"Cute," Lone commented when he saw Soph holding a staff the same size as her body. She also had a big witch's hat on her head while her free arm held the rest of her new clothes.

Lone very quickly inspected the gear of his friends and was happy to see that they all had items that were better than they were intended to be. Clearly, they'd all used Clicker's power to find the ideal set of items for themselves.

Lone was welcomed back, but he still had to wait a bit longer for the rabbitkin and the boisterous young man to return. After they were back, Swind came shortly after them, but he was holding two staves and both a set of robes and a set of clothes.

Teacher Rax frowned. "I assume that the second set of supplies is for Student Rachel, yes?"

Swind nodded a bit sheepishly. "I, uh, I wanted to make sure that she would have them as soon as she is fit to learn again."

Teacher Rax shook his head. "Return them. She shall have a chance to choose her own staff or wand and her own robes or clothes when she is ready to, as you said, learn."

"But... Teacher Rax, with all due respect, I have a very discerning eye when it comes to items." Swind was right. Not only did he have Clicker's power like most of the other Wanderers did, but he also possessed his racial skill, Lemurian's Sixth Sense.

Again, Teacher Rax shook his head. "It is the rules. She must choose her own supplies, however, should you be free when she is in good health, then, by all means, you will be more than welcome to help her select her items."

"Ah, oh, I, uh, I wasn't aware of that. I'll return them now then. Sorry..." Swind was only trying to do what was best for Rachel, but he felt rather guilty now at having wasted everyone's time.

"Stupid non," the challenging young human muttered under his breath disdainfully.

Both Lone and Teacher Rax shot the boy a dangerous glare, though for different reasons.

"I will not tolerate speciesism in my presence, Student Miro. Make a comment like that again, and I promise, you shan't ever set foot in The Academy ever again in your entire life," Teacher Rax threatened very seriously.

"Ah, uh, um... S-Sorry." The boisterous boy - Miro - was quite clearly very shaken at having been chided so firmly for just calling Swind what he was, a non. Clearly, he didn't understand the wrongness of his speciesist slur.

"I should hope so," Teacher Rax replied. "Now, Swind. Hurry up and return those," he said as he gestured to the staff and robes meant for Rachel. "We are still very much so in a hurry."

"Of course," Swind replied instantly then left to do as he was told.

Lone folded his arms across his chest and he wagged his tails slightly in anger. 'Teacher Rax seems cool, but is he an exception? All of the other teachers and professors during the test didn't seem to care when the whole fuckin' crowd was discriminating against Swind, Rachel, myself, Breena and Eolande. Hell, even that rabbitkin got shit when she passed.'

He was left to mull over that line of thought for 10-minutes before Swind returned and Teacher Rax then led them out of the building and to the assembly hall on the eastern side of the island which The Academy called its home.

"These are our seats," Teacher Rax said as he gestured to an empty set of ten chairs in the front row of the assembly hall.

It was almost difficult to hear the man over how much idle chatter was filling up the room. As far as Lone could see, there were at least 4,000 students all sitting in their own little groups.

'The tension from the different species is almost palpable...,' Lone thought as he glanced between the two main groups.

In a corner of the assembly hall could be seen about 600 demis all seated next to one another. Every other seat was filled by a human, but very few people between the two groups were talking to one another.

'Well, I don't see any discrimination going on besides the obvious segregation, though I'd be willing to bet that the demis didn't clump up together like that by choice. I guess everyone's a bit intimidated by the several hundred teachers and professors? I'm a bit intimidated myself. I wonder if I could beat them all myself? I somehow doubt it. So many of them are triple-S-rankers, while a nice minority are even X-ranked, double-X-ranker, and even triple-X-ranked...' Of course Lone would be the one to immediately wonder if he had the skills needed to murder every powerful person in the room before they could murder him.

Lone stopped having idle thoughts and found a seat. He wrapped his tails around his front so as to not bother Teacher Rax who was on his left and Eolande who was on his right.

Naturally, Soph had ignored the two empty seats - one of which was for her and the other which was for the absent Rachel - and she placed herself on Lone's lap and in between her precious kingdom of fluffiness.

Teacher Rax seemed to scowl at this, but he didn't say anything, so while it was a bit inappropriate, it didn't exactly seem to be against the rules.

"Hey, Teacher Rax," Lone suddenly called, breaking the silence of their group.

"Hmm? Curious about something, are you, Lone?" the man asked in response.

"Yeah. I picked Alchemy for Beginners as one of my classes, so I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about it? You seem like a cool guy, and you're one of the subject's teachers, so..." Teacher Rax struggled to hide his pride at Lone's words.

"Ah, of course. I don't mind giving you a brief summary of the alchemic arts as we wait for everyone to arrive," Teacher Rax happily replied. "Well, to first start us off, I have to ask you, what exactly is alchemy? I know, it sounds like a simple question with a simple answer, but in truth, there are many faces to the magical art known as 'alchemy'..."

Lone enjoyed listening to Teacher Rax speak about something that he clearly adored and loved to teach. It reminded himself of, well... of himself.

Lone wasn't the biggest fan of his former pupils nor of his co-workers, but the subject that he taught - history, well, that... that, he loved. It only went to show how much he respected history as a whole when putting into consideration the fact that he had used one of his theory slots on a class that spent most of its time doing nothing but teaching the history of magic.

