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”We are happy to report that almost three thousand of you were accepted to attend our illustrious Academy. That's a significantly larger number than usual, and the quality of those accepted was especially high. The average score of those accepted was notably higher than usual, and the best among you really surprised us. I'm also proud to report that one of you even managed to score the best scores in the history of the Academy's entrance exams, and I think that person, as well as the rest of you, deserve a round of applause." The teacher leading the ceremony smiled a beautiful smile and clapped her hands together to encourage the rest of the gathered people.

Karna had to admit that the woman was good. Despite making what was essentially a fairly standard speech that one could hear at the beginning ceremony of any decently sized educational facility. However, the elven woman, who had introduced herself as the teacher normally in charge of the oldest students, was a striking figure that drew the eyes and attention of everyone attending, and her charisma meant that even something that was relatively boring didn’t feel that way. It also helped that she had a knack for speaking and managed to draw everyone’s attention and interest with her choice of words and small gestures.

“Now despite your collective achievement, I encourage you to not rest on your laurels. This is only the starting point. It is a cold hard fact that only a third of accepted students will be able to successfully learn all the necessary things to graduate from our Academy, and only one or two in a hundred will be able to give a stellar enough performance to draw the attention of a potential master to further help you in achieving your dreams. The Academy is known as the best for a reason, and part of that reason is our high performance standards. If you successfully complete your time here, you will find many paths open to you, but in order to accomplish that, we expect you to perform. It does not matter how great you are now. What matters is how hard you work in helping your talents blossom.

“In this Academy, your rank, your relatives, your wealth, and your connections don’t matter. All that matters are results. Our Academy believes in fostering competition, which is why those that achieve great results get rewarded. On the other hand, we take a dim view of those that try to sabotage other students. Let me make this clear. If you get caught for sabotage, I will make sure you will be severely punished, and believe me when I say that expulsion will be the least of your worries.” The teacher flared her presence and they were all pushed back against their chairs. To Karna’s surprise, the woman was also an Aura user.

‘So that means you only need to not get caught.’ Karna smiled as she caught the little hidden meaning in the woman’s words. Getting caught for sabotage would have severe punishments in most societies, but such things happened anyway. It was a good lesson when the same applied within the Academy.

The rest of the speech was rather standard fare. The rules the teacher bothered to mention basically boiled down to not being an idiot and using some common sense. Karna also got a bit better explanation of the merit point system that Siegfried had told her about a few weeks ago. Doing well on tests or even during lessons could be rewarded, and any service performed for the Academy would also garner points. As expected, they had all been awarded points according to their success during the exams, which meant that she was now well ahead of the others.

Many of the faculty also introduced themselves, including the heads of the most important subjects and the most commonly chosen majors. There were literally thousands of subjects and hundreds of majors that could be chosen in the Academy. It would've taken forever to introduce more than the most important ones, so Karna was rather thankful for that little restraint. They'd learn further details later anyway. It was rather interesting to note though, that almost half of the most common majors were combat-related. It was clear the Academy had a focus on producing military capable personnel. It was a cruel universe at times, and being unable to defend yourself would usually end badly.

After the speeches and introductions, the students were divided according to their achievements in the exams, and they were all assigned to a class. As she'd had the best scores during the exam, Karna was naturally assigned to the first class, appropriately designated I-1. The first letter was actually an old fashioned numeral and would designate the year she was in. A third-year would have III on her badge, while a tenth-year student would be marked by the numeral X. The second number simply showed which class you were in according to your results. As the Academy accepted almost three thousand students, and the standard class size was thirty, there were almost a hundred first-year classes. Thus the badge rather blatantly singled everyone in their class out as the absolute elite of already a fairly select group of people, as the Academy had rather high standards for acceptance.

They had all procured their uniforms beforehand, so the badges they were handed could be attached directly on the uniform. The recommended places were either on the arm or the chest, although the uniform allowed for a fair bit of customization. As the standard military style of the white and silver uniform coat that looked like a blazer was rather restrictive, many of the students had already done a lot of customization. It was rather popular among the male students to remove the sleeves of the coat for example, while many of the females had swapped the pants for a skirt of the same colors.

