For the next month after the meeting with the seniors and the talk about the Six Arts, the S-class students were working as hard as they could.

The first term was already about half done, and they didn’t have a lot of time before the first Inter Class Tourney, or ICT.

Sages are not people who change suddenly; it has to do with their aging.

Sage’s age much slower than normal human beings, and live much longer.

To put it in perspective, a one star Sage can live to be about one hundred, whereas a two star Sage can live to two hundred, a three star Sage to three hundred, and so on.

It’s a dividing factor for aging, and was the main reason Liza was notably shorter than everyone else in the class, it was because she reached two Stars earlier than them, and now that she reached three Stars she would age even slower.

The main growth period of a Sage, that determines their future prospects were between the ages of fifteen and twenty five, and so this period was considered the ideal time to spend training.

After a Sage passed this age, their growth would without fail slow down, resulting in situations like Jonathan, who only gained one Star since passing that age, and he was in his forties or fifties, despite how he looked like he was in his mid-twenties.

He actually looked slightly older than Principal Oren, who had the record of being the youngest King. His exact age wasn’t known, but he was definitely older than one hundred.

Thus, Kazuya and the others in his class came to Jonathan the day after the lesson on the Six Arts and requested training.

“I refuse.” They were shot down, and were a bit at a loss at what to do when their teacher refused to teach them, but then they realized they were asking the wrong question.

“Is there a place where we can train after school and during free periods?” They asked after they realized that Jonathan did train them, asking for more was already being a bit selfish.

And besides, it was their growth; they had to work on it. Yes, it was Jonathan’s job to teach them during class, but beyond that…

“Now you are asking the right questions. The place you all go to train during Friday is always available for you all to use. The Forest near the school can be entered as long as you have someone with three Stars, and Liza counts.” Jonathan’s smirk told them that he was leaving something out…

But what he told them was already amazing. If they trained at every free moment then they could progress much more.

But… their breaks were around half an hour… and the trains stopped moving back and forth with the school at around six, five during the current time of winter due to the sun setting earlier.

That meant that barring Friday where they could train the entire day with Jonathan guiding them, every other day only allowed them a total of four to five hours of training with the facilities.

This was after considering the standard dismissal time of three in the afternoon, but Jonathan sometimes let them leave early…

This, in hindsight, made sense. He was letting them leave early to get more training in, it was their fault they didn’t do so.

Sure, it wasn’t stated, but they had entered the school complacent in their positions due to their power, even with the knowledge of possible expulsion, it seemed like a farfetched dream.

But there were little hints saying that it wouldn’t be like that, all of them dropped by Jonathan.

Letting them out early, focusing when he taught them anything related to combat or Sage-related things, even during the fight against the D-class where they heard him state that it was usually the A-class that fought the S-class was a hint.

That day, after school ended and they collectively went to go train, it was Tony who spoke up on what they were all thinking.

“Is it just me… or is Jonathan actually… a really good teacher?” his question got him glances, which got him to shiver in shyness again, as the rest of the students thought about it.

“No one ever called him a bad teacher though.” Kazuya said with a raised eyebrow, causing all the looks to swap over to him.

Tony looked really thankful for that, and Kazuya understood.

“We can call Jonathan many things, like lazy, slob or even annoying.” Kazuya added that last one out of consideration for Jonathan’s childish punishments.

Name calling, stealing food, putting glue on seats or stink bomb under your chair, Jonathan only used pranks and old school bullying methods to reprimand them.

Another case where he was actually teaching them, as some Sages are taught that they are special growing up.

The truth couldn’t be more damaging than if it had a physical effect, but they weren’t special, they weren’t entitled to special treatment.

Even they of the S-class only got special treatment with conditions included. Jonathan’s punishments were designed with the idea of cutting off such a mind-set before it could even take root.

As proof, these punishments worked the most on Jade who seemed to be from a rich family, and the least on Kazuya.

Jonathan just gave one look to Kazuya and nodded in understanding the first time Kazuya ignored one of those pranks.

