Chapter 120 Academy

Today was the thirty-third day ever since I walked the earth. That's me, and after living so long, I was granted a name. Rather than telling you I was life in its purest form and that nobody was more alive than I, now, I can tell you that I am Aoi. My name is Aoi.

In the hero's tongue, it means "blue" or "bluish." A certain human princess bestowed such a name upon me, the unique monster-type creature, referring to the deep bluish faint light in my eyes. Since I had no name to go around with, I complained to the noblewoman about it, and she who knew a bit about the hero's tongue, having summoned her own heroes and stuff, was happy to call my eyes bluish.

It had already been a month anyway. A whole thirty days. An entire month added to a few days. To me, when I still was a week old only, the long period felt like an eternity, but now that I had gotten used to having some sort of daily routine and schedule, I could easily imagine how, to most people, thirty days wasn't so grand a timespan.

Looking back, I came a long way. Done this and that. Killed so and so. Completed a quest after the other. Now, an entire month was behind me, and it opened the longest dance of years to come. So much more had yet to come.

Adventure time. To be a monster hunter. To kill more, hunt more, and evolve more as a warrior and individual. That is what I looked forward to, arguably ever since I was created.

Working toward that goal so I would have the path I, an evil monster, always craved, was what I had been doing. After a week, I had finally gotten it. By chance, a certain third princess might have given me just what I wanted. It had been a month, however. And yet, what about my needs being met?

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What about adventure time?

Today, and I am truly deeply sorry for my loss offering myself my condolences as well as sympathy, was not an adventure time. And if the action of being a monster hunter was entertaining, you could say that the job I was stuck with, presently, was the polar opposite of that. Rather than entertaining and amusing, the activity I gave myself to was beyond flat and uninteresting.

Looking back on it, it might have been because I was only a month old, back then and that I could barely be contained in my place when I knew the outside world still had so much more to offer to me.

I mean, being a schoolboy in one of the greatest and most renowned academies of the country of Roerden wasn't so tedious and uninteresting… but, school, really? After a week, I concluded that people couldn't possibly enjoy it (and I was right). After two weeks, I didn't have the energy to conclude anything anymore. I was certain, deep down within my heart, that every apprentice of art magic in our amphitheater class thought the same as I did, except maybe for one fallen elven princess, but I was just probably an ungrateful moron who didn't know better. Be that as it may, I certainly felt proud to be such a moron if that meant I appreciate the outside world more than the corpus of students.

An academy's amphitheater. That's about where I was, at the time, sitting my butt and being all still, listening to the teacher, self-proclaimed grandmaster of the magic art, going about giving the corpus of apprentices (of all ages, some were old while some were as youthful in appearance as I was) his lessons on skills, fairies, runes and alchemy, summoning pets or partners, magical equipment—theoretical stuff like that—as I was all contained and still, unable to escape from the academy, just as if I were still stuck within that glass of water in that restaurant with the two waiters around me.

But I was civilized… so I didn't wreak havoc and killed just about everyone.

But what was I doing here? The vile Princess Elina. What had she done to me? Did I really agree to any of this? To be perfectly correct: certainly not. Thus, after a moment's thought, I decided to end this comedy… and drop out of school. Maybe. I only needed to figure out how. But for the time being, I'd stay as still and civilized as before, ideally, for I only needed to be observant to work my way out of this schoolboy's predicament.

In the meantime, that was the Academy. The Institution of Art Magic. Inside the capital city of Roerden. And that facility was about the studies of magical energy, or more commonly called mana, in all its forms and manifestations, with all its causes and consequences, for all applications and purposes. So, what was mana?

The teach, grandmaster of his time, was onto that, at present. And equipped not with the grandest legendary fairy sword, that had the power to bring about so many wonders and powers, he sold the corpus of students, but with petty white chalk and wide blackboard, he explained, illustrated, demonstrated, and justified all sorts of basic theories and whatnot about his understanding of the science. The grandmaster talked for a long time, mostly self-satisfied with his lengthy explanations.

Mana was mana. The world was ruled over by mana, in its whole entirety. Nothing in the world wasn't even remotely related to mana in some kind of way. Mana was energy, and energy (transmission) was everything. And so, without energy, nothing can ever be. Nothing would move, fall, fly, be opened or closed. That was my own matter-of-fact recycled introduction of the grandmaster's long-winded speech of about half an hour.

And going on like this, it wasn't uncommon for the corpus of apprentices to be provided with even lengthier and uninteresting explanations and demonstrations of theories pertaining to the course. Hands were raised and questions were asked, but the grandmaster would have none of them for the time being. So hands were lowered hesitantly and it went on again.

Eventually, the grandmaster managed to please the corpus of students, at long last. Endless overly impractical information was now backed up with a practical application, and the grandmaster got to produce, within his hand, a light bluish burning sort of fireball, bragging that was mana in its purest form, the origin of it. To that, the avid learners jumped off their seats and a thunderous roar of appreciation and respect quickly filled up the whole room, but I of course wouldn't have it. In the first place, the self-proclaimed grandmaster's statement wasn't exactly true in the sense that truly pure mana (similar to the System's) was of a pure white color rather than a bluish flame. Thanks to "Mana Perception," I was keen on this kind of thing. But I guess I heard the teach say he himself had a long way to go before truly mastering it, so it was all right. Still, the self-proclaimed grandmaster was way below my humble old man in terms of power.

At any rate, it wasn't rare that, during class, my attention drifted to the outside world, as I thought and daydreamed about this and that. Peering at the castle's broad royal garden in the distance, appreciating the greenness of the wilderness blended with the human-made colorful city, I longed for the outside world, for fighting and surviving to the best of my capability.

And overhearing the teach now diving into the field of what "skills" or abilities were, the ones you mainly learned in the guilds or something, I was reminded of the conclusion I came upon in the outside world as I was hunted and killed for being the evil monster—

Thus do many skills lead to victory.