Chapter 4: Mirth Academy

Upon arrival, Teo became excited.

He anticipated two things that made him really eager to see.

One of these was his sister.

Teo was deeply attached to his sister. She often played with him and even helped teach him how to read. When their parents went to work, she would be the one who spent time with him. He really missed not seeing her for such a long time.

The other thing that Teo couldn't wait to see was the library. His love of books made him the village bookworm. Unfortunately the village didn't offer much materials to read.

Teo had already read most of the books that he could get his hands on. He even repeatedly read so much that he memorized some of them.

He had learned from his siblings' letters that the academy's library was the largest in the whole prefecture.

As soon as he stepped out of the carriage, he noticed many other children forming in lines. The line of children headed towards one of the buildings and many robed men guided the children towards one of the tables.

Ishwin lead the children to follow the line, after that, the other Char village guards and him waited to the side, watching over them as they neared the table.

Slowly the crowd of children went through the table one by one. The staff members sorted each children, recorded their results from their respective villages and passed them a small bag.

....

After a long wait, Teo finally reached one of the tables.

"Please hand me your divination results" A middle aged man in charge said to Teo

Teo pulled out the piece of paper with his results and gave it to the middle aged man.

"Teo of Char Village, Teo Char is it?"

Teo nodded

Once he saw the rest of the paper, his face became very shocked and confused.

It took a while before he could regain his calm. He recorded Teo's result and got a small bag and gave it to Teo

After receiving the bag, he followed the other children being led by other academy staff members. The other kids from the same village stayed together. Windle and Lia caught up to Teo as well.

Once Ishwin and the other guards saw the children from their village pass through safely, they headed back to the carriages and headed home.

....

The area the children were lead to was a large area with many places to sit on. In front of the area was a large platform and a podium at the center of it.

Most children who came together sat together. They all waited and chatted amongst one another as other children were still being processed.

Some of them took a peek inside the bags that they received; others decided to wait until later

After some time, all the students were processed and the staff members who recorded all the students came towards the platform.

An elderly man walked up on stage and stood behind the podium.

With a loud voice he spoke:

"I welcome you all to Mirth Academy. I am Elon Rizon, headmaster of this academy. I hope that you will all work hard during your stay here"

He looked around the crowd of newly arrived students and continued

"For the past century, the Imperial family has ordered that all residents of the empire that are 10 years of age would be educated and trained.

You will all be taught and trained for exactly 10 years.

During your first 2 years, you will have to take a mandatory course. This should be a great benefit to you all. It will help you grow intellectually which will help our empire to flourish.

For the first year, non-elementalists can choose an elective course while elementalists have to take a course specially for them. By the second year, non-elementalists can have 2 elective courses while elementalists will have an elective courses.

Attendance is mandatory for those mandatory courses, and you will have to make up for the classes you have missed. If you missed too many classes, you will be punished according to the academy's rules.

Although it might seem uneven, you can take elective courses after your fourth year in the academy."

He took a pause and drank a glass of water that was placed behind the podium, and then he continued once more

"On your third year you will start on your combat training. This will continue until the fourth year. Although attendance is not mandatory in these combat training, there will be a physical test and a combat test at the end of the year. If you do not pass, you will have to repeat the same training for the next 2 years. The second time around, your attendance will become mandatory."

The head master paused. Inside he was tired because he had announced this speech yearly. Although he was tired of explaining it every year, it was his duty as headmaster, so he did not show any signs of being tired.

He took a deep breath and continued the drawn out explanation

"Once you have successfully finished your combat training, you will have 2 to 4 years to freely choose what you want to learn. Of course the number of years you have will depend on how fast you finish your combat training. If you have to repeat it again, you will only have 2 years of elective courses, otherwise you will have 4.

Your last 2 years will be spend outside the academy. You will be grouped into teams and will have to explore the northern wilderness. An elder from the academy will accompany each group. Although there will be some danger, all other academies within the empire will be exploring at the same time."

Each new student listened intently to the headmaster's explanations. Some even wrote down each and every word. Teo on the other hand just listened to the explanations. It was not too hard for him to understand the headmaster.

"Your classes will start within a month from now. You can use this time to familiarize yourself around the academy and plan your schedules.

Each of you are given a bag. Each bag have several items in them. There is a student handbook within the bag. The academy rules and regulations are listed within that handbook, be sure to familiarize yourself with it. It also has guides about many things within the academy.

There is also a stone that looks like this"

The headmaster spoke as he held a gray stone. It was so small that others could not see it clearly.

"This is an identification stone. You will need to put a drop of your blood into the stone. This stone will be used as keys to your rooms as well as a way to identify you as a student from the academy.

The residential area is on the eastern district. You should all register a room before anything else. Once again, Welcome to Mirth academy, this will be the place where you can decide your future"

After his long speech, the headmaster left the stage and many of the staff members direct the students to the direction of the residential area.

....

The new students slowly moved towards the eastern district.

Within the eastern district there were several small but steep mountains, four of which were carved in and used as the student's residence.

Each students were given a cave, each cave had a stone door with strange patterns on it carve on it. Students were instructed to choose any open cave they wish. All the caves that were blocked entrances were occupied caves, while caves with unlocked entrances were unoccupied ones.

Each caves had a small hallway and two simple rooms.

One of the rooms was a bedroom. It contained a simple bed and a shelf. The other room had a desk, a chair and a few shelves. There were no windows in the whole cave, but there were light stones implanted within the walls of the other room, while the bedroom was completely dark.

Teo did not know the mechanism of the light stones, but it would always brighten the other room as if it was he was outside in the day time.

The trio picked out their rooms separately and later met up to explore the area nearby.

A stream of water cut through the surrounding mountains and several buildings were build along their shores. Teo, Windle and Lia walked towards these buildings and found out that they were buildings the public bathrooms.

They also found a path that led up to the another mountain. A sign with the words "Hot Springs" were placed at the entrance of the path.

A little further towards the central district were buildings that held classes. These buildings were huge and could probably hold a few thousand students.

There were also areas placed outdoors where lectures could take place

"This academy is really big, bigger than our village" said Lia

"It says on the handbook that the western district is even larger. If you take a leisurely walk, it will take about a day to reach the other end" Windle said as he flipped through the handbook

Teo followed both of them as he looked at a map of the academy. He was looking for the library, but it was his first time that he actually tried to read a map.

As the trio were walking, two students in uniform approached them from behind.

[Author's Note: Second Revision]