Jonathan understood, with the elder Kazuya family members, Jonathan must be really tame in comparison to the younger Kazuya.

“But despite all that, Jonathan is a good teacher. He shows it in little ways, but we all subconsciously acknowledge it… isn’t that why we don’t complain about him?” Kazuya’s smirk got nods from the group…

And a blush from Leah and a bright eyed look from Liza.

Kazuya was unfortunately oblivious to his pretty-boy looks. The other boys were thankful for that actually.

“He is smart, knows a bunch of subjects enough to teach all of our subjects with only occasionally opening a textbook, strong enough as a five star Sage which is considered the upper ranks of the average Sage, and he knows five of the Six Arts.” That last bit was something they had only learnt recently.

Kazuya had asked his parents about it the moment he got home, where they explained that they never taught him about the Six Arts because he wasn’t ready.

Not because they forgot he didn’t know about them… definitely.

Kazuya really wished his parents would be more serious… despite their popularity as Sages, and their image in public as ‘an amazing tag team Sage couple’…

The two of them were childish, to the extreme. It was to the extent that Kazuya could understand why he ended up so calm in comparison to almost everyone in his age group.

If he wasn’t so calm, he’d have died of a brain tumour from stress caused by his parents most likely.

Seriously, his mother had anger issues and was petty, and his father was someone who often put his foot in his mouth and seemingly couldn’t read the mood of a room.

“Yeah, I told my family about the Six Arts and they told me that only really talented Sages ever learn three, let alone five. And obviously only Kings can learn six.” Vince said, and it seems the talk was veering towards families…

The S-class students barely ever talked about their families to each other.

“I called my brother to ask about it. He says that even some seven Star Sages can only use four of them… Jonathan really is good, my brother even knows him.” The words of Edward were full of weight as they entered the training gym.

His brother was the Dragon of the Empire, Gregory Valzard; he was the most famous Sage in the Empire bar the Emperor.

“Huh… guess we’re talking about families now? Anyone want to bring up theirs?” Jade asked, and the three who hadn’t spoken seemed reluctant.

“…Orphan.” Liza’s words were plain and simple, and got sympathetic gazes from Leah and Tony.

“…Same.” Tony admitted while Leah frowned, the mood suddenly taking a turn for the morbid.

“My family was killed during an incursion.” That got winces, and even Kazuya who was normally slightly distant from everyone approached and placed a hand on Leah’s shoulder…

“Sorry.” Edward said, sheepish at having brought up the subject, Jade looking just as sheepish before their apologies were interrupted by a really loud farting noise.

They all stared as one at Vince, who looked unapologetic. Nay… that was the wrong way to put it. He looked proud of what he had just done.

“That was my loudest one for the past month, I’m not even sorry.” He said and while Jade and Leah were a bit disgusted-

“I’m not even mad, that was amazing.” Edward said with look of reluctant acknowledgement, getting nods from Kazuya and Tony, who were trying to hold back their laughs.

For Tony it was notably easier given how quiet he normally was.

They all moved further into the gym getting ready to change into exercising outfits provided by the school… once more, Edward and Kazuya felt appreciation for Vince’s ability to keep the mood of the group above a certain level.

The training began in earnest that day, with each person of their group training, even Liza to some extent.

For their class, their training focused on their deficiencies in combat. For Edward it was his Elemental control over a range, he trained this through standing as far as possible from whatever he was trying to manipulate.

Simultaneously, he was also trying to increase his level of control, especially with the Earth and Ice Elements as he tried to actually sculpt statues from a distance, with as few ‘cuts’ as possible.

It was slow going, especially because Edward was not exactly artistic.

For Jade, she was fighting against Kazuya because her endurance in a fight was pitiful in comparison to physical powerhouses like Kazuya and Edward.

Vince was sparring with Tony, one was a long-range expert, and the other was a close range expert. Their matches were decided by range after three minutes.

If Tony was in striking range after three minutes, he won, if he wasn’t, Vince won. This was training them to maintain their appropriate striking distances for now, but Kazuya had recommended they get used to fighting at different ranges, similar to how Edward was training now.

