Magiana Imperial Academy - Volume 1: Path to Greatness

Phillip awoke when the complete blackness of his slumber was penetrated by light, albeit a small one. He opened his eyes, curious about what had happened. Getting a closer look at his bed’s black curtains, he saw a little bit of light passing through. He pulled them back to have much more sunlight meet his eyes. Instinctively, he held up his hands to block it.

“It’s bright today.” He said. “Nice weather for the first day of school, I guess.”

He noticed that the others were still asleep. There was a lump pushing up against the curtains of Miles’s bed. Phillip took his toothbrush, towel, a bottle of shampoo, a bottle of body wash and a bath sponge out of one of his bags. He put them into a small container that his mother had bought him.

Leaving the room, he began walking around the first floor. At the left end of the first floor, he found a door that read ‘Shower Room’. Opening it, he saw Isaiah at one of the sinks, brushing his teeth.

“Ah, good morning, Phillip.” He said.

“Morning, Isaiah.” He said, walking over to the string of showers. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Asleep. They’ve got the day off today.”

Phillip looked back at the upperclassman, a perplexed look on his face. “Really? How come?”

“We can’t just have you first-years start at the school not knowing a thing about it, can we? The prefects are going to be taking you all on a tour of the campus.”

“And the others are just going to do whatever they want?”

“Yeah.” Isaiah strolled over to the door. “I’ll be seeing you later, Phillip.”

Starting with breakfast that day, all of the students had to begin sitting with their houses whenever they ate. Miles and Lloyd sat with Phillip. Trevor was nowhere to be seen. Several times as he ate, Phillip had a feeling that he was being watched. Sure enough, Kylie and her friends were talking about him. He was beginning to worry whether or not this would become a trend.

Just like the night before, the food was incredible. Pancakes, waffles, eggs, sausages, cereal, and just about any other breakfast food one could think of.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!!”

The booming voice was almost instantly identified as that of Professor Arthur Windsor. The loud chatter of the students died down very quickly. The man was standing in the center of the dining hall. Cait Sith was sitting on his head, which he didn’t seem mind. He was surrounded by eight students, all wearing silver prefect badges. Isaiah and Mariana were among them.

“Good, good.” He said, listening to the silence. “Listen here, first-years! Today, your house’s prefects will be bringing you around the school so that you can become a little more familiar with the campus. Tomorrow, classes will officially begin! As for all of you older students, enjoy the day off!” He bowed, forcing Cait Sith to hop off, and sauntered out of the dining hall, which led right to the entrance hall of the school.

“Okay, everyone, let’s get going!” Marianna called.

The twenty first-years in House Sloane followed her and Isaiah. Phillip looked towards the Lychester table to see if he could catch a glimpse of Luna. He noticed her, happily talking with a few of the other girls.

“We’ll be heading right upstairs.” Isaiah said. He pointed towards one of the hallways. “Down there are all of the math classes. And the grammar classes are down the other hall. You can also get to the auditorium from there.”

He led them towards one of the staircases but skipped the second floor. Marianna explained to the others that all of the history and science classes were on the that floor.

“Then is there something of importance on the third floor?” Asked Dominique.

She nodded. “That’s is where all of the magic classes are.”

When they came to the third floor, one of the stairways ended while the other kept going. Like the other floor below it, there were two hallways on either side of the group.

“What’s up here?” Miles asked, approaching the stairs. “More classes?”

Isaiah blocked the stairs. “The headmaster’s office. Unless one of the professors brings you up there, you’re not allowed. Don’t mind it.”

Miles and the others who were interested in the stairs leading to the fourth floor reluctantly walked away. The hallway that they were led into seemed very ordinary. Like the hall they walked down the previous night, doors were on one side and windows on the other. There were paintings between the windows. Some were portraits while others were scenes of serene picnics or epic battles.

Opening one of the doors, Marianna led them all into a class that looked very ordinary, except the desks were arranged into the shape of a semicircle. The center was empty and in the back of the room was a desk. Professor Windsor was sitting there, writing something. Cait Sith had disappeared.

“Ah, greetings!” He left his desk, taking an apple along with him, and walked to the center of the room. “Everyone, this is the Casting Magic classroom. Take note of the large space here in the center.”

He took a few steps back and tossed the apple. In mid air, a ball of fire surrounded the apple, consuming it and causing a small explosion. Some of the students stepped back, alarmed, while others looked impressed. Isaiah and Marianna were unfazed.

“If you ever need to actually cast something, you’d need plenty of space to do it. You’d be a danger to your classmates otherwise. That’s why there’s this large space here, in case anyone was wondering.” Professor Windsor explained. “Some of you will be starting in my class tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Oh, yeah.” Lloyd began. “Some of my friends and I were talking about our schedules during breakfast. The order of our magic classes were all different.”

