The scene in my homeroom class was a mix of despair, excitement, and joy. Amanda and I had left Unice at the entrance of the Academy and the reality of our class schedule was sinking in.

Double math. Double science. Double C-class.

I could hear a lot of the students murmuring in excitement. System classes were a widely known phenomenon. You didn’t have to be a magician to get a class or be highly trained.

You only had to exist.

Most of the people in the homeroom were qualified to receive a class. They hadn’t done it yet because they wanted to take advantage of the education that Koshima academy offered.

It was the class I was looking forward to the most. Every C-class after the first half of the semester would be personalised to suit each student’s needs, and I wanted to maximise my class options.

The faculty would provide one-on-one sessions and go over potential achievements, and other pre-requisites, that were required to unlock certain classes.

They would also tell the students what those classes were and what benefits they provided.

It was guidance counselling for our future success.

To many, gaining this knowledge was always a more profitable investment of their time than rushing to obtain their class. They could only choose their class once, but they could prepare for it for years.

Even the nobles that were from bloodline families were excited. Advancements were being made every year as new classes were discovered, and a single family couldn’t compete with an institution that housed a thousand students and had countless alumni to gather information from.

That was something else that had surprised me.

Class information wasn’t as heavily guarded or secretive as other pieces of information. Money was needed to learn about symbols, magicians required knowledge and teachers, and knowledge about bloodlines and skills were kept under tight security.

Classes were the exception. Information was readily available on how to unlock them, and how they worked.

My brief foray into studying them led me to believe the answer was their availability. Everyone had access to a class due to the spreading of the churches.

Some people might not unlock skills or the ability to use magic in their lifetimes after the first skill, but the followers of the divines had spread the gift of class unlocking to everyone, and in turn these people had spread their information to their descendants and friends.

Eventually, society accepted that most information about classes would become available. The world started to place less importance on keeping it secret, and now all a person needed to do was find someone that specialised in the subject and had access to a database of classes.

However, it was rare for a single institution to have so much knowledge about so many different classes.

Koshima academy was an exception. They could help us no matter what path we were taking in life.

Our C-class was specifically aimed at magicians. After all, we were in the magician section of the school. The military students and the business students would be separated from us, with a few exceptions.

“Okay, I know you think playing dead is going to get you out of math, but it won’t.” I nudged Amanda’s shoulder. "Come on, be excited, we have C-class today."

She refused to move. Her head pressed against her desk, and she hid her eyes behind her arms. She didn’t want to face reality.

“Agni, peck her ear off.” The phoenix looked at me and then down at Amanda.

Then it shook its head and pointed towards her with its beak.

“You’re right. She’s already dead.” I nodded sagely. “Guess I’ll have to tell the teacher to give her extra homework to make up for it.”

Amanda finally shifted, a groan escaping her mouth.

“It’s not that bad.” I chided her. “You did your math homework, right?”

She turned her head towards me sheepishly and gazed into my eyes.

“No.”

“You’re screwed.” I sighed. “We are seriously going to be late if you don’t get up.”

I had been breezing through math class. I had even taken time to look ahead in the syllabus and learn that material.

When I had a break from training, of course. My skills were still my main priority, and one of the reasons for that was that I was aiming for a better class.

Amanda raised her head and pushed herself up. Agni jumped from the table onto her hair and both of them turned to look at me.

“I was busy talking with you. So, if you think about it, this is all your fault.” She gave me the stink eye. “And why are they giving us homework in the first week? It’s anarchy!”

“I think that’s technically the opposite of anarchy.” I responded.

I made my way to the door and power walked down the corridor. I hadn’t been late to a math class, and I didn’t intend to start now.

“You must be fun at parties.” Amanda followed me.

“Extremely.” I smiled.

The class passed quickly for me. Koshima was as strict as it was exclusive. Amanda and a few of the other students were called to the front of the room for not doing their homework. They were called out in public, were given a single warning, and a day's extension.

As she sat back down, I could see her eyes roaming towards me. She poked my shoulder and I looked at her.

“Yes, I’ll help you with your homework.” I pre-empted her question.

Gold had a fun time as well. The first day he had ignored all of the classes except for symbol studies and earth magic studies.

Yesterday he tried paying attention.

Now, he was participating in almost every class. There were a couple of other students with pets aside from Amanda and me, so the class wasn’t weirded out by Gold’s actions.

I was waiting for him to nudge my cheek. It was his signal for when he had answered the question. He couldn’t do it with pen and paper, so instead we used a trust system.

If he didn’t understand a question, I would mark it and explain it to him later.

The class finished quickly, and Amanda and I walked towards the arena dome. We stopped before entering it, and we went down the garden path towards the large trees that littered the campus.

William was waiting for us there.

“I don’t have your texting symbol.” I spoke the moment I saw him.

“A tragedy, and most unwise.” William reached into his pocket and pulled out a slim notebook.

It was brushed with gold and blue. No. Not brushed. There was genuine gold plating on the cover, and the blue was some kind of gemstone.

Sapphires?

“A gift from my dad.” He caught me staring. “You know how he is.”

The memory of a man draped head to toe in gold and silk crossed my mind. I smiled and shook my head. I still had to personally thank Master Wilhelm for the block of iron.

A letter didn’t feel like it had enough heart.

I brought out my regent. The two books glowed as they touched each other and when I pulled mine back there was a new symbol on the cover.

Good. Now, I just needed to get Gerial’s symbol.

