*Emilia's POV 5 minutes ago*
"Go bring the stuff to the dorm," Emilia said to Evans, her butler.
"Yes, madam" he answered before taking the things and leaving.
As she made her way down the hall after everyone had left, she noticed that someone was following her.
Turning her head, she saw Wade.
Sighing because she knew what was going to happen, she stopped walking.
Wade stopped as well.
"Will you stop following me?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
"I'm just making sure nothing happens to you," he answered.
"I don't need your protection," she said.
He only stayed silent and didn't move.
Harumphing in frustration she continued walking to the class.
Wade had had a crush on her since they met as children.
As their parents were both some of the most influential people in the human territory they had interacted quite a lot.
However, she found him quite annoying.
Opening the door to the class, she began making her way to her assigned seat.
As she was walking, she noticed a familiar head amongst a group of boys.
As his head turned toward her for a moment and their eyes met, she was sure it was him.
It was the boy she saw at the transport station.
She had just come back from visiting her grandparents in Freda when it started raining.
After sending her butler to get the car, she waited for him to arrive.
That was when she saw him.
His frail body and sunken cheeks were evidence of a harsh life.
His shabby appearance as his clothes were torn in multiple places and he had mud on them spoke to a poor background.
His brown hair was messy as it leaned to the side.
He just stood there looking out at the rain, it seemed he had no umbrella.
As she was in a good mood after visiting her grandparents she decided to take pity on him and give him her umbrella.
After calling out to him, he turned to her.
His eyes were what mesmerized her.
She had never seen eyes like those.
His icy blue eyes looked at her.
And there was only one way to describe them.
Lost.
He looked like a lost little boy who had been abandoned and left to die.
Despite being shocked, she offered him her umbrella.
However, he ignored her and walked off into the rain with nothing but a torn t-shirt.
As she met his eyes in the class, she took note of the fake smile on his face.
The smile was quite convincing however to her it was easy to see that it didn't reach his eyes.
After all, she had dealt with many businessmen and people who had tried to charm her.
She wasn't fooled by his fake smile, however, his eyes looked slightly different.
She couldn't tell what was going on inside his head as his eyes were practically deadpan.
They were too hard to read.
Sitting down, she opened her textbook and proceeded to ignore everyone as she thought about the mysterious boy's eyes.
***
I began controlling my breathing, as panic swept over me.
Relaxing my head I closed my eyes.
I waited as I calmed down.
There had become 2 unexpected variables.
The first was the girl named Anna, I don't remember writing about her, but that wasn't so bad as I didn't remember a lot of things.
-_-
Anyways it was mostly problematic because I didn't expect to see her after our argument.
She was a potential problem as she could ruin my goody happy-go-lucky look.
The second variable and the most concerning was Lucia.
Lucia was supposed to be kidnapped so I took the seat next to where her seat was as I knew she wasn't coming.
But here she was.
Which means I changed something.
After all, who else but I could cause a change in the story?
As I pondered over these issues, Valeria began speaking.
"As today is the first day, after you choose your MSM you will be free to go explore the campus as you wish."
"However, I must warn you that some places are off-limits for some of you therefore carefully read the rules before you meander off to god knows where," she said before pulling out her tablet.
"Rank 400, Luke Villin," she called out looking towards the sleeping boy.
The person in front of him smacked their hand on his table waking him up.
"H-Huh?" he muttered as he raised his head.
Everyone snickered.
Seriously?
How did the women in my novel find him attractive at all?
Sighing and shaking her head, Valeria kept reading the names on the list.
"Rank 26, Isaac Moreau,"
"Present," I answered, barely suppressing a yawn.
Scratch that, I did yawn.
A few people chuckled as my head magically fell into the rough bosom of my arms.
After she finished calling names, she began explaining the rules.
"No entering prohibited zones."
"No fighting outside of duels and lessons."
And various other rules I couldn't bother to remember.
Perhaps I should specialize in sleeping.
I was dead tired after everything I had been through so far.
Suddenly I felt someone glaring at my back.
Turning around I came face to face with Anna who was glaring at me as if she would kill me.
Turning back around I lay down and tried to fall asleep.
But she kept glaring at me.
Talk about determination.
I felt like she might actually drill a hole through me.
"Now we will move on to today's main event," said Valeria, waking me from my slumber.
***
Standing in a row with the other students in my class I observed the various MSM's on display.
We were currently in the armory of the school where we would select an MSM that we would carry with us for the rest of our school years.
There are 2 types of Magic Spell Mediums:
General MSM-
General MSMs are a tool for mages that cover all bases. Being able to store up to 100 Magic Spells, a mage equipped with a General MSM will likely always be able to adapt to the situation, with the potential for many options at their fingertips. Due to the ability to cast a larger variety and number of spells, a General-type MSM will place a larger burden on the user, who will have to make more manual adjustments for each spell to be effective.
