“I still can’t believe that he got to three Stars before we did…” Jade’s words were met with nods from the other four two Star Sages in the S-Class first years…

Really, it came as a surprise to everyone when it was Tony who advanced to become a three Star Sage before everyone else.

Liza didn’t count as she was three Stars when the school year started.

But who could have expected the lowest ranked student to advance first?

“It actually makes a bit of sense… think about it, he has been in far more fights than the rest of you, and while you’ve all likely made some breakthroughs because of the Inter-Class Tournament, he simply stabilized first and thus advanced first.” Jonathan said with a nod towards Tony who was blushing at the attention he was getting.

He also didn’t know how to react when Liza patted him on the shoulder and gave a quick thumb up… then she gave a shifty glance to the remaining five students and they could practically feel her asking ‘so when are you all going to get on our level?’

It left the other five students grinding their teeth in annoyance at the smug first ranked student.

“So wait, Tony is ranked second now?” Jade’s question was met with Tony’s confused glance towards Kazuya, but their speculations were all cut by Jonathan.

“To put it simply, if Tony can defeat Liza, he will take her place. If not, he will be rank two. Everyone else has dropped one rank, so Kazuya is now rank three, Edward is rank four and so on.” Jonathan explained as Tony began to look awkward.

Sure, Tony earned his power, but he was still thinking of Kazuya and Edward as ‘people you can’t win’.

“Hey, no hard feelings man, we’re all friends, so it’s great if one of us gets stronger…” Edward said, patting Tony on the shoulder… before smirking with an evil glare.

“And the moment I get to three Stars I’m going to be challenging you for that spot…” Edward said squeezing a bit and making Tony pale.

A moment after the two were laughing a bit, Kazuya watching.

“You annoyed at losing your second rank?” Vince asked while holding his hands behind his head, not concerned about being ranked five now, having been there before defeating Jade for her spot.

Jade and Leah were both mortified though, being the second lowest and lowest ranked in the class respectively… and considering the only other girl in the class was the top ranked, they felt a need to up their game.

“Not really… rankings aren’t that important to me. I’ll compete for them, but I won’t lose sleep over it.” Kazuya said, looking over to Liza who had materialized at her side, reaching up on her toes to pat his head.

“…Really, I’m fine. As a Sage, rankings determine strength, but what happens when in the real world a lower ranked Sage defeats a higher ranked one?” Kazuya’s question drew silence.

“Kazuya is right, the only place rankings matter is in the Academies themselves, there are many Sages that don’t enter Academies yet still came out powerful, look at all the Kings who didn’t have schooling back when they were gaining power.” Jonathan reminded, not mentioning that there were many a case of weaker Sages collectively overwhelming a stronger Sage.

A gap of two Stars typically doomed the weaker challengers, but if the gap was only a Star, ten or so Sages could easily take out the stronger Sage.

It was why Sages were taught to never work alone, at a minimum having a single partner to make a two man team.

And in a team, it didn’t truly matter who was stronger, the collective was more important.

Jonathan would not say it, but he believed that Kazuya had the right mind-set for being a team based Sage, a Sage that cared about how they compared to others in their own team was typically a Sage that broke a team.

Though Jonathan also noted that Kazuya never stepped up to the leadership position… he was an excellent teammate though, being capable of working with anyone in the S-Class due to sparring with them all often.

Jonathan had allowed the group to train themselves during Fridays, though he’d occasionally add onto training, at this point the group was getting better at figuring out their own problems and working to better themselves.

Jonathan liked projects which only required a push start before running on its own.

During those Fridays every member of the group would work on weaknesses or enforcing their basics, and Kazuya was surprisingly sociable.

Kazuya wasn’t one to approach a person casually in a social situation, preferring to keep to himself, but when it came to training and Sage-related things, Kazuya would be the first to volunteer.

Jonathan figured he should make a rating for the group at some point to show them more concretely who they should learn what from, as they taught each other a lot.

