Clap, clap.

"That was great!" Nico shouted. He was sure Instructor Lingo was tone-deaf, but at least it was interesting. "Much better than the orientation ceremony."

The other students followed and Instructor Lingo bowed to the audience.

He then provided a last piece of serious advice before he ended the tour for the day.

"Cultivalogy is the study of cultivation," Instructor Lingo explained. "It is the basis for every cultivator in the world. The purpose of cultivation is to increase the spirit root and body using meridians. We have the advantage over magicians in that our physical bodies are stronger.

Cultivators focus on spiritology, the study of spirit force. It is the basis of cultivators' attacks and techniques. Spirit force can be equally strong or stronger than magic. The key to unleashing spirit force is strong physical control and meditation.

Magic, or technically Manatics, is a large branch of study that includes Symbology, Magicology, and Alchemy. Symbology is the study of mana that is found in nature, divided up into six main discourses. Magicology is the study of magic to increase the spirit root and auras. Alchemy is the practice of creating objects from mana.

As students in the Cultivation Branch, you are not restricted to attend lectures from other branches. In fact, it is highly encouraged for you to attend Magic Branch lectures. You are only restricted from entering their Windel Magic Library. Likewise, they are restricted from entering the Windel Cultivation Library."

Nico raised his hand. "Is there a reason why there is a restriction? Why can't a person study both?"

"A person can learn both, but it is not recommended," Instructor Lingo responded. Instructor skimmed through his student list and picked out a random name. "Take Julio for example. His shield spiritual root is level 3, has 2 meridians, and 1 aura. The spiritual root is like the spirit storage of the body. Without a spiritual root, there is no way to store the spirit inside the body. It is required for both cultivation and magic.

Meridians allows your physical body to be enhanced and enable you to use spirit force.

Auras allows your body to connect with mana in the outside world and cast spells.

The more meridians and auras you can open, the faster the spiritual root will grow.

Julio has 2 meridians open, this indicates that his nature is more physically inclined. His spirit root is also a weapon type, so it is easier and faster to guide him toward the cultivation path. In 3-6 years, with hard work, it is possible for him to achieve Condensation stage with Shield Spirit Level 10, 6 meridians, and 1 aura.

However, if he study both cultivation and magic, it could take him 6-10 years to reach Condensation with Shield Spirit Level 10, 4 meridians, and 3 aura.

There are very few geniuses that can handle training both branches.

There are also scholars that still debate over the usefulness in the late stages. For example, is 50 meridian and 1 aura better than 26 meridians and 25 auras? There is no clear cut answer, as there are always advantages and disadvantages to all types of methods.

Many academies adopt this style of teaching because it reduces the amount of students who are disillusioned by their own talent and end up wasting their real talent."

The students nodded their heads as though they understood.

"An-i-more quessstioooooons?"

Crickets.

Crickets.

Nico raised his hands. "What are the cultivation stages?"

"The cultivation stages go from gathering, condensation, foundation, knight, lord, king, and then emperor."

Most everyone seemed to already know that except for Nico.

"Is it the same with magicians?"

"It's similar in the beginning stages."

"So gathering stage students wear blue, condensation stage students wear green, and foundation students wear red? What do knight stage wear?"

"Once you become a knight stage cultivator, you become a graduate of the Academy."

"I see."

"All right, since there are no more questions. Feel free to look around the different clubs available," said Instructor Lingo. "Report to the Cultivation Branch Courtyard tomorrow before dawn."

Jack and Nico walked around the different booths.

There were drama clubs, music clubs, art clubs and so many different clubs that they couldn't even begin to count. While they may seem like the average school clubs, not everyone have drama clubs that could create magical illusions. Music club members could play tunes that heal and artworks that seem to come alive.

"Wow, these are amazing, can we learn these things in the clubs?" Nico asked the seniors.

"Unfortunately, no, clubs are simply for students to perform and display their skills," replied the seniors. "We are not allowed to teach student."