They were both a bit reluctant to do so, but Vince would be training against Kazuya at that point, trying to fight close-up for as long as possible.

Leah was doing the simplest thing of them all, exercising.

Leah was a caster-type Sage so she fought through pure control and emission of her Elements, but as a side effect she wasn’t as strong physically as the rest of the class.

She mostly jogged around the gym, and did exercises to work as many different muscles as possible, but she focused on her legs because of her being a caster, she, like Vince, needed to maintain distance.

In all honesty, Tony was probably stronger than her, but he was timid in a fight which would give her the victory. It was why she didn’t just do the same training as Vince, because Tony was also training to actually be decisive in battle with his movements and attacks.

Tony had a low self-esteem, and as such, he questioned all of his own actions in a fight, but that slowed him down.

Jonathan as much as told Tony this to his face during one class, complaining that, talent wise, Tony should have been fourth or fifth in the class, not last.

Liza’s training was the one that had the least movement, as she was meditating.

Maybe they would have complained, but her meditation did have an effect.

Meditation had three common thoughts to it. One was that you should spread your senses and take in as much of the current world as possible.

Another was that you should erase the world from your mind and focus on one thing, a noise, a feeling, a taste, a smell, something, and focus on it to the exclusion of all other things.

And finally was the idea of thinking of nothing… this was something that some considered impossible to do, and others claimed they could do it.

Liza worked on the second of the three, focusing on one thing, and while doing so circulating her Essence within her body. And the one thing she focused on was oddly appropriate for her.

She focused on a single sound, the ticking of a clock. The passing of time, and considering the Element she had it was appropriate in the same way a Water Sage would meditate to the sound of rain, or a Fire Sage to the crackling of firewood.

Her Essence control and amount was very slowly increasing. Meditation was a very passive growth, and the true way Sages trained involved doing such things until they fought and put their methods into practice, and stabilizing their power at a higher level, active growth.

In other terms, the passive growth would be the learning of five basic strikes, and active growth would be combining those strikes into a fighting style.

Passive growth was relatively constant but only through active growth could they achieve major progression.

The results of such a training program was not so clear even after a month, but they could all feel the barrier to becoming a three Star Sage approaching, even if they couldn’t surmount it just yet.

Liza had a long way to go to be a four Star Sage, given that she had only recently become a three Star Sage, at the minimum she’d be becoming a four Star Sage towards the middle or end of their second year, her growth wouldn’t be as noticeable as the others in the class because she was starting from a higher point.

At the end of the first month of classes, it was now early February, and their classes were busy with mundane projects like researching a book or being given a map and told to fill it with symbols and answer questions.

The last one was actually the one the S-class was focusing on, as their maps were all of different sections of Berlin, and putting it together provided a larger map for the city.

“Hey, why don’t we meet up tomorrow and walk around to find out where the symbols have to be placed?” Leah offered after looking at their maps.

After seeing her classmates staring at her, Leah realized it was her that spoke aloud and seemed to immediately shrink into herself…

She really was like Tony in that aspect… except Tony had the foresight to know he’d end up like this, so he’d rarely if ever speak up.

If she just carried through with her attitude, it would have been fine, but she seemed to think that what she was saying was unnecessary, as someone else would say it.

“Don’t worry Leah, it’s a good idea. Let’s meet up around nine, near the Pergamon Museum? Is that okay with everyone?” No one had the heart to tell Jade that her request sounded more like a demand…

And even then, it didn’t matter; they all felt it was an acceptable time and place, though Liza’s look of fear told anyone who saw it how she felt about getting up that early in the day…

Waking up so early on a weekend was a terrifying idea.

She was eventually convinced by the fact that Kazuya was going with, and that it was an opportunity to spend more time with him than she already did.

Kazuya was obviously left out of such bribing and when he found out, would inevitably harm Edward and Jade who seemed to have planned it.

The Saturday morning approached and Kazuya got done in the morning, making sure to not make too much noise…

If he made enough noise, his parents would wake up. If his parents woke up, they’d ask where he was going and nag. And regardless of his answer, they’d probably follow him with a camera to get ‘memories of their baby boy’.

