After the tournament was over Lee decided to take a look at the posted final results. He finished in 8th place due to his forfeit, Tom Sky finished 9th and Mary Saint Cloud finished 1st. The arrogant student who is the lightning user whose name he later learned was David Rain he beat in the finals in his bracket finished 19th, Derrick Hill finished 78th.

River thought to himself that in a single day he sure managed to meet a lot of interesting wizards. He wondered if they were fairly normal compared to other wizards or if they were a strange group. He simply didn’t have enough experience dealing with other wizards to know for sure.

Usually the talk of the day would be the top finishers. In particular, Mary Saint Cloud who came from a well-known noble family and finished in 1st would usually get the most attention. This year it was the 8th place finisher Lee River who was being talked about.

Not for his performance in the ring which as impressive as it was is not something other wizards have not seen students do before. It was the fact he forfeited when he did which was so odd. Once it was known he received a 0 on the written examine the fact he managed to finish so high in the fights was of great interest.

How could someone with such a bad understanding of magic do so well? People were wondering aloud, was it just a fluke or did he cheat? Most felt it was perhaps a reflection of this year’s students being a fairly unremarkable bunch.

In any case, he received the necessary points so making him leave was impossible going by the school’s rules. They would simply need to wait and see how he did. Once it was all sorted out by the teachers and head master the total amount was 117 new students coming into the school this year.

They were gathered into the auditorium to hear a speech from the head master of the school. The speech was focused mostly on congratulations to the new students for making it, as well as encouraging them to continue to work hard and learn great magic.

He also reminded them they were the continent’s and province’s hope for a better future. With this the male students were assigned rooms in the men’s freshman wing and the women were assigned to the ladies freshman wing.

After arriving at his room Rivers was in shock. He was born on a small farm with a poor family. Seeing the comforts this room offered was an entirely new experience for him. He would have his own table, chairs, pantry, couch, bathroom, bathtub and toilet. The pantry from his point of view was loaded with food.

From his window he could see a great view of the city below. Surely he thought this is how nobles must live! Nobles seeing the same room would consider such a situation the bare necessities that they would simply make due with. This school was about training their magic after all, not a vacation. He heard a knock on his door. When he answered it there stood his friend Derrick Hill.

After being invited in Hill gave the room a look over. “!ow, this place is really something huh?” looking around the room with the same kind of amazement Lee River had.

“Yes, I would say it is. I wonder how they can afford it all?”

“Top magic schools are funded very well by the government. Many graduates here will go on to be key military power for the province and perhaps whole continent. One trained magician has the power of 20 knights at least!" River learned a number of interested things from Derrick as they continued to converse.

They talked a bit more about the matches they had. Hill was clearly impressed with River’s power and told him all the commoners who made it into the school were rooting for him. He told River about the nasty rumors started that he may have somehow cheated.

River was told by his master once that people who often use the words cheater or unfair are just trying to explain their own lack of ability. He decided not to talk about his master or his words. He had been instructed not to.

Soon they parted ways and decided to get some sleep. The new school year would start tomorrow and River could not wait to see what it was like! In the morning all the students got up and were ushered into the cafeteria to have breakfast and be assigned to their teachers.

Not all 117 students could fit in one class so they were broken down into several classes. River was assigned to class 5 and was told to report there after breakfast, He along with others was given directions on where the freshmen classes where located. All the classes were randomly assigned he was told, so the number of your class had no meaning.

River arrived at class 5 and was happy to see his friend Hill was there. The class also included Tom Sky, Mary Saint Cloud, David Rain and Amanda Clover. He remembered she was one of the commoners he saw pass the test of power. He didn’t recognize any of the other students but he assumed he would get to know them a bit as time went on.

After taking his seat he gave the class a long slow look over. It appeared to be a fairly plain room for such an amazing school. It was just normal desk, chairs, a blackboard and large windows facing towards the town square. The only thing odd about the room he thought was its size. It seemed you could fit double the amount of people in easily.

Tom Sky sat beside him interrupting his thoughts “Hey River, how you liking the school? I noticed you were looking around a lot, anything on your mind?”

River turned to him. “It just seems plain for being such a famous school. These rooms seem pretty big though I suppose.”

Sky gave a small laugh “the reason why it's bigger than a normal classroom is so when we do our practice magic we have enough room for it. You'll find that the whole school itself, but particularly the classrooms, are reinforced with earth magic to make them sturdier. If they didn’t do that the repair cost may get out of hand.”

Sky gave the room a quick look around “You know I see some people in here who finished above me in the rankings. I wonder if I was facing someone other than you if I could have gotten higher. I was easily the best of the student eliminated in round 1.

River shook his head. “People are always so concerned about rankings here.”