"That's too bad..."

Nico and Jack continued walking around.

Jack eyes lit up when he saw a horse.

"There's a Ranch club!" He shouted excitedly.

Jack wanted to touch the horse, but the senior classroom warned him. The manahorses weren't as friendly to humans as regular horses.

"Too bad there aren't manahorses in the Rinlin area. Do you know of any around the region?"

The senior wasn't too familiar with the Rinlin area and shook his head. "Some of the better horses are tamed from the west and southern region. I'm not sure about the quality in the eastern region. There might be some, but they are not as well known."

Jack stayed at the Ranch Club while Nico continued browsing around the different displays.

Nico wasn't particularly interested in any clubs if he couldn't learn from them. He was more interested in the Windel General Library.

The General Library was a two-story building with many general knowledge books and was open to all the students. There were herbology books, mineralogy books and many academic books. The contents were not in depth, but they were more than what Nico had known.

"Why do you think the Kuro symbol is a fire symbol?" the elderly man asked.

Nico couldn't say he intrinsically knew what the symbol meant.

"Doesn't lightning produce fire sometimes?" asked Nico. "I was wondering if one of these symbols represent fire."

"Hm… You're right," responded the man. "But it is interesting that you have labelled it right next to the Kuro symbol. There are many scholars that debate the classification of Kuro."

"How do scholars know about these symbols anyway?"

"Mainly through meditation. When you reach mid-Foundation stage, you will begin to feel the symbols. Knight stage practitioners can feel the basic form and Lord stage practitioners can begin to decipher the lines."

"How about the symbols that doesn't exist in nature?"

"Two ways, experimentation with manas and encounters with manabeast terrors. Magician can use auras to create original constructs, but it's equivalent to drawing blind. Luck is a huge factor. Only emperor stage practitioners are capable of such experimentation. Lastly, manabeasts terrors can create spells that scholars try to study and emulate."

"How about the Persona symbols?" asked Nico.

"Through Persona Stones. They are collected and studied throughout the centuries."

"Ah, I think I understand now," said Nico. Nico closed the book and gave it to the elderly man. "Thank you sir for the guidance."

"Hm… I don't know if I have provided you with much help. Are you a magic branch student?"

Nico shook his head. "My name is Nico, I'm from the cultivation branch," Nico introduced himself.

"I am Professor Stance."

Ah, a professor. Nico bowed down three times.

"It's alright, I'm not in uniform. Thank you for the book." Regular staff of the academy usually wear plain clothing.

The Professor Stance took the book and departed.

"Hm.... Now where is the exit?" The professor looked around.

"Professor, the door is that..."

Professor Stance exited from the large window.

"...way." Nico watched as the elderly Professor walked away. Good thing they were on the ground floor.

Nico stayed to study and left shortly after.

The next morning, Jack and Nico reported back to Instructor Lingo.

"Today, I am going to test your stamina," Instructor Lingo stated.

Without much prompt, Instructor Lingo paced around the campus as the other students followed.

They ran around the entire courtyard several times.

49 laps, 50 laps, 51 laps...

"How much longer do we have the run?" The kids complained and panted.

"Come on you bunch of wussies! You run like a bunch of toddlers!" Shouted Lingo.

"But we're only 7!" They shouted back.

"I'm not here to babysit! Quit ya whining and run!"

130 times around the court, one down... 131 times around the court, two down... 132 times around the court....

Children continued to fall.

After running over 50 km, only Nico and Jack remained. They were the two oldest boys, so it was expected.

Instructor Lingo sped up his pace.

"How much longer?" huffed Jack.

"Maybe until noon?" Nico looked at the clock tower, it was still nine.

After another 10km, Jack was beginning to breathe heavily, but he still continued.

"You should stop when you reached your limit," Instructor Lingo advised. This was already beyond his expectation. He did not expect the two students to follow him for so long.

Huff. Huff. Puff!