“And that’s because you’ll be taking them in a different order.” Arthur explained. “Caster Magic, Substance Magic and Potion Brewing are all classes you take for fifty-three days. You take Ritual Magic for twenty-three days, and Mass Casting for thirteen days. The order in which you take them is completely random.”

“Thank you for explaining, Professor Windsor.” Isaiah said. “I’ll be seeing you soon, sir.”

“Good day to you, everyone!” He said, waving.

The next class down was set up in a very similar fashion. Instead of desks, tables were pushed a bit further back and there was a barrier closing off a small portion in the room’s center. Professor Nelson Pyke was in the room. Like Professor Windsor, he was working at his desk.

“Ah, hello, everyone.” He said, a cordial smile on his face. “Welcome to Mass Casting.” He saw that a few of the students looked a tad confused. He laughed. “It would appear that some of you aren’t entirely sure what Mass Casting is. It’s understandable; after all, Mass Casting isn’t as widely used as some other kinds of magic. I would have Isaiah and Marianna help me demonstrate, but it might be dangerous.”

“D-dangerous, sir?” Asked one of the other Sloanes.

“Yes, it can be. Does anyone know why Mass Casting can be a dangerous art?”

Dominique rose her hand, but another person shot their hand up the moment Professor Pyke was done speaking. It was a blonde girl at the front of the crowd with wavy hair and blue eyes. She was the one chosen to answer the question.

“Mass Casting is a way to cast exceptionally powerful spells; much more powerful than the ones a single person can produce. In a room like this, the force of experienced students and a professor working together might cause severe damage.”

“Exactly right!” He proudly said.

A wide, smug smile formed on her lips. “Thank you, professor! I’ve read about Mass Casting in several books before. If proper precautions aren’t made, horrible, horrible things can happen. Once, about a hundred years ago-”

“I don’t mean to cut you off, miss, but I think that yours is a story much more suited for history class if it happened so long ago.” The girl stopped speaking. Some of the people behind her looked annoyed with her complacency, and were grateful to Professor Pyke for stopping her.

“It’d be much safer to have some of you demonstrate, but even though your magic power is much weaker, your lack of coordination can still lead to catastrophic results. We will work on that, however.”

Moving from the second class to the third, they came across another odd class. The desks were in several columns, and half were on one side of the room and the other half on the other side. The lane that went between the two groups was blocked by glass walls. At the desk in the room was Professor Amelia Acre, still wearing her messenger bag.

“Hello there, everyone!” She called.

“Professor Acre is the Substance Magic Professor.” Marianna told them. “That’s why there’s glass blocking the desks. To make sure the magic doesn’t accidentally affect you all.”

“With what I’ll be teaching you this year, it all depends on the throw.” Professor Acre said. “If you were to scatter some of whatever you were using towards your classmates, you could very well hit them with you spell too, and then we’re all in trouble. Who would like a demonstration?”

Everyone raised their hands. Amelia got up from her desk and knocked on the wall. “Just a warning, Nelson, I’m going to be opening a door really quick!”

Reaching into the bag, she took out a wand. With her other hand, she removed small pebbles. She tossed them at the wall and quickly pointed her wand at them.

“Open!” A light shot from the tip of the wand, passing by the pebbles. When it did, the pebbles glowed and the light turned gray. The pebbles clattered on the ground and when the light hit the wall, an arch shaped hole appeared in the wall.

“Close!” She pointed the wand at the spot above the door, and a light shot out at it. When it made contact, the door closed.

“Over the course of the year, we’ll be covering basic spells such as that. We’ll also be covering what is, in many people’s opinion, including mine, the most useful spell you can cast with Substance Magic: the sleeping spell.”

The group broke into excited whispers.

“Hear that?” Miles asked, leaning towards Phillip. “Imagine all of the things we could do if we learned how to put people to sleep! Bring any permanent markers along?”

“Commoners actually draw on each other’s faces?”

“I could come up with more creative things if I had more time.”

“Now, now, everyone!” Professor Acre said, clapping her hands to get their attention. “I know that it seems tempting but you cannot use the spells on your classmates!” She smiled mischievously at them. “At least on school grounds.” She put the wand back into her bag, and even though it was longer than the bag was deep, it went in completely.

“Okay, everyone, let’s keep moving.” Isaiah said. “And even if what Professor Acre was is the truth, I ask that you don’t do anything to your friends at all.”

Once outside, they went back down the hallway and to opposite one. There was another group of classrooms. As they neared the first door, they could hear meowing. Cait Sith had left Professor Windsor, and was sure to be back with Professor Black. There was a very high chance that the class they were about to enter was hers.

Inside there were cauldrons on top of the tables. There were shelves lining the walls with all sorts of things contained in jars. Black was stirring something at a table in the front of the class. It wasn’t her desk she was working at; Cait Sith was sitting on her desk in the back of the room. The kitten was on top of a stack of papers, watching her.