Sky leaned back “Well noble houses compete in a number of ways. One is just by pure wealth but the other is by demonstrating the magical power in the family. Obviously the noble families fighting each other in the middle of town and causing all sorts of damage would be breaking the laws of the province. This is one of the few places we are able to battle each other for rank.”

Sky continued “9th best isn’t all that bad I suppose, for now... My Sky house hasn’t scored such a high ranking in in the last 10 years, since my older brother from the main family I mean. I really was hoping to take one of the top 2 or 3 spots!”

Sky took a quick look at Mary “Generally those spots are usually held by the Cloud, Star and Sun families who are known for particularly powerful magic. They have many strong branch families and buy away the best teachers even from other noble houses.” Tom Sky went on to explain a bit more about Branch and Main houses to River who the concept was entirely new to.

Right as it was being explained a familiar face walked in the room. It was the man who refereed his matches in the first tournament he fought in River recall.

He drew his name on the board behind him and addressed the class “Hello new students of Magic Academy Province Zero! I will be your teacher for the year. I've met a few of you already but for the rest of you my name is Peter Leaf. I went to this very same academy that you are sitting in right now. I suppose you will want to know a bit about me. For likes, like I magic. As for dislikes I dislike teenagers, particularly arrogant ones who use magic, any questions?”

The whole class was in a stunned silence. “Good, as it turns out, questions are among my dislikes. Now I want you to introduce yourselves to the class. Just say your likes and dislikes and a bit about yourself.” He pointed to the girl sitting in the front “You'll go first. We'll go left to right and then the next row back. Don’t take too long. Taking too long to do things is also among my dislikes.”

The young brown hair girl stood up. “M-my name is Amanda Clover. I like fire magic and I hope we can be friends.” She sat down blushing heavily. Clearly she was very shy.

Mary stood up “I'm Mary Saint Cloud. I like my house and being the best. I don’t like people who are in my way or people who give others any reason to think I'm not the best by quitting matches." She sat down and shot a look full of daggers are River.

Hill stood up “I'm Derrick Hill. I like making weapons with my family. I mean, we are blacksmiths by trade and have been for generations. It was actually how I was able to learn about magic. A wizard wanted armor but didn’t have any money to pay for it. He was willing to pay in the form of lessons for me. My dad jumped at the chance and that’s I why I'm here.”

David Rain stood up “I'm David from the Rain house. I 'm here to learn the mysteries of magic and not hand to hand combat. I like lightning magic and to put people in their place who think they are something special when they just got lucky."

Tom Sky stood up “I'm Tom Sky. I enjoy learning all the mysteries of magic and pushing myself to the limits. The only things I dislike are people who believe being from a noble house makes them better than everyone else.” David shot him a look.

River stood up “My name is Lee River. I'm here to learn about magic from other wizards and gain experience with how the outside world treats and views magic.” The rest of the students introduced themselves as well.

After the introductions Leaf stood up. “First I'll teach you the basics of the basics. Some of you know this and some perhaps don’t but it is important information to go over. In this continent we divide wizards up into ranks. It isn’t a perfect system but it helps to give an estimate of magical power and more importantly, it provides an estimate for a provinces military power by keeping track of how strong their wizards are.

The ranks are from lowest to highest; G, F, E, D, C, B, A and S.

G rank is for amateur wizards who have some magic power. Mostly they are just young people learning magic or amateur users. F is for new magic students going to an official magic academy like this. That is where almost all of you are right now.

E rank is what most magic students in the 2nd grade here are. D rank is the 3rd year students in this academy. That is the last year in this academy as well. If you are able to graduate here you will do so as C rank wizards.

C rank is considered the first rank of a true wizard. B rank wizards are particularly powerful wizards. A ranked wizards are the some of the strongest wizards in the continent. As for S rank they is particularly rare. Only a few wizards in the whole of province Zero have such a ranking. Most wizards, even those with good talent, usually never make it beyond the B rank.”

Leaf paused for a moment to be sure everyone was still following him. “With that out of the way I will now talk you to all about the general structure of magic. As you all know magic comes from mana. Mana is the mix of your body’s natural energy with magical ability.

For instance if one is to make fire magic they must call out their own body’s energy and mix it with the energy in nature. In most cases this involves lifting your hand in the air but sometimes putting your hand in the dirt or a body of water can achieve better results depending on if you are using earth or water magic. If you were to stick your hand in water you could use your energy and the energy in nature to manipulate the water without having to create any water from the environment.

This is more efficient as it saves a good deal of your own energy since you don’t need to create water. For the types of elements used in magic there tend to be 5 main types. They are fire, wind, water, earth and lightning magic. These are the most usual and most commonly used forms of magic.

Of course, there are other kinds of magic like temporary body enhancement or light and darkness magic but those are harder to control and can be very dangerous to the user if not controlled properly. I once remember a wizard using body enhancement to make himself able to run at 3 times his normal speed.

