Walking away from the student gathering, Ezra went to Elisa\'s office.

Entering, she looks at him, elbows to the table with a pair of glasses while a pile of parches lay beneath her arms.

"What brings you?"

"I seem to have run into trouble with one of the faculty heads"

She pressed down her glasses giving the \'look\' "Right on the first day?"

"It\'s not what you think"

"Or is it?" She drags a chair from the side to her front. "Come sit"

Sitting, Ezra explained the situation for ten minutes.

Elisa raised a brow. "Why didn\'t you just explain yourself?"

"Didn\'t feel like it"

She stared, then burst into laughter. "Right. How could I forget the arrogance of royal blood? It seems it\'s in you as well"

Ezra shook his head inwardly, he wasn\'t arrogant, just intolerant of pointless stuff.

Another pointless thing was explaining why he was not arrogant. So, he kept his lips shut.

The laughter subsided. Elisa continued. "Alright I\'ll talk to him"

"It\'d be better if you simply told all the professors to avoid a repeat of the situation"

"Hmm?" her face was weird. "Perhaps I might do just that. Anything else?"

"Yes. This should be obvious, but I\'m guessing the academy has rules. Tell me about them"

"Yes…" her voice trailed off and then a fairly sized book fell on the table. "While I enjoy our conversations, I have matters to attend to. For your question, read this" she said, pointing to the book.

Ezra took it, wiping the dust away.

"Ah yes. Before I forget, stretch your finger, the one with the space ring"

Doing as told, he told he put his ring on her own space ring.

Then, something was sent into Ezra\'s space ring. Small blue items the size of rocks.

"What are those?"

"Read the book"

Since Elisa had nicely told him he was overstaying his welcome, Ezra thanked her and exited.

Exiting, it hit him. \'I don\'t know where the library is\'

His mind went to the presence he felt from Elisa\'s at the student gathering.

With it, he was able to estimate her rank.

\'Late master rank\'

She was also master rank, but more powerful than he was, on the cusp of breaking through to grandmaster.

Whether she\'d be able to or whether she\'d fail was up in the air.

Judging that he hadn\'t known her in his past life… \'She must\'ve failed\'

Or something  happened.

Well, it wasn\'t his business.

Thankfully. with the students having flooded the place, asking directions a few times got him to the library.

The library was expansive, plenty of shelves and books arranged neatly.

A quick glance around saw it empty, leaving but the librarian.

He nodded as a sign of greeting and sat, digging into the book Elisa handed to him.

Path academy guide was the name.

He learnt the origin of the academy from miscellaneous information.

For the most part, most rules were as expected, no undeclared fighting, no food in class and many more.

None of these piqued his interest.

What did though, was the value of exchange here.

For one, gold, silver and copper weren\'t used, effectively rendering it useless.

Instead, they used tokens-that\'s what those small blue stones were.

Tokens were assigned monthly, according to crest rank and could be earned by doing missions for the academy, where you would be awarded points, and could swap those points for tokens.

Then, the tokens could be used to buy anything within academy grounds.

Whereas, you couldn\'t buy it with money.

Ezra thought it annoying, but it wasn\'t too much a hassle. He could see why such things were put in place.

With the students being children of high status, giving them free reign to items by leaving the normal money system would spoil many things.

Skimming the rest, most of its contents was what Elisa told them a day before.

Of course, other things were left out.

Path academy had three faculties. Knights, Mages and Shifters.

Under these, lay numerous departments, sub-faculties if you will.

You had departments for Rune studies, Beast studies, Blacksmithing, Metallurgy, Herb studies and Alchemy, Artifact and Enchantment, Elemental affinities, Bloodline studies, Formations, Spell casting and a few more.

Allowing those uninterested in battle a chance of their own.

Without delay, he walked out.

He intended to…when the librarian stopped him.

Ezra blinked in confusion.

"Pay up"

His eyes widened. \'They paid for this too?\'

It seemed it had already begun.

"How much?"

"One point"

Taking one out of his space ring, the number 10 is written atop of which he hands it to him.

The librarian hands him a token of 5 and 2 before bidding him farewell.

He walks, not needing to ask for directions since the classes were labelled.

He arrives at the mage class, strolling in to see students seated in ascending rows.

The teacher was Mrs. Montera.

His appearance stirred up the class, whispers spreading. For one, his stylish uniform drew attention, and then his previous act of ignoring a professor hadn\'t gone unnoticed.

"Oh, it\'s you" as even Montera recognized him.

Ezra didn\'t reply.

"What\'s your name?"

Ezra looked her in the eye. "Do I have to answer that?"

She stared for a few seconds before shaking her head. "No, not necessarily. But it would make you more approachable"

"More approachable?" Ezra almost smiled. "I didn\'t come here to make friends"

"Peculiar" She muttered. Nodding away, "Very well. If you don\'t introduce yourself, do you mind telling us why you\'re here? Your purpose for coming to my class?"

