His meditation was going smoothly as he continued sitting for the entire day. He only stopped because Lyle walked in and told him that it was dinner time. Dinner? Greyson was not informed of how meals work at the Academy so he just followed Lyle out."How long have you been meditating?"
"Pretty much since you started your lessons today. A problem occurred during my first lesson so my teacher told me to just head home and meditate today and that he would tell what"s going on later tomorrow."
"Really? That"s too bad, you were probably looking forward to it." Lyle looked over with a rare expression of sympathy. Greyson hadn"t seen his expression change much at all in the time he had known him. In that way, he was very similar to Head Teacher Elendil.
"So how do meals work at the academy? I was never told. I didn"t really get a good introduction to the school yet."
"I can let you know what I was told. There are three meals a day served at the dorms. Every bas.e.m.e.nt floor has a large dining hall where the meals are served. There are different options and normally the food at the other department dorms has some way of helping their students absorb more of their element. They would serve specific element magic beast meat at the dorms and magic herbs of the different corresponding elements are served as well. It"s not too exaggerated as that would cost too much. The magic food is added in among the normal food. It"s surprisingly effective, though, at helping meditation work smoothly. Our meals are similar, except the cooks know each of our elements and prepare our meals using that as a benchmark. There are a lot less members of our dorm, so it"s not too much for the cooks to care for us each individually."
"Wow, really? I only had the magic beast meat which I hunted for myself every now and then, but now I could have it everyday and it would according to my elements."
"Well, with your capabilities, who knows if you"ll get too much food. They have to use all seven elements, right? Even if they try to lessen the amount for each element, your food will still be a lot. You look so small and dainty like you don"t eat much."
"Hmph! Who"s small and dainty? You are just older than me, most kids my age look like this! And I"ll have you know that I eat the most at my orphanage, even more than adults. I just don"t gain any weight, probably because I need a lot of energy to use all the elements I have." Greyson was not exaggerating about his appet.i.te. Back at the orphanage, he sincerely amazed everyone with his appet.i.te. He would regularly eat more than a grown man and yet he would still stay as small and skinny as he was.
Lyle gave Greyson a quick up and down glance with the doubt clearly showing in his eyes. Greyson felt his compet.i.tive streak ignite and was determined to make that icy face crack in disbelief. He would make his jaw drop to the floor. He wasn"t lying anyways so he just would have to eat per his normal appet.i.te.
They both walked down to the dining hall and were amazed by the clean and orderly sight of it. The wood tables were round with around 6 chairs for each. It was not too big and looked to fit 36 since there were only six tables. The largest portion of the hall was the kitchen which was hidden behind a wall. There was a large service window where the students would pick up their personal meals. Lyle and Greyson walked up and grabbed their meals before picking an empty table. No one was present at the hall which surprised Greyson as he asked Lyle if there were not set eating times.
"There are, but the times are flexible. You are supposed to be here in a two hour time period for any of the meals. We are here rather late since I got back late, so probably everyone has come and eaten."
"Ahh... I see."
Right after they finished speaking, the doors to the hall swung open once again. They quickly glanced over, curious to see who it was. However, to the disappointment of Greyson, it was his favorite n.o.ble, Arwen. Greyson accidentally made eye contact with him and Arwen ended up glaring back. Greyson inwardly sighed feeling a headache coming on. Why must he always meet with idiots like this? Was "target" just spelled out on his face? Why couldn"t they leave him alone? Arwen was followed in by another boy who was probably an older student. He looked to be around 15-16 years old and had similarities to Arwen. They had similar eyes and nose and the same hair color. Seeing their similarities, Greyson had a sinking feeling they were definitely related somehow if not brothers. He was surprised that another member of Arwen"s family was a multi-element magician, as well, since it seemed to be random and rare. The older boy looked confused by Arwen"s sudden hostility so Arwen gestured and whispered to him while angrily glancing at Greyson. However, to Greyson"s surprise, the older boy then slapped the back of Arwen"s head and looked at him angrily. Then he looked over to Greyson, who still had a shocked look on his face, and he smiled apologetically. He then picked up the food and forced his brother over to their table.
"h.e.l.lo, I believe you have had the displeasure of meeting my younger brother, Arwen. I am his second older brother, Roland G.o.dfey. I am really sorry about my brother, he is the fifth child and the youngest in our family so he is spoiled greatly. I always tell him to be more accepting and friendly, but my siblings and parents always treat him like their little prince and he thinks everyone should attend to him." The older boy looked sincerely stressed out and annoyed by his younger brother"s lack of EQ. Greyson could feel that Roland was much better than Arwen. He smiled and gestured for them to sit.
"Haha, it"s actually not a big deal. I was mostly just angry that your brother thought I was a girl. Normally, I would reign my temper in more." Although it was a lie, Greyson felt there was no reason to hold a grudge, it would be better if Arwen just never bothered him again. They didn"t have to be friends, but having enemies was too exhausting.
"Oh...oh, so you"re not a girl. I am sorry I couldn"t tell, either. However, regardless of gender, he shouldn"t have been picking on you. Right, Arwen?"
"Wait! You"re a boy?! You must be lying!" Arwen reacted differently then expected so Roland slapped the back of his head again.