“Kazuya is correct, but anyway… I believe I mentioned I’d be teaching you this at some point?” Jonathan said, pointing to the board where the word ‘Spells’ was written in chalk.

The S-Class was quite excited about this, as Jonathan only explained such topics once in a while… but when he did, they were usually important.

“Today I’m going to be talking about Spells, though I’m not much of a spell-caster myself, it’s something I know.” Jonathan added, before turning to the board, writing as he spoke.

“Spells are unique effects beyond simple elemental manipulation, one can think of Spells as codes which enact certain effects. You could also do many Spells without knowing the ‘code’ but it would be much more difficult.” Jonathan added, turning to the board, where it was written:

Spells enact special effects without needing to understand it, but elemental manipulation requires understanding of the process.

Firing a gun could be an analogy here, Spells would be picking up an already loaded and primed gun and firing a bullet, while elemental manipulation would be manufacturing all the parts, assembling the gun, aligning the sights, and so on until firing.

One was clearly faster.

“Spells do have the weakness of being focused, when you do a Spell to launch a spike of element at something, that’s all that Spell can be used for. On the other hand, Spells can do things that we will never be capable of with elemental manipulation as well.” Jonathan said, gesturing to a small circle of Darkness which appeared next to him, and reaching into the circle he pulled out a small Rubik’s cube.

“Storage, for example, is something impossible for most elements, the only element capable of doing so with pure manipulation is Darkness due to the peculiarities of the Element. With Spells, every element can store items.” Jonathan explained, creating a whirlwind in his other hand, and in his hand dropped another cube.

He really likes those cubes huh? Was the thought in all of the S-Class students at the time of Jonathan putting the two cubes away.

“Now to explain how Spells are done, I recall you all mentioning my son using Wind to write explanations for you?” Jonathan reminded the class of Yusuf’s ability to write using Wind itself, using their Element Sight to see it.

“Spells are done using that technique, though using it to explain things like Yusuf does is a bit weird…” Jonathan admitted, and the class realized his point, if it was a combat technique… but then he used it as an impromptu blackboard?

Such a mundane utility…

“Spells are done by writing in the air using a ‘focus’ such as a wand or staff, it is also possible to use a sword and if you are skilled enough, doing Spells without a focus is possible.” Jonathan explained, writing on the board.

“As long as the tool has a point of some kind, it can be used as a focus, though living material channels elements better than inert materials such as metal or stone, which is why most staffs and wands are made of wood, typically Sage made due to the increased durability.” Jonathan said, gesturing to Leah who removed her personal wand to show it was indeed wood.

“Spells effectiveness is determined by accuracy of your writing, it doesn’t have to be perfect but it must still be recognizable as the correct symbol.” Jonathan said, drawing a triangle on the board, and then a very wobbly triangle.

“The first will have greater efficiency, as using Spells makes Sages tired, a ‘clean’ Spell takes less stamina than a ‘messy’ Spell.” Jonathan then drew a large triangle next to a smaller triangle.

“As for the size of the symbol, that can affect different things when it comes to certain Spells, a Spell for attacking might get bigger or hit harder while a boosting Spell might work on multiple people or have an increased effect on one person, casters have to figure these things out themselves though.”

Kazuya was feeling glad that he was not a caster, as the idea of having to do all of that seemed insane.

Sending a glance at Leah, Kazuya once more affirmed that Leah had some hidden depths to her…

Everyone did really, not even Kazuya was exempt from that idea… who would have thought he knew how to cook?

The fact that he had an excellent singing voice would be taken to his grave before others learnt of that though.

“And beyond that, there are different methods of casting, though in general casters believe that the fewer movements there are, the better the caster.” Jonathan’s statement was met with nods since everyone got the idea; fewer movements meant the Spell could be launched faster.