Why, why were his parents such eccentrics?

Instead of talking to them about where he was going, he just left a note that he was hanging out with friends from school while working on a project, and left the house.

Obviously, he was not wearing his school uniform this time around, instead dressed in jeans, a pair of boots, a long sleeved T-shirt and a zip-up hoodie. Also, he was wearing a white scarf and a black beanie.

He liked those two colours, simple and they typically matched with everything, especially each other.

Soon he arrived at the Museum due to living a few blocks away, and he was early by a good ten minutes, only seeing Edward and Vince waiting.

“Hey.” Kazuya’s greeting was calm as he raised a hand in greeting, getting one in return from his classmates, before their faces pinched.

“Kazuya… I have a question… why do you carry that everywhere?” Edward’s question was legitimate as carrying a katana everywhere was weird.

Sages were encouraged to always have their weapons nearby, but maybe Kazuya took that lesson a bit too seriously?

“It’s training. My parents always trained me like this, and it’s worked out so far.” Kazuya admitted, patting the katana at his side fondly.

It was covered in cloth, so some might think it was something like a baseball bat, but still, it was conspicuous.

The only reason Kazuya wouldn’t be arrested by the police for carrying a weapon was because he was a Sage, Sage’s were allowed to carry weapons openly, although it was frowned upon to do so in a public place with civilians.

“Carrying your weapon constantly as training… I get the idea, but still… how long have you had that katana by the way?” Vince asked, cheery in the morning for reasons unknown to Kazuya and Edward.

Vince had hinted at it, but his family was filled with hunters, getting up early was something he was used to at this point. In fact, waking up at seven was considered sleeping in.

“I’ve had it for a year, and I’ve been training with it for just as long.” Kazuya admitted, thinking back to the complaints he got in middle school for carrying around a bladed weapon towards the end of the year, regardless of his status as a Sage; he was and still is a teenager.

Many complained, and many also shut up when his parents got involved…

Why were they only so serious around people they didn’t know?

“Huh… but you’ve been a Sage for three years at this point, so what were you using before then?” Edward’s question was valid, as he was trained in martial arts before he even knew what Elements he had, and after becoming a Sage it only got worse.

“That’s a secret. But suffice to say, this katana is good, but it’s actually a secondary weapon.” Kazuya’s expression showed that he wasn’t quite sure how to continue the conversation here…

He had something he wanted to say, but clearly wasn’t quite sure how or if he should.

“Hey man, whatever you want to say, you can tell us another time dude.” Edward offered, and Kazuya nodded in thanks.

They waited for a bit for the others, and during that time Kazuya had the opportunity to check the outfits of Vince and Edward…

Kazuya was oddly interested in fashion, though not much beyond showing interest in how other people dressed.

Edward was dressed in jeans, boots, a muscle T-shirt with an unzipped leather jacket thrown over his muscular frame, fingerless gloves on his hands and a chain connecting his belt to his pocket completed his ‘badass’ image.

Kazuya wasn’t sure on it, but it suited Edward’s frame at least.

For Vince, he was wearing cuffed pants and sneakers, and a short sleeved top as if it was not currently snowing…

He wasn’t even shivering; it made Kazuya wonder how Vince was so used to the cold.

During the silence, other than that moment of curiosity, the three just sat on their phones doing whatever, though Edward claimed he was messaging the others on the chat-group.

Moments after losing in Tetris, Kazuya looked up to see Liza had appeared at his side, staring at the game in his hands with interest.

“You want to try?” Kazuya offered getting a nod from the girl as she gently took the phone out of his hands, her own warm mittens being removed so she could use the touch-screen.

They didn’t even greet each other, so used to her presence Kazuya felt that she just spontaneously existed in his vicinity and she never really left.

She rarely felt the need to greet him either for much the same reason apparently, though when they first saw each other in the day she’d immediately get as close as possible.

Kazuya still wasn’t sure what was up with her, or why she seemed to enjoy his presence so much.