"Ow! Brother, what are you doing?! Why do you keep hitting me? I"ll tell mother and father!" Arwen held his head pouting and shouted indignantly. Greyson saw this and held in his laughter. He had to admit that watching Arwen continuously getting slapped in the back of the head like that felt good.
"Yes, I am a boy. I could go to the fourth floor bathroom and prove it to you. We are all boys, so I"m not embarra.s.sed. It"s a public bathroom for the entire floor anyways." Greyson smiled looking amused.
"Who would want to bathe with you?!" Arwen angrily snapped. Greyson just shrugged nonchalantly.
"Hmph! I held back due to feeling mercy for the fairer gender earlier. If you are really a boy, you better watch yourself. I am leaving, eating with you guys would just make me lost my appet.i.te. Brother, I"ll tell mother and father later that you bullied me!" With that, Arwen gave his food back and stomped out. Roland sighed feeling helpless.
"Sorry, guys. I swear when he was younger, he was a really sweet kid. He was just raised wrongly so he doesn"t have good self-awareness. He"s become so narrow-minded and arrogant. I just don"t know how to fix it anymore. My older brother and third younger sister also spoil him like our parents and they always back him up no matter the bad things he does. The only ones who don"t are my fourth younger sister and I. We try to fix his att.i.tude all the time."
Looking at this distraught brother, Greyson couldn"t help but feel sorry for him. Arwen was definitely family and Greyson could tell that Roland loved his brother which is all the more reason that he wished to fix his personality. He inwardly sighed almost feeling grateful he was not connected by blood to some arrogant idiot like Roland. Maybe being an orphan is not that bad?
"It"s okay. I don"t think much of him. I used to get bullied a lot for being an orphan and being poor. His threats and insults don"t really affect me much anymore."
"Hahaha well those people were obviously short-sighted. Look at where you are and think of your probable future! They soon regret treating you with disdain. They all be slapped in the face later when you succeed, isn"t that right?" Roland laughed and encouraged Greyson. Greyson felt warmth from his words and smiled at him.
"Roland"s right! We can do anything those n.o.bles can do! We will show them." Lyle added. His normally expressionless face was filled with determination. The three boys continued talking and getting to know each other. Roland was surprisingly fire and water. Opposite elements like fire and water or light and dark were rare in one person and harder to combine. However, once they were, it was more powerful than combining other elements. He was at the intermediate level stage 4 and was 15 years old. Greyson and Lyle continued listening to his stories about academy life while talking about themselves every now and then. The boys really hit it off while the younger two felt they had met an older brother figure. Both of them were missing this sort of figure in their lives and felt really happy to have met a reliable and kind older student. They finished their meals slowly and, when they were finally done, the younger boys felt reluctant to part. Roland seem to notice this and he chuckled and ruffled both their hair.
"I feel like I"ve met two cute and well-behaved younger brothers. Later on when you see me just call me Big Brother! I"ve got to get back to meditate before sleeping. I"ll definitely see you two little ones around!" Greyson and Lyle blushed realizing how childish they must have looked. They nodded before separating with him as they walked up to the fourth floor. Roland was on the third floor with other older boys.
They both walked into the dorms before looking at each other and smiling.
"Roland seems like a really nice older brother."
"Yeah."
They felt happy at making another friend in the Academy.
...
The next day, Greyson woke up and went down with Lyle to eat breakfast. Roland wasn"t there this time to their disappointment. They did see Arwen, but just ignored him and picked an empty table. This time, Lyle wasn"t distracted by anyone so he realized that Greyson was not lying about his appet.i.te. His jaw dropped looking at the rate the younger boy was eating. Greyson smirked feeling smug for proving Lyle wrong.
They spent the morning nicely and chatted while walking over to the Water Department Hall. They separated again as Lyle went to his cla.s.s and Greyson walked up to the fourth floor. As if repeating the day before, he found himself sitting across from Teacher Elendil once again on the couches.
"I have spoke with the other teachers and they agree that with your talent that there is not much we can do. Usually it is hard for younger children to understand the spells as they are old and sometimes wordy and understanding spell circle structure is hard. You probably are not aware, but each spell has a circle pattern that the user must memorize and comprehend. He will imagine this pattern while saying a chant and the spell will occur. Your amazing talent allow you to skip all these difficult steps, so I guess the first step to improving yourself is to read the spell books we have available. Once you read these spell books for your elements, you can understand all the ways to apply your elements."
"Read?"
"Yes, everyday from now on you will report to our Magic Library and you have access to the entire level one. Usually you need to do tasks and be rewarded with a spell book, however, in order to give you the best learning environment we decided to let you read as many spell books as you want. You are to learn one spell for every element and at the end of the week the seven Head Teachers will test you. If you are able to copy the spell successfully and we approve, you can move on to different spells. This is to allow your imagination to expand and to use your elements in a well-thought out fas.h.i.+on."
Greyson felt shocked by the favorable treatment he was receiving, so he could only nod in shock while listening to his responsibilities.
"Alright, that is all I have to say. You will have until the end of this week to try to learn seven spells. You many head to the Library now and try to pick out a spell. Think very carefully about what you want each spell for and what they will help you with."
Greyson nodded and walked out. But once he set foot outside the hall, he realized he did not know how to get to the library. He was still surprised earlier that he forgot to ask. Feeling helpless, he decided to walk back to his dorm room to look at the map once again and find his way to the library.