'Man, he seems strict, but Teacher Rax is a good guy who clearly loves his craft. It's hard not to respect that,' Lone thought as everyone in the massive assembly hall quietened down.

All idle conversations stopped when a short girl who looked to be roughly 15-year-old stepped onto the stage at the front of the hall.

She was wearing elegant robes and Lone could feel the magic in the air around her with nothing but his raw senses. Probing her soul lightly, he was surprised to see that she, shockingly, was the owner of an A-ranked soul - the best quality of a soul that he'd ever seen to date.

Another thing of note was that her student badge was very different from Lone's. His was a striking bronze item that was lightly enchanted to return to whoever marked it with their blood should it leave their side, but hers, well, hers was a dazzling gold with a white shield in its centre instead of the normal hat and staff insignia.

'That thing has, like, what, 15 enchantments on it? How is that possible? And her soul... She's only a C-ranker, but not only is her soul so powerful but her mana's strong enough for me to feel it all the way over here...' Glancing over at Eolande, he could see that she had also noticed the ridiculousness of the girl's golden and white badge.

'Um, Lone... That girl has as much mana as you do. M-Maybe a little bit more?' Soph said via The Summoning Room's telepathy since she didn't want to speak in such a silent room.

Lone nodded in acknowledgement then rubbed Soph's head with his chin. 'She must be an important student, huh? I would expect nothing less of the supposed best magical school on the continent. Let's listen to what she has to say, shall we?'

'Y-Yeah,' Soph replied shyly as she buried herself even further into Lone's tails.

The girl on the stage clasped her hands behind her back and slowly scanned the room, only lingering on the new group of students for a few moments more than everyone else.

She nodded her head then spoke. "While most of you know who I already am, for the benefit of our new freshmen, I shall introduce myself."

She looked at Teacher Rax who was politely smiling at her and she smiled back then said, "I am the headstudent, Alice Fairwaye. I lead the Sentinals - an academy faction under Headmaster Erion's personal command. You'll come to learn more about factions during your combat classes, so don't worry about that for now. I hope you each have a wonderful experience as you learn here at The Academy."

She was incredibly composed for a teenager, maybe even more so than Hazel, Lone thought.

Alice turned her attention away from the newest freshmen and Teacher Rax before she said, "This year, I have three things to announce."

She held up a closed fist and extended a single finger. "Firstly, all students who participated in the search for the new freshmen and Headmaster Erion's personal disciples, Lone Immortus and Sophie Vladimirovich, shall all be given permission to attend a single day-long lecture of Headmaster Erion's. His disciples and their friends are also granted access to this lecture. The lecture shall take place 2-months from today."

Many surprised and excited voices were raised from this announcement.

Headmaster Erion only held a lecture once every 50-years but his next scheduled one wasn't happening for another 33-years, so this meant that this would be a bonus lecture.

It was easy to see why everyone was excited about this. While it was difficult to acquire a seat to one of Headmaster Erion's lectures, it was an undisputed fact that everyone who listened to one would leave with new insights into the essence of magic.

After waiting for everyone to quiet down again, Alice raised a second finger. "Secondly, The Academy shall be participating in the continent-wide School Gathering Tourney, and we have obtained five team slots. One of these team slots has been reserved for the Sentinals. A contest to determine the other four teams shall take place during winter. The exact time and specifications shall be announced in 3-months."

Just like with the prior announcement, this one also sent the crowd wild, even some of the professors and teachers lost their cool after hearing this news.

Headmaster Erion had never once thrown The Academy's name into the hat for the continent-wide competition due to not wanting to waste resources and time on it needlessly.

Regardless of why he had backpedalled on that mindset now, almost everyone was excited and felt their competitive spirits light up.

Alice smiled then raised a third and final finger once the assembly hall had calmed down again. "And finally, Archon Milos of the magical empire, Petroleum, shall be joining the staff of The Academy as a senior professor. He should be arriving within the next 30 to 40-days."

"What?"

"That nosy Archon is finally leaving the magic empire?"

"We're finally going to get another professor with knowledge of space magic... We have far too few of those..."

"I hope he decides to hold a class on dwarven magic. Being one of the only three teachers that know anything on the subject is very stressful."

A lot of the students didn't know who Archon Milos was, but every single teacher and professor were more than happy to receive the news of his employment.

He had been invited to join The Academy over 6,000-years ago, but he had never accepted nor declined the invitation. He simply ignored it in favour of his own research.

Normally, Headmaster Erion would have rescinded the offer under such circumstances, but for some reason, he was incredibly confident that the eccentric old Archon would eventually jump at the chance to teach at The Academy.

Considering that Archon Milos had, in fact, jumped at the chance now only went to enforce the long-running and somewhat baseless rumour that Headmaster Erion had a unique bloodline magic that granted him the ability to peer into the future.

Alice simply nodded once again then said, "Thank you all. I look forward to spending another year learning in this magnificent academy with each and every one of you. Headmaster Erion shall now say a few words."

And with that said, Alice left the stage while a very ordinary-looking man with distinctly Asian features stepped up onto it.

Lone's eyes narrowed. 'That's definitely him... He looks the exact same as he did in his projection almost 2-years ago... Headmaster Erion...'