpa Doehring's own to see exactly where he got off saying that these pieces were still a bit lacking.

All in all, it was a nice and relaxing day of leisure, I even got to buy a straight chisel of good quality so that I could finally start training as a sculptor as well. We ended the day with a meal at a high-class restaurant sponsored by Yale, and since he was footing the bill there was little George or I could say about the choice of restaurant. That was how we found ourselves in the Jade Water Paradise that night for dinner, don't get me wrong, the general ambiance and the food were great but… this was the kind of place that specialized in consort services and doubled as a high-class brothel. Damn this place made me so uncomfortable, stupid horny Yale, stupid old laughing Grandpa Doering, he was enjoying my squirming a bit too much…