The first day of class began with the incessant clanging of the school bells in the morning

  Jim, alongside his yearmates, streamed out of the dorm and headed towards the very same colosseum with the sand pit in which the exams had been held. It was one of the few places big enough to hold the entire student body comprising a specific year, and since Combat Magic I was mandatory, and nobody had managed to test out yet, the class would be held in the largest available space.

  He remembered going there the first time, Lebowski by his side.

  A sigh escaped his lips. His erstwhile friend still refused to talk to him.

  Not that Jim had approached the boy obviously, but he hadn't gone out of his way to avoid him either. After all, it was Lebowski at fault here, and thus it was up to him to approach Jim and apologise. He hadn't done so yet, but Jim was sure that he would soon enough. Wouldn’t half a year of acquaintanceship, some might even dare say, friendship, be too much to throw away at the simple sleight of having once again been outshone by someone of superior character and skill?

  Regardless, Jim would remain present in Lebowski's… presence, not something he had a choice in considering the mandatory attendance of the class, until the boy apologised.

  And grovelled a bit. But only for a few seconds, Jim wasn't a cruel man.

  Although with his recently growing and already impressive mastery of the two combat skills required to pass the class, Jim didn't quite know how long he would be here. After all, the level he was at currently had been sufficient to graduate in the future. Surely he'd be allowed to leave the class behind soon, perhaps even during the first lecture?

  He didn't quite know how he felt about that. After the basics of the first semester, an absolution from CM1 was the only requirement to truly graduate. However, a one year attendance was mandatory for graduation, and one was required to be enrolled in at least one class.

  "I don't know why we have to take this class. We literally already know the only two spells taught here," a voice suddenly complained from Jim's right, causing him to glance in the direction and almost stumble in surprise that it was him being addressed. Evergreen and Herus were walking next to him, somehow having found their way to Jim through the sea of black being created by the students. Thankfully, it was Evergreen addressing him, not the peasant.

  Jim was personally alright with going to CM1, it meant he could push back the decision on what he would do if he actually passed the course and was forced to pick another. However, Evergreen was finally taking the initiative to talk to the Savant. Perhaps this was an olive branch between the Richean aristocracy and its merchant class?

  "Maybe the new professor will just want us to demonstrate the spells, then he'll let us go?" Jim suggested.

  "I don't mind, actually," Herus suddenly interjected, drawing a queer look from both the other boys. "Professor Kyros was really cool in the tournament. You think he'd teach me that flamethrower spell?" he asked, not directing the question at anyone in particular.

  "Fire magic is useless," Jim said with a roll of his eyes.

  Evergreen threw a meaningful look at his lackey, making the boy perk up and take a step back, letting his betters talk. "Well, the moment I pass I’m going straight for CM2," he bragged. "What elective are you taking?" he asked. "I saw you got a slot."

  Jim didn't really know if getting taught by the infamous undead Mitelos separatist was anything to brag about. If anything, it was a way to disincentivise talented students like him from taking the class. Just because the academy had managed to capture and bind the lich didn't mean they had to let the abomination teach Richean children. Or children from Mitelos for that manner. Gods knew what kinds of ideas those idiots would get. He refrained from voicing those thoughts. Aristocrats were always hungering for more power; he wouldn't put it beneath them to lust after a magic as vile as necromancy, of course they saw tutoring from the lich as something good.

  "I've decided not to take an elective," Jim said. "Too much work."

  Evergreen, who'd been walking in step with him, suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to Jim as if he was seeing him for the first time.

  Jim stopped as well with furrowed brows. "What?" he asked, but the aristocrat just slowly shook his head, his face a rictus of distaste. Then he promptly turned around and walked away, disappearing into the mass of students.

  The young mage thought about the interaction for a moment before shrugging and continuing on his way. They were almost there, and class would start soon. Professor Kyros was fond of assigning push-ups to the students late for his class, something Jim and Lebowski had to find out the hard way. Honestly, holding a tournament to decide a professor seemed like the best way to get a total hard-ass into the position, but also to pick out a horrible educator. After all, those who couldn't, taught. Thus, by default, those who could do weren't very good at teaching. Or something.

  -/-

  Professor Kyros was, paradoxically for a mage of any sort of renown, an incredibly tall and muscular man wearing only a pair of boots and a pair of brown leather pants. His torso was bare, and his head was bald.

  Legends, or at least Katie from year two, said that the man had at the beginning of his career tried to become a knight, only to stumble on a very big issue. His talent for internal mana manipulation had been just as non-existent as his talent for external mana manipulation was present.

