After dinner, we walked up the stairs to our apartments. I said goodbye to the girls and goodbye to Dave before entering my room. I lit a candle and opened one of the two books I'd borrowed from the library for reading class. It was a book about classes. I didn't expect it to have everything... the world was vast and magic had only been around thirty or so years. Still, it would at least serve to cover the basics.

Classes, according to the book, were based on levels, skills, and attributes. Once you chose a class, that was it, you were locked into it. Until you chose, however, you could see what each class you had access to was and what it would give you in turn by using the Class command in a similar way to the Status command. The rest of the book was dedicated to the known classes.

Class: Guard

Requires: Swordfighting Lv5, Archery Lv5, Level 5

Gives: 10% boost to physical stats (STR, AGI, FIN, END)

Class: X Mage

Requires: Black Magic Lv5 or Blue Magic Lv5 or Green Magic Lv5 or Red Magic Lv 5 or Orange Magic Lv5 or Purple Magic Lv5 or Yellow Magic Lv5 or White Magic lv5, Level 5

Gives: 10% boost to magical stats (INT, WIS, FIN, CHA) and 10% boost to strength of X magic where X is the type of magic used to gain the class

Class: Hunter

Requires: Archery Lv5, Scouting Lv5, Level 5

Gives: 20% boost to physical stats when hunting monsters

Class: Farmer

Requires: Farming Lv5, Level 5

Gives: 10% boost to fertility of worked ground

Class: Knight

Requires: Swordfighting Lv5, Archery Lv5, Riding lv5, Level 5

Gives: 10% boost to physical stats and 10% boost to damage from physical skills while riding

The book went on about other classes, but it looked like, primarily, one needed level 5 and one or more skills at level 5. Since I had what was already a somewhat unique skill in General Magic, I would see what that would give me for an option. Opening the Class screen revealed nothing yet. I wasn't level five.

The only other thing of note that I learned from the book was that level 5 in a skill was considered average proficiency. Level 1 would be someone in training and Level 10 would be considered a grandmaster. If you had a skill from before magic had been around, you would get the skill to level very quickly compared to someone who hadn't learned it yet. I'd noticed this as well. Reading and Writing had leveled very quickly because I already knew them whereas Swordfighting took a lot of effort, generally.

The next Intro to Magic class had a bit more theory. I had been partially right with my assessment that the painful response to circulating mana was a warning. There was, apparently, a right and wrong way to do it. One needed to circulate quickly like I'd tried to do, while at the same time, increasing the amount of mana until one felt a slight stretching sensation.

The teacher explained that it felt similar to when you'd eaten too much. If you kept forcing yourself, you'd feel pain and nausea rather than stretching. By stretching the pathways for mana, I would be able to level my General Magic as long as I used all types of mana, otherwise, I'd level a particular kind, like Red Magic, instead.

I followed these instructions for the rest of the class. I could feel the push of the mana on the pathways while I meditated. By the end of the class, the stress I'd felt that kept the mana confined had lessened. I could push more mana through than I had been able to at the start. This was both good and bad. Good in that I knew my abilities were growing from this, and bad because I would run out of mana quickly while practicing. I'd need to practice every chance I could, it seemed. Challenge accepted!

After class and after lunch, I trained with Dave and practiced my magic in between sparring sessions. it was a fairly good day for training all said. I stopped earlier than I otherwise would have. I had looked at what the next trimester's suggested classes would be. History 1, Math 1, Language 1, Spellcasting 1, and Spearfighting 1. Of these, I'd be in Language 4 and I could probably skip Math entirely... but I wasn't sure how which is why I had stopped early. If I could get out of Math, I wanted to take something related to monsters or chemistry.

I entered the main administration building and went to the registrar. The woman behind the counter told me that I could ask one of the math teachers in order to take a placement test. I thanked her and asked for a list of teachers and locations. I went to the first on the list, a Ms. Kelley and left a note for her about requesting a placement exam along with my mailbox number so that she could get back to me with either an exam date or a time and place to discuss. either would be fine by me.

In my remaining spare time, I went to the library and took one of the private study rooms to read and train my mana. The other book I'd taken was fiction rather than practical like the other... a welcomed distraction.

The second Swordfighting class was focused on classes. The teacher covered much the same information as the book and cautioned us not to just pick the first thing we had available. He suggested we wait until we were close to graduation, about fifteen, to choose our classes so that we had a lot of time to get several choices.

The rest of the class was spent practicing forms. I still got several looks from my classmates due to my small size and young age. The teacher, on the other hand, looked like he couldn't be bothered one way or another.

After sparring in the afternoon with the class, the bully not having made any moves yet, I checked my mail. Ms. Kelley had returned my request with a date place for the exam. It was to be this Saturday in her classroom.

The date of the test arrived. I'd spent a little time confirming I knew how math worked the previous few nights. I was ready.

Her classroom was much the same as the other classrooms I'd been in for Reading and Writing. It was a rectangular room with enough space for about thirty students each with their own desk. Ms. Kelley stood st the front waiting for me to arrive.

"James?" she asked.

"Yes, Ms. Kelley."

"You're younger than I expected"

"I get that a lot."

"Ok, so take a seat anywhere you like in the front row."

"Ok."

I picked the seat two from the side away from the door, near where the teacher's desk was. I wasn't going to get accused of cheating. I wanted to spend as much of my classes on things I didn't know rather than reviewing things I did. Writing would be the next thing to place out of, assuming I could raise my skill quickly enough.

Ms. Kelley placed three pencils and a thick set of problems onto my desk.

"There are one hundred questions. You will have ninety minutes to complete the exam."

That wasn't a whole lot of time... an average of about 55 seconds per problem. For the earlier ones, they wouldn't take nearly that much time. But the later ones probably would... or could. They meant business.

"Write your name at the top.'

I did.

"You may begin."

The first ten problems were simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, with the last two dealing with order of operations. Nothing too difficult. The next ten focused on the same as the previous ten but with fractions this time. Then followed some problems on exponents and roots. A few about percents and fractions. Then the second half of the exam was primarily based on algebra. Anything from a simple, single-step equation to difficult, multi-step problems. There was some trigonometry thrown in for good measure as well... probably my weakest subject due to not remembering the identities very well. Finally, the last ten questions were far more difficult than the others before them. They were simple calculus problems.

I was fairly sure I'd gotten the non-calculus problems correct, even the trigonometry ones. The calculus ones, I'd have been happy getting half of them right. About an hour after i'd started, I handed the test back to Ms. Kelley.

"Done already?"

"Yeah."

"What'd you think of the test?"

"Not too bad."

I thought for a second.

"When can I expect the results?"

"Now. I'll look it over and see how you did. It may take an hour or so if you're willing to wait."

I nodded my head and sat back at the desk. I decided to practice my magic and my Writing while I waited. There was no such thing as free time if I had to be confined to the classroom. I may as well use it for something.

An hour later, Ms. Kelley tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up. She placed the exam back on my desk. There was a large 95 in red.

"Congratulations," she told me. "You don't have to take any math courses if you don't want to. You even tested out of the hardest course we offer."

"That's great!"

"Where did you learn all of this by your age?"

"Books," I lied.

She gave me a look that said she knew I was lying, but she didn't press any farther. I left the room, elated that I had at least four or five classes that I could choose in the near future instead of the mandatory Math classes.