Alice Angel of Mercy

"And over here is the cafeteria." A boy of no more than 13, covered in acne, was leading our group about and explaining where everything was. We had arrived yesterday. The first thing they did was take us to get our ID crystals. They were like a credit card, ID and book reader all rolled into one. We got a monthly allowance for all our expenses which would be set on the crystal. It also kept track of our progress and any book the school had could be copied into the crystal but due to size limitations the crystal would auto-delete the saved book in five days. That was by far my favorite feature. We all got to test this feature at the library. Each book had a crystal plate fastened to the spine of the book and if you touched your crystal to it for a minute the book would copy over.

Yesterday we were also taken to the dorms. There were separate buildings for the boys and girls, with monitors to make sure that neither went into the wrong building. Strangely enough the girls were warned about going to the boy's buildings more often. The rooms were furnished with a bed and a desk. I heard the nobles complain about how rough they had it because of the sparse furnishing and dainty room size. It was twelve by twelve, almost double my old room. I then got to hear them complain about how they had to share the showers and bathrooms. But they had SHOWERS! And when I went to the bathroom, they had flushable toilets! They had big boxes above a wooden seat with a chain to pull attached to the box. I did not even care how it worked as long as it did. No more bucket for me.

We also got a crude map of the campus showing that it was setup like a wagon wheel. The dorms and administration were at the center and everything else was placed away from each other evenly with only one area set a little further away from the others. It just depended on which path you took.

Today we have been to the library and a few classrooms. Most classrooms had an ancient feel to them. Wooden desks, wooden seats, quills, and parchment type of things were situated in those rooms. But the 'attack magic'  room could have been from the future. At the entrance, i saw crystal sheets lined the walls and the control panels. Every surface looked like it was covered in a sheet of clear glass over onyx. Not much was explained about that room since we were told that a teacher would explain it later.

We were now on our way to the dungeon simulator and obstacle course area. These were set up away from the building so students could unleash more power without endangering fellow students. The dungeon simulator looked very similar to the cave entrance we took our test in. The only real difference was a four-foot crystal block set at the entrance. By placing your crystal onto it, a screen appeared and you could set up the difficulty, environment, and monster types to what you want. The kid leading us pointed out that most students set the environment and monster types to random to get a better 'feel' for real dungeons. We were not allowed to go in it until we were qualified.

The obstacle courses were of varying shapes. Each was designed to increase a stat or skill. An example of this was the stealth course. It was a maze with debris. It had changeable "observers" that you had to sneak around using that debris. There were dozens of different courses; it was truly impressive. The other thing in this area was a dueling arena. Students could settle disputes in them or just practice against others. Fights in this arena would mimic wounds while also suppressing real damage.

The last area we went to was the 'armory'. It was where you could buy or sell goods the students made, as well as get our school uniforms. I was almost in tears to receive clothing that actually covered my body. The female outfit was designed as a skirt, a shirt and a jacket. I tried to get the male outfit but was rejected so no pants for me yet. I worry about flying around without them. My backup plan was to make  something to go under the dress, like tights or shorts. But for now, I could not risk flying about. It was a shame because I did see some of the air magicians flying around the dorms.

When the tour ended it was not even dinner time, so we had time to walk around, get settled into the dorms or socialize. The school resembled a college campus but with younger students.

I bee-lined my way to the library. I wanted to get another book and a quiet place to look over my class choices. The starter pamphlet had a list of classes and the descriptions. My classes were preset to the girl sections, but I was allowed to change it if I wanted. So instead of painting, cooking, embroidery, etc. I could pick classes like "How to Survive in a Dungeon", "Magical Math", and "Essential Skills and Talents". Picking the 'male' classes was such an obvious choice that I cannot believe the rest of the girls would not take them.

I selected an alchemy book that was a bit more advanced along with the fighting techniques book I grabbed in the morning. Once I was happy with my book choices, I sat down and began to select my classes. We had to have nine every day excluding weekends. Of those nine, there were three that every child had to take every year; history, geography, and mathematics. This was set up so each student could tailor their education to what they wanted. Although most had lists made by their parents, so I doubted it was really about what the students wanted.

Classes were things like the basics of magic, focuses on element affinities, hundreds of different types of skills and talents, magical augmentations, combat, and dungeon knowledge. The list was immense. There were four I knew I would take;

Magical Math taught you how to gauge your spells and mana pool size and put them into numeric values,so you did not randomly run out of mana mid fight.