  This hadn't disincentivised him from trying to become a fearsome combatant, but had forced him to change the path he took to get there. All of this had supposedly happened approximately forty years ago, and one could still find the man's certificate of graduation in the academy archives, or so the legends told.

  Jim, for his part, as someone who'd enjoyed the professor's not-so-tender mercies for half a year, was completely and utterly disinterested in learning anything more about the man. Through his vision of the future, he saw the scenario in which he and Lebowski had been two of the five students still stuck in CM1, suffering more and more as the class grew smaller and smaller, the professor's sadism eventually being concentrated on a very small quantity of students, and thus raising naturally in quality.

  From this past or future experience, Jim also knew that he wanted to stay in the back of the large crowd of students formed in a half-circle around the professor who was pacing up and down, every now and again forming a small golden clock above his hands to check the time.

  Eventually, the time ran out, and the lesson started. Lebowski, who had arrived twenty seconds too late, was forced to do 20 push-ups in the hot sands of the arena. Alone this time. His acquaintance, or former friend, or friend he was taking a break from, could be grateful that Jim didn't join in on the laughter that occurred when he was forced, with his ungainly belly and relatively weak arms, to go up and down.

  Once everyone was done staring at Lebowski, and the boy had finished his push-ups, the professor addressed the students.

  Everyone had taken a step back from the man, impressed by his lung capacity, evident in the manner in which he'd screamed at Lebowski. However, this only meant that the man had to shout louder to reach all the students. Or rather, to pour more mana into the spell he was using to make himself heard.

  "Combat Magic I is the only mandatory class of this semester for a very simple reason. Defending and attacking are the core tenets of any combat scenario, and the two spells you learn here will create a foundation for the very rest of your career. However short it may be!" the man started brusquely. "Now, out of the two spells taught, magic missile and mage shield, one is more important than the other. Can anyone tell me why?"

  Nobody raised a hand. The professor stared at them, staring to lock eyes with every student in turn, starting from the left of the half-circle. Jim didn't remember how long it had taken for the first person to speak the first time this had happened, but it had certainly been too long. He raised a hand and stepped forward.

  "Yes?" the professor shouted calmly.

  "The mage shield is more important because it is only through surviving that we can win the opportunity to cast a magic missile. Similarly, if we do not yet know magic missile, a mage shield can help us survive long enough to learn it," he said succinctly, receiving no reply, but a tense look over from Kyros.

  In another world, someone had answered magic missile -if one couldn't harm an opponent, then one couldn't win-; the professor hadn’t been very pleased.

  "Survival is a victory on its own," the man parroted, looking intensely at the group of students. "If you survive, you can fight another day, better, stronger. Some say that the healer is the most integral part of any adventuring party. Disregarding my dislike for those robed sissies, there is a very strong argument as to why they are not, and why it is the mage. Does anyone know why?"

  Jim raised his hand again.

  "No one else?" the professor asked, students shuffling to avoid meeting his gaze.

  Someone raised their hand. It was Waterflower. She stepped forward after the professor nodded at her, but not before throwing a cryptic look in Jim's direction. "It is because the mage is the most versatile member of any group. A low-level warrior can only serve as a meatshield. A low-level healer can only heal. A low-level mage, meanwhile, a recent graduate even, can create fire, either to cook with, for warmth, to scare off wild animals, they can create drinking water, light, and move obstacles without touching them to check for traps. They can defend someone else with a shield, or attack from afar," she explained, receiving a few agreeing murmurs from the students present.

  "Correct," the professor supplied. "While there are arguably some cases when a healer is the most valuable person to the group, in most it is the mage. If you lack drinking water, heat, provisions, and transportation, the mage is the best option. That is why even a mage who does not know anything but the basic four and the shield is a valuable utility addition to any adventure, and that is why the mage shield spell is the more important of the two spells."

  The class started chattering away after the professor had explained his conclusions about the shield. There was tension in the air. An excitement. After all, they were basically being told that the moment they learned the shield, they could already go out and adventure to their heart's content.

  It wasn't that easy, obviously. But Jim’s classmates were still young. Had not yet learned enough about the darkness of the world. The brown house-tall dragons waiting out there, just lying in wait to kill off young mages of good renown.

  "Now!" Kyros shouted into the group, dispersing the chatter. "I've been told that some of you already know mage shield, which is why I'll divide you into two groups. Those of you who know the spell go over there," he pointed to the left side of the arena. "And those who don't, come over here," he went to the right side. As the sea of students parted, the professor threw a glance at the small but somewhat significant group of 40 or so students who already knew the spell. "I will quickly teach the basics of the spell to the other group, before coming back here to test out the strength of your shields. Use the time to prepare," he instructed before going off towards the masses.

