After a long day, Greyson finally made his way back to the dorm and flopped onto his bed. He knew he had to bathe, but the exhaustion crashed into him and he quickly fell asleep. Lucius shook his head and pulled the blanket up again then curled up next to him to sleep.The next morning Greyson felt the sunlight pour through his window and his eyes flickered open. Stretching and yawning, he slowly got out of bed when he realized how much he smelled. Remembering he skipped a bath yesterday after all that sweating, he quickly got undressed and headed over to the bathroom. Lucius followed along and they both washed off the stench. When he got back, he decided to wash his bed sheets and clothes. There was a place in the back of the dorm to do laundry, so he went there and cleaned off his dirty clothes and sheets before hanging them up on the rope left out for drying. Heaving a sigh and dusting off his hands, Greyson went back to his dorm to start meditating. After using up all his magic yesterday, he felt that his mana was close to a breaking point.
When he opened the door, he was surprised to see Lyle coming out of his room. Thinking back, he had not seen his roommate for days now even the two days he has been back. This time Lyle was not wearing his white robe, but instead he donned a black and blue Dalia Kingdom soldier uniform.
"Are you leaving school for the military?" Greyson asked confused.
"Huh? No, of course not. Grey, don"t you remember that we all can pick secondary occupations? I have always wanted to be a soldier, if I have an outstanding achievement later I could be granted a last name and my family would be n.o.bles. Although it would be the lowest level n.o.ble, it still means a lot. Plus, defending the kingdom is a n.o.ble occupation I think. Have you thought about what occupations you want to take up?" Lyle explained. Secondary occupation? Greyson realized that Teacher Harrison had mentioned this to him before. He had been so preoccupied that he hadn"t given his choice any thought.
"Why don"t you go to the Occupation Registry Building? They have all the options, descriptions of each job, and qualifications. You could probably make your decision if you know everything." Lyle suggested when he saw Greyson"s lost face.
"Oh, there is a building like that?" Listening to Lyle, Greyson decided to check out that place first then make his decision.
...
After spending all of yesterday meditating, Greyson smoothly broke through to the fifth stage. It did not take too much effort which surprised Greyson, but Lucius told him that breaking through the stages gets more difficult the higher the level. With his talent, breaking through a stage at the novice level is a matter of time so he wouldn"t feel any resistance. As easy as it might have seemed, Greyson was still excited by advancing a stage because he was that much closer to breaking through the intermediate level which would mean his partner beast finally appearing!
As he woke up the next day, he jumped out of bed humming and feeling cheerful. He decided to ride this good mood to the Occupation Registry Building so that his choice might come easier. Looking at the map, he realized the building was close to the huge tower where he met the princ.i.p.al. Saying goodbye to Lyle, Greyson walked out with Lucius in tow towards the building. Once he got there, he was met with a small one floor building. After seeing so many grand places, he felt that this registry building was quite underwhelming. He entered to see a busy crowded room. There was a huge desk in the middle with attendants all around helping people. He continued to look around until he spotted a station with 3 large books on stands. The label was "Information Station" so he a.s.sumed that was what he was looking for. Going to one of the open stands, Greyson took down the book because he was too short. He opened the book to the first page and it read "Job Descriptions."
Sitting down on a nearby couch, he started reading through the entire book. Reading through took him around three hours and when he finally looked up his eyes still showed indecision. Maybe it was not good knowing all his choices? Now he just has more to think about... He scrunched his brows in frustration as he put the book back onto the stand.
