27 School Days

The next day Van woke up and started his classes. During the Fundamentals of Magic, he learned about the Magical Core that every mage had. He learned how to create a mental space with the core at its center. He had to deviate from the teachings and make the core his floor due to its size, but it all worked the same.

The space in the mind was called the Sea of Consciousness, and it was extremely important to the mages. The sea of consciousness expanded too rapidly it could crack and cause death to the mage or worse, brain death. Living life as a vegetable was a slow way of dying because that person was doomed to be abandoned on the streets in the wild.

He also learned that the size and density of a person's core go through phases that start with gaseous, then transition to liquid, then to a solid. Once each stage of the core got to a certain size the mage would be able to condense it and turn it into the next stage. Once the core was solid the gaseous state would start over and surround the solid core. The larger the solid core the higher ranked a mage would become.

There were 10 total ranks and they were, Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Amethyst, Jade, Ruby, Emerald, Diamond, and Opal. Non Magical adventures also had these ranks but they were graded differently of course.

Each rank also has 3 ranks inside them, Tier 1-3. These would be designated by black lines running across the plates that everyone received when they went and got tested for their rank. The tiers designated the ratio of the different states the core was in.

Tier 1 had mostly gaseous mana, Tier 2 had mostly liquid, and Tier 3 was mostly solid. This could all be seen by special core viewing crystals at the different guilds and the Acrance Colleges.

The way that mages were able to increase their rank was through cultivation. there were different ways for people to cultivate their power, the most popular one was to purchase Meditate and enter the sea of consciousness, and study glyphs of power and knowledge. doing this would constantly draw in magical power and add to their core. the core would then expand and force the sea of consciousness to expand, it would grow until it started to cause strain to the mage. At that time the mage would attempt to condense the core to its next stage.

In the Fundamentals of casting everyone learned different tier-one spells according to their affinity. They then learned what the chants to cast those spells were, and how to read the language the spells were written in. Van was extremely bored in this class, he didn't need to learn any of what was being taught. He already knew the ancient language of the elves as if it were his first language. He also didn't need to learn the chants since he could cast chant-less.

To keep up appearances he sat through class and did as instructed. to his surprise and relief no matter how strong his magic power was or how much MP he had, tier-one spells were just that. Granted his spells were the strongest a tier-one spell could possibly get.

The Fundamentals of Cultivation was a class dedicated to teaching how to cultivate in a more direct manner. Essentially each student was instructed precisely how to cultivate then they were to meditate the entire class period. Their progress was entirely up to them. They wouldn't be tested in this class, but if someone slacked off they would regret it later when the school had tournaments.

The teacher hit a nerve with the stronger students by stating that if they slacked off the weaker students would beat them. he then told the weaker students that if they worked hard that they could outclass the stronger students and beat them in the competitions and in life.

Van had multiple affinity fundamental classes he went to. After the first week, he found them to be an absolute waste of his time. He got the basics and started to experiment on his own with his other affinities. He found Chaos magic the hardest to grasp and Summoning magic to his favorite.

He attended the general education classes because it was required to graduate the first year. he learned nothing in reading and writing. when it came to mathematics, he technically had a Ph.D. in physics with a focus on nuclear physics. so he was good on the math front.

With the little spare time Van had, he had discovered that the gravity on this world was damn near the same as Earth. He would also start doing things that would cause the other students and even the teachers to question him.

He would sit outside for hours each night and record the positions of different stars. and he noticed a few other planets in this solar system. He also recorded a star that barely moved. When he presented his findings to a teacher they laughed in his face and showed him a star chart that had everything he "discovered" and more. he then started to reference different maps to try and find is latitude and longitude of the world.

Camellia would join him on those nights and he would help her learn to read and write. She was a fast learner and by the end of the first half of the school year, she was reading and writing fluently. Math was a different beast for her. She struggled to no end. As much as Van tried to help her understand she just wouldn't get it.

Van had started to experiment with his summoning magic to see what the limits were. sitting in his room he would try summing different things. he realized that he would have to be able to visualize the object he wanted to summon down the last detail. he tried to summon a wooden spoon and it was over three meters long and a full meter wide. Measurements were a requirement for summoning he decided.

He decided to summon a few measuring devices that he used on earth. Van sat at his desk and clearly visualized a 30' machinists tape measure, Vernier Calipers, and a metal ruler. He measured this world's measuring devices and laughed at how inaccurate things were.

His school social life was something that any Otaku would envy. he was the target of affection from almost every female in the school. They wanted Van to become their betrothed because of his magical prowess. With his affinities, his future children would have a high chance of being extremely powerful. Van had other things on his mind most of the time so he didn't pay them too much attention.