At this time at another part of the grade.

“How interesting, it seems that the Shielding Lions are in a rather intense fight.” A girl with golden eyes commented as she was looking at the rather peculiar wall before her. Behind her stood four other people, one of them, a boy with silver hair responded: “Yes, the assailants aren’t in our database though, new transfers?”

Next to him stood a girl with pink pigtails, she replied “It seems like it. And that just a day after the Decorus princess arrived, do we know if she was allowed to bring other students with her?”

The other four people in the room stayed silent, they didn’t seem to have any intel on these people. After a moment the girl with golden eyes and silver hair spoke as she turned toward her four confidants. “Their strength is high, it’s been ten seconds and nobody had been taken out.” She looked at the girl with pink ponytails “Sara, be careful with assumptions, we pride ourselves in always having the right information, we don’t want to mess up so soon after our founding.” she then turned toward the boy with silver hair, they had the same hair color but the boy had red eyes, making him look quite intense.

“Hawk, approach them after the fight is finished, get a judge of their character, and if the situation allows it, ask about the reason for their transfer. Don’t offend them even if they are from Decorus.” she turned toward all four of the people standing in the room “We remain impartial no matter what, even if these people are from Decorus and they killed some of our people, we aren’t those who pick sides.”

The four nodded, they knew exactly what she meant, she had been very clear about this before letting them join.

The girl with golden eyes and long silver hair turned around again looking at the wall. The wall had runes faintly visible in many places, enchantments could be seen that were extraordinarily complex. Thanks to these runes the wall seemed to be showing not only the map of the entire grade, but there were even dots depicting the location of everyone in this grade.

Her gaze was fixed on the leftmost area of the wall, she saw twelve figures forming a circle, small lines appeared often going in between these twelve figures and four other ones surrounding them. This made it clear a high number of spells were being sent off continuously. As for the figures specifically, they all had their own colors, ten of the twelve who were covering each other were slightly different shades of dark blue. Surrounding them were four figures that were barely visible, they were a faint gray.

As she was looking at this, one of the faint gray figures got shot back a meter and the figure flickered a bit. Just as she thought the Shielding Lions were about to win something happened that caused her to raise an eyebrow. A faint red hue could be seen all around the blue figures, a spell seemed to have cast encompassing that entire area.

----------------------

“VINEA”

A second after Rein’s yell the ground underneath the group of twelve began shaking. As the ground cracked underneath them four people lost their footing, breaking the formation. Two of these got hit by a spell when they hit the floor, wounding them.

Just as a few people managed to jump away from most of the group, the ground cracked further and vines sprouted out of it, quickly rising up, ensnaring those above it. Rein and Amelia focused on controlling the vines that quickly tied their enemies up tightly, barely allowing them to even breathe. The effect was better than imagined. Eight people got ensnared, four of which being forced to drop their wand by the vines tightening around their arms.

A few bones got broken and the four that managed to jump out of the way dropped their wands when they realized what happened.

Villin grinned, with all four of them working together the result was incredible, the vines ruse up to five meters, those ensnared were also no longer on ground level as they were stuck three meters up into the air. Even if they managed to get loose from the vines, they would have to be careful with the fall.

Villin didn’t hesitate and sent a Vococito spell to all those still holding their hands while ensnared, with the force of the pull they were forced to let go of their wands as they were pulled all the way to Villin.

Just as Villin was unsure of what to do, a figure appeared in front of him. The figure was wearing a gold robe, and was completely bald only having a long mustache.

“This bout is finished!” The teacher said as he looked around the room. Now that Villin also paid attention he gulped a few times, the amount of destruction their fight had caused was rather shocking. All over the room crates were broken, sometimes their contents were shattered as well, causing food to be spilled on the ground. The walls were full of cracks where destructive spells hit them, not to mention the massive amount of cracks that were caused when the vines came out of the ground. And then there were those that didn’t enter the fight. Two of the four spectators that decided not to join the fight were also harmed, even if just lightly.

They couldn’t walk out of the encirclement since then they would be a serious threat to Villin’s group so they all decided to lay on the floor and hope for the best, just casting some defensive spells on them. Some of the deflected or missed spells got close to two of them causing some scratches to appear.

“Gaefromaselo” the teacher cast a spell and a red hue appeared on one of the members of the Shielding Lions “The first offensive spell was cast by the Shielding Lions, that will be fifty magic crystals.” the teacher said matter of factly as he approached what seemed to be the leader of the group, said leader didn’t hesitate to take out the required magic crystals.

After this, the teacher looked at the involved participants once more “The fight seems to have been ten against four, a hundred-and-fifty percent more members compared to those being attacked, that is a second-grade dishonorability bonus. The teacher pointed his wand toward the leader of the group before putting his wand away again. But Villin clearly saw the student looked a lot paler now.

