I could tell that nobody expected something like this to happen, everybody was confused and had been completely left in the dark. Well there wouldn't have been any time to inform them anyways.
"The princess is already a surprise, but who is he?"
The commoners were thinking that I must be a noble, after all they didn't really know all of the nobles. They thought I was some arrogant noble again, who couldn't care less for them. So they were surprised, but thought they had a rough idea of who I was.
But the nobles were the ones, who were really confused, they thought they would know anyone with a white robe and when even the other white robes seemed to not know, who I was the commoners also had no idea anymore.
In fact everyone began talking to each other, but only a few really had a bit of information. There were two or three people, who had seen me the day before with the princess and the old man. They had already thought that it was weird, but never would they have believed that it would be really important, after all the academy was the next day and everyone was focused on that.
But by far the most confused and the ones who cared the most were the other white robes, the people I would have to train with and who I would see a lot the next few months or even years.
They thought they knew about everyone, but at that moment they were completely shocked. On top of that there had actually been someone else, who arrived before, he was also completely unknown to them.
"Is he from another kingdom?"
It was the conclusion most people reached, they thought I was a scholar from another kingdom, who had connections to their kingdom and wanted to study at the best academy of Raiken. Some even guessed that had friendly connections to the teachers or even the principal himself.
In the end they were all partially right, but that didn't matter, because I didn't plan on telling anyone anything really.
As we kept walking I noticed that Katsumi was surprisingly calm, way calmer than she was, when she was with me alone, or even just in my presence at all.
I took a glance and believed to see some sort of dissatisfaction. Especially when looking at the nobles.
I for my part wasn't interested in what the commoners or even the nobles talked about, I was more interested to find out the strength of the ones, who would be my competitors in the future, the white robes.
When compared to red or even brown robes they were standing out like a white rose in the middle of only red, black.
Their mana was a lot stronger than the rest of the students', It was even to the point, where I didn't know if I could defeat any of them at all at my current level.
But when comparing it Katsumi it just made it even more obvious how talented she was. She was way ahead of the other white robes, if she thought for real she might even be able to take on two or three at the same time.
She was really a prodigy and I couldn't really say how long it would take me to catch up to her with my current growth rate.
But my main objective right now would be to not show my true skills and they'll miss their chance, they will not know my strength and then, when they think I am weaker than them and try anything funny I will already be stronger than them.
It was a difference in strength, which could be overcome in a bit longer or even less than a week depending on if I learnt something useful here or if I myself already had better training methods.
And then all of a sudden a lightning seemed to emerge from the sky. But it wasn't just a lightning, one after another all kinds of different elements seemed to all meet up.
"Princess I need to go now, but I will show you around later with your classmates."
And then the old man was gone and the wind also took his destined place.
And on the previously empty stage one after another the different masters seemed to all meet together.
A few hundred meters there were two stairs leading to the platform a few dozen meters above everyone.
At that time, when I looked up to them it was the third time in this world I really felt like I was in danger.
The first time was when I experienced the strength of the gigantic indescribable monster, whose power was so high that it could kill me just by being there, it was to a point, which I wasn't even sure if it existed, a power of that level was previously just something straight out of stories and even then just the craziest stories.
The second time was the moment when the mysterious swordsman slashed that monster and easily killed it in one swing. It was such a powerful swing and it made me feel something I had never felt before, admiration, fear, excitement and all in all an almighty feeling.
I only knew one other person, who could defeat that monster besides the mysterious swordsman. The only other person, who would be able to defeat it would probably be a certain bald guy, he could probably even kill it with one punch.
And now the third time was when I saw all of teachers stand together, all next to each other. Their combined power still seemed like it wasn't nearly strong enough to fight against the gigantic tree beast, but I couldn't imagine how I would ever have even the slightest chance of even just touching them.
Even something like completely taking them by surprise would not work, not even using my magic power to hide myself right next to them and then trying to assassinate one of them couldn't work.
And now they were all united, it was a scary sight.
They all had different weapons, katanas, spears, bows, no weapon at all, great swords, which were longer than me. Some also had rings or other Accessoires, which I could feel mana coming from.
From all of these different kinds of weapons I could feel the flow of mana and I could feel one precise point, where it was the strongest from every weapon, I was sure that it was the location of the respective magic stone. I didn't have this power for long enough, so I wasn't completely accurate, not with determining their strength, nor their weapons', but if I were able to observe them from close up I should be able to accurately determine their power level.