“The slowest method of casting would obviously be drawing each and every symbol piece by piece, while the fastest method is called ‘Pure Casting’.” Jonathan then drew on the board, showing a line saying ‘full’ and ‘none’ on different ends of a line.

“Spells are very rarely a single symbol, and Spell difficulty is determined by the amount of writing the full Spell uses… so obviously stronger Spells are only feasible in a fight if you can get closer to the ‘none’ side of this line.” Jonathan said, writing the ‘Pure Casting’ tag over the ‘none’ side.

“The strongest Spell I’ve seen required about a million characters and required the caster to focus for about a full thirty minutes before it could be used.” That… that sounded insane, and every S-Class student just stared at Jonathan at hearing that number.

“So I suppose you can all understand why Casters stand still a lot… focusing on that kind of precision while moving seems difficult at best.” Everyone nodded, completely understanding why it took Leah a while to move while casting, and Leah blushed upon seeing the admiring looks everyone gave her.

She almost went catatonic when she realized Kazuya was as well, nodding for a moment before he turned back to Jonathan…

That crush was bound to be a bit awkward what with Liza and her ‘claim’ on Kazuya.

“But listen, casting goes through about ten ‘levels’ much like Sages do. Single symbol casting isn’t even considered a Spell and more like a worthless magic trick.” Jonathan’s explanation got across to the students, using a single symbol was worth less than elemental manipulation.

“Spells only start being classified from four Symbols onwards, four Symbols being the weakest Spells and the strongest being one million, forty eight thousand, five hundred and seventy six symbols.” That number… was oddly specific.

“To explain the amount of symbols and why they are used like that, it works on the principle of… well you know computer bits? Each bit is two to the power of something, six bits being two to the power of six, and ten bits being two to the power of ten… minus one in computing because they start counting from zero.” The fact that Jonathan knew a bit about programming as well was no surprise.

Jonathan seemed to know a bit of everything… it came with being a long-lived Sage.

“Well Spells work on the bit system in its own way, except that Spell ‘bits’ work with two squared, then two to the power of four, power of six, and so on until two to the power of twenty.” Jonathan explained, writing the numbers on the board.

4; 16; 64; 256; 1024; 4096; 16384; 65536; 262144 and 1048576.

“Spells between the two ranks are possible of course, but there is a notable quality increase whenever another ‘level’ has been reached.” Jonathan added after placing the chalk down and turning back to the class.

“Sir, the symbols for Spells, what are they?” Vince asked out of curiosity, as his fighting style was slightly similar to a caster.

Sage guns like his were actually made by forcing a gun to emit certain Spells, but there was a limit to how many symbols could be saved in a Sage gun magazine.

Vince was considering that if he knew the symbols, he’d be able to upgrade the magazines someday.

“…Well… it’s a Fae language. Namely the language of Angels and Demons.” Jonathan explained with a shrug, and getting a nod from Liza.

“You knew?” Kazuya asked the monochrome coloured girl with a raised brow.

“Dungeons, warn using that language… universally understood.” Liza’s words, which Kazuya could normally understand immediately, were now not understood.

Seeing that her words didn’t have the intended effect, Liza sighed while rolling her eyes.

“When Dungeons talk about the requirements and the rewards, any writing in the Dungeon is done in Angelic and Demonic writing, either or. They can all also be understood regardless of whether or not you know the language, though that effect doesn’t work for normal humans.” Blinking for a moment, Kazuya nodded.

When Liza spoke, it was usually for but a moment… normally. But when she spoke in full coherence like this it was usually very interesting.

“As Liza said, the writing Dungeons provide us with and use would be the same language used for Spells. By writing in the language of Angels and Demons, Spells are activated… so it stands to reason that they were the origin of all Spells.” Once more the class was given more proof that Angels and Demons were precursors to all current races…

Their presence was felt millennia after their disappearance; it was kind of obvious that the two races were special beyond being the Fae of Light and Darkness… even their written language affected the world.