“The only real rules are that your attire has to be able to be recognized as the uniform with a glance, and the badge will have to remain visible. Once you chose a major, or a major chooses you, you will gain another badge that will have to be kept visible." The older student leading them towards the classrooms explained. The human girl had a badge showing IV-5 on her sleeve, and was wearing a rather standard uniform, likely to not influence the new students. On the other hand, the dark-haired girl seemed fairly serious, so it might be just her personality showing in her attire.

"What about these?" One of the two Leonins asked while fingering a pair of colored studs on the collar of his jacket. The Leonin was covered in golden-colored fur, and had a rather meticulously cared for mane of the same color.

They had been handed those studs at the same time as they had been assigned to classes. They were made of some hard to identify material that felt halfway between stone and metal. Notably, the students all had different combinations of colors, and widely different number of the studs as well. Karna had a ring of them going around her entire collar, and it seemed she had all the colors the others showed and hers seemed to be bigger as well. That had drawn quite a bit of attention, not that she’d felt any lack of that anyway. The word about her had spread, and while most students had not seen her during the exams, it was not hard to spot a small white-haired girl that wore a veil.

“Ah, these.” The girl fingered the three studs on her own collar. “Those show your elemental affinities. You have to achieve a certain level of affinity to gain one of them, and the better your affinity the larger the stone. Now pay attention! Wearing those stones is not mandatory. However, you will be considered a coward if you do not. They don’t need to be on your collar of course, though that is the customary place, as well as the place where keeping them is the easiest.” She looked towards Karna with a bit of amusement. Her studs looked almost like a choker at this point. “In your case, I’d consider putting them on a belt or something.”

“Wait! Are you saying the little girl has literally all affinities stronger than my best ones?” The other Leonin, one with black fur and mane, asked angrily. He had four studs and they were all rather decent in size.

“That is exactly what I'm saying. She's the one that got the record-breaking top score, is she not? She got that spot for a reason." The girl tapped the badge on Karna's sleeve to draw everyone's attention. They all noticed that Karna's badge also had a small crown on it. "That's incidentally the way you can recognize the best student in every year. There are only ten badges with a crown in the entire Academy, and she has one of them. To encourage everyone to try and overtake her, the one with the crown will always enjoy certain benefits that others do not, so work hard to dethrone her."

‘I see. She’s purposefully inciting others to compete against me and setting me up as a target. It’s likely safe to assume that it’s nothing personal, and it’s something that happens every year. It’s likely also meant to make things harder for me, so I’ll also have to strive harder.’ Karna thought to herself with a small smile as the others stared at her filled with competitive spirit.

“Now then. I’ll leave you to the teacher in charge of the class I-1, and I’ll come to take you to the dorms once you’re done.” The girl stated as she opened a door and waved them in.

Their classroom was rather large and luxurious. Instead of simple seats and desks, they were presented with comfortable and plush seats with desks that could be pushed into place so that they could be comfortably used for writing and studying. Even here, one of the seats was placed separately at the center and almost looked like a very comfy throne. That seat had the same crown shape etched into the backrest, making it clear who the chair was for.

Most of the class was quite satisfied to take their seats around the large and well-decorated room. The walls were decorated with paintings depicting famous mages of the Magocracy. The room even had several plants and flowers scattered around to give the place more color, and there was a separate area clearly assigned for magical demonstrations that looked a bit like the practice range where they had taken one of the exams, except smaller.

Since the people in the class were almost complete strangers, the small groups seemed to form almost randomly as people sat down. Naturally, it seemed that the groups mostly formed based on gender and race. Humans, who formed a third of the class, all grouped together while the other races mixed a bit more, dividing themselves based on which races they usually got along with. Karna was a little amused to notice that the seats close to her were occupied by perhaps the most mixed group.

