Reborn With a Magic System

After Damion was dismissed from lunch he convinced Elicia to give him a tour of the school. The young woman consented and led Damion to where each of his classrooms would be and they even took a tour of the grounds. By the time they were done the sun was starting to get low in the sky and Elicia insisted they needed to return to his dormitory.

"Is it against the rules to be out after dark?" Damion asked concerned.

No one had bothered to give him a student handbook or tell him about any particular rules for the school. Damion did not know if everyone just figured he knew them or if they expected him to figure them out on his own.

"After dark no, after ten in the evening yes," Elicia told him as she hurried him along.

"Is it really that late already?" Damion asked looking at the setting sun and then his watch.

"It is."

"You should probably tell me all the school rules. I don't want to accidently get in trouble."

"Didn't you have rules at your previous school?"

"Of course, but I thought there might be different ones here."

"The rules are pretty much the same in every school."

"Really?" Damion thought for a moment while he recalled what Arica had told him about Erythraean Academy. "Can standard students challenge elite students to take their place as an elite student?"

"Where did you hear about that?" Elicia asked sharply.

"A friend that attended Erythraean Academy told me."

"Yes. At the start of each semester, standard students can challenge elite students to a duel and if they win the elite student is forced to change to the standard dormitory."

"Do you think someone will challenge me?"

"Only if that someone is truly foolish. Most challenges are from students that did not keep their grades up as elite students and were moved down at the start of the semester, so they challenge the person that took their place as an elite."

"Really? I thought it would be more cutthroat than that."

"Most students here are not accustomed to fighting. The elite students get more time in the battle simulators, so they are usually better at fighting than standard students. I've never seen a standard student challenge an elite and win."

"Oh. Well, I guess I really don't have anything to worry about then," Damion remarked. He was after all a C Rank mage already. Most students would be E Rank, possibly a few D Rank, but he remembered Theodore and Arica had graduated from Erythraean Academy at E Rank and he had to believe they had both been elite students.

"What are battle simulators?" Damion asked. He had a guess, but he was not sure if he would be right or not.

"Battle simulators are rooms that are heavily enchanted to produce illusions. They let you battle against Ferocious and Demonic Beasts without the risk of harm."

"That sounds fun. How much time do I get in them?"

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"Since you are considered an elite student, two hours a week."

"Is that all?" Damion was somewhat shocked by the short amount of time allocated. He thought it would be more like two hours a day.

"If you want more you can use your points to purchase time."

"Points?" Damion asked confused by what Elicia meant.

"Oh. I thought I told you about the points system. Instead of grades you earn points in classes by doing well on tests and assignments, or answering questions, or for whatever one of the professors feel deserves points. You can then use those points on different items in the school commissary."

"So, I don't get graded? How am I judged to have passed a class or not?"

"You either learn in class or you don't. You are either capable of doing an assignment or not. If you showed you learned, you get points, if you don't do the assignment you don't. Different people are good at different things. The school isn't here to judge how good you are at something. It is to show you the available fields of study and let you figure out what to do with that knowledge. The total number of points you earn in a term ranks you with the other students, that's how standard students can surpass elite students to take their place."

"What kind of things are available through the points I earn?"

"Potions, artifacts, time slots for the battle simulator of course, the most common item purchased though are passes to the school library. You can also purchase points with the promise of future service if you are short and really want something."

"We aren't allowed free entry to the library?" Damion suddenly questioned, he ignored the part about purchasing points, Mage Teft had already warned him not to get in debt with the school. However, hearing that access to the library was restricted was depressing, he had been looking forward to having the Magic System record as many magic seals as he could in the library the first chance he got.

"To the common areas of the library there is no entry fee. All you'll find there are history books or texts you need for classes. Entry into the Repository is what is restricted."

"Is that where the magic seals are kept?"

"Yes. All the magic seals Silver Spire has ever recorded are stored in there. If you want to learn something other than the more common tier 1 spells, that is where you have to go."

"How many points does it take to buy a pass?"

"Depends on the pass. There are five passes, each tied to a tier of magic seal. A tier 1 pass only costs 10 points. But if you want a tier 2 pass, to be able to study a tier 2 magic seal, it will cost you 100 points."

"That is so expensive," Damion whined as he felt his heart tighten. He was hoping he would be able to learn a tier 2 spell soon and complete the quest from the Magic System. Even though Damion did not know how hard it was to earn points, he knew earning 100 school points was going to be difficult.

"The Repository is meant to be a great reward, they can hardly make it easy to enter. Don't worry, you'll get passes from some of your classes."

"Really?"

"Of course. This is a magic school. What did you think they wouldn't let you learn magic at a magic school?" Elicia had fun teasing Damion all the way back to the dormitory.

Once back in his dorm, Damion went to his room to change out of his good school uniform and into a comfortable pair of shorts and shirt. Elicia went to the kitchen and began cooking dinner.

Left on his own for a short while, Damion sat down on his bed and began focusing on compressing his mana. He did not dare activate Mana Absorption since he had a strong suspicion it would draw mana from his dorm room. Essentially, his entire dormitory was a spatial stretching artifact and he was inside it. Pulling mana in with Mana Absorption would likely upset the balance of the enchantments and be noticeable.

Damion was rightly afraid that if he activated Mana Absorption it would drain mana from whatever powered the dormitory's enchantments. His adventurer backpack and waist pouches both pulled mana from the environment to power their spatial stretching. He was not sure if the dorm room was the same, or if there was an external source of mana, but Damion did know an enchantment of this size required a lot of mana.

After a few minutes of not having much luck compressing his mana, Damion switched to casting spells. Ice Shard and Ice Breath were out of the question, and he did not want to cast Icy Grasp on any of his furniture, so he started casting Ice Shield.

Damion would summon his Ice Shield and then dismiss it. He did not know how many times he had done this in the past few days, repeatedly casting spells trying to master them, but he felt sure he had to be getting closer to increasing the Rank of his spells.

As Damion continued to practice, he did not notice the lights in his room begin to dim or the fluctuation in the temperature of the room, but the longer he practiced, the more frequently they happened. It was not until Elicia burst into his room that Damion realized something was wrong.

"Are you insane!" Elicia shouted.