The magic train left Vespera in the late afternoon.

I had seen the academy from above the city on the way in. Seeing it from inside the train felt entirely different.

Lina had claimed the window seat without discussion. What does she keep thinking?

Sebastian sat across from us with the expression of a man who had been on magic trains before and had no remaining feelings about them.

My shoulder had been cleaned and wrapped at the guild hall before we left. Lysander had sent a medic without being asked. The bandage was tight and functional.

The city slowly gave way to open country. Below us, Vespera spread outward, then shrank into the distance.

Lina had both hands pressed against the glass.

I watched the passing landscape and thought about the S+ classification, what it meant for placement, what placement meant for the next several months... and when I would finally be return back...

Then the terrain below us changed.

Roads began converging toward a single center point. Walls long enough to contain a small city came into view.

The Astral Academy.

From above, at the speed the train was moving, the full scale of it arrived before the mind could properly react. The main structure stretched farther. The grounds between the outer wall and the academy itself were massive enough that crossing them on foot would take half a day.

All four towers were visible from this angle.

The southern tower distorted the air around it with heat. Tower of Fire.

The northern tower reflected the afternoon light like frozen glass. Tower of Water.

The western tower cast its shadow across the grounds in the direction of the sun. It was the Tower of Dark Magic.

The eastern tower stood surrounded by circling shapes. Tower of Wind and Earth magic.

Lina made a quiet sound beside me.

"Sylph," she whispered.

"Still pulling toward the eastern tower?"

"Harder now. From here."

I looked at the eastern tower, The tower of Wind magic...

"Is Sylph reacting to the wind affinity... or something inside the tower itself?"

The train descended.

The academy station had been built directly into the outer wall, seamless enough that both structures looked designed together from the beginning.

We stepped onto the platform.

We followed the path from the station. Gardens, training areas. Other students moved through in academy uniforms.

We passed through the main entrance.

***

The admissions office was on the ground floor of the eastern wing. Forms were placed in front of us before we even asked. Instructions echoed calmly through the hall through sound magic.

I filled out the form under Kael Ardyn. Strangely enough, it reminded me of filling out college documents back in my old world.

Beside me, Lina filled out hers with neat and beautiful handwriting infinitely better than mine.

Sebastian stood behind us in silence.

Forms submitted and the Registration tokens issued.

They gave us an examination schedule. The theory examination would begin in two hours.

***

The theory examination hall held three hundred candidates and was currently holding more, the overflow seated at tables added along the walls.

The paper arrived face down on every desk at the same moment.

There were three sections. Historical framework, mana cultivation theory, applied spell mechanics. Sixty questions. Two hours.

I worked through it front to back. The historical section drew on the novel’s background and the estate library. The cultivation theory drew on two months of cave work and everything Nythera had shown me. The applied section was a bit hard I guess.

An hour and fifteen minutes. I set the pen down, read through it once, turned it face down and waited.

I looked at the ceiling, it’s such a pain doing a school test.

The bell rang. Papers collected.

***

Lina came out of the hall and found me in the corridor.

She stood beside me , her face was glowing with happiness.

"How did it go?"

"I finished so early,"

"How early."

"About forty minutes before the bell."

???

I looked at her.

"The spirit contract theory section, Some of the questions were about High-Rank bonds. I know those answers from experience rather than study."

"That’s not a disadvantage."

"No. I know."

The results were announced before the end of the day.

It was being displayed by magic. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Mine were in the upper range of the general, below the top tier. I messed up in theory.

Lina’s result was posted on the secondary board. One of the highest scores in the entire section.

She looked at it for a long moment. A bright smile appeared around her face.

"Experience rather than study, what a luck.".

"Yes," she said.

The dormitory assignments came with the placement results.

S+ class students received separate quarters in the northern residential wing. Single rooms, I love single rooms. Privacy matters.

My room was on the third floor. Lina’s was on the second floor of the same wing.

The class was divided into three streams. C class for the lower range. B class for the middle. A class for the highest potential students. And a separate class for the S+ tier, it is what people called the Hero’s Classroom, not officially, just a novel thing..

Elian Voss The hero would be in that classroom.

I stood at the window of my room and looked at the eastern tower. The circling presences around the upper section were visible from here.

I looked at them for a moment, then unpacked the diary. Going to revise the plots.

The first act was going to happen. The Villainess.