The first to take a seat next to her was of course Reinhardt who simply gave her a nod as he sat next to her. The second one to sit on her other side was the dark-skinned elven girl who Karna had seen during the third exam. She had been one of the few that had made it to the stairs before Karna had managed to shake off the final illusion. To her surprise, the fourth and last seat in their little grouping was taken by the Leonin with golden fur. Karna had expected the two Leonin to sit together as fellow students from the Aegean Empire, but it seemed that there might have been a bit more complicated relationship between the two than she had given them credit for. Unlike the other Leonin, this one seemed pleased to sit with her, as if this was exactly where he belonged.

They didn’t have to wait long before their teacher arrived. Karna was a little surprised to see the dwarven man from the affinity test. “I see you’ve all found your seats already. And you haven’t even started fighting for seats either. A positive development from what I’ve heard, though I’m not often in charge of the I-1 class. I’ve already met some of you, but only two of you probably know my name. I’m master Menkhaf, and I will be in charge of this class for the entire year. So as long as you can maintain your position in this class, then I will be the teacher in charge of you. Of course, I won’t be handling all your lessons. In fact, I’ll only be teaching one course for you, but you’ll see me around quite often anyway.”

Menkhaf didn’t bother mentioning that every year the teachers took part in a small lottery to see which of them would be in charge of which class. He had ‘won’ this year, which meant that he got the privilege of being in charge of the most advanced class. If you thought about it positively, he was in charge of the smartest class and didn’t have to deal with the dummies that didn’t know even the basics of magic. On the negative side, the most advanced classes were usually also the most bothersome.

"The first five months of your life in the Academy will be dedicated to learning the basics. There is a particular set of information that all of you must learn before the first tests that will take place once that five-month period is over. Your success in those tests will help determine whether you will be able to keep your place in class I-1, though it’s not the only factor. This is where things get a little complicated. The lessons you will receive are designed for your current level. As the most advanced class, you will receive the most advanced lessons. However, there’s a problem. This class, more than any other class, has large differences when it comes to your starting level, especially when we’re talking about pure knowledge. In fact, those that are below the ten best students in your class are actually closer to the level of class I-2 than those at the top of your class.

“Now you may ask, how do we know how advanced your knowledge is? The answer is simple. The knowledge test you took during the entrance exams covers most of the subjects you would be taught during the first year. It’s not a foolproof method of evaluation, but it’s pretty good. That means we’re going to have to make some adjustments to the subjects and lessons you need to take. While the bottom of your class will definitely need to take courses like Basic Magic Theory III, and Math II, there’s no point in forcing the top of your class to do the same. That means many of you will be able to skip many if not most of the courses designated as mandatory learning for the first five months. Soon I will call out your name, and mention the courses you will need to participate in.” Menkhaf explained. This was a system they had tested over the years and found to be the best way to produce results. It wasn’t very fair or equal, but the Academy was more interested in results than in a vague concept of fairness.

“Wait, does that mean that the best students will just be free during the time the others are studying these basic subjects? That doesn’t sound like an effective way to spend our time. We came here to learn.” The dark-skinned elven girl protested, receiving nods of agreement from others.

“A very good point.” Menkhaf nodded. “And of course the advanced students will not be just slacking around. What would be the point of that? No, we’re not trying to bring you to an equal level, only to bring every one of you to a basic level required to continue. As a reward, the best students will get the chance to have a jump-start on some of the elective subjects. All of you will have the same amount of courses by the end of this. Either you will be taking the mandatory lessons, or you will fill up with the elective ones. Something you should take note of. Just because you don’t have to participate in some of the mandatory lessons, that doesn't mean you won't be tested on the contents once the five months are over. So I'd take some time to brush up on those subjects."

‘That’s a fairly smart system.’ Karna thought to herself and nodded. She already suspected that she’d be the one with the most freedom, seeing as she was the number one student.

