The exhibition match was over and all the kids were enrolled in suitable schools. Seeing the kids recruited by the Flowing Water Covenant, Henry felt a little pity. There was not one kid with a grade 4 body. It seemed like all the future stars were being funnelled towards the great twenty schools and the royal academy. Henry soon understood why he was being rewarded 2 elemental crystals per month when the others wouldn't even give him one. 'Looks like I got baited.'

Although it felt bad, Henry was still happy since the school didn't stand out much. Due to his high talent, it also meant that he would receive special consideration from the school as well.

"Miss Alice, I want to buy a spatial ring before we leave for school," Henry said, seeing Alice in a decent mood.

"A spatial ring?" Alice looked over at Henry. "It might look good but are you sure you want it? It's better not to waste your money. Most of the classes in the school cost crystals. It's better to save yourself some crystals." Alice tried to explain but Henry was in urgent need of storage space. His need wasn't something he could explain to her either. Finally, Alice gave in to the toddler and took Henry to a magic item shop outside the training grounds.

The place was magically extended making it much bigger inside. There were countless trinkets on display to attack kids from the street. Henry even saw a counter for fortune-telling at the corner.

"Hello, how can we help you?" A little girl who sat next to the counter rose from her comfy chair seeing Alice and Henry approach.

"I need a spatial storage ring for the kid. Can you show me a few?" Alice took the lead letting them know what they needed. Henry was tall enough to peek over the counter.

"For the kid?" She started at Henry for a long three seconds before giving her price. "We have the three sizes from 1 square meter, 10 square meters and 25 Square meters with prices ranging from 300 gold coins to 8000 gold coins. What size are you looking for?" Asked the girl looking at Alice who looked at Henry.

"The biggest I can get for two elemental crystals." Henry took out the crystal from his tin box and extended it over the counter. Seeing an extra elemental crystal in Henry's hand, Alice was a little surprised. The salesgirl was more surprised seeing a kid take out two elemental crystals from a tin box. 'Really?' She even half expected the thing to be fake.

"Elemental crystals sell for 4300 gold coins apiece. If you are interested I can offer you a 50 Square meter spatial ring for the two of them. It might look a little shabby but the ring comes with a soul lock as well." The girl took out a worn-out iron ring from under the counter. The ring indeed looked shabby. There was rust along the corners. Alice was a little displeased seeing the old ring but Henry was ok with it. Although the ring looked old, he could tell that it will hold for at least a couple of months. By that time, Henry was confident he could buy a new much larger ring.

After paying the girl the two elemental crystals, Henry and Alice left towards the training ground to pick up the few remaining students and teleported to the school. Among the new enrols, there were a couple of noble kids but the vast majority of them were still commoners. When they walked out of the magic circle, the familiar dizziness hit Henry again and he was forced to kneel to steady himself. Seeing the commoners disoriented the noble kids grunted mocking them. Once Henry's head stopped shaking he looked up and saw an old run-down village house covered in vines. Miss Alice had already opened the rotting door and entered inside.

The kids slowly entered one after the other. When Henry stepped in, he was suddenly teleported over to a much larger magical space. It seemed like he had teleported again but didn't feel the familiar dizziness. Miss Alice was nowhere to be seen while a very slim treant stood near the gate with a huge notepad on his what seemed like a hip.

"First years, fall in a line and give me your identity tokens." The treant's voice sounded out. Seeing no one familiar, the kids panicked a little and fell in line getting ready to enter the school campus. Behind the gate, all Henry could see was a massive forest and a road that winds through it.

The treant took their id tokens and cross-checked them across the list on his hand and handed a badge that had the flowing river logo on it.

"Don't lose the badge and always wear it within the school campus. The badge will serve as an id for you while you are within the school campus. The school wouldn't be bothered with any accidents that might happen due to you not wearing the badge. As you can see, it is a very big forest."

Seeing everyone put on the id badges, the treant opened the gate and let them in. It walked ahead and after a couple of minutes, they saw the majestic school building with its towers rising to heaven. From one look, the school could be considered old and monstrous.

"Flowing Water Covenant is the oldest thing close to a school that was established in the continent. The founders were a group of witches. In the olden days, they used to only take in female mages but ever since the witch forest became a part of the Fire Canyon Kingdom, the covenant too converted and became a school and started recruiting students from all over. It's not as majestic as the olden days but it's said there are lots of inheritances hidden away in this old building that are still waiting to be discovered." The treant seemed like it was reminiscing the past as it explained the history of the place. They soon arrived at the guard gates to the campus when a strong voice made them halt their steps.

