"When Gina will come back, I'll be sure to tell her that you sent another applicant away" said the old woman and left.
This made Vena more annoyed until she came out and stood in front of Ash looking at him. She gave a few glances to Relik and then looked up at him.
"I am Vena, I am the guild head along with my sister Gina, I am a three star cultivator, soon to get my four" she said and waited for Ash to show signs of surprise or something.
"Cool" said Ash wondering were three stars good or not.
"Three stars pretty decent, I wasn't expecting one in this small guild" said Relik in his head.
"I don't want just mindless warriors in my guild, I want everyone to have atleast one star in cultivation, so if you can promise me that you will get a star at the academy then I'll let you join" said Vena.
"Umm sure, I was going to anyway" said Ash.
"Fine then, you'll be a temporary member till then" said Vena.
"Which academy are you going to join?" asked Vena.
"I haven't decided, I am a bit new to these things, I come from pretty far" said Ash.
"I assumed from your locket, the one who gave my grandpa Fina, was also carrying that emblem, weird people you travellers are, how can you just leave your home and travel so far" said Vena.
"Whatever, choose one best suited for your core, there was a catalogue lying around here, let me see" and she got a thick scroll and handed it to him and left.
"We won't need that I already know which one you should join" said Relik but Ash had already opened it.
The academies were divided according to different elements or animals or other subjects related to cores.
"Which is that then?" asked Ash.
"I told you you need to learn from Scards, after the choice of your core, but it all come under a sort of physical prowess, so you should go with the Slive, they are the most likely to except the choiceof your core for further study" said Relik.
The slive, Ash searched for them in the scroll and found it on number thirty one, there emblem was a closed fist with a couple of parallel lines on it, beside it was a little information and a couple of pictures. Showing a group of men and women standing together under which was written your future mentors.
There uniform was white and black with lines of yellow and light green here and there, most of them had really good physique which told him in what sort of areas they trained you in. These definitely didn't look like nerds.
"Are you sure about this?" asked Ash.
"Yes, trust me, this I know about, what else are you going to do, you don't have an element, or an animal" said Relik.
"Fine but you said we will need money to join" said Ash.
"To pay the first term' s fees at least, do you have something else you can barter?" asked Relik.
Ash didn't want to part with the rest of his things, definitely not his phone even though it wasn't working right now. But then an idea popped in his head.
"Can we barter information?" asked Ash.
"Like what?" asked Relik.
"I don't know, like a spell or something, don't you know any?" asked Ash.
"I do know some special healing ones, I actually made them myself after reviewing all the medical advancement your world had done at the time of my previous master" said Relik.
"That could work! " siad Ash.
"We can atleast try" said Relik.
So they headed next to the Slive academy, they got the adress from the catalogue and left at once.
The academies were spread out mostly on the outskirts of the city.
"They need more open ground and nature most of them" explained Relik.
The academies were like guilds of there own, except there main interest was discovering more and more about ether and the way there cores reacted to it.
"In a way they are held responsible for the problem of rising monsters, the warriors believe they should be fighting them too personally I don't think that will change much there aren't that many of them" said Relik.
They reached the adress, the academy was like a small stadium, there was a large ground over the wall, the wall itself was short and he could see people practicing different sort of fighting techniques.
He entered through the gates and walked through the ground to the building in the middle. There was a counter like a reception in the front hall, where a woman was sitting.
"Here to join?" asked the woman.
"Yes" said Ash.
"One semester fees is fifty silver" said the woman.
"I was hoping I could exchange something else" said Ash.
"I'll have to call mentor Shia for that, and she is not someone you want to piss off, so if you have something useless i'll advice you to leave, what is it you want to barter anyway?" she asked.
"A healing spell" said Ash. Relik had already told him about the spell, for once he understood what he was talking about, since the knowledge about the human body which the spell used was pretty common for them in there time to know and understand.
"A spell you say, fine you can try your luck" said the woman and left.
She came back with another woman following her. She was wearing a similar uniform from the picture. It seemed like a white rob, held in place by tying a black cloth around the waist, it was surprisingly modern, Ash thought. The front was a bit loose and showed a lot of cleavage which she had a lot show.
She had black hairs like Venessa, her frame was like Vanessa but some parts like Kara, it was as if Kara went through the same training as Vanessa did and even more rigorously.
"Tell me about the spell" said Shia at once, her voice authoritative.
"It's to treat a broken bone" said Ash.
"That's nothing special any skilled healer can do that" said Shia angrier she was sure her time was wasted now.
"Within an hour" said Ash.
"You are joking, that would take a lot of energy" said Shia.
"No, an average healer can do it" said Ash.
"How?" aksed Shia now interested.
Ash didn't have to explain the whole process since Shia picked it up pretty fast, since she was pretty knowledgeable herself. But it was basically a clever trick, to take a little bit of bone tissue from somewhere else and use it on the area of blood clot to fasten the growing of the bone.
"Very clever, I can't believe no one ever thought of that" said Shia. The other benefit of this particular idea was that, she wouldn't ask him of where he got the knowledge, it was just a trick nobody had realized yet in the already existing techniques.
The other woman was amazed too by how much mentor Shia was impressed now. She kept saying different things about the technique, Ash just kept nodding silently.
"Umm mentor Shia, then about his admission" asked the woman.
"Oh yes of course, get him admit, I'll sponsor him myself" said Shia.
"Come with me Ash, you must tell this to mentor Brea yourself, Anya, handle the paperwork please" said Shia to Anya and grabbed Ash and pulled him inside the academy.
They got staring looks from other students and mentors alike. He could tell them apart since the students had green colered lines and patterns on their clothes while the teachers had them in yellow.
Mentor Brea was a sight to see, she was a half giant or something, since she came even taller than Ash, she had to be of the same mix that guy he had seen in the guild district before. He remembered a famous youtuber gym girl and Brea looked like her.
"Brea check this out" said Shia and placed Ash in front of her and forgot in her excitement what she was supposed to say next.
"Hmm, nice coloured eyes, he seems a bit weak in the legs though for you doesn't he" she said looking him up and down.
"No he is a new student, but he just told me a very smart way to heal broken bones in an hour" said Shia.
Brea had the same reaction as Shia and leter when they finally revealed her the secret.
"Brea gets her bones broken all the time due to her size, it will be a life saver for her" explained Shia.
In the meantime, Anya found them in Brea's office and handed Ash his class schedule and uniform.