Chapter 100 - Orientation (1)

"So which family are you from?" asked Neville as he removed a few of his belongings from a ring.

"What is that?" wondered Arya as he stared in awe at Neville's dimensional ring.

"It's a dimensional ring. An artifact that allows the user to store things in another space. Of course, it's imprinted with the owner's magic, so trying to steal it would be useless," replied the dark figure, destroying any hopes that Arya may have had about stealing it for himself.

"Oh, my family's not that important. I don't even know my last name," replied Arya, looking into the storage trunk to see if there was anything in it.

"Oh, so you're the first mage in your bloodline? Your parents must be proud, I'm the sixth son of a family full of mages so they don't really have any high hopes for me," replied Neville quickly as he stared at Arya with interest.

"Now that I look at you properly, aren't you really pretty? I bet you get a lot of girls," teased Neville, acting as if the two were long-lost friends.

"Why is everyone in this world so weird?" wondered Arya as he smiled awkwardly at Neville's remark.

"But seriously, aren't you really young? How old are you?" asked Neville, realizing that Arya was a few inches shorter than he was.

"I'm ten," lied Arya, not knowing whether or not ten was a suspicious age for being a mage.

"Ten? W-wait, you're ten? Come on, aren't you just lying to look cool?" 

"Why? Is ten too young?" 

"A ten-year-old mage is at the level of a genius. W-wait, what element are you attuned to?" asked Neville, visibly shocked by Arya's age.

"I use ice magic," replied Arya casually.

He would have lied about it, but he couldn't use any other element, so he would just come off as untrustworthy he was found out.

"A-a variant? No way. You've got to be pulling my leg," said Neville as he stared at Arya in disbelief.

"If you didn't mind, can you show me a spell?" asked Neville, still not believing Arya.

"Okay. Child of water heed my call. Bring about a chill to freeze my foes," 

A thin layer of ice covered the floor, making it difficult to stand up straight.

"Y-you weren't bluffing. Are you sure you aren't from any magical bloodlines? You're probably a genius with potential on the same level as the top mages in Belgard," replied Neville, trying to accept the fact that he was paired up with a monster.

"Not really. I'm still a 0-star mage anyways. I'm not as powerful as you think," replied Arya trying to salvage the situation.

"I can't let him be wary of me. Friendships are more likely to break when one is aware that their friend is leagues above they are."

"Pfft. Ofcourse you are, and so is everyone else here. Do you know how hard it is to get to the next rank? It's not something that novices who just received their magical powers can pull off so quickly."

"Of course there are some one-star mages, who have personal magic instructors at their homes, but the bottleneck to 2-star is so hard that we will catch up to them before they move on to the next stage," said Neville, destroying Arya's attempt at lowering his prowess.

"W-what? Does that mean that Marya is actually really powerful?" wondered Arya, now realizing the depth of what being a 2-star mage meant.

"Wear your robes and get ready. Orientation will start shortly," announced the dorm supervisor through the intercoms.

"We have to get going," said Nevile as he quickly got out of the attire he was wearing and put on the white robes that lay on his bed.

"I guess so," replied Arya putting on the white robes as well.

The dorm supervisor collected the first-year boys and walked them to the orientation hall.

The orientation took place in one of the spiraling towers, the hall that the group had entered was spacious enough to fit at least 1000 soldiers.

The hall was filled to the brim with students, Arya noticed that there were more people than he had counted before.

He continued to look around and noticed that there was a statue of a man carrying a scepter at the front of the hall.

"Oh, that's the first Grand Magus," said Neville as if reading Arya's mind.

"Hey, Arya, over here" shouted Trent from his seat as he saw Arya enter the hall.

"Friends of yours?" asked Neville.

"No, not really," replied Arya, as he and Neville approached Trent.

"We saved a seat for you," said Trent as Neville and Arya arrived.

"Oh, who's he?"

"I'm Neville Sacrasia, son of Devon Sacrasia," introduced Neville.

"Oh I'm Trent Leberon, son of Arcan Leberon," introduced Trent.

The two sat in between Yuuki and Trent, with Neville and Trent sitting close to each other and Arya on the other side.

"They've just met and they already seem chatty," thought Arya. He wasn't actually annoyed, for the first time since he had arrived on Merrum he felt like things were starting to be more normal. After all, this experience reminded Arya of what his college life would have been like had he not died that day.

"Attention students. As I'm sure some of you are aware of, the forest acted as a sort of test ground to allocate you in to your suitable classes. As such, the orientation will begin with assortment into those classes."

"Don't worry, your names were already collected by on-field mages who were watching you through every part of the forest,"

"On-field mages? There were people spying on us?"

"I didn't see any of them," murmured a few people in the crowd.

"The points that each of you gained will be shown on the screen. Please look for your name, the number of points you get decides which class you're going to be in for the first term of the year,"

"0-34 points means you're in class D. 35-49 points means you're in class C.. 50-69 points lands you in class B. And 70+ points lands you in the A-class,"