The Kilguana Magic Academy is one of the oldest and most influential institutions in the kingdom, unsurprisingly. Having within it the greatest followers and practitioners of magic in the capital, it was natural that it had a certain authority.
Alongside the School of Arms and the Faculty of Magistracy, these three institutions together form the Royal University also called the Royal Academy.
This academy had the important role of educating the greatest thinkers, soldiers, magistrates, and mages of the kingdom. Each student in its midst had to either be able to pay the extremely high fees to attend or go through the apparently very tough selection process, or both.
Unsurprisingly, this gave them several advantages, great authority and influence which enabled them to free themselves from most of the outside political quarrels.
This impartiality was much more visible and present within the Magic Academy. Of the few hundred or so students in its midst, no preferential treatment was tolerated, whether from teachers or non-teaching staff.
This had the pleasant effect of filtering those who only relied on their family's wallet and those who were really gifted while not angering the Nobility.
Even if there were some cases where some Nobles tried to threaten the Academy's officials, most of them wouldn't be able to get enough pressure to rig the grades or treatments of the students for one simple reason: The Magic Academy had been given a special status of self-governance over its internal matters by Royal Decree and this was inscribed as a law.
In simple terms, the Academy could be considered as another country, just as Holy Lands were under the sole authority of the Papacy but with a little catch.
Of course, this would be dangerous to give the education of future generations of mages to another entity, the Academy had to be controlled. So, despite its apparent independent status, the King still holds supreme authority in the Academy. The latter simply being a vassal, making it still theoritically independent from political struggles.
Because of that, the Nobility or the High Nobility had nothing to say about the decisions of the University. Even the King only rarely interfered, throughout the history since the creation of the University, only four moments recording the intervention of the Royalty could be found in the Archives.
Of course, with so much influence and power came great responsibilities. Over time, the University has acquired numerous academic infrastructures, of course, but also military, cultural, residential, catering and entertainment infrastructures.
You could almost think of the university as a kingdom within a kingdom, just like Vatican inside Rome.
- "A portal?" Isaac asked suddenly, intrigued.
The small group was still on their way to the Magical Academy and Betina had continued with her explanations and introductions until she was interrupted by Isaac.
- "Yes, a portal. The Academy has a sub-dimension in its undergrounds which provide an ideal training ground without causing nuisance or danger for the capital" she explained on hearing Isaac.
The idea that an enchanted training room made sense and Isaac knew there was sure to be one in the Academy. But to create an entire dimension, wasn't it a bit overkill?
- "How did they do that?" he asked immediately, hoping the apprentice would have an answer.
Unfortunately for him, the latter did not seem to have one but nevertheless took out a small booklet of a few pages before handing it to Isaac.
- "Master Kol gave me this thinking that you would surely be curious about this" she said, having the book stolen from her hand.
She gave a little cry of surprise when Isaac took the book and opened it to go through it immediately. Immediately, the three apprentices, Iracuz, Artiel and Rebecca, sighed as Rebecca leaned forward towards Betina.
- "If you have something else to say, you better wait until he finishes reading, once he starts, he doesn't listen to anything anymore" she whispered, as if she didn't want to bother Isaac.
Betina nodded in response and looked at Isaac intently. It was also not surprising for an Archmage to be so focused on his studies that he cut himself off from the world.
This was also the reason why most of the time, mages and scholars were hermits for the most part. Few came out of their towers and even fewer had time to devote to their apprentices.
Although the Magical Academy is a place of education, classes were relatively rarely given by high-level mages. The apprentices were already happy that an intermediate mage came to give them lessons, most of the time their lessons were held by beginner mages or their elder apprentices.
The rest of the time, they would read books in the library and train alone in their rooms, gardens or the training dimension.
For his part, Isaac was passionate about what his colleague had written to him. It was more of a scientific essay; the lexicon was quite technical and some words were new to him. Nevertheless, through the given context and his own experience, he was able to roughly understand the concept behind this famous training dimension.
In short, this "dimension" was not a real dimension but a compressed space using the same principle as that of its shadow portal or Zachary's light teleportation technique.
In the same way that an object is converted into energy, here in mana, to be easily and quickly moved to another place, the famous dimension of the Academy creates a portal of entry but no exit.
Instead, when an object enters the portal, it is transformed into energy and sent into some sort of magical formation that Zachary did not detail.
This formation located within the Academy maintained a world entirely made of energy called an "astral world" but which, for a person entering in energy form, had no difference to the outside world with a few exceptions.
Of course, this world has a physical "frontier" and is limited by the power of the catalyst maintaining it and had certain disadvantages.
One of those disadvantages was its stability. Unlike the outside world, which is self-sufficient, this astral world is in perpetual destruction, its energy is constantly trying to escape. If the catalyst was to deactivate, the contained energy would immediately escape destroying the world inside it and those within.
For this, many security mechanisms were installed, but nothing is infallible, and that was something Zachary emphasized a lot.
"Whatever you do, don't go inside," was what he wrote and underlined on one of the pages.
Although he was not the creator of this astral world, Zachary was not sure that it could support the "weight" of Isaac.
Indeed, since anyone entering it was transformed into energy, he was not sure how much energy Isaac's body contained. Zachary himself could sense that the dimension was losing its stability whenever he went there.