Specialized MSM-
Specialized MSMs are inferior to General MSMs in that they can only store up to 10 Magic Spells, but they far exceed the latter when it comes to spell casting. With less capacity for storing magic spells, Specialized MSMs instead have subsystems that reduce the strain of casting on the mage, enabling them to invoke magic at a much faster rate. Due to the narrowed nature of Specialized MSMs, they are often specialized according to specific kinds of magic as well. For instance, combat mages will often have Specialized MSMs in the form of a weapon in which the Specialized MSM stores Magic spells that aid in auxiliary tasks related to the weapon itself for instance aim assist or extreme sharpening to save the mage time and mana on casting those.
Mana Guns are an example of this as they are Specialized MSMs that have a spell that allows the storage of raw mana and then converts it into concentrated bullets of mana so even non-mages can use them as they don't have to insert their own mana into the MSM.
It is capable of doing so using Non-Systematic Magic so there is no rewriting of the Avatar in the Ethereal Realm and therefore it does not require a mage and can be done using a Specialized MSM.
Magic Spells are cast through these devices called MSMs or Magic Spell Mediums, the way it works is,
The Mage infuses the Raw Mana in their body into the MSM.
The MSM analyzes the Mana Wavelength.
The MSM Connects to the Avatar in the Ethereal Realm through the Raw Mana's unique signature.
Then the MSM sends a request to the System Interface Chip in the Mage's brain requesting what Mana Code to activate.
The Mage selects the Mana Code and then the MSM gathers the necessary Particles from the Avatar to cast the Magic Spell.
Then the Mage can activate the Magic Spell so long as they possess the necessary Mana Control to use it.
The MSM will then wield the necessary Particles in the Avatar and cast the spell in the Ethereal Realm causing it to rewrite the Mana Wavelength in the Physical Realm.
Everything in existence has an Avatar in the Ethereal Realm a counterpart Realm to the Physical Realm, and whatever affects something in one Realm affects it in the other.
An Avatar is made up of Particles in the Ethereal Realm.
Each Avatar has a Particle Count and therefore each Mage has a limit as to how far he can grow, meaning they have a cap as to how many Particles they can harness and wield.
When a Mage uses up all of their Particles they will fall into a state of Mana Exhaustion due to extreme strain on the Avatar.
Essentially an MSM was your weapon as well as the way you cast Magic Spells.
The MSM's here were all General MSM's so they were at least of some quality.
"You may pick whichever MSM suits you, however, I suggest testing them out before making a decision. After all, you represent our school, and bringing shame to our school will not be tolerated," said Valeria before walking off to the side to observe.
The reason for choosing an MSM instead of being assigned one was due to Mana Wavelengths.
The more the inherent Mana in a Mages body resonated with the Mana Wavelength of the MSM the more efficient the MSM will be.
I stood quietly and observed the others as they rushed to pick the MSM's they wanted.
Emilia stepped forward and people moved out of their way for her.
She gracefully grabbed a long and slender halberd off the MSM rack.
The next was Luke he went and grabbed a long sword.
After glaring at me, Anna went forward and took a bastard sword.
Wade pushed past everyone and grabbed a bow.
Lucia quietly waited for everyone to take a weapon before grabbing a dagger.
As for me?
Well, I went to the opposite corner as everyone else and took a rapier.
With a smile on my face, I went and mingled with the students I had talked to before.
I complimented them on how their MSMs suited them.
We discussed characters that used our weapons in video games.
Well, they discussed, although I had played video games somewhat I didn't know any here.
I guided the conversations as we made our way to the training field.
Once at the training field everyone split up to try out their MSMs.
Although I had a Technique I still couldn't train in any of the moves because I hadn't unlocked the knowledge to use them.
I had an idea of what I needed to do but I still couldn't do it yet.
The thing was in all my rush to get things done, I had forgotten to get an instruction book on how to use the rapier.
I could always go check out the weapons guide in the library so I suppose I'll just do it later.
Usually, people came to the academy and already knew somewhat how to use an MSM, but even if they didn't we would have combat training classes.
So with nothing to do, I lay down on the grass as the winter breeze caressed me.
I looked toward where Luke was and saw that he was doing fine.
His backstory was relatively happy and he had his own personalized system.
But that's a story for another time.
He'll be fine right?
Thinking so, I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
*Important Message LIKE ALWAYS OKAY?*
Ummm since I know u guys probably don't read my author's notes which makes me sad :( I want to get a little reader interaction since nothing makes reading a novel more fun than the community so in the Cover Change auxiliary chapter I will now be uploading new covers I have made for the novel and you guys can vote for the new covers that you want to see, the one that gets the most likes at the end of each week or maybe month depending on what you guys think will be the one I feature as the cover of the novel. anyways lots of love and toxicity jk don't be toxic, Hugz <3