Seth spent the next two hours listening to the teachings of this water elemental mage.
To him, a former dragon, her class wasn't important but at least, he enjoyed her demonstrations.
During these two hours, Miss Hina taught them the basics of the water element along with a few Class One spells.
After the class ended, Seth turned to Taro. "Care to join me for breakfast?" He asked, already standing up to leave.
"Yeah, I guess. I haven't eaten either." Taro agreed and stood to leave too.
Seth didn't want to waste any more time in the classroom before he drew the attention of others. Without a doubt, they would approach him and he didn't want that.
He quickly arrived in front of the door but it was already late.
"Seth Samiel." A female student called out his name and he stopped right in front of the door.
He took a glance at her. A pretty girl of average height with pink hair made into a ponytail and pink eyes. She wore glasses that looked a bit too big for her.
"How may I help you?" Seth asked the girl who looked older than he was.
"I go by the name Liz Claiborne and I'm one of the few followers of Lady Raela." She replied, walking closer to Seth.
"Oh, she's so great that she has followers?" Seth was genuinely surprised.
"She's a great and famous student in the entire Institute." Liz replied with a nod. At this moment, most of the class was now aware of the conversation between Seth and Liz and were now watching with great interest.
Many knew of Raela and her followers so of course they would be interested.
"So, why'd you approach me?" Seth asked growing impatient.
"I was wondering if you had any plans to visit Lady Raela today. We'll be having a meeting and if you'd be interested in meeting up with her, I can bring you along." Liz explained quickly. She had noticed Seth's impatience.
Seth thought for a moment. Raela would be protecting him for the next two years so there was no harm in visiting her this early. She could even deal with his current problem. Hunger.
"When's the meeting?" Seth asked Liz.
"In about twenty minutes." She replied to him.
He smiled and turned to his roommate Taro. "On second thought, how about we have breakfast there?"
"Fine by me." Taro agreed. Since he was free, there was no harm in following Seth either way.
"Then let's go to the meeting," Seth said to Liz who seemed to be happy with his reply.
All three of them left the room, heading towards the venue for the meeting.
Only after they left did the students continue to gist with each other but there was a change in topic.
Liz who hardly spoke to others had initiated a conversation albeit briefly with Seth. As if that wasn't enough, she had left with him.
There was a particular group of people who had angry expressions. They were a group of boys. Boys who had made moves on Liz but got rejected or totally ignored.
"Let's go. I'll show that new brat where he belongs." One of them with red hair said.
"B…but his sister…"
"She won't show up for something so simple if we say it's a spar between classmates. And if she does, don't we also belong to a group?" The red-haired boy interrupted the other.
"Fine." The other four agreed and all five of them left the classroom.
*****
Seth and Taro walked behind Liz who was leading them to the meeting's venue.
"When we returned, you were asleep so we didn't bother so much with you. When we couldn't hear you breathing, we got closer and checked your pulse. We even checked your eyes. We were surprised by the color though.
Your pulse was fine and only after waiting for a few seconds did we hear you breathing and then it stopped again. We waited and that's when we noticed you were breathing with a fixed pattern." Taro said as they walked further.
"Ah, I guess that's why you were able to identify me the moment I walked into the class." Seth now understood how his roommate had found him even though they had never met before.
"But that was cool. How'd you manage to do that? I mean the breathing pattern." Taro was getting excited the more he spoke.
"I practiced for a long time," Seth said half-heartedly.
'Well, it wasn't that long.' He thought.
"What does it do?" Taro asked.
"Well, it expands your lungs' capacity but its biggest purpose is to gain more control of the mana core. It helps to control the flow of mana adeptly." Seth answered not bothering to look at Taro whose eyes were already glowing.
"Teach me how to do that too." Taro requested with glowing eyes.
'I think I said too much.' He started regretting it.
"I'll see what I can do. But it would be a rough journey. You sure you're in for it?" Seth asked.
Looking at Taro, he knew he would continue to disturb him until Seth agreed to teach it to him so he agreed immediately to avoid the disturbance.
"Yes! I'm all in!" Taro gave his full consent.
Liz would steal glances at the two of them. She wanted to join in on the conversation but she didn't know how. She didn't want to seem rude to the brother of her lady. If he reported her, she would be damned.
Her thoughts were running wild.
They stood in front of the building where the meeting would be commencing soon. "What's the matter?" Seth's voice brought her back to reality.
"It's nothing." She replied with her head low.
"No, it seems like there's something wro…"
"Hey, newbie! It's customary to spar with at least ten people from the water element class on your first day. The five of us would like to spar with you." The red-haired boy called out to Seth from behind.
As he spoke, he would steal glances at Liz.
"That's bullcrap. How come I never experienced such a thing when I first joined?" Taro asked.
"Shut up! It's a new rule." The boy replied.
"Shiro, if you're pissed at him for some reason, say it and stop bringing up excuses to fight with him." Taro pointed at the red-haired boy's nose.
Before others would gather here, Seth wanted to settle things. "All five of you, come at me at once or it won't end well."
"Hey, you shouldn't!" Taro tried to convince Seth.
"They're doing this because of me." Liz finally spoke out and Shiro's face twisted.
"It doesn't really matter." Seth replied.
"I just want to settle this before we draw people here." He turned to Shiro and the others behind him. "Come at me at once."
Shiro grinned as they all prepared to attack him.
The result?
Seth shot five water balls that stuck to their faces and refused to separate, slowly taking the air out of their lungs.
Caught by surprise, they were almost drowned by Seth.
When he dispersed the water, they were gasping for air like their lungs would explode if they didn't.
"That's about all. From now on, let's get along." Seth turned at the dumbfounded Liz and Taro. "Let's go."