“We call the writings of Angels and Demons ‘Runes’, and learning Runes and how to write them, what they do, and how your element affects said Runes is what casters are all about.” Jonathan then wrote a few Runes on the board…

And strangely enough, after looking at it for a bit, the students found they could understand it, though the lettering still looked notably ‘alien’.

“This is the Runic formula for a storage spell of basic size, the basic storage spell grants a space equal to your Stars cubed. So currently, all of you have two cubic metres of space.”

Jonathan’s words were pointed at the lower five ranked students of the S-Class, with a pointed look at the three Star Liza and Tony to say that these two would possess three cubic metres of space.

“There are better Runic formulae for storage, but that requires even more Runes to use and access… the good thing is that storage spells only require you to activate them once.” Jonathan said with a smirk, getting confused looks from the class with the exception of Leah, who raised her hand to explain.

Jonathan just nodded at Leah, glad to see that she was finally trying to contribute to the class instead of just sitting there quietly.

“Storage Spells are one-time use Spells, to use the storage space one must just set another Rune as a ‘key’ to open said storage… if a higher ranked storage Spell is used, it keeps all the things contained in the smaller storage Spell while increasing in size.” Leah explained after gathering her thoughts, getting a nod from Jonathan and the other students.

“What I want you all to do is learn how to make a storage space using this Spell. Regardless of whether or not you are a ‘caster’ or not, storage Spells are useful to every single Sage without question.” Jonathan’s warning was heeded as the students nodded.

Immediately being given a chance to try it, the six students all moved to Leah, surprising the usually quiet girl as they all waited for her advice.

“Oh…” realizing what her friends wanted, Leah raised her wand and smiled, glad to help.

It was an hour later when the final bell rang that the S-Class students collectively agreed that Spell-casting was more effort than expected.

“And you do this in the middle of a fight?” Kazuya stared at Leah with surprise on his face, having been failing for the past hour to even complete one Rune correctly, the rest of the class having varying levels of success and failure.

For one, Edward, Kazuya, Tony and Liza all struggled with it, but Vince and Jade were closer to getting it right.

“…I’m seeing a pattern here.” Edward mumbled to himself while looking to Vince and Tony, who raised brows in question.

“It seems that those who are physically strong struggle with casting, and those who exercise greater control over their Essence and Element find it easier.” Edward said to his two listeners, not seeing Jonathan nod in agreement.

It was why casters were not as physically fit as other Sages, control was more important to properly creating Runes, while strengthening the body resulted in more available Essence, the physical fighters have more Essence and thus struggle to control all of it to the point that casters do.

The S-Class would all figure it out eventually… the point Sages all aimed for was being capable of using Spells while being physically strong, every King was an ‘All-Rounder’ like that.

Casters, Warriors, All-Rounders, ignoring outliers such as stealth focused Sages or Sages who used bows and arrows, those three were the basic tenants of Sages, and Kings were all All-Rounders.

It really elevated that fighting style in the eyes of all the younger Sages.

“This is much harder than you make it look, you’re really skilled.” Leah blushed at the praise Kazuya was giving her.

“Isn’t it annoying watching those two?” Jade asked Liza who was looking at Kazuya and Leah, the latter getting a pat on the head from the former.

“No… just because I care for him does not mean he has to care for me as much.” Liza’s words drew a surprised look from Jade, and seeing she had to keep talking, Liza looked back to the two.

“Love is not taken or truly shared, it’s given. Whether you get some in return or not, it’s not our choice. I care, but he doesn’t know how to deal with that.” Liza was not blind, far from it.

Kazuya humoured her, but he was lost on how to treat Liza’s blatant affections because he’d never had a girl act like that around him.

Girls being shy, giggling, thinking boys in general were annoying, things like those were more normal to him, but a girl outright stating her affections and going for him was something new.