It's something you must focus and maintain concentration precisely while doing it. Just loosing focus for one moment caused him to end up breaking both his legs. It took him a year to be able to move normally again as they were so badly damaged. It could be said he was lucky it wasn’t worse.

Those kinds of skills we will only start to teach in the 3rd year and only limited amounts. If you manage to graduate here there will be places you can go to learn more about those types of magic. They tend to take many years to truly master. I only mention them now because I wish to give a complete overview on all forms of magic. Are there any questions?”

No one in the class spoke up. The teacher continued to talk about meditation to learn to better use your own energy and control nature’s energy more efficiently. The more control you had the more of your own energy you could save. This allows one to perform more spells and stronger spells.

More magic theory was spoken of and general tips for the students in the class. The Nobles knew most of the information if not all of it. The few commoners in the class were hearing some information for the first time and were carefully listening and taking notes.

River listened very carefully to the teacher. He was learning very slowly that the things he had been taught about magic by his master and what this school taught about magic where not entirely the same. Yes the basics where generally covered the same but he was surprised to hear no mention of the importance of building their own stamina.

This was something his teacher stressed. He recalled him saying “meditation can only take you so far. In the end the amount of magic will in large part depend on the energy the body can emit. There are no short cuts in this. If you want to be able to create powerful magic over and over you need the stamina for your body to produce that energy over and over.”

He thought about the first time he heard that speech and noticed he was grabbing his leg. He was remembering the seemingly endless amount of running he did. He still ran every day but it was more to maintain the stamina he gained than to gain more.

He remembered his teacher also told him at this point he had no doubt plenty of natural energy and his efforts would better be focused learning and mastering control of magic in his body and mind. River was taught the mind is where magic starts. The clearer and more vivid the picture in your mind’s eye and the more clear the intent the better the magic would be. River’s thoughts were broken by his teacher ispeaking up.

“Anyway, that is enough of this endless explaining. You should know, too much explaining is among my dislikes. I prefer a more practical type of approach when it comes to learning magic. The best thing to do is just get real life experience. That is why tomorrow I plan to take this class on a field trip to the forest outside of town!” The class murmured a moment than got quiet.

“There I will watch you use your magic to hunt, fight wild animals if need be and camp. Since this is for magic training you are to bring absolutely nothing except the clothes on your back and just maybe 1 or 2 personal items not related to survival or necessities. I plan to have us sleep there overnight and come back in the morning.

Also, just as precaution, I would ask you not to mention to anyone outside the school we plan to go on this trip.” The class erupted with this news. River imagined the nobles probably never spent a single night in the wild in their lives. This would no doubt be a very interesting experience.

As they left the class River saw some students who were very excited and some doing some angry mumbling. Tom seemed particularly excited and started to ask both Hill and River if they have ever camped in the wild before.

Clover, the shy quiet girl, seemed scared but determined and as usual didn’t speak or look at anyone. Rain was very disappointed and felt this was a waste of time when he could be learning more about powerful magic. Mary Saint Cloud seemed uninteresting about everything and was in a rush to leave to get back to her room to practice magic.

That night River, Hill and Sky got together to talk in River’s room more about the upcoming event. Sky even decided to give Hill a few pointers he felt would be useful about water magic which they both used. River was glad to see they were fast becoming friends with each other. Eventually they parted ways and the morning came. After breakfast the class met outside the main gates of the school.

Peter Leaf looked over his class at the gates. “Okay, we will head out and hopefully get to our destination deep in the woods before lunch time. If we are not there by then we will just keep going till we are. Only once we are there will I permit you to try and go to catch some lunch for yourself.”

Peter laughed “I hope that motivates you all to get there in a timely fashion. One of my dislikes is taking a long time to get somewhere!” He quickly had a look at what each student brought. He was happy to see no one tried to sneak in any hunting equipment, food, water or camping supplies. With that all sorted out they set off in the direction of the woods.

*****

Watching the school gate from the neighboring town were 3 men. The first said to the others “so the information we got last night was good after all. It appears it's just the one teacher taking these kids to the woods alone!”

"Yes, I recognize the Cloud brat. She will for sure fetch a good price. It seems they have a Rain and Sky there as well. No point turning down the money right?”

“What about the other kids? Think they are worth the trouble to get?”

“Probably not, if they become too much of a nuisance we’ll just kill them. It would send a good message to the other families to pay up."

“Though it's just one man, the teacher is from the famous zero province academy; I doubt he would bring them out by himself if he wasn’t confident."

“Well, if it looks like you two are having trouble I’ll step in just this one time. I haven’t had a good fight in a while; I just hope these teachers are as strong as their reputation promises.” The three men quickly and quietly slipped into the forest.