Shortly after that had Tony, Jade and Leah appear, one after the other, and again Kazuya felt his eyes land on their outfits before continuing.

Tony was wearing a beanie just like Kazuya, as well as a scarf, but… he seemed to be overly dressed, even for the snow given his huge jacket and baggy pants.

Tony seemed like those guys who disliked showing skin… Kazuya actually felt a bit of worry because of that, but it wasn’t like he had the authority to make sure his concerns were unnecessary.

Jade was dressed in a long skirt and very warm leggings, her top being covered by a woven jacket.

Most likely, she was feeling a bit chilly, but prioritized looks… well a Sage had a stronger resistance to the Elements, which included the cold.

Stronger resistance to Wind had some interesting effects when it came to holding your breath and mitigating air resistance.

Leah arrived after that, her clothes were comparatively more conservative even compared to Jade who showed almost no skin, Leah’s skirt was longer, and she had a cream jersey.

Kazuya did try to not notice Liza’s outfit because if he did she might start to preen out of happiness.

He did notice it though; she was wearing pants unlike the other two girls, and a large hoodie with an image of a cartoon cat on the front, a red scarf around her neck.

Most of what she wore was black except for the scarf, and it was a good contrast to her white hair.

“Alright, we’re all here, now, everyone, show your maps.” Jade’s ‘order’ was followed as everyone checked which areas they had to be in, the maps were complete as mentioned before, but they had to find all the landmarks.

And so they moved around, and lucky for Liza, her map had the museum as a feature, so she started a bit early in comparison to the others.

They walked around for the day, talking about anything that came to mind, from favourite cartoons to new ideas for Element control, and more than once Liza was pestered for information on reaching three Stars.

At some point they stopped to eat at a fast-food place, notably one which involved a certain colonel and fried chicken, and they were sitting around there for a while.

Some people stared at the group of seven students with interest, there were a few clues that they were all Sages, notably their hair colours weren’t ‘natural’.

Up until the age of twelve, a Sage would have a natural hair colour, blonde, redhead, brown, black, simple… but after reaching the age of twelve and awakening an Element, after a month or so their hair would have changed colours to something exotic.

Kazuya’s hair could be considered black until the light hit it, but carrying a weapon and not being stopped by the police was another sign that they were Sages.

“I’m just saying, there are four training centres run by four of the ten Kings, but one of those training centres actually moves? Wouldn’t it be difficult to find them?” Jade asked Edward about it, seeing as Edward was given a choice between which to join, it was up to him.

While they discussed that, Vince was making jokes and funny faces, determined to get Leah and Tony to laugh out loud, and they were making a valiant effort, but it clearly wasn’t working too well…

Vince was making fun of a bad drawing on the packet they got the food in, and despite how ‘boring’ the jokes were… Leah and Tony were both laughing until they were running out of breath.

As for Kazuya and Liza, she had appropriated his lap as a seat, eating a burger while Kazuya nibbled on some chips; he had tried to move her off of him, except he couldn’t get her away.

He was a two Star Sage, and she was a three Star Sage. Even considering that he was physically fit compared to other two Star Sages, compared to a three Star Sage, Kazuya was physically weaker.

“I don’t like RPG’s though… they’re easy as long as you don’t go forward in the story-line.” Kazuya was explaining to Liza why he disliked the game she was playing a moment before they started eating.

He was hinting that he was the type of person to stay in the starter area until he could one-shot the first and possibly second bosses of such games.

“That’s boring.” Liza’s opinion had Kazuya awkwardly smiling as he continued eating. She was the opposite, she liked fighting with the bare minimum of power in those games because then it truly required strategy to win.

While eating, the door of the establishment opened, and in walked three teens, their colourful hair hinting at them being Sage’s beyond the feeling given off by them.

Seeing the S-class students sitting there, the three walked over, and all conversation stopped momentarily as they approached.

“Hello there, just asking, but you seven are from the S-class, aren’t you?” the leader of the three, a girl with dark green hair asked, though it didn’t feel polite with how curt her words were.

