The place looked quite desolate compared to the outer disciple affairs building, yet Jim wasn't that complaining about this.
"Excuse me," he went to one of the empty windows in the wide hall while other disciples here noticed him, and gave him a welcoming stare.
"Yes," the master, who had a bull head, replied while glancing weirdly towards him.
"I'm Jim, a privilege inner freshman disciple of the academy, and I'm here to have my allowance."
The bull headed master starred in the same way towards Jim like he was looking at a freak. "Are you the one who caused all this trouble back there?" he asked while taking some papers from his side.
"You can consider me him," Jim tried to crack a joke, yet no one laughed and the intensity or pressure in the hall intensified with his words.
"Boy, I know you came from such a lowly world so I won't take this offense from you," the bull headed master said before adding in serious face and tone, "despite causing something bizarre and unique here, you can't be this full of yourself. We have rules here, and you need to abide by them."
"Sorry master," Jim apologized with no real sincerity at all.
"Take, these are five academy coins," the bull headed master handed coins the same as the three coins he got from Siera.
"I need you to sign here," the bullhead handed a single paper to him with a place to have his fingers sealed with red ink.
He read the paper and found nothing suspicious about it. "Just drop your blood in the sealing ink and we are finished," the bull headed master seemed annoyed from the fact he was dealing with a human in such a selective place.
"Oh," Jim exclaimed in surprise as he didn't realize he had to do that until the master said it. he put a single drop of blood over the ink, and magically a hollow image of him flew from there and fell on the paper.
"Done," the master took the paper before taking a booklet out. "Take it, it contains everything related to the rules of the academy, the inner system of it, and ending with a brief introduction to the forest, the special towns associated with the academy, and the mission in the stele."
Jim took the small booklet feeling much doubt that this little thing contained so much info. "Ah, before I forget, you need to go to the Dragon town fast and finish buying the things in this list," he took another paper with many words over before adding:
"You selected your curriculum yet, right?"
"No sir," Jim tried to be respectful to this angry master, "can I postpone the visit to the Sherwid town for later? I need to go and see the academy and the forest as well."
"Silly boy," the bull headed master said before taking another paper, "you won't be allowed to walk around like this without a proper dressing and emblem."
Jim took the paper and glanced at its content. They had many classes named as class zero, class zero one, class zero two…etc. he took the paper and felt puzzled for a second there.
"Tell me something, what do you want to focus upon? Fighting? Forging? Alchemy? Spells? Learning for learning? Or being a bunching sack for others?"
This time the master laughed as if he just told a joke and some other masters laughed along with him. "Well sir, I want to be strong, very strong to make everyone respect me no matter who he was."
The simple words of Jim silenced the entire hall, even the few disciples around perfectly heard him.
"You got some balls, kid," the master said in strange seriousness before a smile appeared on his face, "but I like bold kids like you. I hope you'll gain my respect one day with your own power."
"Thanks… master," Jim didn't know what to say except that.
"For you then, you'll need to attend all the fighting classes, spell classes, and a class about the world's nature and real status is important for you too," the master said and when Jim showed more puzzled look he added, "just mark on class zero, zero one, zero three, zero five, zero eight, and zero twelve," he said.
"That seems… a lot," Jim smiled before pointing to the paper. "Just drop your blood kid over the classes you want," the master whispered in a soft voice.
"Thanks master," Jim felt this bull headed master wasn't that bad at all.
"You are the one to be thanked, after all you allowed my great ancestor to come into this academy after so long," the master laughed before adding, "this place looked quite boring lately, kids like you might be needed to add more chaos and life here."
Jim didn't know if the master was praising or mocking him, so he just kept his diplomatic smile and let a single drop over the paper.
"Done," the master said while taking the paper from Jim's hands, "now if you want to add more to your schedule later on, you'll need to come here and pay one academy coin to do that."
"Thanks master," Jim said while thinking who is this crazy to come here and add more torture to his life.
Jim then excused himself and exited the hall. While he was on his way out, he noticed the many gazes laying on his back, yet he ignored them all and kept moving steadily like he wasn't monitored this close.
"It seems we have to go to Sherwid town first," he said the moment he reached his team.
"Sherwid village?" Kro asked, "are you sure?"
"Sure, why not?" Jim asked with doubt.
"Rumors said the town is heavily watched by the academy," Rick said.
"And?" Jim missed the point here.
"The road to it isn't," Roo sighed, "we might face some bullies along the way."
"From higher years?" Lan asked.
"Only one year above us," Rick said, "these are the rules no matter where we are in this world."
"Good then," Jim smiled before adding, "we might have a warm up match before our official challenge."
"But…" Roo said before Jim stopped him.
"We'll have to go to the town, and we have to win our next challenge in the arena. That heist we might face will be great to test our abilities."