"I will take them from here, thank you." A lady with all her hairs white and wrinkled skin stood above the railing looking down on them from above. The guards postured to what looked like a salute while the treant gave a light bow and walked back into the forest.

"You can call me Mistress Silvy. Everyone is here? Excellent. Follow inside." Without even bothering to check the students she walked back indoors expecting everyone to keep up. While everyone rushed up the stairs, a string of notifications rang out in Henry's ears.

'''Ding! You received 12 elemental crystals.'''

'''Ding! You picked up a mortal grade 5 wind spell, 'Blizzard'.'''

'''Ding! You picked up a mortal grade 6 fire spell, 'Fire Fury'.'''

'''Ding! You found a body enhancement crystal. Would you like to use it.'''

'''Ding! You found a vial of potent blood.'''

…

'Holy cow! What the hell are you?' Henry was stunned on the spot. He transferred everything to his spatial ring and rushed forward to follow his newfound milk cow. He chose not to use the body enhancement crystal as it could potentially lead to more trouble than he could handle.

Miss Silvy was the oldest teacher in the school and she specialised in fire spells. Unknown to the masses, she was one of the original witches who founded the covenant a few millennia ago. Her secret had long since been buried. Everyone thought Miss Silvy to be just a prophet level fire mage due to her intentionally suppressing her Aura. Had the current headmistress of the campus known she was ordering around an ancient witch, her head would probably explode from the scare.

The inside of the main hall was empty apart from the few chairs that lay around the corner. Miss Silvy walked over to the high podium at the back and glanced through the new kids joining the school. A few students wearing the school robes emerged from behind as though practised and waited for instructions.

"You will all join the school from tomorrow after the morning breakfast. Make sure to come properly dressed in the school attire. Your dress will be provided at the dormitory. Think about which majors you all want to pick since that will be your school for the rest of the year." She turned around and looked at the few senior students behind. "Take them to the first-year dorms." She ordered before she left with long strides through a side door to god knows where.

"Alright, boys follow me." One of the seniors stepped forward and guided them away through a stairway. The girls followed another path escorted by a senior.

"No one is allowed to fight in the corridors. If you fight, you will be sent to detention. You don't want to end up sitting in front of Miss Silvy for a whole evening, trust me."

'Sit in front of Miss Silvy for a whole evening? Heck Ya. That would be perfect!' With just a short interaction, the gains he received were insane. Spending an entire evening with her? He couldn't figure out how much he could gain from that. 'Who should I start a fight with?' That creepy smile he had picked up from god knows where returned as he thought who should become his first victim.

"Don't be late tomorrow. If you miss breakfast, you will have to wait till lunchtime." The senior gave one last warning before returning to his dorm.

"I hope you all decided which school you want to join?" It was Alice on the podium. She looked at the students standing in front of her. The large hall was completely packed with students. The Flowing Water Covenant initially only had 10 magic schools for all elements and one for soul magic but after the assertion of the kingdom, they were forced to add another school for physical body cultivation. Over time it became the largest school in the Covenant vastly outnumbering the mage schools. This change had further deteriorated the mage schools' standing and slowly the covenant fell lower in ranking.

"I hope all of you are ready." Alice moved a little to the side. "Why don't you introduce yourself a little and let us know which school you plan to major in."

Everything went through smoothly with ninety percent of the new kids joining the physical body cultivation school. Henry joined the school of fire magic. Apart from him, two other kids joined his school. Being a four-element mage, Henry could enrol in other schools as well but thanks to his system, that was all pointless as most of his spells were obtained directly rather than through learning.

Henry joined the two, Aster and Noah, after the assembly and left for their school. The school was located on the top floor and they had one homeroom teacher who was a peak grade 9 mortal fire mage. There was only a single lecture every week, which usually occurred on Monday's. If one wanted to join other lecturers, they had to pay an extra elemental crystal for each lecture they attend. It was still alright as a grade 9 mage was the peak that most kids at Henry's age strived for.

Multiple ways were available to make money. The majority of the kids preferred to do chores while others do restocking missions to earn their crystals. Most students only took the free lectures and just completed the tasks to earn themselves some extra money.

Henry looked through the notice board and checked out the classes he could purchase. It was better to say he was checking out the tutors rather than the actual lectures.