“Why, hello, there, everyone.” She said, not taking her eyes off of the cauldron. “Come in, come in. I’m just about done.”

Following Isaiah and Miranda’s lead, the other twenty took their seats at the tables. Professor Black reached over and took what appeared to be a piece of candy into the cauldron and continue to stir. A minute later, she left it. There was a shelf of cups next to the ingredients. She set one in front of everyone.

“Now, I was just working on a new potion. You’ll see what it’s supposed to do when you drink it.”

“Professor Black mainly teaches you how to make practical potions in your first year. Cleaning solutions, growth potions, meant for things like crops or food, by the way, and healing potions. She gets into some more… interesting things later on. Things you could find useful in the future.”

“Now what’re you doing, being so vague about it, Isaiah?” She brought over another jar. There was a translucent liquid in it. A brush was floating within. She began coating the cauldron in it.

“Wouldn’t want to scare them, professor. Or give them ideas.” He replied. While he didn’t go into specifics, some people grew fearful and other excited.

After thoroughly smearing it, Professor Black picked up the cauldron. Despite being very large and made of metal, she carried it as if it were only a few pounds. She dolloped some of the potion in each of their cups.

The potion was like a rainbow, its myriad of colors swirling. The students picked up the clear glass cups and began drinking the potion.

What Phillip was tasting was one of his favorite things: Spatial Sorbet, named after the famous Cosmo Fruit that’s used to make it.. He wasn’t sure if that’s what the potion was supposed to taste like. He put the cup down, a content smile on his face. Miles slammed his cup on the table, having completely finished his drink.

“Tasted just like the pizza I make with my dad!” He shouted. “Hey, prof, what is this stuff?!”

“Well, the person who made it hasn’t come up with a name. One they liked anyway. As you’ve probably guessed, the thing you taste is a food you like. More often than not, it’s your favorite food. Or drink. It’s a bit more complicated, so we won’t be covering it this year. We’ll get to it eventually though, don’t worry.”

Everyone finished their potions, and prepared to be on their way. Cait Sith meowed as they were at the door, and several of them waved back at the kitten.

Like how there was meowing coming out of Winona’s room, there was blue light coming from underneath the next door. Walking inside, the group was met by a rather odd sight.

There were candles all around the room, glowing with blue flames. The bricks of this room were black, unlike the other rooms. Like the potions classroom, there were shelves of materials. A man wearing black robes was looking through them, a hood covering his head.

“Professor Wilson.” Isaiah said. “We’re not disturbing you, are we?”

“Huh?” He turned and smiled at the group. He was blonde and his eyes were the color of chestnuts. “No, not at all. These are the Sloane first-years? Ah, and it looks like the prince is among them.”

Phillip turned a light shade of pink, having his status be brought up again.

“My name is Gabriel Wilson. I teach Ritual Magic here at M.I.A.”

Like when Professor Pyke told them what he taught, several members of the group shared perplexed looks. Unlike Professor Pyke, he didn’t ask if someone knew what it was.

“Ritual Magic can be quite complicated. That’s why, even though it’s rather obscure like Mass Casting, we spend more time on it. The kind of things reserved for Ritual Magic are things humans are unable to do.”

He looked over at his desk. There were three statuettes of grown men wearing what looked like togas. Two had long beards; one was wielding a trident and the other held a lightning bolt. The final also had a beard, but it was much shorter. He had a devilish grin and was wielding a bident in one hand and the chains connected to the black collar of a three-headed hound in the other.

“The things we use Ritual Magic for are things that should only be possible for the Gods.”

Miles left the group and walked over to the desk. “These are the Big Three, right? Zeus, Hades and Poseidon?” He pointed at each of them as he spoke.

“Yes.” Wilson said with a smile. “Knowing which God is which is very important in this kind of magic.”

“Could we see an example, sir?” Said the blonde girl who answered Professor Pyke.

“An example? I suppose that I could.” He took a piece of blue chalk from the desk and began drawing on one of the tables.

The students left their tour guides and ran over to see what he was doing. He drew a magic circle on the table before putting the chalk back where he took it from.

“Now… what could I take that no one would miss?”

He placed a bag of seeds in the center of the circle and, taking a spoonful of blue dust, sprinkled it around the circumference of the circle. He placed fours candles on the lines of the circle. Using Caster Magic, he lit all of them. He then put his hands together, as if in prayer.

“Demeter, Goddess of the harvest.” He said. “I offer unto you a bundle of pips and ask for return a fruit which holds seed. Open the gate between our world, Magiana, and her sister, Earth!”

The dust formed a small twister around the bag of seeds. A bright light could be seen through the twister, which obstructed their view. When it finally dispersed, a watermelon was where the small bag was.

“Whoa, a watermelon!”

“Hold on, what happened?”

