Azyl Academy (Elemental Gatherers Book 1)

by Chris Vines

  Dinner

  Dinner

  Dinner

  Dinner

  Meditation

  Meditation

  Meditation

  Meditation

  The first week included history, Beasts knowledge, herbology, introduction to alchemy, introduction to blacksmithing, introduction to enchanting, geography, and tactics. There was a note at the bottom that said, ‘After the first week, you will be able to pick a secondary profession to focus on. This will replace the other two on Lightning, Air, and Ice days. All other midday classes are mandatory for all first tiers.’

  Ok, so everyone will get an introductory lesson in enchanting, alchemy, and blacksmithing to figure out which one they want to pursue. Also, everyone will get a basic introduction to this world and important things to look out for. I wonder what second tier students study. I looked out the window and noticed it was starting to get late. I should head back home to say goodbye to Elena and Jordan. I found a locking drawer in the desk and placed the memory stones there.

  With that, I left the Academy to head back home. Hmm, this really did come to feel like home. I’ll miss it more than I missed the group home or uncaring foster families. I opened the door to the store and walked in. Inside was a much larger amount of people then would normally be there. I saw Ma assisting a couple that looked suspiciously like the younger Volkov daughter from this morning. Da was checking people out at the counter. As I walked up, I could hear the discussions between Da and the customers, and almost all of them ended up mentioning me at some point.

  If they realize I’m in the store, they’ll make a scene. Word travels fast and I guess I’m famous now. I pretended to be shopping while moving around to the stairs, and then quickly bolted up them when no one was looking. I stood at the top of the stairs, listening to see if a commotion started. When nothing seemed to happen, I relaxed and headed to my room.

  I spent the next fifteen minutes or so organizing my room, cleaning everything I could and packing what I felt I needed. Mostly clothes. A keepsake statue of a dog Jon had given me to thank me for helping him with starting to gather Aether. A set of writing instruments and a small notebook. The whip I took from Icky Nicky. He he, I bet he’ll flip if I call him that. Everything else I put away and tidied up, leaving the room as close to spotless as I could make it.

  After that, I went over to the kitchen area and started cooking some vegetable stir fry. From the cold box I pulled some chicken or meat from an animal that was a great deal like a chicken, but also not exactly. Still a poultry bird with little brain power and little flight power. Still tasted like chicken. If everything tastes like chicken, maybe this is the matrix? Nah, I doubt the machines would make up this world. The store closed just as I was setting the table.

  “Good evening Aiden,” Jordan said as he entered the room. “That smells good. Thank you for cooking. Elena wanted to wait for you, but I was unable to deal with the flood of customers we got this afternoon. Most of them wanted to buy the most expensive things I sold, just to get on our good side. Of course, they all wanted to meet you, or introduce you to their daughters, or offer to pay for your education. You apparently made quite a stir?” He finished with a question.

  “Yeah, I uh, registered as having thirty five possible meridian openings, which was more than the examiner had ever heard of. I doubt it’s something that has never happened before, but probably not here. And my Affinity to five elements, with four Excellent or Outstanding, surprised them as well. I’ve been offered a full ride scholarship to the Academy. Hopefully I can use this to pay y’all back for your kindness.” Jordan’s face registered the same shock and happiness the Elena’s had at the square when I told him my talent level and Affinities.

  “Full ride?” Elena asked as she entered, having locked the store up.

  “Oh, um, it means that everything is paid for. You don’t have to pay anything. They expect big things from me, and want to bribe me at this level. I also spoke to the Lo heirs, who advised me to befriend everyone but favor no one, until I have the power to back myself up.” I’m still using sayings from Earth! I need to stop.

  “That is good advice, and what I would say as well.” Jordan interjected. “Also, feel free to come to us if you need anything. Just you being announced as having massive talent has driven numerous opportunities to our door. Your printing press idea will also allow us to produce more books faster, so maybe we’ll see more gathering techniques or other information that is hard to spread become more widely known. That is praiseworthy in and of itself. Do your best, and I’m sure everything will fall into place.”

  “Thanks. I hope I can live up to your trust. There was a girl, Naanva Jamila, who also had very high talent. Jon did as well. All the nobles, of course, and a significant number of others, nearly sixty all told. Is this normal?”

  “I don’t think so. The last couple of years have only been the standard dozen or so high potentials outside the nobles. Why do you ask?” Elena responded.

  “That worries me. Why would the year I show up be the year that there are a much larger amount of talents brought in? Combine that with the words of Darkness and I think something bad is coming. I feel like it won’t be soon, but probably in a couple of years some major disaster is going to happen. The little I remember from my discussion with Darkness leads me think we have some time, but not a lot of it. Assuming that is true, we can start planning now, and hopefully build up enough capability to stop whatever it is.” With this proclamation, Jordan and Elena frowned and looked at each other.

  We fell into eating, and I described the campus and my assigned room. Especially the view out the window above my desk. Finally, we finished eating and I let them know I planned on going back tonight. “Ok,” Elena responded, “but we’re walking you to the gate.” The walk was silent, each of us lost in our thoughts. As we approached the gate, Elena grabbed my arm and pulled me into a hug. “You come back and visit us,” she whispered.

