Ch. 14

  I took off my clothes that I had been wearing for the last two days and looked down at myself. I was absolutely filthy. “I need to clean some of this off at least. I don’t have time for a long shower, but I was wanting to check them out anyways.” I thought, grabbing a towel and a uniform from the stack. I left everything else on my bed to put away later, but before walking out, I realized I didn’t have any idea where to wash my dirty clothes.

  “Another thing to add to the mental checklist of questions to ask later.” I said out loud and walked out of my room. I wondered how to lock my door, but when it latched, I realized it had already locked itself. “That is kind of handy. Not having to carry around a bunch of keys is a nice change. I should let John know I am going to clean up quickly.” I thought and headed to his room, but had to head back to my room because I had forgotten my soap. Once I grabbed that, I knocked on his door and told him we could meet up in 5 minutes outside of our rooms to head down to the main auditorium for the assembly.

  John decided to shower too and we were blown away by how quickly it heated up and how easy it was to use. You only had to infuse a little Mana and it stayed at whatever temperature the dial was set towards for a while. I don’t know how long it lasted because I was only in for a couple minutes versus the pleasure of staying in the shower for an hour or two as I would have liked.

  I dried off and put on my new uniform. It was a forest green jacket that buttoned up the front. It was lightweight, soft and somewhat flexible. As I put it on, I realized I also had left my undershirt in my room so I wrapped my towel and made a quick dash back to my room with everything. Once back in my room, I realized I had forgotten a fresh pair of underwear too. I was a bit of a mess. The poor sleep and fatigue were really catching up to me. Clean underwear and my undershirt on, and… no socks. “Where did my socks go? Bartley didn’t give me any socks. I really don’t want to put on those crusty dirty ones I’ve worn for days.” Then I remembered, “My bag!” I said and found three pairs of socks and the extra underwear Mom made me pack.

  I smiled thinking about them and put on my socks. Then I put on the jacket of the uniform and the pants. The pants were almost like capris, they were too short and too tight around my waist. The jacket was huge, I think Dad could have fit in it quite well. Remembering what Bartley had said, I concentrated on the rune on the uniform and felt the whole thing wriggle on my body. It was not a nice sensation, but in a few seconds, the uniform was a perfect fit. The pants just touched the bottom of my ankles, the waist was comfortable and the jacket framed my shoulders well, without being too tight or too loose. “Amazing!” I said looking at it with admiration. I looked at my Mana on my Interface, remembering it would take a big chunk and it was down to 50%! “He was not kidding, that was a big chunk. That will take a few minutes to replace. I am glad I don’t have to do that often.” I said to myself as I walked out the door.

  John was already waiting outside and said, “We need to hurry Jude, I just checked the slate and it said it was 11:55am right now, we only have 5 more minutes to get to the assembly!”

  “The auditorium was on the first floor right?” I asked him and he shrugged. I quickly went to the slate and saw that it was indeed on the first floor near the back middle of the building.

  We ran down the stairs and tried to go further down the hallway in the opposite way from the supplies area and we took another turn and must have gone the wrong way. There was another slate and I checked the MAP there and it was just around the corner. The clock on the slate showed 11:59am. It looked like we were going to be late, but maybe we could squeak in before they started.

  There were finally two doors that led to where the auditorium should have been. John whipped open the door and there were about 30 rows of seats that tiered up higher and lower filling the auditorium, all of which were full of students in their uniforms. We came into the room right on the bottom floor next to the stage where there were adults sitting in chairs to the left and right wearing fancy looking clothing with a woman standing at the front of the stage looking at John and I with raised eyebrows.

  “It looks like we have a couple late arrivals. Not a great start, but we will work through this. No matter, find a seat and we will continue.” she said curtly.

  I followed John to the closest set of seats on the end of the second row and we sat down. I wanted to hide underneath my seat to keep the eyes from staring at us. There were hundreds of students starting at us and the whole start of the assembly paused to look at us coming in late. It was almost like a nightmare.