  Jim, for his part, simply plopped down on the ground, listlessly watching the other students as they began summoning their shields and conversing with each other as to the quality of the constructs. Most of the shields were thinner than hair and still stuck in their round shape. Only ten or so students were using hexagons on a level that resembled Jim's. The boy locked eyes with Marcus Evergreen and Herus, who were sitting down and not doing anything on the other side of the blue ball group. Wait, that came out wrong…

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  "Can I ask what you're doing? Or rather, what you're not doing?" an annoyed voice suddenly came from the front of Jim. He looked up, regaining focus from where he'd lost in thought and shot an annoyed glance at the Waterflower girl. "You're making a bad impression on the professor. I refuse to have the image of the class dragged down because of one lazy bum." The girl sneered.

  Jim demonstratively looked to the left, where the professor was explaining the shield spell to the students. He seemed to be in his own world, walking up to random students and shouting in their faces as a form of motivation.

  "Just because he's not looking right now doesn't mean that he won't notice," the girl huffed.

  "What about Evergreen and the peasant. Why don't you bother them?" Jim complained.

  A roll of the eyes was his answer. "I'm sure Marcus has a good reason. You, however, other than your seeming burst of effort during the summer vacation, are a proven lazy-butt," she said, as if butt was a serious insult.

  Jim sputtered. "Well, you're a teacher's pet," he said.

  "Am not!" The girl gasped and replied.

  "Are so!"

  "Am not!"

  "Are so!"

  "Am not!"

  "Are so!"

  "Am not!"

  "Are so!"

  "Am not!"

  "What exactly are the two of you doing?" a voice suddenly growled from behind the quarrelling pair. Jim swiftly turned to Professor Kyros while Dew ran red in the face and gasped for words. There was no air coming in or out of her lungs, and Jim could use that as an opportunity to get the first words in.

  "I was simply waiting and conserving mana, professor. You said you'd test our shield, which you can only do by attacking us. Then this girl came up to me and started calling me lazy, demanding I practice like all the other idiots wasting their energy," he said, receiving a look over from the intimidating and buff man.

  "How you use your time is up to you." The professor said to Dew, then turned to Jim, "Let's see if conserving your mana is actually going to make you last longer," he said menacingly before turning to the other students. "Line up!"

  Not having to be told twice, the students rushed together to create a perfect line in the sand, giving every black-clad figure around them an arm's arms-length of space.

  Kyros mustered the line critically, while Jim started sweating between Dew and Klare Blackthorne.

  Jim knew exactly what was about to happen, and to claim that he was looking forward to it was a complete lie. But, well, at least he was prepared in comparison to the other students, who were simply looking at their professor listlessly, as if he hadn't forewarned them that he was going to test their defences.

  "What's going to happen is that I'm going to send a magic missile at each and every one of you, starting from my right," the professor announced, pacing back and forth. "You are to block the attack with your mage shield. After you've done that, you can choose to either upkeep the shield or drop it, and summon it again when it's your turn again. Everyone who can't go on anymore takes ten steps back. Everyone whose shield breaks takes ten steps back. Am I understood?" he shouted.

  "Yes, sir!" Marcus Evergreen replied in a loud and crisp voice. The boy was probably one request away from saluting as well, the boot-licker.

  "Good," Kyros said. "I'll start when this spark hits the ground." He snapped his fingers, which lit up and a small spark of light slowly floated to the ground. Jim watched it descend, mentally preparing the necessary spell formula. He was somewhere in the middle of the pack, but that didn't really mean anything.

  The spark hit the sand and disappeared and Kyros didn't as much form a magic missile as one simply blinked into existence in front of him and then shot forward -almost invisible- at the first person in line. Some Mitelos girl, going by the state of her brown hair. She didn't even have the shield prepared, and could only watch helplessly as the missile burrowed itself into her stomach and threw her violently backwards, where she began to retch on the floor, losing the contents of her stomach.

  The person after her didn't fare much better, bringing up a fragile blue bubble of mana which only served to slow down the magic missile and not actually negate or deflect it; they too, were sent sprawling. Just not as far, and without the puking.

  Overall, there had been eleven students to the left of Jim. It took the professor less than ten seconds to knock all but two of them out, one using the hexagonal shield, and the other having overcharged their bubble shield.