“He might figure it out… or he won’t. For now, he understands Leah a bit more than he understands me. I’m fine with waiting for things that might not come.” Liza’s soft gaze towards Kazuya had Jade thinking to herself for a bit.

Kazuya was not showing any overt signs of liking Leah any more than Liza really, but at the same time, Kazuya wasn’t really being decisive about things.

It wasn’t entirely his fault, he didn’t know how to deal with these things and Sages weren’t exactly romantics.

Sages were fighters, they died early or lived long enough to be a bit numb to everything, relationships weren’t really important to most Sages, they didn’t look for it.

But Jade as a girl raised by a family of normal humans, knew basic ideas of romance a bit more than her classmates actually.

Liza’s ‘love’ for Kazuya, was something both admirable and scary to Jade.

Liza would care for Kazuya regardless of his actions, regardless of whether or not he cared for her the same. It was unconditional.

Jade…. As she was, she didn’t think she could do unconditional. She couldn’t trust others enough for that… she also couldn’t trust herself enough.

It was humbling, and a bit scary to compare yourself to something so different. Like comparing a sports car to a soccer ball, the two were so different was there anything to even mention?

It was a bit of a knock to Jade’s confidence, but Jade was willing to pat Liza on the shoulder in an attempt to say ‘I sympathize’.

The class left for the trains, this time a bit later so as to not enter a train with the third or second years, as they talked about Spell practice being a new part of their training…

Kazuya and Edward were especially hopeful that maybe gaining a new level of control over their powers would result in gaining that third Star.

They could only hope really.

While sitting in the train, the conversation happened to move towards philosophy, reminding the class of their friend Nero.

“Has anyone heard from him recently?” Edward asked, recalling the glasses wearing philosophy student with a moment to recall him correctly.

“A few weeks ago I got a message that he was travelling to Valour Academy with two Sages, though I haven’t heard much from him after that… the only message I got after that was a picture of a news report mentioning the discovery of a seven Star Mystic Beast near civilization…” Kazuya added, pausing at the end as he realized how strange it was for Nero to send such a thing to him…

“…You think he got involved there?” Vince asked aloud as everyone in the class considered it.

They all heard about Nero’s ‘luck’ from the boy himself, but that kind of luck seemed a bit too extreme.

Mystic Beasts of six Stars and higher are basically natural disasters, and on a random trip you happen to run into a train robbery and a seven Star Mystic Beast?

And he somehow survived despite being a normal human in that situation.

“’May you live in interesting times’ is more of a curse after all huh?” Jade mumbled to herself, no one else really recognizing the line from anywhere.

Leah was the only one who knew that Jade read Chinese cultivation novels… likewise, Jade was the only one that knew Leah read lots of romantic novels.

They were book buddies even when their genres of choice were so drastically different.

“It really is odd, but if things like that were happening during the trip, it’s no wonder that he couldn’t really message us.” Tony mumbled after a moment, still quiet despite being the second-strongest person in the class.

He didn’t dare to challenge Liza as she was a three Star Sage longer than himself, not to mention that her element, Time, made her really dangerous to fight against…

It took Kazuya and Edward together to challenge her, and even then the two lost most often than not during their spars.

Tony wasn’t quite certain of his own chances against such a team.

“Yeah… messaging a friend you’ve only met once isn’t really as important as surviving.” Vince could sympathise, his family hunted Mystic Beasts and that was dangerous.

“Yeah… though didn’t we hear Bobby talking about that train robbery yesterday? It seems like it might have been a big thing for Bobby especially given how impressed he was, we should ask him who the Sages were.” Kazuya added, thinking to how Bobby ignored the tense situation.

“Strong.” Liza added with a single word before leaning against Kazuya to sleep… he didn’t push her away, as usual.

Leah, who was watching from her seat opposite frowned a bit in confusion, and Jade resolved to talk to her friend about the situation… clearly her friend needed a bit of emotional support to deal with liking Kazuya.

Namely, Leah might need help because Leah might not even realize how much she liked Kazuya.