So, he didn't want to take any chances and destroy a magical prowess like this.
"There is a special room for me to train which has mana absorbing and damage limiting runes, this should hopefully be enough but wait for me before you start the test. Please. Don't. Do. Nothing. Until I'm here, "Zachary wrote at the end of the booklet.
Isaac sighed as he read that sentence and rolled his eyes slightly before looking at the apprentices around him, all staring at him.
- "Finally," finally said Artiel, sighing.
- "Finished?" Rebecca asked with a smile, ignoring Artiel's small groan.
Isaac nodded in response. Rebecca therefore turned to Betina, still motionless in her seat, to signal her to continue.
Seeing the signal given by her neighbor, she cleared her throat slightly and continued.
- "Master Kol also wanted me to review the Riggs scale before your test" she began, looking a little confused as to why the Magus had asked her for such a thing.
Who didn't know what the Riggs scale was? But the confusion and incomprehension she could read on Isaac's face took her all the more by surprise.
- "The Riggs scale?" asked Isaac.
How come an Archmage didn't know the Riggs scale? After all, it was something taught to all students, even to the Promising Ones. Seeing the confusion on Betina's face, Iracuz decided to intervene.
- "Master Isaac is an elf, I am not sure that we use the same terms as them. Perhaps it's not called like that for them" he tried to explain to Betina to keep the discussion going.
It was true that the fact that she was next to an Archmage was incredible enough that she sometimes forgot that it was an elf. There were so many amazing things around him anyway that the fact that he was an elf was becoming almost ridiculous, starting with his clothes which were constantly radiating mana.
Betina nodded and decided to cover all the basis in order to be on the same page with Isaac.
- "The Riggs scale is a way to measure the level of a practitioner ... Promising Ones, apprentices, beginner, intermediate and official mage, Master-Mage, Archmage and Grand Archmage are the first ranks of this scale" she began to explain.
So far, it reminded Isaac of the messages he had received in the garden and how he had jumped from the first rank to that of Official Mage in just five seconds when he arrived in Phalanx.
However, the fact that Betina had made it clear that these were only the first ranks of the ladder surprised him a bit. How many other ranks were there?
- "So far, the maximum that a human has been able to achieve is the rank of Grand Archmage. The only known and still living one is the Great Draconic Archmage" she continued.
The word Draconic quickly indicated to Isaac where this famous Grand Archmage was. The famous Draconic Empire in the East where were the famous Eris and the other Reincarnated.
The fact that a High Archmage was there didn't really make him want to go if you took into account the warning the Administrator had given him. Anyway, it's not as if he was planning to go there either.
- "In all, there are 17 official ranks, the writings also talk about two last ranks but the scholars do not agree on their definition or their name. After Grand Archmage come Wonderworker, Sage, Grand Sage, Guardian, Power, Virtue, Domination, Throne and Seraphim. Then, the last two are… "
When Betina began to list the ranks, Isaac raised his eyebrows slightly. He had heard part of this list before somewhere when he was still on Earth.
Wonderworker for "Worker of miracles" was saying a lot about the title. Sage and Grand Sage did not need much explanation, the title of Sage was often associated with people who had reached the height of wisdom, scholarship, and knowledge.
Nonetheless, it was the rest of the ranks that gave him a sense of déjà vu. He had seen it somewhere, but when and where? For several seconds, Isaac focused completely on his task and searched his memories from top to bottom.
His search was not long when his memory poured out like a dam giving way under the pressure of the water.
- "God" he suddenly said, raising his hands in the air, happy to have found this famous list.
Betina slightly jumped at Isaac's reaction and didn't know what to say.
For his part, Isaac was in deep reflection and contemplation. The list she had just described, or more precisely part of that list, was part of the list of the different choirs of angels in the Bible.
Angels, Archangels, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Dominions, Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim, that was the hierarchy from bottom to top of the angels in the bible.
He did not remember the details of this list but all he knew was that at the top of this hierarchy, that is to say after the Seraphim, was God and if his reasoning was correct, then the The Riggs scale also had to be the same.
- "Y… yes, that's it. The following one is god" stammered Betina, still a little confused.
Isaac smirked slightly as he received his answer, seeing that he had got it right. That was quite some jump from mortal to divine, normally there should be demi-god, right? Or perhaps this was something most people just ignored as no one ever surpassed the Grand Archmage rank.
However, this did not leave him without question as to the rank that should follow that of "god."
So, he looked at Betina waiting for the last rank. The young girl was a little taken aside and froze when she saw Isaac's gaze on her.
Not knowing how to react, a strange silence settled in the coach between the apprentice and Isaac for several seconds. Seconds in which no one seemed able to move or breathe until Iracuz interrupted them again.
- "The last rank is not known" he said quite simply to answer the place of Betina still lost.
Isaac turned his head a little confused and demanded a more detailed explanation which the young man hastened to give him.
- "According to the Ancients, the writings describe a last rank but no one is able to decipher this passage. So, to this day, we do not know its name."
It was highly interesting, and Isaac leaned back fully in his seat before going into deep thought. He only had one idea what the name of the rank that might be above a rank that had been named "God", and that name would most logically and probably be: "Administrator."