"Dear students of the academy of Raiken."
Immediately every last conversation seemed to have stopped at the same time and everyone looked up to the person currently speaking.
"As some of you might already know I am the principal of the academy of Raiken. Everyone of you, who is right here at this exact moment wants to pursue the way of strength. You all came here for different reasons, some simpler, while some are more complicated, but the one thing, which lead you to come here was the opportunity to get stronger.
"This academy is full of people, who are stronger than you, who you train with, who you can spar against and who you can get closer to. I can guarantee you that the decision of coming here will not be for naught.
"You will have the chance to get instruction from the most powerful masters of Raiken, here it doesn't matter if you are a commoner or a noble. As long as you have a certain amount of talent, a goal and a great determination you will be able to get stronger as fast as nowhere else in Raiken and even if you are not at the level right now, in the future you will be able to move up classes and get better and more chances to increase your strength. Depending on your strength there will be more and more techniques revealed to you and if you put in enough effort anyone is able to get a lot stronger in this academy.
"And without saying anything more I want to congratulate you for being accepted into the academy of Raiken, a place where your lives can change depending on the effort you put in. I wish everyone good luck and a fruitful time here."
Every word he said seemed to have been said with honesty and high expectations. His voice caught the attention of everyone and although nobody else should be able to see his true power everyone seemed to have been able to feel that the principal was incredibly strong.
*clap*
*clap...*
After a few seconds of uncertainty almost everyone began to applaud.
The atmosphere had been changed so easily it was like he had the innate talent to teach others, even without needing to show his strength and revealing his pressure he could be a great teacher.
He was a lot different then the day before, when I met him, but even then at the core he seemed to be the same.
He turned around and you could only see lightning forming around him and then he was gone as fast as he had appeared.
Now only the teachers were left. Katsumi's master, who seemed like he was the oldest one out of all of the teachers present began to take the principals place and give began to also speak to the new students.
"It's the flowing wind!" The students whispered to each other, as if they had to document everything happening, they were probably still influenced by the speech the director just held, still shocked by the pure feeling he could emit.
"In the name of all of the teachers I will congratulate all of you once again for entering the academy of Raiken. Depending on your class you will follow different teachers, who will lead you to you around and explain the most important things in detail.
"The brown robes will follow the 'Devil of fire', Hi Kosuke and the 'Calm stream', Mazi Saki... and the white robes will follow me and the "master swordsman", Tatsuya Ishii.
"Now meet up with the teachers, who are responsible for you and follow them."
After he had assigned the different groups to their respective teachers the masters split up in four groups waiting for their students.
I was quite content with the teachers the white robes including myself had been assigned to. The old man was definitely strong I could just see it with my bare eye and although that wasn't the case for everyone they still all seemed to respect him.
I could see that he was strong and he must have achieved a lot of things to obtain his title, the "flowing wind". The "master swordsman" on the other hand seemed like he was only half the age or even less of the old man. I could tell he was quite strong and his weapon, a normal sized, powerful looking katana had the strongest mana out of all the weapons I had seen.
Thinking back at it I never really wondered about it, but at that time I wasn't able to see the mana from the sword of the master swordsman, but to be able to withstand his power the sword must've been made out of an extremely strong material, or maybe I am just missing something like the existence of a mana stone, which is able to completely conceal it's mana just like it's done to humans, but just with their presence instead of mana.
Well maybe that's also possible and that may also be why I wasn't able to see his mana. Well maybe I'll discover it sometime in the future, but right now there's probably no point thinking about it.
So judging from the weapon alone and that he seemed confident with it I could at least determine that he should be able to improve my swordsmanship quite a bit.
After every group of students met up with their teacher the atmosphere had changed a lot inside the different groups. Naturally they were all of different size with the smallest group by far being mine, the lion class.
The atmosphere had changed a lot, now that I was up close with all of these people I could determine their strength even more accurately. I could also try to determine their character or at least get a first impression of them, which could be helpful in the future.
There were those, who focused only on our teachers, those who looked like they stood above everyone else, arrogantly looking down on everyone, but the teachers. It was exactly the people, who you would think if you saw them.