Jade was resolved to help her friend, and as the train pulled into the station, she left with Leah to talk a bit, dragging Liza along with her.

Leaving the guys alone, Kazuya and the others split up, each going their own way to their homes in thought of the Spells and Nero’s odd life.

It would be a week later before any of the other students got the storage Spell to work, with Vince and Jade getting it first, and another two weeks after that before Kazuya and the others got it.

Training was slow going at the best of times, but it would be worth it considering Kazuya could now store his katana when it was not in use.

That, and they all began to feel that reaching the next Star was a close thing, with the exception of Tony and Liza for obvious reasons…

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Regalia, capital of the Empire, Nero kneeled on the floor, kissing the concrete ground, ignoring the stares he was getting.

“I missed you civilization!” Nero screamed in happiness as he placed his glasses back in place from where they fell onto the floor. He also ignored the looks Jones and Rick were giving him.

They could understand his reservations… normally when the two eight Star Sages travelled in the wilderness they found very few challenges, but this time around there was a train robbery, an ambush by some Fae for accidentally trespassing on their land, a Dungeon Overflow and finally a seven Star Mystic Beast.

“He wasn’t kidding about the luck…” Rick scratched the back of his head as Nero stood with his hands in the air, laughing with a bit of mania in his eyes.

“Yeah… if he had made that trip without us he would have died, but he also mentioned that his luck somehow ensured the survival of everyone involved with him…” Jones was a bit suspicious of the luck Nero had, but Nero was a normal human.

Were Nero a Sage, Jones might have suspected the luck to be the result of Diversity, but that option was out.

“Guess the world has all kinds of odd things.” Rick said with a joking raise of the brow, and Jones rolled his eyes.

Right, Sages, Mystic Beasts, Fae, Dungeons, floating islands, there were a lot of strange things in their world to say the least about some random teen’s luck.

“Hey kid, we’re leaving for Valour, come along.” Jones said with a bit of a grunt, getting Nero’s attention as the boy nodded while following behind his two protectors over the past few weeks.

Jones, a Metal-Sage, and Rick, a Lightning-Sage. Both were Bounty Hunters, the best actually disregarding the nine Star Sages and Kings who dabble in said profession.

From what Nero had seen, Rick was the muscle of the two, giving his Sage title as ‘Prince of Lightning’ while he demolished all enemies the two faced.

Jones was the brains of the operation and he had much finer control over his element than Rick did, using Metal to constrain or support instead of outright attacking.

His choice of weapon as a revolver made out of some powerful Sage Metal was strange, but it made sense after Nero saw him shoot something, and then the bullet suddenly morphed into restraints…

It allowed Jones to attack from a range with an Element usually considered slow.

Nero then considered that his friends in the S-Class might reach such a level of strength some day and chuckled softly to himself…

All he was doing was realizing what he already knew.

Normal humans and Sages could be friends, they could coexist, but they were not the same.

And Nero found himself accepting that, it was fine if he wasn’t like his friends… they were his only friends because normal humans couldn’t deal with the insanity caused by his luck.

If normal humans wouldn’t accept him, and Sages did, well, he couldn’t find it in himself to feel a negative emotion over their differences.

He couldn’t understand the Null Sons… sure, if all supernatural groups were gone then the world would probably be a much more peaceful place, but getting rid of all those living creatures, and things like Dungeons?

It seemed a bit impossible especially after Nero personally witnessed a Dungeon Overflow event.

On the other hand, Sages could exist perfectly fine without normal humans, sure, normal humans outnumbered Sages about ten to one so humans had manpower…

Still, it seemed a symbiotic relationship was necessary for the continued survival of all of their races.

“What is a non-Sage like you doing in my Academy?” even if there were people like this student in front of him…

Even if people kept fighting it, Nero was sure that harmony could be achieved.

Someday. First, he had to deal with this bullying Sage.