  “I will. As soon as I can. They said we’d be allowed to leave once every month for the first year. So this is just see you in a month, not goodbye forever,” I said. Jordan also pulled me into a hug, then said goodbye. Walking up to the gate, I showed the guard the key I had gotten at in-processing, and he opened it enough for me to get through.

  Jogging up to the dorm, I ran up to my room. I saw and heard no one, so either everyone was in their room already or was planning to come back in the morning. Setting the bag of packed clothing and items on the dresser, I unpacked and organized the room. After finishing that, I read through the rules packet, which was fairly straightforward. Basically, don’t steal, listen to the Counselors, and don’t kill anyone. Fighting outside of sanctioned duels was not allowed, but you could challenge anyone in the same level as you. If you wanted you could challenge those at a higher level as well. All sorts of minor details about timing and allowable challenges filled a page of the book, of which the key point was that challenges would not start until after the first month. Finishing reading, I got ready to sleep. I left the windows open to enjoy the fresh air. I did not gather, following Ming’s advice to hold off until after the first day of classes. As I lay down, I saw a beautiful bird flying by the window, looking as if it was on fire. My last thought as I fell asleep was wonder at this new world.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The sound of a gong woke me up on the first day of my new school. Getting up, I dressed in a loose green tunic and pants since we had not received our uniforms yet. I left my room and went to the restroom, surprised yet again as they looked just like you’d expect back on Earth, though without urinals. Five stalls had stone toilets in them, with a glyph labeled ‘Flush’ on the wall. Oh, that’s different, I thought as I saw the glyph. Inscriptions! After the stalls was a door that led into a shower, though instead of spraying it just poured out of a couple holes when activated. Three people could shower simultaneously if they didn’t care about privacy. Finished with my business, I washed my hands with a bar of
soap I brought. I just realized. I don’t know if this world knows about bacteria. Can bacteria gather Aether? Animals can, so maybe? I hope not though, as that means superbugs. Maybe that is what killed Aiden? But then why didn’t it spread? Or did it? So many questions still about his sickness.

  “Breakfast time!” I headed down the stairs, wondering if I would see anyone I recognized. No one joined me on the stairs, but a couple of people I hadn’t met yesterday were sitting in the lounge area on the bottom floor. I waved and said hi as I headed out the door. Entering the food hall, I saw a number of older students eating breakfast, but no one I recognized. I walked over to the counter and received a bowl of what looked like oatmeal with berries and cinnamon on it. I sat at an empty table where I could see the door, hoping to see a friend walk in. The upperclassmen ignored me as was their prerogative. Just as I was finishing my food, Jon walked in with Louis. I waved them over after they grabbed food. “Ready for our first day?” I asked as they sat.

  Louis nodded while Jon said “Yeah, can’t wait to find out new, strong gathering techniques. It’ll be interesting to see how different they are from what was in the introductory book given out.”

  “Yup. I also hope they tell us how to use these memory stones,” I shook the bag, “as I have no idea.” We chatted for a bit longer, mostly about the rooms we received while they finished breakfast. Once they were done, we again brought our bowls back to the counter and headed to the classrooms. On the walk over, we admired the Meditation Grotto and saw older students running down in the physical training fields.

  “Well, we’ll be down there later today,” Jon commented sulkily, pointing at the running students.

  “Yeah, I know how much you like running Jon, though you were pretty good at running away from people after your pranks.” Jon gave me a push sideways after that comment.

  The classroom building looked very similar to the dorms, though only four floors. The main difference was a carving of the Elemental compass that was two stories tall above the door in the center of the building. Walking through the doors, we stopped in our tracks. Rather than a lounge, the area around the stairs was a library with more books than I’d seen since arriving in this world. Even though I had lived at a bookstore, we only had maybe twenty books for sale at any one time. There were maybe a couple hundred books. This wasn’t a lot compared to libraries back on Earth, but it was a significant number all the same. Especially in a world where every book was copied by hand. To our right, a stand with a chalkboard on it proclaimed ‘First tiers to the auditorium’ along with a large number one and an arrow pointing at the door to the right.

  The room we walked into was fairly large, probably able to hold four hundred people. The ground sloped down to the bottom of a small stage, with benches off to either side for seating. When we arrived, the first ten rows were full, with maybe eighty other students there already. We hurried to find seats. After we had sat down, a couple more people came through, gathered around Haodha Nicolai. I thought to myself “The brown-nosing is strong in them!” in the best puppet voice. I then kept my eyes forward, trying to keep ‘Nicky’ from seeing me. Mostly I didn’t want to have him make a scene. A stream of other people I didn’t recognize came through, nearly filling up the auditorium, and as the last few were seated Headmaster Glav came out on the stage.