Advanced Spell Casting- Mistress Silvy- 2 hours- 2 elemental crystals. (0/10 joined)

Defence charms- Professor Hedrick- 2 hours- 1 elemental crystal. (0/20 joined)

Chain casting - Mr James - 1 hour - 1 elemental crystal. (1/10 joined)

…

It seemed like most of the advanced lectures were catered towards the peak grade 9 students who would soon break through to the prophet stage. Browsing through, Henry decided to join the free lectures of water, wind and earth schools so that at least he could level up his grade to the peak. He was forced to give up 9 crystals for a total of three months of lectures. Henry felt it was a good exchange since he could easily get a few crystals whenever he needed them. All he had to do was get some detentions.

Being the only junior fire mage students, naturally, the three stuck together. Aster was a beast girl like Henry while Noah was a human. Among the three Henry was the youngest at four years while Noah was in his teens. Aster refrained from letting them know her age but still demanded Henry call her 'big sister'. The two of them were both grade two fire mages with medium talent.

Their homeroom teacher, Josh strode in putting up a decent display of a few fire tricks.

"How is your new life treating you?" The mentor asked the only three students in the class.

"It's all right," Aster said. The boys just nodded their head along with it.

"First, we need to see up to what grade you guys can handle. Say, Henry, you must be Henry right? Show us the best magic you can use." Henry was jolted back to reality when the mentor asked him to display the spell. He was too engrossed in reading the notifications that popped up telling him that his fire grade levelled up to 7 absorbing some residue droplets from her new grade 9 mentor.

"Yes… I can cast the grade 5 spell at the moment." Henry said walking up to the podium to show his skill.

"Grade 5?" The reveal seemed to have stunned the senior as he was a little slow to react. Henry cast the immolate spell before Josh could stop him.

The ward indoors could only handle spells up to grade 4 as students of a higher calibre usually don't appear at the campus to lower the cost. When a higher grade spell was to be cast, the ward should have been strengthened by the mentors before casting. Due to the excess firepower, the room caught on fire burning out the few curtains and the wooden desks as well as the rest of the items on the podium.

'Water shower'. Josh cast a high-grade water spell, which the system picked up instantly, to extinguish the flames murmuring how he was supposed to explain the situation to the department head, Mistress Silvy. Both Aster and Noah were rooted to the chair stunned seeing the strength of their classmate. 'Why the hell is he on this campus?' was the only thought that went through their heads.

Josh finally put out the fire and sat on one of the empty desks next to the kids. "A grade 5 mage already? I did not expect that." He gave a little smile. "Doesn't look like you will need much help. I will recommend you to the senior classes if you are interested. This might be a waste of time for you."

"It's alright, I can pick up a few extra…"

A sound rune suddenly went off and a shout could be heard out.

"JOSH, WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR TRICKS INSIDE CLASSROOM? MAKE SURE YOU COME TO MY ROOM AFTER YOUR HOUR."

"Isn't that Miss Silvy?" Henry recognised the sound imminently.

"Yeah, looks like I screwed up big time." Josh was shaking a little at the thought of getting punished by Miss Silvy.

"I could come and help you out a little. Maybe she wouldn't punish you too much if she sees a junior with you." Henry's motives weren't that pure but it didn't mean he didn't feel a little guilty for burning half the classroom.

"Well, I probably shouldn't take you with me but who cares anyway? Right? Thanks for helping me big time!"

'Firstly, I didn't say I will take the blame and secondly, aren't you supposed to deny it? So much for being a senior.' The class ended without any more accidents. When it was time to leave, Josh picked Henry and left towards Silvy's office.

"Let me do the talking." Said Josh knocking on the door and then opening it after a few seconds.

'''Ding! You received 4 elemental crystals.'''

'''You found 1 crystalized mana. Would you like to absorb it?'''

'''You picked up powdered garlic.'''

'''You picked up a mortal grade 7 fire spell, 'fire terrain. Would you like to learn it?'''

'Mistress Silvy is definitely the best.' Thought Henry as he entered the office right behind Josh.

"So, is this the one that burned the class?" Henry recognized the familiar crispy voice.

"Yes, Mistress Silvy. I was trying to see how strong the junior was. I didn't expect he could cast a grade 5 spell." Josh described what happened and Silvy didn't say a word and listened patiently. Finally, she got up from the chair.

"You two brats cost me so much money. I will deal with you later Josh. You kid, tell me, what's your strongest spell that you can cast? From the power of that fire spell, it didn't seem like a grade five mage's spell." Silvy's eyes fell on Henry and he felt like she could see through his skin.

"Well, I'm a grade 7 mage. I haven't tried it yet but I should be able to cast fire terrain after a little bit of practice." Henry said honestly.

