A giant mountain was surrounded by a fence, with a majestic white building at the top. Currently, he was outside Krouxorth Academy, with the other new students. In overall grades, 14 had passed. It was a small number, considering there were almost a thousand applicants.

They had come here in carriages, following the one from the school. Even the commoners were given one, as a student of The 8 Great Academies was considered an official mage, and no worse than a noble.

A formally clothed old man, with grey hair and a straight stature walked toward the door. He had a cane in hand and was holding his hat with the other. His steps were slow, almost taking an hour since he was seen.

He waved his right hand, recently holding his hat, as the barred black metal doors opened slowly. The blond pony-tailed examiner bowed, and so did the other school personnel.

“Welcome to Krouxorth Academy, young ones.” he said and looked over the new students “It seems we have an interesting bunch this time around.” After a short pause, he continued “I’m called Stein, the principal of this academy.”

The principal moved his hand in a circling motion and when his palms were facing upwards, a jade ball appeared on his hand. Most crystals Raven has seen before were all blue or black, so he wondered if the color signified anything. It was clear that the others were stunned after seeing it.

“I’ll pass this ball around all of you, and this will decide your future in this academy. Let me explain it to you.” said Stein as he cleared his throat “There are 6 houses in Krouxorth Academy, each specialize in different types of magic and get different treatments. They are: House Radiant, House Regulus, , House Acritas, House Vespertine, House Glacius, and House Tyrannus.”

He gave the ball to one he didn’t see before and it shined a radiant golden color “A righteous spirit, you are perfect for House Radiant.”

He then went on and on until it reached the ones he knew. The principal neared Tulga, the wolfman and gave him the ball. Unlike the others, it shined a ferocious blue color “House Acritas, one with a ferocious nature.” he said and walked towards the bride of the prince.

The jade ball emitted a venomous green color “House Vespertine, a poisonous spirit that benefits from others’ pain. But we teach all and every talented mage in the world, so I have no say in this matter.”

The ball went into Lily’s hand and glowed in an icy blue color “A cold spirit capable of enduring enormous suffering, you’d be perfect for Glacius.”

The ball then went into the prince’s hand and it glowed in a proud yellow “House Radiant, no, you’re better in House Regulus, one who is fated to lead.”

…

It was finally Raven’s turn. He held the ball in his hand and the usual jolt ran through his body, but this time it penetrated his head and brain. The ball emitted a bloodthirsty red color “House Tyrannus, one who is fated to bend the world to his will.” he said with his eyes glowing a white color and continued with a tear in his eye “It’s been a long time since I saw one.”

The ball passed on to the last person, Jet’s hand. The ball glowed with calm, yet threatening red color “Another one!” shouted out the principal in surprise “There are actually 2 Tyranuses this year.” joy clear on his face. “Your fate is to oppress the heavens.”

Raven and Jet both shared a look, and the principal led them to the school grounds. The ground stretched as they walked on and on, until they reached the bottom of the mountain.

The principal then flew off, without using wings and a slight distortion in mana particles, reporting that he used magic. “Find your way to the top of the mountain before nightfall, or you’ll be expelled.”

The red and blue dragonmen quickly flew after him, the red one carrying Diana. The one with purple hair, called Annie Ionia, got into the shadow of the flying duo.

Not wasting any time, Raven then started carrying Lily and took off. She said awfully loudly “So we’re separated, huh?”

“Looks like it.” he replied loudly as well.

The rest of the flight continued without a conversation as they neared the school. The supposedly same occurrence as when they entered the school and walked towards the mountain started happening, and the road seemed to stretch on and on. It took twice as long as what the distance looked like.

It was a space distortion spell placed by a skilled illusionist. They were different from mages in a fundamental part. Mages could fight and so much more, while illusionists could only cast spells, but were quite experienced in that area.

Finally, the 2 hour long flight ended as they descended. They were now standing right in front of the giant school building, which had 8 floors; each and every floor had quite the tall ceiling, resulting in it being taller than normal 8 floor buildings back on Earth.

There was a plate over the wide door of the Academy, written Krouxorth in Terranian. They entered the building, as expected; the inside was luxurious as well. It was by no means inferior to the hotel, maybe better, and it was only a studying environment. There were 3 classrooms on the first floor and the way the building was built, most likely, every floor had the same.

The principal and 5 students were already there. There was the prince’s bunch and Jet, there was another one he didn’t see before.

The old man greeted Liliana and Raven, as they walked towards an unoccupied area. There was the janitor, a man with green hair in his twenties, inside a wooden cabin in the school. It was right next to the door and had a large windowless opening.