  “Welcome one and all to the start of your formal education to become the pillars of the Craesti Kingdom. Here we will train you to be strong, smart, and capable people, to serve in the Army, in government, and in society. You will train to be the shield that protects our people from the Elemental Beasts that roam our borders. You will be challenged and pushed beyond your limits repeatedly, and through this forging will become the greatest versions of yourselves that you can become. Work hard and you will be rewarded. Fail to do so, and you will be pushed and prodded until you do. We do not suffer laziness here, and will refine it out of you if necessary. Your instructors will come in now and gather you up; taking you to the classrooms you will be in for the rest of the year.” With that, she waved to the back of the room, smiled at us, and left the stage.

  At her signal, ten instructors walked into the room. The first was a middle-aged man who walked with a slight limp. The second was a grizzled older man, with a scar running down the left side of his face. The third was an older woman who looked almost exactly like Professor McGonagall from the Harry Potter movie. Most of the Counselors were middle-aged, often sporting scars, and had serious expressions on their face. The last Counselor was a middle-aged woman with bright gold hair. As they approached the front, a pressure emanating from them became palpable. I felt like I would be pushed away if I didn’t push back against it.

  When they reached the front, the younger woman stepped out and called out “When I call your name, get up, and form a line facing the exit. You will be following me to room 201. Sihirb Akil…” A young man with black hair and dark skin stepped out from the second row. Fourteen others, including the older Volkov and Jamila were included in this group. When Jamila and Bet walked by, I gave them both a big smile. Bet nodded while Jamila smiled back. After finishing calling out fifteen names, the instructor moved to the front of the line and walked out.

  The second instructor moved forward and started to call out names. “Haodha Anberlin. Lo Xiao. Noptep Jonathan. Kupiec Aiden,” were the first four names called out. Ok, at least don’t have Nicky. Hopefully Anberlin isn’t too bad. At least I’ve got Jon there to have my back, and Xiao wasn’t that bad yesterday. Jon nudged me to get into line, so I stood up and started to get into position. I nodded to Ming when a shout of “YOU!” interrupted the instructor after the next name. Well, Nicky’s seen me. “Boy, do not interrupt me, or another instructor, again,” my counselor said, staring at Nicky. Nicky started turning red and squirmed in his seat. The instructor was doing something to push him back down. Nicky’s face seemed locked in a state between fear and anger. Whoa, calm down Nicky, you’ll have a heart attack at this rate! I laughed in my head. I couldn’t help the smirk that came out.

  Our instructor finished calling the rest of the names, none of which I recognized. The kids who lined up were between fourteen and sixteen, with a mixture of races and ethnicities. Most of them looked upper class, with only Jon, myself, and two others seeming to be from the middle class. Overall there were only a couple people, like Louis, who came from the lower classes that would be able to attend. The competition for the few scholarships available was fierce and had natural talent requirements that most couldn’t match anyway. Those few who did make it became a source of great pride to their whole community, though, and would allow a family to be pulled from the lower class to the middle class very quickly.

  The instructor led us to the second floor, where we entered room 203, which had fifteen pads on the floor and two older students in it. “Take a seat. I am Counselor Sila and will be instructing you in gathering techniques, channeling ability and meridian opening and strengthening. I have taught here for twenty three years now, after retiring from the Army as a Specialist Captain. I will be expecting perfection from you. All of you have amazing talent and affinity and will display it. If you fail, you will try again. These are Mentors Gutierrez and Lo. They will be assisting me in instructing you. This first week we will be working to open all of your easily openable meridians. This will increase the amount of Aether you can gather in, as well as assisting in strengthening your body and mind. Today, we will be opening the meridian in your dominant arm, if you do not have it open or the off arm otherwise. Now, why are we opening this particular meridian first? You, Falconer Bridget, what do you think?”

  “Um… because it is easiest?” A short girl with brown hair, pale skin, and a button nose said, not very confidently.

  “Well, not quite. Not the main reason though. Almost everyone has these meridians, and the ones for their legs, as openable meridians. The leg meridians are usually the easiest to open, and in commoners who don’t get their training from here, they
open those first. Here we open the arm meridians to enable combative Channeling, though you won’t be able to project Aether past your skin until you start compressing your Aether.” The Counselor then walked over to the wall and quickly sketched a generic person’s outline. He then traced a line leading from the center, through the right side of the heart, the right lung, then down the arm. It looped through the hand covering the knuckles, then back up. Surprisingly it then went down, looping through the right kidney and stomach area before entering the center again.

  “This is the right arm meridian, which will strengthen your right arm, shoulder, lung, heart, kidney, and liver, along with other internal organs. As it does connect to your heart, we recommend only opening it under supervision, which is another reason why we are opening this today. Your leg meridian’s only danger is paralyzing your diaphragm, which is scary but you can hit it to free it up. Now, young Falconer, come on up. You will be the demonstration for today. I will be guiding you through the process. First, retreat to your center. Come, come hurry up. Now, I am going to inject some Aether into you, follow its movement and do not resist.” He placed his hands on the back of her neck, injecting a small amount of Aether into her Life meridian. We saw a brief glow, then nothing. “Everyone else, retreat into your center and follow the Aether flowing in your Life meridian. Grab a hold of some just as it is nearest your eyes, and pull it forward. This will sting a bit, but set up a small circle of Aether from the meridian to your eyes.”