"A grade 7 mage? Were you trying to show off not holding back your firepower? Take him to the dungeon and make him scrub my dungeon room. I want all my stuff shelved properly and labelled and the floor clean as a mana crystal." Silvy walked out the front door not waiting to hear any disagreements.

"The hell? Why did I get punished?" Henry looked at Josh who was stunned stiff.

"No idea. I'm telling you she is a bit eccentric. Do you have anything else right now? I could show you to the dungeons then." Josh felt a little pity for the new guy but when he remembered his first punishments he relaxed a little. 'You still have it easy.' Josh was forced to scrub the entire men's toilet for a week when he accidentally broke one of her favourite vases. Remembering he still had a lecture to take, Josh quickly led Henry to the dungeons.

"Sorry I couldn't hang out. Let me know if you need anything in the future. I owe you one."

Seeing the bastard that got him stuck in this stinky place walking away, Henry suddenly felt extreme displeasure. The dungeon rooms contained most of the items the mages broke while experimenting. Silvy had already asked everything broken to be thrown out. 'Didn't know detentions here involved clearing out the teachers' closets as well.' There was that unique smell of things rotting as well as some greasy goo all around the place. 'I'm screwed.' Henry put on plastic gloves as he started going through things one after the other.

Even before he could start removing the broken items, Henry had to give the sticky floor a preliminary scrub so that he could walk on it without slipping. There were heaps of crafting ingredients on the floor dumped into a small mound so he went to the storage area which kept the cleaning tools and brought back a shovel and a bucket.

Henry scooped up the trash and straight away dumped them into the basket. He had to carry the basket a few dozen times to empty the litter on the floor so he could even begin scrubbing it. Once the litter was gone, Henry was able to plan out what next to do. He threw out a few broken glassware carefully not to cut his fingers.

The work was quite tiring but he was able to salvage a few relics from the trash thanks to the system. He found a broken alchemy standard set that according to the system could be repaired with a small cost of twenty gold coins. Considering that the alchemy set cost a couple of hundred coins to buy, Henry felt it was quite a good bargain. Even if he wasn't to use it in the future, he could still sell the thing for decent money. Since the set belonged to Silvy, Henry felt that it might even be an advanced set that could fetch even more.

The other thing the system picked up was a broken mana storage ring. Since the system could repair it, Henry pocketed it anyways. There were countless trinkets that he could resell at any magic shops but Henry was not confident to recuperate the repair cost for most of them. Amongst the depths of things, the most interesting thing that he found was a ruined alchemy note. There were countless notes inscribed on it. What made Henry attracted was that the system absorbed the book's data and imbued it into his brain. Countless years of research data flooded through his brain giving him a massive headache. Henry's soul strength was still too low to handle the alchemy knowledge within the book.

While Henry was busy scavenging through Silvy's trash, Silvy was spying on the kid through a crystal ball. With each item that the kid pocketed into his spatial ring, her eyes twitched further and further. When he saw him catching his head after touching her journal, she panicked a little. 'So, you want to become an alchemist?' Silvy reached at her own conclusion.

It took Henry countless hours to clean up space. By the time he was done, it was already evening. Silvy came down to the dungeon to show a little appreciation for the kids' work.

"Looks like you are good at cleaning things. When I made Josh clean last time, he just burned all the things to a crisp and cleared out the ash." She walked in to check the place and nodded her head in satisfaction. "You worked hard. Tell me, why did you pick those broken things?" She kept looking at Henry pushing him for an answer.

"I thought it looked interesting. I wanted to see if I could fix it." There was a worried look on Silvy's face.

"Kid, if you use a broken alchemy set to make potions, there is a high chance it could explode causing you severe burns. Come to my office tomorrow morning I will test you for alchemy aptitude. If you pass I will take you under my wing."

Having achieved her purpose of gaining a cleaning boy, Silvy walked back to her office with a smiling face, after dismissing the boy from his punishment. Henry was happy as well. He could now stay close to this ancient hag and milk her as much as he could.

Henry walked back to the dorm only to find Josh waiting outside.

"Hey, I'm truly sorry for what happened. Here, you can keep this elemental crystal." Josh quickly pushed an elemental crystal into Henry's palm and walked away to his dorm without looking back. Henry gave a sly smile looking at the crystal in his hand. 'So, the debt is paid then?' He kept smiling as he walked into his dorm room.

Noah was waiting for Henry to come back. He even picked a tray of food from the cafeteria before it closed.

"How was it? Did you finish cleaning? We couldn't come over. We were stopped at the entrance to the dungeon rooms by the guards."

Henry ate the fruits with Noah and laid down to sleep.

*****