Jack dropped after another 10km.

Instructor Lingo was impressed that Nico was able to continue. According to the student list, Nico was the student with a chaotic spiritual core at level 6. He sped up his pace again, going 30km/hr.

After 100 km, Instructor Lingo observed Nico, who was still relatively relaxed.

He's on par with condensation stage stamina, Instructor Lingo noted.

By noon, they had ran close to 130km. At that point, Instructor Lingo was out of time, it was already lunch break.

Since the cafeteria wasn't open during orientation week, they had pre-made sandwiches from the student hall.

They reconvened in the a small courtyard after lunch break.

"Speed test is up next," Instructor Lingo took out a flat round crystal. "I'll measure the time as you sprint."

The students each took turn to sprint.

For the evasion test, they dodged series of softballs thrown by Instructor Lingo.

Nico and Jack both passed. Jack showed off his flips and acrobatic moves.

The last test was archery. They each had 3 tries to hit a target 50m away.

Jack stared at Nico's target.

"Wow, one thing I'm better than you at," Jack commented proudly.

"Shattup, never use a bow and arrow before," Nico stared at all his missed targets.

It couldn't be helped, Rooster wasn't proficient with archery and Nico was already learning about other weapons. Weapon training usually require more than a year of training for each type. For example, a longsword training was different from a short sword training.

Also, nearly all the students had missed their targets. Jack was the only one with three clean hits.

Later that day, Instructor Lingo met with Professor Clemson and Quin.

"Professor, you're right about the boy, he's really good," said Instructor Lingo. "Better than good, he's probably on par with a lot of condensation stage students."

Professor Clemson and Quin examined the results.

"He's more well-rounded than a lot of chaotic spirit root cultivators," commented Professor Clemson.

"He's recommended by Wurrick, Sir Yuer and Lady Eliana," said Professor Quin. "They are all military personnel, so it makes sense for him to have good combat sense."

"Any other student you recommend?" asked Professor Clemson.

"Jack is also good. Wind level 4, 3 meridian and 1 aura," said Instructor Lingo. "I don't know if he will be able to keep up with the other students, but he's good on his feet and has high accuracy."

"Who's going to be his cultivation professor?" asked Professor Clemson.

"Professor Teru," replied Instructor Lingo.

"Okay, we'll keep an eye out."

Nico returned to an empty dorm room after dinner.

Ashe went to visit the library, Jack went off to train, and no one had seen Vincent the entire day.

Nico walked out onto the balcony. Snowy and Junior greeted him with licks and hugs. They haven't seen their master for the majority of the day. Polar raised his paw to say hello and went back to nap like an old grandpa.

The balcony was lined with potted manaherbs that Nico had taken from the inn.

Nico sat down into a meditative form and hugged Junior while Snowy played on top of his head.

Nico took out the Boost Strength Pill and stared into it. It had been a couple of days, but he had yet to understand anything about Alchemy Pills. Even with Minko's vision, he could not see any Shadow Symbols embedded within the pill. There were strong mana energy within, but it was difficult to see. Nico wondered if his level was too low.

Nico stored the pill in his breast pocket and watched the distant sun slowly burning the clouds and sky with shades of reds and purples. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the surrounding. He could feel the different symbols floating around. Even without Minko's vision, he could feel them.

The shadow symbols felt like shapeless blobs.

Nico breathed in the air and some symbols naturally entered his body.

After acquiring the manaroot, it was easier for him to absorb mana directly from the environment.

It was better to absorb mana orally, but daily meditation helped him to train his senses. One major disadvantage of Minko's vision was that it was only active at night.

As the mana entered his body, he broke the symbols into lines and neatly looped the lines around a ball of energy in his head.

Before entering the Academy, Nico had tried to form another manaroot in his head using a similar method used to create the chaos root, but a little neater this time. The ball that Nico was currently forming was smaller, but denser than the chaos root.

He felt that it was beginning to stabilize.