The phoenix that Sophronia is, flew and hover in a ring of sorts that was above them. As she flew upon it, it lit like a torch. The majestic bird slowly disintegrates into a stream of magic and brought back Sophronia right in their very eyes.
"The opening ritual is always as majestic every year." A young lady said beside Patricia. She was as mesmerized as the others and her. It was indeed magical, especially for her that's new to the world.
"Go forth and show your excellence on the academy. The 18th year of Phoenix Era of the Pristine Academy has now officially started." The crowd of students cheer and the faculty clap in glee. A woman with green hair walks up to the stage and took the spotlight for a brief moment. "Good morning students, especially for the freshmen. Please stay in the venue for the faculty teachers assigned for the first-year curriculum to assist you. For the others, the other staff will be willing to answer your questions if you are lost. Thank you."
The students disperse and there are still a handful of students that stayed. "This a little too many for a school that my sihsih said to be 'prestigious'," Patricia whispers to herself. "Your schedules are in your hands, and I hope you have your maps in your hands as well." The woman with green straight hair continued talking. "Especially your schedule, everyone has a specific schedule within them. You can't just go to a random classroom, because we have organized you the way we could optimize our teaching and your learning."
The faculty teachers organized them in the manner of their first subjects. "We will be only helping you in your first subject of the day. You have an hour of break every so often, we rely on you to go and explore the school." A plump ebony woman crosses her arms, looking at them sternly, especially those who are slow to follow the directions they are giving.
Patricia goes on to the group of students that have Pristinity as their first class. The green-haired woman approaches them, "Follow me, students." They followed her to a classroom that's not far from the administrative building. It's settled on a castle-looking building. As they entered the classroom, Patricia's mouth agape on its size. With the size of it, it looks like it covers half of the building. It looks like a study hall with desks and chairs in a stair-like formation. Each space has distances within them, giving ample room for every student.
From plenty of amount of students, they were decreased to 20 or so. Most of them are new faces, which excites her to have more chances to have a friend. "Please take your seat." The students shuffled to find a seat, some were conflicting with one chair, some were conflicting to even choose one.
"Before our class starts, let me have a small introduction." The lady clears her throat, "I am Miss Cassidy Stanton. You could call me Miss Stanton if you're feeling formal, or Miss Cass if you want to be casual to me. I can be in both worlds." She smiles at them sweetly, emitting a soft and nice teacher from her aura. "I know you know that Pristinity will be your class for today. It's a crucial subject for you all to be learning before you go through other subjects."
Several leaves suddenly approached her, carrying chalk that seems heavy for these leaves to lift. "As you can see from that, I hold a Fyto or plant-based element under Terra elements." Wisps of symbols of every element surround her as if she's wielding all of them. "But even if you have a different one from me, like Fire or Air, I could still help you know what Pristinity is."
Cassidy calms all of the leaves that assisted her, "I believe all of you here came from Arthean or more precisely, The Earth?" All of them agreed in many ways, confirming everyone in the room was particularly new with the world they were in. "I am glad that we sorted this out nice and easy. I am sure you are the only students who needed the first two lessons most than the other students enrolled here."
She claps her hand, "Anyway, I already introduced myself. How about you all?" Some of the students' demeanor changed, which made Cassidy giggle. "Oh no, the dreadful introduction every start of the school year. I am sorry, my dear students, I needed to meet and know you. There's no skipping this part."
Cassidy looks at the room and fixated her eyes on Patricia sitting at the far right side corner at the front. "You, the young lady with blonde hair. Let's start with you." Patricia smiles and didn't hesitate to go in front of the big classroom that they were in.
"Hello, everyone! My name's Patricia Prudent, 18 years of age, willing to be friends with you all." Cassidy smiles at her willingness, "What's your element, Miss Patricia?" The young lady was frozen in her position. The memory of everything that happened before struck her mind once again. It sent shivers down her spine, making her speechless.
"Miss Prudent? Are you there?" She snapped out of reality as her teacher calls her. "You seem suddenly went speechless, is something wrong?" "Ah, no!" Patricia forces a smile on her face, "Nothing, I was just thinking of how to show my element." Cassidy approaches her, "You never saw yours nor summon an example of it?" Patricia shakes her head, "I definitely have summoned some." She bites her lip, "But it's a long story to tell, Miss Cassidy." The teacher reads her mind and lets her continue. "Based on what I have experienced, my element seems to be crystals."