“Yes, we are… you three are from Elem high as well correct, what class are you in?” Edward offered neutrally as a guy standing behind the girl, his hair bright yellow as he scoffed.

“We’re from the A-class. This is June Hallows, rank one of our class. I’m Dean Constantine, rank two. And this is Barry Nim, rank three.” The blonde boy, Dean, offered with a snide look as he introduced the three.

“Honestly, bothering you while you’re eating is a bit low so we’ll make this quick… this is a declaration of war from the three of us.” June admitted, the silent third boy nodding, his hair a deep purple, almost black.

“I see, and let me guess… you plan on defeating us in the second-term to take our place?” Jade offered, with Edward and her being the voice of the class, all three A-class students nodded.

Some people eating caught some of the terms, but didn’t quite get it, as the majority of the people were normal humans, not Sage’s.

“Exactly. At least we’re honest about our intentions in that regard, but it’s just an early warning that we’ll be gunning for a position in your class… meaning we’ll be replacing one of you.” Dean said with a smirk, only to get interrupted by a yawn.

Looking to the person yawning, he was caught a bit off guard at seeing Liza sitting on Kazuya’s lap, Dean blushing awkwardly as he saw them…

Maybe this Dean guy was one of those prudes? Ignoring that, he stared at Kazuya who had yawned.

“We wish you luck. You’ll need it to put up a fight.” Kazuya’s smirk was provocative as Dean clenched his fists and June blushed slightly before glaring.

“You can’t… win.” Liza added before taking another tiny bite of her burger, getting the attention of everyone in the S-class and the three top ranking students of the A-class.

“Well, there you have it, our strongest has spoken… you can’t win against us.” Edward’s smirk said it all as the three looked to Liza with a bit of surprise.

It made sense that they were surprised.

Kazuya acted arrogantly, Edward was the prince of the Empire, and Jade had the authoritarian look going for her… if it was one of these three as the strongest, no one would bat an eye…

But Liza was imitating a chipmunk as her stuffed cheeks chewed on the burger, and combined with her tiny size and Kazuya patting her head, the result was something harmlessly adorable.

“Hah, we’ll see who wins at the end of the second term.” June offered as she and her two friends walked away… to go stand in line to order…

Walking out of the shop was awkward for those three…

“So, we know the faces of our main enemies, but… it doesn’t mean much, does it?” Vince asked, getting a surprising nod from Tony.

“No… we were t-training under t-t-the assumption they would challenge us in the first p-p-place. T-this means nothing.” For all that he was painfully shy at times, when it came down to it, Tony had a strong backbone.

“…P-please stop staring…” …Somewhere inside, Tony had one.

“Well, let’s not worry… at the end of the day, our hard work will pay off.” Kazuya offered, and thus they continued eating…

They left the building shortly after that, leaving to go complete their maps, having about two hours left to complete their projects.

“Liza…you like boyish clothes?” Kazuya felt the urge to ask the question after seeing Liza staring at the skirts of Leah and Jade.

“Yeah… I’m used to it.” Liza said, stretching her legs out to emphasize the pants she was wearing currently, and Kazuya just considered it another of Liza’s quirks.

During their walk around they also found a sweet shop…

Kazuya and Liza raided the place while the other five members of their group watched on with either awe or exasperation when the two exited the shop with two or three cakes… each.

“You two are lucky that Sage’s body structure is optimized for combat.” Edward offered as the two looked satisfied at the carnage they had wrought inside the shop, the shop owner was looking conflicted on whether to be happy so many cakes were bought at once, or annoyed because now he had to restock on the lemon meringue cake.

Edward’s words were a mention to how Sage’s always seemed to have perfect musculature and bodies for combat, up to and including always having perfect teeth.

That alone got a lot of jealousy from people with the legendary sweet tooth, let alone the fact that all Sage’s were model-level in the looks department.

The rest of the trip was uneventful beyond Liza and Kazuya’s duel for confectionaries, and their maps were handed in on Monday. They all got an ‘A’ despite how lazily they did it.

Eh, effort was a finite resource anyway.