They quickly reached the classroom, which had at least 40 children, their classroom was 1"C. Most of the levels were 3s, and only a few were level 2s. Kayden was eager to learn about everything, he didn't care much for making friends, and the age gap was too big for them to have anything in common.
Kayden found a seat right at the front and noticed that most of the children avoided sitting at the front, he didn't quite understand why. After waiting a few more minutes, the room filled up with all the students.
"Welcome everyone, my name is Ashe Harley and I will be your first-year teacher. Let's start with a little game of presenting the names..." That was Kayden's first day at school, he didn't learn anything, it was just an introduction to the school's places and a basic idea of how the school year would be.
After class, Kayden went to the cafeteria. Many his age were walking in small groups, but he remained alone. Today's lunch was some kind of fried fish, but it was strangely sweet.
At the end of the period, Kayden waited in front of the gate for the old man. Today he decided for himself, he would take the old man as his real father. The old man's reaction this morning made it clear to him that no one in this world cared more about him than the old man.
After waiting a while, Kayden saw the old man appear at the school's entrance. He went to Kayden and took off to fly home, on the way he asked Kayden how his day at school was.
"It was easy dad, we just learned about how the school works, nothing too complicated or difficult." The old man stopped listening after the word "father" and was momentarily speechless.
"I am not your father, brat."
"You raised me from birth and took care of all my needs, you are a father to me, can I call you that?" Kayden was already ready for the old man's refusal, but he also knew the old man was soft at heart.
"Do what you want", the old man said snorting as if he didn't care, but inside he was freaking out with happiness, he hadn't been called father for a long time… bad memories, he quickly locked those memories in the back of his mind.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, Kayden spending it all thinking about how he would progress on the path of magic now. He wondered what differentiated talent levels and the old man said the body could naturally absorb and manipulate mana.
Three months later
At that time, literacy was intensively taught at the school, which was almost the entire focus of the teachers, but at times they also taught how to manipulate mana around them, but they were very basic things that Kayden had already learned by himself.
Kayden was getting better every day at manipulating the mana around him, but he realized that his evolution was at the pace of a turtle. Everyone in his class had a similar level of progress to him. And that was ridiculous when you think that he had been training literally for years.
This made him think that he would have to take another measure. The standard way of magic would only slow your progress. The problem is that so far they still haven't taught how to get out of the first apprentice level. Kayden understood that they did this to have a linear progression of knowledge in the students.
Since he managed to get into school, the library books began to have other subjects. The book Kayden was reading now was about the history of magic and he finally understood what world he was in. It just seemed like a lot of coincidence in his head, because it was the same thing Nicolas had told you a long time ago. The only difference is that, in recorded history, Adam fought an hours-long battle against the invaders and struck enough fear that they never returned.
It seemed that the "winners" did what they always do, they wrote the story they wanted. According to the book, Kayden was in a country called the Solar Kingdom and there were 4 other kingdoms around it. By estimation, each kingdom was the size of the Asian continent of the past, that is, this world was ridiculously large.
Kayden didn't get much detail on the other countries or what was outside of them, but he did estimate that the magical animals and plants must have taken over the rest of the planet, as they reproduce much more quickly.
Today Kayden was finally going to have class on the ways of magic, he was itching to figure out what to do next. The old man only took him on the first day of school, the next he would take the train with the children from the orphanage and go to school, which was a few minutes' walk.
Arriving at school, he went to the auditorium. The teacher said that it would be a joint class with the other classes, as it would need a demonstration by specialists in each path to answer the children's specific questions.
After having his coffee alone again, Kayden headed towards the auditorium. It was underground and looked like a movie theater, able to comfortably accommodate about 500 people. The decor of the place was red, with the chairs being dark black. Kayden quickly went downstairs to take one of the seats at the front. After a few minutes, the auditorium was nearly full. On stage were 6 people: the principal Kayden had met before, a teacher from the last years, a conventional wizard, a magical swordsman, a knight, and a beast tamer.
"Hello everyone, let's begin our lecture on the ways of magic. I will introduce the speakers first, we have a conventional magician, a magic swordsman, a knight, and a beast tamer", said the teacher. They were all wearing the same dark robe, it was impossible to tell each of them apart. "For some reason, we will have to keep the identity of each of them hidden. We'll start with the conventional image."
Then one of the figures was seen to get up from the chairs and move towards the front of the stage.
"Well, as everyone should know, a conventional mage utilizes the mana in his core to perform different types of magic, from offensive to healing magic. We evolve accumulating mana in our core, in the first 3 levels, the mana is in the gaseous form, in the next 3 it is in the liquid phase, and then in the solid phase. The advantage is that our class has the most human beings, so we have many different techniques and ways to progress."
After finishing speaking, the man sat down, and then another man who had the robe close to his body showing that every inch was sculpted with muscle stood up.
"Hi everyone, I am a magic swordsman. We focus on increasing our body stats, and for that, we use our own body as a core. In the first 3 phases, we change the muscles, in the 3 intermediate ones the organs are changed, and, in the last ones, we have to polish the work, we remove the imperfections until the body and mind are in sync and the advance happens smoothly. Magic is still used in a secondary way as a strengthening or utility in itself."
This class even interested Kayden, but he thought it would be even worse for him, how would using his level 1 body as a core work? It would be a total disaster. Then the knight path speaker stood up, he was ridiculously big, even wearing the biggest robe possible you could still see his gigantic muscles underneath.
"Good morning, I'm from the knight class. Similar to the swordsman, we also focus on the body, the only difference is that we utilize mana to upgrade it to 100%. We don't learn spells or anything like that, we're a class focused on strength and speed, it may seem strange, but even with my current size I'm still faster than a swordsman of similar rank to me."
Kayden liked that style, at one point, it was an all-win class, meaning she was going for all or nothing. The problem was the same as the swordsman, his body would not be able to progress beyond the basics. Then it was the turn of the beast-tamer class lecturer to stand up.
"Hello, I am a tamer, my class specializes in raising magical animals and strengthening them through spells. We make a blood and soul pact with the animals we choose and gain a share of their strength as a result. We don't have a difference in levels, just the animals move up in the rankings and we go together."
This class even interested Kayden, but he was tired of depending on others for his decisions, this class was denied for personal reasons, and Kayden didn't even have to think twice.
He knew that he would have to follow something new, these classes could not help him at all. Kayden spent some more time listening to the doubts that the other students tried to remove, it helped a little, but nothing relevant.