“You know you should really look into gold plating.” William struck up a conversation with Gold. “You could be a war bird, shining splendidly and distracting the enemy with your magnificence.”

Gold puffed out his chest and belly in pride. William had the bird’s ego in the palm of his hands. As the two delved into a conversation filled with sophistry and chirps I saw a bundle of red hair move closer to me.

“He’s not what I expected.” Amanda whispered. “He actually seems likeable.”

"He's a cuddly teddy bear with a heart of gold." I replied. "Or whatever is more expensive than gold."

I was working on a plan to make them more comfortable with each other.

“You’d power through these Neanderthals that call themselves students.” William’s voice boomed into the air.

I saw Amanda’s disgruntled expression and sighed. William made it so hard for people to like him.

I knew the real boy underneath the façade, but Amanda didn’t. She saw a spoiled brat with a lot of power. It was exactly what William wanted the school to see.

“I'll take that statement back.” Amanda spoke.

“No, he really is likeable when you get to know him.” I put my hand out for Agni to jump onto. She looked up at me curiously. “Go distract Gold.”

My plan wasn't going to work if Gold kept William away from us. I wanted my two friends to talk and laugh.

Agni chirped and immediately flew out towards the puffer. Gold spoke with Agni and after a few seconds he looked at William, nodded his beak, and flew away with the phoenix.

“Can you understand Gold?” I moved towards William. "I'm a little jealous if you can do it after a couple of days."

It had taken me weeks to even get close to understanding the puffer.

“I understood the gist of his emotions.” William turned towards us. “Amanda, congratulations on your brother's confirmed awakening. I apologise for not attending the party.”

“That’s okay, I didn’t go either.” Amanda waved her hand dismissively. “I had too much math homework.”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Okay. I still have too much math homework.” She blushed lightly. “Andross is going to help me with it during lunch time.”

William looked at me.

“You know mathematics?” His tone was dry. “I didn’t peg you for a math guy.”

I shrugged. “We can’t all be jocks like you.”

William raised his arms and flexed. He shot me a grin as he did so, and I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know how highly priced strength concoctions were, but I was sure the number would make me cry. The sheer amount of money that was spent to make these muscles exist blinded Amanda as well.

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of training it takes to maintain these.” William lowered his arms. “But it’s worth it. I wanted to be able to fight, and my dad was happy to find me the teachers for it.”

Neither of us had to speak about the incident that had motivated him. Master Wilhelm was a gold mask magician, but William wasn’t a spell-user. He was a close-range warrior.

William had to learn from outside sources and teachers to get his training and education in the finer points of being a warrior.

"I'll bet. You're going to have to spar with me one of these days."

I had been gazing at the dome more and more lately. I wanted to practice with a real partner, not the metal dummies at the Zodiac compound.

The conversation ignited Amanda’s passion. She had told me that her entire bloodline centred around battle, and with her brother ascending to the head of the household she was eager to make a good impression.

She would fight him, but that didn’t mean that she had to go down easy.

A few minutes later the first bell rang in my ears. Amanda and I stood up, but William stayed on the ground.

“I’m going to meditate for a couple of minutes.” He grinned. “Have fun.”

I waved goodbye to him and Amanda and I made our way back to the main building.

I put the texting regent back in my inventory. In my mind I was already composing a message for William.

The painting had disturbed me, but most of what Amanda had told me had been confidential.

A warning was simple enough. Nothing overly panicky, Alexis wasn’t likely to do something extreme to a fellow student, let alone a famous and constantly watched person like William.

My friend was capable of defending himself.

At the same time, William would understand the possible outcomes better than me. He would be able to find the best decision to make if he knew he had to make one.

The sound of Amanda’s whistling pierced through my thoughts.

It was a double period of science. Her favourite subject. We were joined by the birds as we made our way inside the building.

As we crossed into the corridor, I spotted a familiar figure.

Alexis.

He was surrounded by smiling and laughing people. His group of friends had grown, but I could see his old ones were the closest to him.

Unice was there as well, giggling at something he said. It felt kind of surreal. I was in a different world, with completely different rules, and yet the scene before me could’ve been taken out of a high school from Earth.

Alexis was popular.

“That’s cute.” Amanda smiled as she saw Unice. “I might have to give her the big sister talk soon.”

“Big sister?” I looked at her.

Then I looked back at Alexis.

He was taller than her by almost half a foot. Not quite as tall as William, but he gave off a lean impression. Compared to him, Amanda was…

“Don’t give me that look. I’m two minutes older than him and no amount of height can change that.” Amanda huffed. "Sometimes I might slip up and call him my big brother... but it doesn't count!"

“You two are twins?” I should’ve seen it earlier.

They looked similar now, but before Alexis had awakened his bloodline, his physical appearance was entirely different from hers.

“Yup, and I’m the older one.” Amanda continued walking.

I got one final look at the gathering of students before we entered our science class. It passed quickly and Amanda’s mood picked up from the morning.

Then it came crashing down when I forced her to sit down and focus on her math homework.

We spent the rest of the lunch break inside the same room near my metal magic studies class that we’d gone into the day before.

It was a nice spot to hang out in. Quiet, with no distractions. The lunch break finished, and I had a skip in my step as we walked down the centre tower into the ground floor.

My questions were prepared, my knowledge of classes was fresh in my mind, and I had been honing my skills in anticipation of improving my class options.

I had been waiting all week for this moment.

It was time for the C-class.