Taking one last look at the building, he started a slow walk home. Not paying attention to the road, he continued contemplating about what choice to make. He wished he could be good at everything, but he knew that was impossible for him. He could only pick three at most if he wanted to be able to dedicate his time to learning. Admittedly, he agreed with Lyle that being a soldier was really tempting and those with mana are given a special position called war magicians. However, he really did not have the heart to go down that route. Maybe because he was brought up in the church and taught by Sister Lily, he could not see himself killing anyone. Even if those people were the so-called enemies, murdering was a hard obstacle to overcome. The most he could do was hunt magic beasts, but he still had a line. He had a soft heart and he knew it. Lucius could feel it, too, and he continually told Greyson that mercy was a weakness in such an unfeeling world. In his head, he could understand but in his heart he could not overcome his disgust for killing. After awhile he had crossed out that choice when he thought of Teacher Vivienne. Teacher Elendil had said he could go to them for teaching and help, so if he really wanted to learn how to fight, he would ask Teacher Vivienne to teach him. Walking on, he continued to toss out some occupations while keeping others. Filtering after filtering finally left him with five choices: physician, blacksmith, musician, chef, or painter. He was personally interested in music and cooking after helping out at the church. He would help Sister Lily cook and always listen to Sister Lily play the organ and sing hymns. A physician and blacksmith both were extremely useful skills to have as one could help heal people and the other would mean he could craft items specifically for himself. It would also cost him less money to create his own magic weapon. They would also bring in a large amount of money later for funding. Painting honestly had no real use other than as a hobby or an outlet, but the art itself really attracted him. He was tempted because it did not use magic and he felt that he should keep at least a part of himself normal.
By the time he made it back to his dorm, he decided on three. He would choose blacksmith, musician, and painter! After deciding he felt like rock pressing down on his heart had been removed and felt much more relaxed. He would go back to the building tomorrow and register for those three occupations then he could start attending the cla.s.ses. Feeling excited to learn new things, Greyson could hardly calm down for his meditation.
...
He woke up early the next day and started swiftly walking over to registry building. He was fairly early this time so not many people were in the building. An attendant motioned for him to come over so he walked over to them for help.
"h.e.l.lo, how can I help you?" The man smiled.
"h.e.l.lo, sir, I wish to register for three occupations: blacksmith, musician, and painter. How do I go about the process?"
"Oh, wow, you will have your hands full learning all that at your age. Are you sure you don"t want to pick one or two?"
"Yes, I am sure. I thought about it a lot."
"Okay, well the process is not too hard. First, for the blacksmith registration, you have to show me your academy ID and that you can use the fire element. I will get you registered then and give you an apprentice badge. You would then go to the blacksmith a.s.sociation and begin your training. The other two do not require magic so I can quickly have you registered and give you the pertaining apprentice badges as well. It"s a pretty simple process."
Just a little while later, Greyson walked out of the building with three new badges pinned to the left side of his chest. Following the attendant"s directions, he walked over to the blacksmith a.s.sociation first. He walked over to a rather large red and black building that had the blacksmith crest on the top. After he was through the entrance, he walked to another front desk where this time a young woman spoke to him.
"h.e.l.lo, little one, what are you here for?" She looked over warmly the cute child in front of her.
"I just registered to be a blacksmith and came over after getting my badge." Greyson then indicated at his left chest. The lady then looked at the badge feeling surprised, but she realized he was a student at the Academy from his robe so it made sense. There were a lot of very young students who started training in their occupations early.
"Ahhh... okay! Then I will see if any of our blacksmiths are available to teach an apprentice." She started looking through the list, but her smile slowly faded away. At the end, she could only frown at the boy"s luck.
"Would you maybe want to wait a year?" She suddenly asked.
"Ah? A year? Why, is there no available blacksmiths?" He asked feeling depressed.
"No, no, there is one..."
"Then I"ll learn from him!"
"Ah, that"s... Are you sure? He"s known for being the devil towards his apprentices. Most of them quit and waited for another teacher after only a weeks or so. I think the longest an apprentice has ever lasted was one month."
"Why? Is he a bad blacksmith?"
"No! Actually he is almost as good as the chief. He is the best 3-star blacksmith we have!" Hearing this, Greyson was shocked. The star ranking correlated with the level tool they can forge. 1-star blacksmiths can only forge things for novice level magicians because their tools can only handle that level of mana. Dalia Kingdom was still small in terms of the world, so the kingdom only had one 4-star blacksmith and he was the chief. The next highest would be 3-star and Greyson had read there were only a couple in the kingdom. Knowing his level, Greyson became determined to be his apprentice.
"Then I will be his apprentice! I won"t quit easily!" He said with determination.
"Well... If you"re sure..." The lady looked at him with doubt while shaking her head. How many people had said the same thing but quit? Plus this was a child. He would give up quickly. She finished the paperwork and sent him to his teacher"s workshop in the building. His teacher was on the third floor. Feeling antic.i.p.ation, Greyson walked up the steps to find his new teacher.