The walls of the school had exquisite carvings depicting the creation of new magic skills. There was a single window at one side of the school, and it was a stained glass one. There was one part whole and the bottom part was divided into six, each depicting an animal

A radiant lion, a venomous snake, a blooming phoenix, a white hare, an Asian dragon and an European dragon in the middle.

…

Soon enough, all students came, some following an instructor, some by their own power. It wasn’t meant to test our capabilities, but our willpower, perhaps. The principal prepared for his speech and produced the same kind of ball the examiner used during the practical examination, a microphone type.

“Dear freshmen, I would like to welcome you to our Krouxorth Academy, please make 6 groups according to which house you have been assigned to.”

The students moved around and 6 groups were made.

3 in House Radiant, 2 in House Vespertine, 3 in House Glacius, 2 in House Regulus, 2 in House Acritas and finally, 2 in House Tyrannus. Apparently, being in the Tyrannus was an honor, and producing 2 in one year was already an accomplishment enough.

Then 5 instructors walked out, and the one who lead the incapable students walked towards House Glacius, a man with dark blue hair and was probably in his twenties. Not just him, all the teachers looked like that, if you exclude the young Vespertine instructor.

They were all wearing the same clothes, a stylish blue and white jacket and trousers of the same color, skirt for the females. The only thing setting them apart from each other was their sign on the left side of the chest of their jacket.

The assigned instructor of the Tyrannos was a rash looking man with short crimson hair, and was muscular, not too much. The mark on his chest was that of the European dragon, while the House Acritas had the mark of the Asian dragon.

Ironic, how the prince of the dragonmen couldn’t get into one of the 2 dragon houses, when a wolf did. The instructor of House Regulus was the examiner from before, the one with a scar over his nose.

“I’m Litmus Tyran, your instructor. There is currently 1 aside you two, but he is a senior. And I should explain what going up a grade means. If you are exceptionally talented, the education given to you will increase, signifying the increase in grade. The school doesn’t officially have such a thing, but it’s used between students to measure their power.” he paused for a while “One can take up to 15 years to graduate.” This didn’t shock Raven, as his world needed 16, with the university included. Jet had an indifferent expression on his face. So Litmus continued after looking at the others giving long speeches “I value practicality over theory, so let me get to the chase. There are ones called The 4 Rulers, who have authority comparable to the vice-principal, in other words, me. If you wish to compete for it, you may assume a challenge, but once you fail, you’ll be expelled.”

Raven raised his hand “Is there a ranking between students except grades?” as if expecting the question, the instructor answered:

“There is, you’ll be classified by F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS and X. This is usually used in the public as well. If it’s F, it means you have a bad talent. But I assume you 2 have at least 4?” he asked, both nodded in response “Then you are automatically C class, and it is then divided into 3 parts: Lower, Middle, Upper. B is the amount of power a strong student has, A is the amount of power a mage has, S is the lower limit of power a teacher has to have, SS is the level of one of the 4 Rulers, SSS is our principal and X is a terrifying amount, capable of crushing a country in no time.”

For the first time, Jet was a little shocked, ever since the S part. Raven was, however, learning new stuff from the talk. Soon the teacher’s explanation was over. He explained it in a way that even a fool would understand in a very short time and they learned all that they needed to.

The school had different classes for each element, and Raven will be sharing 3 classes with Jet, [Shadow], [Lightning] and [Soul].

If you were excellent in your studies of magic, you would be granted a chance to compete in the 8 Academies Festival, a battle between the most famous schools of magic around the world. If you won, then there was a special prize.

The school was mostly for its library, while the students could abandon coming to class altogether and use the books for their own research of magic. It was a pretty straightforward way to explain it.

The teachers mostly served as advisors and House Instructors were for delivering news to the students of the house. Naturally, Litmus was slacking off for 5 years, with only 1 student to take care of, who was 21 this year. He revealed a secret of the school too, while whispering to their ears.

The teachers weren’t actually 20 and were all over 60, the little looking one was 72. The principal was already over 150. This was because mages could use various means to prolong their life and eternal youth. In fact, the principal was like them until 3 years ago when he had an accident while researching [Transformation] magic.

Finally, the talks finished, at least took an hour for the others to finish, whereas Litmus only took 20 minutes at most. Raven had already started liking the personality of the instructor, who didn’t fancy people easily.

“School will start tomorrow, now you may rest in the dorms of your houses.” said the principal, with his crystal ball.

Litmus motioned for them to follow him and took them into the basement.