In the morning before class, it was common to see students gather in the track fields, run laps and then use the training facility in the Student Hall. The training regiment was recommended by the instructors.

Nico took a little longer than his roommates to feed his plants. Once done, they ran off to the track field.

"So, what's your first class?" Jack jogged steadily closer to the edge of the track.

"Herbology 101," Nico replied running in the middle.

"We're all in the same class together!?" Asked Jack.

"I think so, but it didn't indicate a room. I think there should be many halls teaching 101."

The Academy had an open ended series of lectures that students may choose to attend. The level of the lectures were restricted by ranking. The first lectures the Academy offered was Herbology. There were only 100 classes with varying levels, but levels a student could take depended on their ranking.

"Is the number on the right our ranking?" Asked Jack about the schedule they were given.

"Yep, I'm ranked #19591 in Herbology," Nico said proudly, out of 19879 students in the entire school.

"I'm #19799!" Jack was sure he got 2 questions right. "What did you get Vincent?"

"#19800."

Ashe were stupefied by their ranking.

"What rank are you?" asked Jack.

"Number 7465," Ashe's number was unusually high for his age.

"Wow, we have a smartass in our dorm room. What class do you take then?"

"Herbology 203."

"So this testing tower place, we can only test out once a month to increase our rank?"

Jack looked at Nico, who had idea.

Nico shrugged and looked to Ashe for answer.

"Yes, the Testing Tower is where you take the tests to be reevaluated," Ashe explained. "You may elect to test one time in each subject. The tower will reevaluate your knowledge and provide you with new ranking."

Nico, Vincent and Jack all glanced at Ashe to continue with his explanation.

"Didn't any of you pay attention to the orientation?" Ashe shook his head in annoyance. "If you increase your ranking, you are allowed to attend higher level lectures."

Ten minutes before nine, the clock tower chimed three times to notify everyone that the first lecture would begin soon. The clock tower had a magical sound property; no matter where the students were, they could hear the sound of the clock tower.

Ashe left for Herbology 203 while the remaining three searched for the Herbology 101 classroom.

Herbology 101 was easy to find. There were over 50 halls offering the same course in the Academic Hall.

The three roommates walked into one of the empty lecture halls with a pretty instructor standing in front.

After all the seats were filled in the lecture hall, they noticed that they were once again the tallest and oldest in a hall of around 150 students.

At the start of the lecture, the instructor, a young Miss Irene in red robe, bowed gently down to the students.

"Hello everyone! This is my first year teaching, please treat me kindly!"

The young students, ranging from seven to nine, were easily charmed.

"Today, we will learn about the basic parts of the manaherb, specifically the manarose," she began to explain.

A crystal on her desk projected an image of the manarose on the screen, which immediately impressed most of the young students. They had all seen it before during orientation, but they were seated closer to it today.

"I won't go into depth the physical structure of the plants as you will learn it in botany class," she explained as the students quieted down. "What is herbology? It is the study of manaherb. What is a manaherb? Plant that have powerful energy and manacore.

What are the differences in the different parts? The roots are used for earth and water property roots. The stems, especially the thorns, are used for adding sharpness property. The leaves have light and air property. The flower, fruits and seeds varied widely across different plant species.

What are the benefits of manaherbs? The benefits are seen mainly through alchemy because people can't process manaherbs properly. Herbology is one of the foundations of alchemy..."

She then went through a list of 50 different manaherbs for the remaining hour...

Half the class was drowsy by the end of the lecture. Never underestimate teachers' ability to cast sleep without mana.

"She is kinda boring," Jack whispered.

She was basically reading information from the screen word for word without engaging the students.

"It wasn't that bad..." Vincent remarked. His notes were filled with information copied from the screen.

"Can we leave?" Jack wanted to leave for the next class.

Sigillogy 101 was their next lecture, but they didn't have to leave. The same hall was also used for Sigillogy 101. Typically, the 101 classes were taught in the biggest halls because there were more students in need of 101 classes.

Instructor Irene waited nervously to see if there were any changes to the student body.

Should we leave? The students closer to the front stared at each other, and then nodded.

They raised from their seats.

"Where are you going students?" Instructor Irene inquired sweetly.

"To stretch Instructor Irene," one of the smarter children replied.

The students left, mainly to stretch, but never returned.

Jack wanted to leave, but Vincent felt too lazy to move.

Sigillogy was the class Nico was most interested in since it involved the understanding of symbols. He should give Instructor Irene a chance, he felt a little bad as more students were leaving. The poor woman looked like she was about to cry.

A tall female student from the front was about to leave, but she stopped in front of Vincent.

"Ah, Vincent, good to see you again, can I have a seat?" asked the female student.

"Um, sure?" Vincent tilted his head.

Nico and Jack wasn't sure if that was a proper response. She sat on a vacant seat by Vincent.

"Who's the girl?" Jack leaned to Nico and whispered.

"Anya, she took the exam with us. "

"Oh, right! Hey, you made it too!" Jack gave her a thumbs up.

"You're Jack and Nico, right?" Asked Anya. "I guess that means the five of us made it through the exam."

Nico counted the heads, one, two, three, and four. "Who's the fifth?"

"Xavier. He made it into the Academic Branch," said Anya. "He was ranked pretty high on the list. He was also in my tour group during orientation week."

Nico haven't seen Xavier, but the school was big like a college campus, so it wasn't unusual.

Instructor Irene was relieved when she saw students heading inside, most likely due to the lack of seats from the other classrooms.

Soon, the seats filled back up.