“There’s something else you should keep in mind. During the first few years, the Academy will take an active role in what courses you need to take, but after that, the onus is on you. You will need to fulfill certain criteria to be able to go up a year, but beyond that, you will be responsible for choosing your own subjects. This is a place of learning, and you came here to become strong. The harder you work and the more actively you participate, the better your results will be. The major you choose will also heavily influence which courses you should and will have to take in the future. But you will all be tested, and many of you will be found wanting.” The teacher promised with a grim voice.

The teacher started listing names and the courses. He started from the bottom of the class, and it soon became clear that they’d all have to take part in seven courses. The most commons were Basic Magic Theory III-IV and Math. Even the warriors had to take magic theory so that they would be able to better fight against mages in the future. Everyone also all had to take part in Physical Training and Combat. The others were a weird mix of history, physics, combat theory, and many others. It was clear many of the mandatory subjects were foundational in nature. For example, it was easier to cast many spells if you were aware of the physical forces involved, hence the need for knowledge on physics.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the top three students sat in their little group. The elven girl Miralen had to take four of the mandatory subjects, while the gold-furred Leonin had to take three. Even those two had to take the Magic IV class. "And finally this year's current Queen, Karna. Like everyone, you will have to take part in the PhysCom training. Additionally, you can take part in the history course if you want. Your results in the subject were borderline, so we’ll leave the choice to you.”

“I’ll participate in the history class. I could probably get the same information from a library, but it would be more interesting to hear someone give their own viewpoint on the subject.” Karna replied.

“Fair enough. That said, you three in particular will have to actively take some of the elective courses. From what I read on your file, all three of you have spirits, so I recommend subjects concerning the care and utilization of spirits. Other than that, you have a fairly free hand and I recommend using this opportunity to think about your own interests. Taking subjects related to those interests will become beneficial in the future as you’ll get a leg-up on your competition." Afterward, the teacher launched into an explanation of the rules and gave some general information about the Academy.

Once the teacher was done with them, the same older student led them on a small tour of the facilities in the Academy, before taking them to their dorms. Interestingly, they could see that the tour didn’t take them to many of the more interesting places, such as the borehole or the various practice grounds around the Academy. Once questioned on the subject, the student leading them explained that they wouldn't need to worry about those areas just yet, and that they'd get a more detailed tour later on when those places became relevant to their interests. They were already getting an overflow of information, so for the first week, they'd only be told what was necessary. Some of those areas could also be dangerous, so access to them was limited.

They were taken to a rather fancy dorm with a private garden and a dedicated practice area. Their dorm was also closest to the most commonly needed facilities for the first years, leaving them with short travel distances. The tall fence and the garden provided some privacy and quiet from the hustle and bustle that would inevitably happen around their dorm building. Just like all the buildings, this one was also built mostly of marbled stone, though the interior had been made more casual with the décor, wood paneling, and the soft rugs that seemed to be everywhere.

“Now, as the most advanced class of the first years, your dorm and rooms are naturally the most luxurious. The other classes will be forced to share a room with at least one other person, but you all get private rooms, so your dorm is the largest. Naturally, even in your dorm the rooms are not equal. The top ten students will always enjoy the best benefits, and the top student will have by far the best rooms. The males are on the first floor while the females are on the second floor. The top ten including the number one are on the third floor.” The older student explained.

As the top students walked the stairs to the third floor, the black-furred Leonin turned to Karna and growled. “Don’t bother making yourself too comfortable. I’ll be taking your position soon. I certainly can’t approve of a little girl taking the leading position.” The way he mentioned leading position almost seemed like he was suggesting she was the leader of a pack.

Karna had expected this. With the Academy practically rubbing the benefits of the top ranks in everyone’s face, it was only natural some would feel competitive. She might as well play her part. “Good luck with that. Your approval is not required, just your salty tears.” She turned to walk towards the door marked with a crown, before turning to look over her shoulder. “Get used to this view kitty, as it’s one you’re going to be looking at for a long time.”

The growl that sounded from behind her only made her laugh out with glee. She had told Duskclaw that one of the reasons she was coming to the Academy was to make her own rivals. It seemed like she had already earned the first one.