Runes - A Tale Of The Abyss 72 Chapter 64 - A School of Secrets

"Griff, right?"

A man that was wearing casual clothes with plain looks said. He was carrying a box.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Delivery for you. School supplies and uniform."

"Thanks..."

He closed the door and opened the box. It was filled to the brim with magic theory text books on attributes, mana, and all sorts of trivia. There were also a pair of robes, a black jacket with an insignia on its right chest, and a pair of black pants.

He wore the black jacket and pants.

'I'm not gonna walk around like a clown...'

He left the robes on his bed, and looked through the box, finding a schedule.

"...Practical Magic Applications... it has no course book? I guess it's a hands in demonstration course."

He left the box full with books in the room as he walked out. He was wearing a confident smile. He put on his gloves, and placed his fire, water, air and earth lacrima into the small sections on his right pair.

He squeezed his fist in enthusiasm as he walked down the stairs. Most of the students walking around him wore robes, but there was the occasional student wearing the jacket like him.

'...wait a minute where even is the class going to be held at?'

He saw a student walking right past him who was pretty fast.

"Uh, hey! Sorry, I'm a transfer student, so I don't know where some classes are held at. Do you know where Practical Magic Applications is held at?"

The student slowed down, and turned to Griff with a smile.

"Oh, yeah it's-"

The students eyes drifted onto the insignia on Griff's jacket, and he stopped speaking as he turned around immediately again, dropping his smile.

"My bad, I don't seem to remember it... bye!"

"Oi wait weren't you just telling me!"

Griff watched in annoyance as the student ran off, this time faster than before. He frowned as he crossed his arms.

"What's his problem..."

He huffed and kept walking in annoyance.

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A couple minutes later Griff was running through the corridors. He had found a layout of the academy, and had noticed he was at the furthest point from where he had to go.

"Huff... Great! Late on my... second day... "

He ran through the corridors, avoiding slamming into people, and dodging anyone that came by his way.

He saw the large double door that lead out to the courtyard where the class would take place. He opened it, and ran towards his classmates that were already assembled there with Professor Julius already lecturing them.

He ran towards the back of the class and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Made... it..."

"Okay... as I was saying before someone decided to come late, today we will practice how each basic attribute can be used for battle oriented and daily life purposes."

He spoke with slight venom in his voice. He hated it when someone barged into his class late.

Griff gulped, and waited for Julius to continue. As he looked around for Sylvie he saw that she was in the front with several girls talking with her.

[Looks like someone made friends rather than enemies.]

'Shut up pixie.'

[I'm an angel you idiot.]

'Details details...'

Griff could feel a focused gaze on him, but he decided to ignore it. It was definitely that pesky girl from yesterday.

"Pst. You're the new kid right?"

The student that stood next to Griff whispered to him as he was deep in thought.

"Huh? Oh yeah... oh you're-"

It was the guy named Lance from yesterday. He still looked slightly intimating with his scars and tall, muscular posture, but his smile did put Griff at ease.

"Lance, right?"

"Oh! So you already know me! That's great!"

He seemed to have stars in his eyes, but they slowly died out when Julius saw them.

"Mr. Lance and Mr. Griff. I do not want another disturbance during my lecture, understood?"

Lance nodded, and Griff followed suit. When he returned to lecturing Lance turned to Griff and gave a friendly grin.

"Well, I just wanted to say I look forward to knowing you."

Griff smiled at that. It seemed that there was someone he would definitely get along with.

"Same with me."

"Okay. That concludes today's theoretical explanation. Now we'll be doing some target practice."

The class's mood lightened up hearing the info dump was over, and that they'd be able to use magic now.

"Hey, what's that good about this class?"

"Oh you don't know... well you're new so. Okay so, we just get to go all out and use magic! My head isn't that good for understanding what magic is hahahahah!"

Lance scratched his head with a relaxed smile.

"But I can hit things hard, so this is perfect for me!"

"Okay all of you. Quiet down... I really can't handle the sound of brats in the morning."

Julius snapped his fingers as slowly the ground they were standing on slightly shook, and in front of them a staircase appeared, leading down. Julius gestured for them to follow him, and they slowly made it out of the slightly crammed staircase to a reasonably large, underground arena made of white marble.

"Hey... you all are walking like this is normal... the ground just opened up."

Griff said to Lance as the class walked down. Sylvie was also in a daze, but a few girls were talking with him, probably explaining this place.

"Oh this is the staircase to the underground training grounds. Last time when a practical class was held in the courtyard the school almost burned down, so they came up with this. Genius, right?"

"...definitely amazing."

Julius cleared his throat after all the students were standing in front of him.

"You'll all be split into teams of four, and you'll be fighting against another team of four. Now with the transfer students we have a perfect number of 24 students, so I can finally make sure you all get adjusted to how squads work. This will be today's practical magic application. You are free to use any attribute you like. This is simply a test to see how you fight with magic in a team against another team. Any use of lethal magic will have repercussions."

Lance raised his hand in enthusiasm.

"Professor! Can I be paired with the new guy!"

"It doesn't really matter anyway. You can be together."

As Lance talked with Julius Griff was in thought.

'This is definitely not the only thing they're hiding from plain sight.'

[It's certainly interesting, seeing humans convert a floating island into an academy, but this underground training ground amazed even me.]

Griff nodded internally at that. This only meant that the Capitol was simply a more interesting place to explore.

A couple minutes everyone else was also placed into teams of four.

"Okay. You two need two more members. Kato and Jewels. I want you two to join those two."

The boy with the black hair and slight, calculative smile from yesterday walked towards Lance and Griff with his trademark grin.

"If it isn't the newbie. Glad to be working with you."

He extended his hand for a handshake that Griff obliged happily. He might not be paired with Sylvie but he wanted to start branching out.

The next guy that walked towards them, the only one left out of a team, was a boy with purple hair and a bored expression that was walking towards them.

"Him?!"

Griff's thoughts leaked out of his mouth as he looked at his roommate walk over to them.

"You know Jewels?"

Kato asked with interest.

"He's my roommate!"

"Ouch... must be hard living with all that mess."

"I'm more tidy than you'd expect Kato..."

Jewels spoke in annoyance as he looked at him with his hands in his pockets. He was the only other student wearing the school jacket like Griff in the class, bar for Lance who had modified his jacket so much that it looked like a sleeveless shirt.

"I guess we'll be working together then. I look forward to it."

Kato said with a grin, looking at his teammates. Lance gave a thumbs up at that.

"Likewise."

Jewels simply said nothing else, and waited for the class to start.

Chapter end