“What was the source of conflict?” The teacher asked as he looked toward the student again.

“A private disagreement.” the student said as he looked at the teacher with a wry smile. The teacher then looked toward Villin “Can you confirm this?”

Villin looked very unsure of what was going on, he expected a massive number of different fines to be given but wasn’t sure of what was going on “Yeah, the source of conflict was a private disagreement.” Villin said, somewhat confused.

The teacher looked troubled for a moment before looking toward the leader of the Shielding Lions “Your reputation had gotten dangerously low, I’ll say it was a faction war instead, the mail room will be from-” The teacher looked at Villin’s robe and looked at him in the face “Was your crest destroyed in battle?”

Villin shook his head “I just joined the school, don’t know anything about these crests.”

The teacher looked conflicted again, after thinking for a moment he looked at the leader of the Shielding Lions again. “Alright then, I’ll let you off but you’ll be responsible for cleaning the place up, you have two hours.”

The student looked relieved and said, “Thank you, professor!” Then, he quickly retrieved his wand and began freeing some of his fellow students from the tough vines.

The professor with the mustache then looked at Villin and his companions who had joined him by now and frowned slightly. “Hmm, new students is it? I didn’t hear of your arrival. Well then, I suppose I should tour you around and explain the rules then shouldn’t I?”

“Then I will thank you, professor may I ask where we can retrieve our books?”

The professor seemed satisfied with his response and began walking to the other end of the room, when they got to the very back, he pointed at the four boxes that were full of books and other school supplies, Villin felt rather lucky their stuff wasn’t close to the center of the fight.

“Your name is imprinted in the inside of the boxes on the side. These ones should be yours.”

The group didn’t waste any time and quickly put the books inside of their bags after identifying their boxes.

“Alright then, let me explain the basic rules to you four, did you come from the first grade of The Academy or from another place?” the professor asked as he looked at them.

After confirming they were from the first grade the professor began explaining the rules as he began walking toward the exit of the room.

“If you already got into a fight when you thought there were fines on it I’m sure you’ll like it here. Usually from the third grade onward the school gets divided into different guilds, these guilds each have their own goals and allow students to find like-minded people. Now due to the attacks that happened three months ago, The Academy went in war-mode for the first time in a very long time and the guild system also applies in the second grade.”

The teacher paused for a moment as they exited the room, Villin noticed a boy with red eyes and silver hair look at him as they passed by but didn’t think much of it.

“The guild system is simple. Students, generally those of the fifth or sixth grade have something they are very skilled at. This could be a skill such as combat or enchanting, but it could also be something more obscure such as chess or tailoring. These students from a higher grade have something they believe in and something to offer to those that decide to follow their ideal.” The teacher paused for a moment as he let the group take the information in.

“As such, the Shielding Lions you fought before are dedicated to protection. When they get to a higher grade they might get hired as guards to protect students going on dangerous missions. This guild, for example, has existed for dozens of years, students that join it might have a chance to join the Shielding Lion company that exists outside of The Academy. Just a few months ago we hired them to help defend the fifth grade.”

“But in essence, at this grade, guilds are put into two groups. Contenders and non-contenders. Contender guilds are those that fight, they spar with other guilds for resources and reputation, both things that are quite important. Non-contenders are either guilds that only exist to do what you like doing with like-minded people or guilds that just sell things to either fellow students or The Academy itself.”

As he processed this information, Villin frowned a little, the implications of this run very far. Guilds seemed to just be like companies, higher grade students want to be able to get some sort of power so they make a guild, give some benefits and when they leave The Academy and turn this guild into a company, they might be able to have a steady supply of new graduates joining. It was very likely they formed some sort of contract with The Academy benefitting both sides.

Villin saw two other uses The Academy might have for these guilds. Firstly, it gave valuable combat experience for those who seek it, Villin was still sure deaths would be rewarded with expulsion though as losing students wouldn’t be worth it, but having students spar with each other could improve their skills quite a bit.

Another thing it did was allow The Academy to have a proper sight of the ideals their students have. Let’s say a guild popped up that believed magus should rule over mortals. If this guild were to gain traction The Academy would be able to properly spot the problem before it got out of control.

Of course, there was also a clear negative, different guilds might hate each other, this would cause the overall strength of The Academy to become lower. Then again, maybe The Academy depended on this hate between each other to motivate their students in times of peace. Villin still felt like he was missing some information there but he got the gist of it.

As the professor was talking Villin checked the map he had retrieved from the box and looked where they were, they were just about to arrive at a place called ‘The Guild Hall’.