How to Survive in a Dungeon taught you what was eatable, where to find water and tricks common dungeons tend to have.

Magical augmentations taught you different types of casting and how to control your aura. This class actually was recommended and was broken up by year so you could keep taking it as you advanced.

Ranged Combat allowed you to learn a ranged weapon.

Basic Holy Magic – class on how to use holy magic.

… But I was stuck on what to take for my sixth class. I had six or seven classes that I was interested in. Do I take more magic or alchemy classes , or work on my combat skills? It took me hours, but I finally settled on cooking. I just wanted to be able to cook good tasting food. The courses would allow me to train on my own so I could work on skills independently. I only gave up on one class that I was unsure about and that was the Melee – Mace class.  Finally, happy with my choices I went to the administration office.

When I handed my list to the receptionist, he looked at it and then gave me a look of derision. He did not say anything though and just processed it. After a few minutes I was handed a class schedule. When I turned to leave, I saw two bulletin boards near the exit. One had a job listing advertising things like "water mages needed to fill cisterns" and "earth mages needed to fix practice fields" at the end of each advert there was a pull ticket that you could take to reception. I later learned that most of these jobs were not filled by the students. Some of the poorer students might take them but the nobles would not lose face by taking something they viewed as lowly.

The other bulletin board was a student quest board. These were restricted to upper classmen and tended to be things like helping an adventuring group to journey in the dungeon or a high-class gathering mission. The more I read the more it sounded like interning to get experience in different professions. Nothing first years could take so I lost interest pretty quick.

I strolled around for a bit and then headed over to the cafeteria to get some food. The food selection changed daily but each day there were food priced from high to low. I already figured out that if I ate frugally I could use the extra money to buy some supplies. I was not lucky like the rich students that had their parents adding extra money into their account, so short of taking out a loan or doing a job off the board, being frugal was my only option.

Grabbing my sandwich and drink, I headed over to find a seat. I saw Bella and Lilly sitting with a few new girls. One of the older ones looked a little like Bella but less pretty. It could be that she was frowning, arms crossed and looked like she would like to be anywhere but here. Seeing me, Bella started to wave me over. "Alice, Alice. Over here!" Her over excitement made me smile and I moved over to her table. "Alice where did you disappear to? Never mind, I would like to introduce you to my sister, Victoria. I told you about her during our trip." I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Who didn't she tell me about? I did not remember Victoria. It did not matter though since Bella was already talking, "She was the one with really good studies and magical ability." She paused and then in a little softer voice, "and the one my mom wanted me to help socialize." Victoria for her part just continued to sit there like a rock in a stream; unmoved by what was going on around her. Bella then pointed out the other upper classmen, "This is Helenian and Sarah." She pointed at them and then pretended they were not there.

"Hello Victoria, my name is Alice it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." I said the introduction like my new friends had taught me. I then repeated my greeting to the other new girls. Victoria was unmoved but I got hellos from the other two girls. From how they were introduced I could tell that Bella thought of them as lower nobles and because they were not especially pretty were unlikely to advance by marriage. "Did you two sign up for your classes?" I asked. I wanted to see if we had any classes together. I was hoping that their mandatory ones at least lined up with mine. They took theirs out with smiles as if they were sharing a joke and compared it to mine. We had bonded over the two weeks of travel, mainly because I could purify and detoxify them, so our carriage did not smell and they got in better with the possible perspective 'husbands' the boys represented.

When we saw that we all had the same History, Mathematics and Geography classes both of them burst out in giggles. "We bribed the attendant to get us the same classes." They beamed at their "success". They looked at mine in dismay. "Alice you took boy classes?" and then they snatched my list away from me.

Ranged Combat

How to Survive in a Dungeon

history

Magical augmentations

Lunch

cooking

Holy Magic - Basic

geography

mathematics

Magical Math

"Oh, I have cooking too! I will go back and make them change it to fifth period so I can be in your class!" Lilly was as bubbly as ever. Cheer literally oozed out of her infecting everybody around her… Except Victoria who still looked like she wanted to bolt from here if the opportunity presented itself.

"That sound fantastic and we can meet for lunch. That is half the day!" I said. "I can then inform you guys about my classes and you can tell me about yours." I looked at Victoria and whispered to Bella, "Is she going to be ok?" I asked Bella. I was a bit concerned because her 'Health window' read:

Victoria Stormbringer

???

???

???

???