  Jim proudly noted that his hexagonal shield was better formed, but despite that, his teeth still chattered when the magic missile struck one of the parts, annihilating it. The structure shifted to put the hole at Jim’s back, while his mana reserves dipped to replace the lost component.

  Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam resounded through the training field as the barrage of missiles finished striking at the last student in line.

  If the students thought that meant they would get a break, then they would be sorely disappointed. Jim was living in a bubble of talent, both Waterflower and Blackthorne having survived the assault, but otherwise, the line was decimated. Forty students had turned into ten.

  Make that nine, Jim thought as the bubble boy had his shield broken and was sent to the floor writhing in agony. Jim's hexagon was knocked off again, and this round, they lost three students. Bubble boy and two idiots who'd thought lowering their shields was a good idea.

  Bam, bam, bam, bam.

  The seven remaining students were all using hexagon shields, which meant they were saving mana, but even so, Jim's reserves were already at half. He managed to survive another round.

  Then another round.

  And another round, in which they lost Waterflower and Shemven.

  Then it was Jim's turn to get pushed to the end of his limits, his whole shield bleeping out on him at the next missile. Thankfully, he'd decided that retreat was the better side of valour and had dipped out one missile before actual exhaustion, which meant the attack impacting his chest was barely more than a light breeze. Nevertheless, he graciously took the steps back at the defeat and came to rest next to a pale Waterflower.

  Left in the game were Chemirk, Novak, Blackthorne, Evergreen and Ruska.

  The best of the best. However, they too eventually succumbed to the endless barrage, which increased in intensity with every lost member.

  In the end, they all lost as well, at the same time too, considering that they were all receiving one magic missile every 3 seconds at the end there. Perhaps Evergreen stayed put for a second more than Chemirk, but it was hard to tell.

  It had barely taken a minute and a half for the professor to knock back all the students, and Jim could tell from his position amongst them that they were stunned by the development. Coming into the second semester of the Sredinan academy with the mage shield already learnt was already no mean feat. Only 10% of students had managed this year. They were all talented, used to winning and succeeding. Even if they all likely knew that they'd never stood a chance, getting beaten so thoroughly at such odds, 40 to 1, was likely shocking.

  They started whispering amongst each other disbelievingly, rooted in place.

  Professor Kyros, for his part, simply stood there, frowning at them with arms crossed, no more magical missiles blinking into existence around him.

  Jim stepped forward, back into the position he'd previously been knocked out of. He saw from his periphery that both Evergreen and Herus joined him in the act. The latter more because he'd been following the former, but still. The trio received a grim nod from the professor.

  "That was pathetic," the man said, his voice quiet but reaching all the students nevertheless. "86 seconds. Future of the kingdom indeed." He scoffed. "As you all can probably tell, assuming you have eyes, the interlinking hexagon version of the shield is the true starting point of the spell. Which means that any of you who came in with your pathetic bubble, you can banish the thoughts of getting out of this class earlier than the other students out of your head."

  The students who'd managed a hexagonal shield started looking a bit full of themselves, which meant that they were to be the next ones to have their egos deflated. "As for the other ones, keep in mind that if you can't rapidly replace at least 100 plates a minute under pressure while also committing resources to executing other formulas, you're essentially a child holding up a piece of paper and thinking it will protect you from a fully armoured and mounted knight," he said derogatorily. "Nevertheless, I will sketch the frankly inadequate requirements the academy upholds for graduating from Combat Magic I.”

  "You will need to be able to summon the interlinking hexagon version of mage shield and be capable of replacing 30 plates a minute. In addition to that, you will need to be able to summon two magic missiles and send them out with some semblance of accuracy and destructive force. The first early graduation attempt will be held tomorrow, when I will teach Magic Missile. You will be graduating in batches of three, three times a week, so that those of you who need it can at least work on your basics somewhat. That means that those of you who fulfil the basic requirements and are the best at using the two spells can leave class. After that, this process will repeat until I'm left with those that came in knowing nothing." He looked demonstratively at the other side of the area, where students were either busily trying and mostly failing to form bubbles, or were working on the appropriate shaping exercise of creating a solid pane of mana above their palms.

  “But enough about that, let’s continue working on your endurance!" he declared.

  Nobody moved. "Get in line!" the professor shouted, and everyone scrambled to get back into the position to be shot at.

  The rest of the day didn't improve much after that, the students simply being pelted by magic missiles until they fell down and or passed out. There was no hand-holding involved in Combat Magic I; there was no empathy, no breaks and most definitely no mercy.