“While we might have watermelon here, they aren’t native to our planet. They are from Earth, a world parallel to ours. They cover it a bit in history, but there’s no real need for the lot of you to concern yourself with the planet’s existence unless you’re curious about it.”

“Professor, could we eat the watermelon?”

Wilson furrowed his brow, taking some time to think. “I have absolutely no idea where this watermelon came from. I imagine it was taken from some farmer’s field so it should be fresh, but you can’t be too careful. How about this, I inspect it and, if it’s fine, I’ll send it to you?”

“That sounds like a good idea, professor, thank you. Let’s move on. We’re heading outside.”

Once outside, some of the boys broke from the group and went to another classroom instead of towards the stairs.

“Hey, what’s this class supposed to be?”

One of them reached out and opened the door. “Whoa!”

At his exclamation, the rest of the group ran over. This room looked very different, even more so than Nelson’s.

There were no tables or desks, just benches. There were several honing rods and whetstones on counters against the wall. There was chalk on the counters as well, and bottles of what looked like oil. There were shelves with arrows and cases of bullets in the room. Several empty clips were piled up next to the cases. Swords, axes, bows, guns, and all sorts of weapons were around the room. Some looked traditional while others seemed mechanized. Everyone stood, their jaws dropped, studying the room.

“What is this room?” Lloyd asked.

“Arm Maintenance and Enchantment classroom.” Isaiah explained casually. “Professor Grove doesn’t like us being here when he’s absent, and you won’t have to worry about this class for a while. You can’t take it until next year at the earliest, but it’s still rare for second-years to get in.”

“Where’s the professor?”

“Professor Grove isn’t in right now. He’ll be back tomorrow.” Marianna informed them. “If you’re lucky, he’ll let you in sometime.”

He and Marianna, with a bit of difficulty, got the astonished young students to move. They descended the stairs and went outside, passing the group from House Lychester on their way.

“Let’s see…” Isaiah looked around.

“There’s the field, ranch and lake left. It’s not that hard a choice to make.” Marianna took the lead, and didn’t stop when her fellow prefect called out for her. She told the others to follow and she brought them to a large track. There were groups of students there, playing football on the grass in the middle of the track and soccer on a field that was next to it. Some were walking around the track, and the rest just sat in the bleachers. There were circular holes that looked like lights surrounding the field.

“This is where you’ll all be having gym. During the colder months, you’ll be having gym in that building over there.” She pointed to a large building near the track and soccer field.

“What’re these for?” Phillip asked, looking at the holes.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” She said. “Some of you might already know, though.”

“You mentioned a ranch, right?” Asked an excited Kylie.

“Yes. The school has a Magical Animal Husbandry class. We need somewhere to keep our animals. It’s this way.”

A short ways away from the field was a ranch. There was a fence to keep the animals contained. There were several small buildings within the enclosure that looked like barns and stables. They seemed deserted.

“Where are the animals?”

Marianna looked around, a frown on her face. “Looks like Professor Greenwald isn’t here yet. Sorry, guys. The professor who is in charge of the class isn’t here at the moment. She lets the animals go back to their home countries for the summer, let them rest after being here for so long and so she can easily check up on them while on her own vacation. If she, and the animals, aren’t back tomorrow, they’ll definitely be back before the end of the week.”

“Well, most of them are gone. I thought that Azure would be here.” Isaiah said.

“Azure?”

“He’s a unicorn. He lives around the school.”

The majority of the girls perked up at the mention of the word unicorn. Some of the boys seemed interested as well.

“Why not go looking for him?”

“He knows the schedule and just comes back when he thinks it best. You’ll see them around; the ranch isn’t that far from the field.” A hand shot up. “Yes?”

“When can we take the Magical Animal Husbandry class?”

“Normally, your third year is your first opportunity to take this class. Now, there’s one final place that we need to show you.”

They led the group to the huge lake next to the school. There were small fish inside of it, rapidly swimming around.

“During the warmer months, the staff cleans the lake and move the fish elsewhere.” Isaiah said. “We can use the lake like a huge swimming pool during that time.”

There was a loud round of cheers and Isaiah held out a hand to quiet them just like the headmaster. “I know you’re excited, but it won’t be for a while. That’s about all we have to show you. Classes begin tomorrow. We’ll take you back to the house and from then you’re free.”

When everyone was following Isaiah and Marianna back to the house, they were talking amongst themselves, very much looking forward to the school year. What their teachers showed them got them excited about the magic lessons they’d be learning. Miles, Lloyd and some of the others were talking about the Arm Maintenance and Enchantment class and the holes around the track. The thought of interacting with creatures like unicorns was just another bonus.

By the time they got back, the other three groups were on their ways back as well. They seemed to shared the same enthusiasm. Even if magic was just a small part of M.I.A’s curriculum, everyone felt that it’d be the most enjoyable by far.