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  The woman cleared her throat and continued, “As I said before, my name is Angelina Brook, Provost of Acacia Academy. I usually have been in charge of the curriculum and planning for first, second and third year students, but have taken on a more front-facing role as our Academy’s Chancellor, Lewis Rand was called in to handle kingdom business directly from the king. While our academy is of great importance, one does not simply ignore orders from our king now do they? I cannot give an exact time frame of when he will return, but we hope soon. Fret not, we have some of the best instruction set up for you this year and I cannot wait to go over some of the things we have in store. Firstly, to all first year students welcome to Acacia Academy. To all returning students, welcome back. I want to start with a little bit of history of why an academy like ours exists. It was founded almost 400 years ago by Hugo Park after becoming one of the greatest Warriors in all of Telos seeing so many young people fall so early in their lives and succumbing to the monsters of the Twisted Realms. He was an advocate to have the kingdom of Acacia pay for the newly integrated to become students here to learn the fundamentals of using their abilities and growing in their experience before being unleashed to the world. Too many young kids went to fight monsters before they were ready. This academy is designed to help you realize the potential the Architect seeded in each and every one of you. I see before me Mages and Warriors that have the capabilities to be the greatest defenders of the world, but that starts with learning the fundamentals. Some of you have been practicing for months with your families or personal trainers, while others have next to zero knowledge. All of this is understandable and we have curated classes and practical activities to teach these things. While these things are important, one of what makes the Acacia Academy unparalleled even among all the other kingdoms is the way we help design teams around your classes and abilities.

  Some of you are Warriors or Mages with clear combat or utility abilities. We will evaluate your physical prowess and ability usage through testing over these first few days of the term. Our decisions will not be biased, they will be based on your performance. It is to make sure we can help put together the most complimentary teams and set you up for success in the future. A young Mage or Warrior on their own is destined for failure, but as a team you can go far. Some of you may think you know better than your instructors or myself, but please know, the Acacia Kingdom does not put just any competent warm body to be assigned to the Academy. It is an honor and we are well compensated to do it. It is not a punishment for us, it is actually a competitive opportunity to have the privilege to work with you students, so understand, we do not have ulterior motives. I want, rather, we want the best for the future of the Kingdom of Acacia and for Telos as a whole.

  We have been in a stalemate with the monsters leaking through the seal for millenia. The more we train the young, the better chance we have to finally make progress in finding a way to overcome the Twisted Realms for good.

  For the first years, these first couple of months will be quite a lot to take in. The training we do here at the academy alone will grow you in at least 4 or 5 levels. Later in the year, we will do some more ‘practical’ and ‘hands on’ training with monsters.”

  John elbowed me with wide eyes, “Jude!” He whispered loudly, “we are going to get to fight real monsters this year!? Did you hear that?”

  I did indeed hear what he heard. I actually felt a little nervous, but that was still months away, so I wouldn’t think too much about that yet. Before I could reply, the Provost continued.

  “I know most of you that have been traveling are probably hungry and tired, so I will finish with introducing your instructors for this term: Martin Gray, please stand.”

  A middle aged man with ironically gray hair stood up and nodded his head before sitting back down.

  “Martin will be one of the mage professors in both classroom and practical studies. He will also be the boys dormitory overseer this year. Next, we have Lilla Cropper, please stand.”

  A woman who hardly looked outside of her teenage years stood, smiled and waved before sitting in her seat.

  “Lilla is one of the most prodigious of her generation, we are lucky to have her. She has one of the most brilliant minds for thinking outside the box for abilities and runic inscriptions. Next, Kathleen Hughes, please stand.”

  A massive woman stood and the whole stage shook a little as she took a step forward. She pumped her arm into the air and had a ferocious smile before going back to her seat.

  “Kathleen is a Warrior through and through. She has some of the most field experience and is going to be an asset to all of us in learning about using your physical body practically in combat. She will also be the girls dormitory overseer. And finally, we have Ruben Skidd, please stand.”

  A lanky man who was probably in his mid twenties stood up and waved awkwardly before appearing back in his seat a split second after he was standing in front of us on the stage.

  “Ruben is a stealth specialist and will have some great insight on how to use abilities in creative ways to make your next moves less obvious and predictable.

  As you can see, we have an incredibly gifted faculty of experts in their fields to help guide you and teach you this year. Listen to them and things will go well for you. If you think you know better or ignore their counsel, you will have a rough year at the academy, I guarantee it.

  One last thing, while basic rules of respect to one another may be obvious, you will find an updated version of the rules while at the academy on your beds in your dormitory rooms. The rule I will highlight the most right now is that using abilities to harm or impair one another outside of class or training will result in severe consequences up to expulsion. With that, you are dismissed.

  The cafeteria will be open for dining, so if you have not eaten, I recommend you head there after this. Again, welcome to the Acacia Academy.”