  By the time class was dismissed, every single one of the 40 students who had come in already knowing how to form a shield were jealously looking at the much larger group which had come in knowing nothing, while the latter was terrifyingly working on their shaping exercises even as they walked out of the colosseum.

  Seeing their classmates being thrown around like ragdolls was probably good motivation to get one's ass moving.

  Jim, in his last life, had only found it discouraging, but to each their own.

  -/-

  It was on the day after that first painful lesson that Jim got out of his bed sometime in the evening and stumbled his way out of the dormitory wearing, for once, brown pants and a white shirt with a brown coat instead of the academy robes. He first visited a still-open bookstore where he replenished his supply of narrative fiction, as bad as the stuff he hadn't yet read was likely to be, and then immediately went out onto the street again.

  It wasn't as much that he knew exactly where he was going as much as he let his feet carry him forward through the streets of Sredina towards the destination that he knew he needed. He'd worked hard yesterday, and with a once again full coin purse, he knew that he needed to reward himself if he was to keep up the motivation needed to not thrive, but just survive in class.

  As inevitably as a spider web caught flies, Jim's feet, and perhaps his soul, led him past more run-down shops, and past increasingly more drunk louts slurring their speech and puking their guts out in the alleyways. He passed the last corner, housing a shop which sold magical de-ageing for all shapes and sizes.

  The red-light district opened up before his eyes, a longish street that divided the poor Mitelos east side of Sredina from the Richean west part.

  All the prostitution, gambling and general drug consumption of the large capital of a large kingdom concentrated onto one street. It was beautiful and the only place in the country in which Jim would have been willing to share a glass of wine with someone from Mitelos. The only place he knew where multiculturalism flourished.

  A scream resounded through the oncoming night, and?the mage glanced down the alleyway from which it had come. Some other people similarly followed his gaze, but none of them found anything interesting there. Random screams like that just happened sometimes.

  Jim sighed as he walked down the road, people instinctively getting out of his way without even seemingly thinking about it. "Where there's a service, there will inevitably be stupid peasants too poor to pay for it," Jim muttered to himself.

  Gambling, whores, and health care.

  The reason why the young Savant wasn't overly worried about his safety in a space filled with so many suspicious-looking characters was because he was very obviously an academy student, even without the robe. There were only two kinds of?teenagers who came into the red light district, lovingly referred to as Fox Street. Those attending either the Magic Academy or the Knight Academy. They were the only ones who were, at the same time, so young, so secure in the importance of their family name, while also usually having some combat skills to back that arrogance up.

  It wasn't an overly long walk to his destination, but Jim nevertheless used it as an excuse to take in the atmosphere. It had been too long since he's been here. In the future, he'd been working very hard to meet the requirements of graduation. It hadn't left him with any free time to visit Jolie, Angie, Elisa or Bonnie. He'd been too busy falling into his bed exhausted to the bones every night. The only thing that had gotten him through those times were his immense talent, resilience, strong body, and the fact that with Lebowski, he hadn’t had to do it alone.

  Before long, his preferred establishment?came into view, a large building dominating its neighbours on the left and on the right through its innovative shape of a lantern and its sheer size.?It was painted exclusively red, and there were two burly men standing in front of the entrance.

  Jim walked up as confident as the day he'd been born, rightly so. A simple flash of his ring was enough for the bouncers to step aside and to open the doors for him. The boy nodded slightly as he passed them and entered the establishment, the "Red Lantern".

  A somewhat garish open space revealed itself to him as he passed the door, soft red cushions laying on the floor in front of small wooden tables generously laden with candles and drink. A large polished wooden bar dominated one side of the room, where people could sit on stools and sipped their drinks. There were several customers already there despite the fact that it wasn't really that late, which meant that when Jim went over to the seating arrangement and took one of the free alcoves for himself, he got a few seconds to stake out the place before service arrived.

  Jim leaned back and breathed a sigh of relief. His future selves had died too quickly the last few times to properly enjoy life, but now he was sailing along in class as he should have the first time around and enjoying life at the Red Lantern. He'd put in enough effort into finding the thief of his coin pouch to satisfy the requirements of honour, and now he could finally get back into the habit that he'd built up in the last year of the academy, namely, of spending as little time there as possible.

  AN: If it wasn't clear yet, Jim is a complete degenerate, lol. Don't worry, character development will occur quickly, and painfully.

  Anyway, the normally scheduled chapter will come on friday as planned.

  Might do more fast updates to celebrate if we reach certain milestones on Rising Stars but undecided for the moment :)

  Don't forget to follow if you like the story!

  Note: Due to feedback I have decided to stop posting chapter teasers ;)