After two weeks,
Waking up, doing some exercises, Larne freshened up and got ready for work.
Larne took out the Nornak Daily News and the Madison Merchant Times from his letter box and discovered that there was another letter within in. It was sent to him by the academy to remind him that the yearly CoreEnergy awakening course was going to begin soon and that he was appointed the main instructor of the course. It also contained the details of the venue and the time the class is held.
Main instructor? What kind of position is that? It's not like I get paid extra for it… I guess it's gonna be roughly the same as the last time when they sent a few other instructors to help me out. Larne shook his head and didn't take the notice to heart. He went back to his room and looked at the calendar. The next month was coming in several days and the duels were his priority now. Although he was confident in remaining victorious, he couldn't slack off either as he had to make sure his body was in peak condition for the duels.
Tomorrow's the 20th of the 9th month of the calendar and there's still ten days to the 10th month. I should do my best to tell the other assistant instructors what to do within the next ten days and rest up after that to prepare for the duels, thought Larne as he looked at the ornate silver calendar he had on the wall.
When he had just arrived at Elysium, Larne was quite unaccustomed to the date system of this world. Unlike Modern-day twenty-fourth century Earth, Elysium had 13 months within a year but every day was 24 hours. Another difference was, each year was 392 days long and this had caused Larne to mess up the dates very often when he was taking his accounting and other auxiliary courses at the academy, often resulting in him being screamed angrily at by his professors. "Where has the other three days gone? Huh? Were they eaten by your dog?"
The most frustrating part of the date system in Elysium for Larne was the existence of two different calendars. The first one was said to be used by the elves at the start of the current ten millennial generation which obviously long ago which had four days in each week, ninety-eight weeks in a year with the two extra days which did not have a date being festival days for the gods. The first festival day was the day between the 30th day of the 12th month and the 1st day of the 13th month and was called the Day of Sacrifice, or, more colloquially known as the 31st day of the 12th month. The second festival day was on the 3rd day of the 6th month and it was called the Day of a New beginning. Everyone on Elysium was obligated to take wear a new cloth or cook a new meal during that day. These two days were holidays on every part of Elysium.
The elegant, nature-loving and refined elves naturally didn't use numbers and instead named each month after a something significant. In the order from the 1st month to the 13th, they were called respectively the New Month, Harvest Month, Ogun Month, Ewe Month, Wet Month, Bell Month, Palm Month, Dry Month, Month of Blessings, Month of proclamation, Month of Festivals, and Blossom Month.
The idealistic and nature-loving elves really caused Larne a lot of suffering and headache; on top of the misaligned number of days, there was the name of all those months to remember! Larne was particularly vexed with that fact until he came to a realization one day: if the Earth took 365 days to orbit the Sun, then it wouldn't be that weird if Elysium orbited its Sun at 392 days because it had a larger orbital path. From that day onwards, Larne became accustomed and never got the dates of Elysium wrong again.
The second calendar was the Modern Calendar and it was used by the Mages who regarded accuracy as ideal. All the dates described with the Modern Calendar were cold, hard numbers; that was the case with the months as well. However, it was even more complimented as each month had a different number of days. For example, the 1st month had 30 days, the 2nd had the fewest: 29 days, the 13th month had 31 days as well and the month with most days was the 6th month at a count of 32 days.
The humans on Elysium didn't appreciate the Naturistic ideals of the elves nor were they as accurate as the now ancient mages, therefore it had become convention to fuse the two different systems into one which had thirteen numbered months with 30 days each and adding the festival days without a date onto the month it directly came after, making a 31st day for the 6th, 30 days for the 2nd and the 1st month also being 31 days as well.
From the memories of the original owner of the body, the day he was exiled from the northern lands was the 21st day of the 6th month. He had arrived at Morante City on the 8th day of the 8th month and enrolled in the academy that day. That whole journey took more than 50 days; his hometown really was quite far from Morante City. On another note, that meant that Lorist had left his hometown for more than ten years and it has been seven years since they last contacted him. I wonder how it is like there nowadays… Maybe I should go there during this holiday season?
A sudden strong desire to return to his homeland suddenly gripped his heart. Sigh, let's think about that after the 8th day of the 8th month. Having taken over the body, Lorist had inherited the remnant feelings and sentiments left behind by the original owner as well. Oh well, since it has already been ten years, I might as well take a leave from the academy before the holiday season to go back to the north. There should be enough time that way.
Lorist stood in front of the calendar and touched the box that had the date of the 8th day of the 8th month with his finger as he made his decision.
...
Morning, Instructor Ms Watkins. It's a pleasure to work with you once again. I'm sure that with your help it'll be much easier for me to organize this year's awakening course." The day after, Larne went to the instructor's office that was situated behind the great hall of the Sold Academy, which was used as a teaching venue for the CoreEnergy awakening course, ten minutes early. Upon entering the room. he saw Ms Watkins, who was also known as the academy's sexiest instructor, correcting a large stack of documents at her table.
Ms Watkins, aged 35, looked like a person who was only in her mid-twenties because of how well she took care of her body and was heralded to be the goddess of the academy by many of the male students there. Her husband was Instructor Watkins, a Purple ranked instructor. Last year, Ms Watkjns had helped Larne quite a lot as the Assistant Main instructor of the CoreEnergy awakening course.
"Hey, Landon you twerp… Has your eyes been glued to the beauty over there? You didn't even notice me standing over here."
Larne raised his head and said with surprise, "Brother Martin, why are you here?"
Standing in front of Larne was a large and burly man who lived at house no. 34 of the instructor residential area, Instructor Martin. Larne had gone to greet him once before on the day the instructor moved in.
"I'm here too, Instructor Landon. It's a pleasure to meet you again," a deep and low voice interjected.
Larne turned his head to look and hastily returned the greeting, "Good to see you, Senior Hank. Why have you come here?"
Hank Wolfe, a level two Purple-ranked combatant, has already been teaching in the academy for more than 30 years. Being a righteous and open-minded fellow, he was well received by most of the students at the academy.
Instructor Hank nodded and said, "Instructor Landon, Martin and I have been assigned by the administration to be the assistant instructors of the course this year to assist you. Please don't hesitate to inform me should you require anything done. Ms will be the assistant main instructor for the course as well."
Larne suddenly felt something was amiss when he saw instructors a lot more than usual. Turning back to look at Ms Watkins, he asked, "Can you tell me how many people have enrolled for the course this time around?"
Ms Watkins let out a bitter smile and pointed at the door, "Over there is a small doorway that's connected to the platform of the great hall. Instructor Landon, feel free to go take a look."
Orun, I've been again taken advantage of by the by the academy head again… Didn't he mention that the applicants have only risen by a small number? This is no small class… It is already a damned assembly!
Seeing the large hall packed full of students who were standing so close to each other because of the lack of space, Larne understood that the Gold and Purple ranked instructors had been sent by the academy to accommodate for the greatly increased number of students.
Larne rushed back to the office with a face full of sweat before asking with an anxious expression, "How many in total are there?!"