"A beautiful element." Cassidy smiles, "I hope you will be happy to work with such an element. Nice to meet you, Miss Prudent." Patricia nods and rushes to her seat. "Anyone else here doesn't know how to summon their element yet?" Few students raised their hands, Cassidy took note of it. "It's perfectly fine, I am here to teach you the basics of summoning some in our third lesson. Maybe even today since I am sure most of you will be meeting with Sir Rohan in Valiantry tomorrow. It's crucial for his class to have some knowledge of summoning even the basics of your power. Next one."
The class goes through every one of them to introduce themselves before starting officially in their class. Cassidy started off their first lesson by introducing the magic of Thereal. "There are three different tiers of magic—elemental magic—precisely, in our world. Blessing, Glory, and Pristine. There are differences in terms of how much a person could do if they are granted one of the three categories. There are limits in every tier, with one being higher than the other one. These categories bring balance to how much humans could wield elemental magic. The reasons will be tackled in your History class sooner."
"Blessing is a tier where a Mentiel could only do so much task, most of it has something to do with their future profession. Most of the people that have these are those who are in the working class, having elements as something to ease their work. The Glory tier is where a Mentiel could do a handful of magical things, greater than those who only have a Blessing. Most of it is present in those mages who live their lives succumbing to magic most of the time. But those who possess a Pristine power is much greater than what they wield."
A student raises her hand which Cassidy noticed. "A question, Miss Stanton." A voice from someone familiar to Patricia said, "If Pristines have a greater power than those who just have Blessing or Glory, why does it seem there are many people in this academy?" Patricia looks where the voice was coming from, it was from a young man. The man she met on the boat. What a small world.
"You could only say that because you haven't compared it to the whole population of Thereal. All of your elements hail from different regions, which have their own huge population. If compared to the general population, the school's population is not even a dot on its bar. Even accounting for the ones who are not present within our school, it's still a small number."
The lesson continued, discussing the different intensities of magic and why the categories and varieties were important in this magical world. It was a brief discussion that didn't take them half of the time, which Cassidy conveniently pushed the second part of their first lesson.
"With the topic of general magic out of the way, we need to talk about the mark on your arms." Most of the students suddenly shifted their gaze on their arms, which were covered by the fabric of their uniforms. "If you don't know yet, that's the Mana Mark, that's where your Seal of Pristinity resides. That's where the energy to use your ability resides as well. It emits a small glow and as your mana decreases in volume, parts of it will fade lightly."
"How could we tell with these uniforms?" Cassidy giggles, "You won't need it, for now, it's just for an exact estimation on how much you can still manage to do. You could still tell if you are tired or unable to do much greater things than you used to. Now, let's talk about it and the consumption of Mana. It's just basic to understand, the more you use it, the more it depletes in volume. The larger and greater the ability you use, the more will be consumed. The hardest part is knowing how your mana will be consumed."
Leaves conjugated on the board to show an example of a mana mark, much similar to theirs. "There are two basic parts on a mark, plus the seal of your Pristinity." She points at the straight line running across the middle, "This is the foundation of your mark and everything that branches of it are the storage. Every mark is unique with how the storage is formed. Curling and curvy lines will make you consume less mana and straight ones will make you consume more."
Cassidy gave them a small activity to study their marks and learn how will they execute every move they make. Some were disappointed to have mostly straight ones rather than curvy ones. It was a handful of information for an hour, but they were glad to finish their very first lesson.
They were dismissed with a bit of overtime. Patricia fixes her uniform and head outside along with her other classmates. There are other students that are out of their classes, but they were most likely their seniors.
Patricia immediately puts her map out and tracks where her next class is. "History. It's.." She looks ahead, "At the far side of this building, great." She groans as she started walking over there. As she was heading there, she was looking around the place, trying to get familiar if she came from a different building to get there. The place was still big in her eyes, even if the walk there is not that far.
She arrived at a library-looking building, which is the perfect place to hold a history class in. Patricia decided to take a seat on the stairs while the sun was still not heating it. She shuffled through her schedule, looking where the other classes will be held. As she was busy in her world, she heard some loud voices just near her. She can't avoid seeing what's happening.
"You should be sorry, you almost hurt her!" A girl with dark green hair said and pushed another young lady. Patricia runs up to them and pushed the other girl away, "What's wrong with you—" But as she expected it to be, it was no ordinary push.