On the next day, they finally went back to school. By the time they entered their classroom, several of their classmates pounced on Airi and hugged him, taking him back by surprise.
"Oh, Airi, we've been worried!"
"You little rascal, don't scare us like that"
"Glad to have you back mate"
"It's been so long Airi"
With all of them so enthusiastic, Bubblegum, on the other hand, was sulking and looked as if she had gone through hell.
"Finally," she sighed. "I 'am not going back there ever again"
"What's the palace like?" Aspen asked out of curiosity.
Bubblegum looked at him, bemused. "I don't remember telling anyone where we went."
"Err...I just thought they--you know, the snow-white twins would bring you to their home." Aspen told her sheepishly.
Bubblegum resisted her urge to roll her eyes, but then suddenly, a question suddenly popped out of her mind. "Snow-white twins? What kind of label is that?"
"Just so if you didn't notice, we have three sets of twins here at our class." Asa said.
"I know." She stated
"And so, we decided to call them the Snow-white, the black and white, and the earth twins" Aspen proclaimed.
"How lame..." Bubblegum sighed as she shook her head.
From a distance, Yin was looking at her with his chin resting on his hand, while his other hand pointing at his quill, making it float in the air with his wind magic.
He looked at her indifferently. As the daughter of the sweets, her voice is as sweet as ever. She may be kind at some point, but she is a bitter candy. He did not expect her to actually enter one the five palaces as she hold deep resentment towards it. However, she is but a kind girl who does everything for other's sake rather than hers.
Not so long after their reunion with Airi, Amili arrived and the children immediately went back to their seats.
The look on her face gave them a bad feeling for some reason. It's just so unnatural that her face would look so blank and uninterested, at the same time, pissed but exited. It's hard to read.
When she spoke, their hunch was proven correct.
"Okay you brats, we'll be learning to count beads today."
As she said that, countless retaliation and gaping was heard from the student's
"Beads? Why would be count beads?!"
"Come on lady, there's no need for us to do that!"
Under all those protests, Kishi and Kira just tilted their heads in confusion. Why would they count beads? They wouldn't start making bracelets or necklaces or, whatever those little round things are used for, wouldn't they? And besides, why the hell would they do that?
As if reading their minds, Rex told to them. "She meant money."
"Oh."
"Seriously, you don't even know what money is." Airi buried his face in his hands.
It may sound weird that they're only learning to count money at their age, but it just that they focused on learning history, magic, combat, and other stuff rather than counting beads. And with their family background, they weren't really required to do so for many reasons.
Amili coughed to get the children's attention back to her. "As I was saying, were learning to count beads. As for why, you'll find out after you learned this." She said. "All of you here may find these pieces of metal and jewels insignificant, but they value a lot to the other people. You brats grew up inside your castles and mansions where everything was provided and was effortlessly gained. And if you want to go to shopping districts and buy things you took a liking to, you would usually get them with the assistance of your nannies and body guards. As such, you did not learn this basic kind of things. So, shall we get started?"
The children divided themselves into groups based on their age -- not all but some of them do -- like how Kishi, Kira, Airi, Rex, and Lune was always together, and Red as they always drag him with them. Bubblegum, Mythica, Yin and Yang is also one example.
Though Rai is of the same age as them, he grouped among his fellow council presidents such as Miha, Asa, Aqua, along with their siblings Ash, Umi, and Coral.
Some of them grouped with their siblings like the Earth twins, Tera, and Ara. As well as the assassin trio, Shia, Jex, and Haven.
While Kin, Aspen, and Lux grouped together as best buddies, Akame, Lennan, Aster, Pearl, and Selle did the same.
The whole E-class ware banded into their own except for Akamura who is still as detached to the class as ever. They might not seem like it, but the children suspect others so easily and earning their trust is very difficult. What's more for an arrogant guy like him?
Amili handed every group a bag with random amount of beads. As the group of the youngest emptied theirs, they found different types.
The beads are gold and sometimes silver and also had different types of crystals embed at the center of it. The metals are flat like chip looking of course, but there are just different colored crystals that was embed to it.
From what they remember from Amili's quick lecture earlier, each type of bead had different values.
The lowest bead was the one embedded with a clear crystal, and the silver is carved with an intricate pattern of a what looked like a human wielding magic, or a mage. This kind of bead can also buy as much as a piece of bread
The second one that's worth is at least a hundred times a mage bead, was blue crystal embed, and silver like coin, carved with a pattern representing a great and powerful spirit that -- the children weren't sure about -- was a nine-tailed fox.
The third one is also a hundred times a spirit bead, with a red crystal, and gold with a pattern representing a dragon. And the highest bead would be a thousand times a dragon bead, color green crystal, also gold with a pattern representing a dryad.
A bead was earned by the prosperity of the land. The more magical energy a land is, the more bead there is. The beads are also ranked by the rarity of an entity it represents in a certain land. As such the mages are everywhere, while spirits are little less.
The dragons however, may be many, but not all lands are that prosperous enough to sustain their need of magic, and as a result, most dragon migrate frequently to suit their needs. it is also more valid depending on the number of dragons that served that certain family that owned the land.
Dryads are the rarest. They only exist on rich forest which they protect, and usually had only one at most. Rich lands that had dryads are mostly owned by great families in the rank of B to SSS-class. Even B-class is very scarce as to have a dryad guard their forest territories.
Magic energy is one great importance that even money itself relied on it. That is also one reason why families with great magical abilities are rich, no matter their attributes. The more magic it is in the land, the more beads there is; but beads aren't mined though.
Just after they learned each of the types of beads' importance, Amili called back their attention to her.
"Now that you've learned this basic stuff, an activity will be held starting tomorrow." She proclaimed to them, making some of the children exited.
But as expected from the class of elites, most of them had a bad feeling about her proclamation.
"You'll be surviving alone for a whole week."
"SAY WHAT?!!@%!"
"What do you mean by surviving?" Aqua asked her
Suppressing a sigh, she said, "You'll find out more tomorrow when mo-I mean the dean explained everything. For now, just divide your self into groups of three, the remaining two will do so on their own"
Although they were mostly confused and unwilling, they just followed what she said and divided themselves into three.