I could only guess that their respective families, probably all high ranking nobles, praised them because of their talent making them think of everyone their age as a lot weaker and not deserving of respect, the only exception they made would probably be the princess, who had a higher standing than themselves.
I may be jumping to conclusions and may also be wrong, but I didn't see why they would only act like that right now, I was at the least 90% sure that it wasn't just an act. I also wouldn't know why you would need to do that right now, after all they all knew each other.
That also told me quite a bit already about how to defeat them and how to interact with them if they approached me.
The others were harder to get a really good first impression of, arrogance was easy to be spotted, when looking at posture and their way of speaking. But for the others I couldn't really make out such a trait, so there were still a few more than half of the whole group, who I couldn't accurately judge yet.
At least it was a lot more quiet, because of the difference in size of the respective groups, mine being by far the most silent.
It was probably only because we were in front of the teachers right now, but at least for now almost everyone didn't seem to openly show disliking to anyone else. The teachers also looked rather content and the only one, who actually showed a bit of dissatisfaction was Katsumi, who was still standing right next to me.
I already noticed it before, but I could tell that she disliked nobles, or at least didn't like them.
It was the same for me, too.
Nobles were always described as arrogant and selfish, so I was automatically influenced by those impressions, but as a princess herself to not be able to completely hide her emotions meant that Katsumi was either too inexperienced yet or her dissatisfaction was just too strong.
Either way, nobody would question her if she didn't do anything hastily, they wouldn't dare.
"Everyone present here is officially part of the strongest students in the first year and will be attending the lion class. Although that in itself brings certain benefits and proves that your strength is already quite high you have to remember that this is still the best academy in the whole kingdom of Raiken. On the way to the area, which you will be residing in we will answer your questions and if there are not questions explain the most important facts to know about this academy."
We began to walk and I could take a better look at the sword of the "master swordsman".
It looked nothing like the elegant sword I had seen from the principal. It didn't look bad or anything, but for such a powerful weapon it seemed rather plain. It looked like a common katana, which you would be able to get practically everywhere.
Without being able to see the blade itself I would say that it really just was a normal sword, but that couldn't be the case, after all such a weapon couldn't emit such strong mana.
I wasn't able to do anything about it either way, maybe he will openly show it to us in a a lesson or maybe not, but I couldn't do anything about it for now.
As the old man was explaining things like the timetable and what exactly will be trained on what day we walked through the academy. He also explained that every 3 months there will be a tournament inside of the respective classes, which will determine the strength of every student in the class.
These were also the tests which would determine if you are able to move up into a higher class or even have to move down into a lower class. Because of the high qualifications and the small number of students the rules didn't really apply to the lion class. If it wasn't absolutely necessary a student wouldn't be forced to move down into a lower class, to be precise the raven class, the black robes.
And there was also only one person from the raven class moving up. That was the norm, but it was also possible for two extremely talented students to move up into the lion class if the teachers determine that they are too good and it would be a waste to keep them in the raven class, but that was extremely rare.
As we were walking around the academy a few questions were asked, but most of the time the old man explained the general setting of this academy.
And after he had explained different things for almost 15 minutes we finally arrived at the goal.
I was actually surprised, not because of the type of place we reached, it was pretty obvious from the start. No it was because of the time it took us to get to our goal.
If it took us that long to only just get to the place we would be sleeping at and I still wasn't able to see the end then this whole academy would be a lot bigger than I had initially thought. I even saw tunnels, which seemed to lead through the mountain, which the academy had been built next to.
That could mean that the academy could even proceed on the other side of the huge mountain right next to the academy.
"We're here. This is the place you will be staying at for the next year if everything will be proceeding as planned."
It was a luxurious looking area with one huge complex as the main building and different rooms inside. Right next to the building there was a training ground.
It would take quite a long time to explore the whole area, but it looked just like I had imagined it.
I could without even seeing the other classes' area say that this was probably a lot more luxurious and advantageous compared to even the raven class.
The academy didn't even try to make it look like everyone was equal, the reality was that the stronger you are and the more potential you have the more advantages you get. There was no such thing as real equality in this world, but it didn't have to.
I didn't really mind it, because I'll be the one, who will get all of these advantages, which will help me get stronger a lot faster.
After seeing the academy myself my last doubts of coming here had been cleansed away and I was sure that I had indeed made the right decision.