It was the first time the health window did not inform me about a person's information. The window was almost always up since it seemed to have leveled with me and a 'banner ad' that was always seen became background noise that I ignored. Her behavior and the question marks drew my attention but even when I really focused it did not change.

"Yea, she is always like this." I gave her a doubtful look but she reassured me. Since we were starting to get weird looks from the others at the table because of our hushed whispers, I just let it drop. I would start to pay attention to the health windows and see if others could block me from setting theirs. I wanted to see if there was a common denominator or if she was special case. I would also try to keep an eye on her.

After chatting for over an hour with my two friends, I called it a night. I wanted to be ready for classes tomorrow.

***

"I'm telling you guys that you both missed so many shows today. The girls that took the ranged combat classes had so much makeup on that by the end of class they looked like melting clowns." I sat with Lilly and Bella at the lunch table telling them about my day. I woke up a bit late so didn't get to see them at breakfast. I went on to my next story with glee, "then in the dungeon survival class our teacher was showing us a common plant that has water but when we had to drink it the one girl gagged and then threw up all over the boy she was trying to court. He nearly fainted. I really did not expect today to be so interesting."

When I went to class today there were girls other than myself there. But unlike me, they were not there to learn. Every year a few girls decide to put themselves into the male classes thinking that it will give them more time with them but from what I heard they tend to drop out because of the difficulty. Try pulling a bow a hundred times and if you do not protect your fingers they will be sore. The Magical Augmentation gave me a headache due to the strain it put on me. From the looks on everybody's faces I was not the only one. 'How to Survive in a Dungeon' class was like being on a television show. You got to eat disgusting food and face harsh challenges. When I went to the history class I was expecting it to be boring but their history was like reading a fantasy novel. I was hooked and planned to read the entire book over the next couple of nights. I was the only one though. By the end of class there were a few students that were almost asleep, including Bella.

I spent the rest of my lunch recounting all the stories of the day and a bit about the boys in the classes to give them an edge. In good spirits I headed over to the next class with Lilly. The cooking class had the opposite mix than my earlier classes. Two boys were there trying to pick up girls. I really did not understand what the heck these kids were doing. I could not take not knowing anymore so I asked, "Lilly, why is almost everybody trying to get together with others?"

"These children could not get a good engagement,  so their parents sent them here in hopes of getting one. If they fail, their marriage will be to lesser nobles and the family standing will go down. You will also see others that have an engagement but will flirt with powerful nobles in hopes of getting a better one. The more powerful a person is in magic the greater the chance their children will have a more powerful aptitude. You may not know being a commoner, but each house is graded off their magical power their children have. This is because if a war breaks out us nobles will be sent out to be the deciding factor in it. It is the burden we bare for our status."

'So their family is forcing them. What a sad situation,' I thought. I was going to get some more information but the teacher walked in. Every class before this was taught by men but cooking was taught by a woman. She looked like she enjoyed her cooking a little too much but as the class progressed her ability to teach showed and by the end the girls were pumped up. The boys looked confused but were trying to hide it.

The holy magic class was so boring I could cry. It focused on stopping miscasting but since I couldn't miscast it was a waste of time. The sad thing was I needed to take this to be certified. It was a patch that I could put on my clothing to show I could be trusted. Without it, people would be reluctant to accept healing. So I sat in a daze and tried to not fall asleep. On the other hand, the geography course was jam packed with useful information. Where monsters and plants could be found along with other nations.

The next course was mathematics but it was at a seventh grade level and since I was in high school I found it easy. Feeling cocky after the class I felt I was going to ace the next course, Magical Math. How wrong I was. The class had almost nothing to do with math. It was mostly based off imagination and a few equations. That is to say that each person could design a magic display to their liking. I heard people saying their designs but since I was not sure. what my mana gauge would look like, I first focused on figuring out the equations and then the display.

With my classes over for the day, I headed over to grab an early dinner. I kept looking at people to see their health windows but every one of them was fine. There were no question marks or blanked out info. I could even perceive the teachers so I did not understand why I could not read Victoria's.

I met up with Lilly and Bella and after grabbing a bite to eat we went over to the obstacle courses. They wanted to watch the older students and while I was not thrilled to go at first just to watch, I was enjoying myself once we began to critique them. Some failed spectacularly, while others were so advanced that I could not even understand how they made it through. It was like watching an action packed show mixed with amusing outtakes. The ones that failed left red faced, embarrassed by their failure.

We watched for hours. I finally left because I had to read a few chapters before bed. Heading back to the dorms I heard my name being called, "Alice, I have been looking for you."

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