Ezra stared, then sighed. "I\'m looking into mages to improve my mana control"

She nods. "Take a seat"

He footsteps echo to prove the silence.

"I wonder who he is?"

"Yeah. Does anyone know how old he is?"

"Who cares? He\'s so good looking"

"I\'d say fifteen or sixteen. Couldn\'t be more than that"

He could hear their whispers, clear as day.

He sits at the farthest and consequently highest row, with no one by his side.

With that done, Montera began the class, giving the usual welcome before delving into topics.

Ezra got bored in two minutes. The topics she was going on about was on the basics.

Still, he learned a few things. But he didn\'t come here to revise old topics.

Instead of interrupting the class, he simply waited it out.

At the end of it, he goes to her.

"I\'ve already covered the basic topics. How long will it take you to get to the advanced one\'s?"

"Oh…h(huán)mm" she contemplated. "What rank are you?"

"Me?" He was surprised, not flustered. "Expert rank"

"Ah" she was surprised, muttering away. "We already had talks on segregating the Experts. With you, it might happen earlier"

"Follow me"

What would you know, they arrive where Ezra just left, Elisa\'s office.

Only this time, "Wait here" he didn\'t go in.

He looked around, standing for ten minutes.

After that, he left, surmised that they\'d call for him when done.

Walking off, he sees the two other faculty heads walking towards him.

The bald guy huffed to express anger, before they walked past him and into Elisa\'s office.

Heading to the eatery on the first floor.

He finds it expansive-like everything else-the tables were circular, five chairs on each.

But he noticed that the tables had something attached to them with a number on top.

Every table had five numbers.

Ezra shook his head, smiling ruefully. \'They\'re putting in some serious effort to distinct the strong and weak\'

Here too, the ranking was eminent. On that note, Ezra wondered how much the food would differ.

With no student in, Ezra checked out the foods to be served.

A fat and flabby man called. "What are you doing here? It is recess already?"

"I\'m a visiting scholar"

The man stared, before bursting into laughter.

"You? A scholar. Don\'t make me laugh"

"One thing, can I buy these outside?"

Ezra said, pointing to his row of food.

"You are unallowed to leave the academy premises"

"Right" Ezra turned and left.

The guards familiar with him, they let him pass.

He dines in the best restaurant in Guavedra, savouring the taste before heading back to the academy.

Walking to Elisa\'s office, he meets six children, well, teenagers there.

Four boys, six girls.

The sound of his footsteps had all of them turn to him.

One was tall and slim, the others were almost the same height, but also taller than him, the two girls were his height.

They glanced at Ezra then at each other, wondering why the difference in uniform when a boy decided to break the ice.

"Who are you?"

This guy was the shortest, had green hair, yellow eyes and pale skin.

All his features screamed of noble bloodline. One far above the others.

Ezra eyes were calm with his hands in his pocket.

He simply ignored the dude and walk past them to put his back against the wall.

The dude stood, blinking multiple times, trying to register that the fact that\'d he\'d been ignored.

He didn\'t look behind him. But he felt the boys would laughing, and then the girls-who knows what they were thinking.

To battle his fears, he turned to the \'cause \' of the problem.

"Hey, I asked you a question!"

Green aura flared up from him and coagulated into balls on his hand.

\'Does he think he can ignore me just because he\'s a bit handsome?!\' Westin thought.

The others had their expressions wrinkled.

\'Is he really going to attack? This fool\'

\'Well, it\'ll be good to see what he\'s capable of\'

\'But who\'s the other guy?\'

\'He does look a bit handsome…\'

The man spoken to though…was busy cleaning out his nose with the pinky.

"Hmm?" It seemed Ezra only noticed his attack.

Everybody\'s face went blank, Westin froze.

\'This fool\'

A purple haired girl facepalmed. \'It seems his looks have cost him his brain\'

How dumb could you be not to have seen that coming.

Just while they were thinking that, Ezra spoke. "You\'re not actually thinking of fighting without it being an official duel, do you?"

Westin paused. His rage faded like he was poured water.

The others also raised brows. They\'d completely forgotten about that.

\'Dammit\' Westin stood at a crossroads. \'I forgot about that\'

But he couldn\'t retreat here, what would the girls think of him? He\'s become a laughingstock.

Unable to advance nor retreat, Westin tried a third tactic-shamelessness.

"Hmph. Look at this coward, hiding behind rules. I dare to accept to my challenge"

"And I dare you to grow a brain"

Again, silence!

Then… "PFFT!"

His nightmare came to pass, the rest burst into laughter.

One smacked his knee. "Hahaha, Grow a brain! Good one" he gave a thumbs up.

"I\'ve never an insult that fit Westin so perfectly"

"Right?!" said the third.

The girls just giggled all the way.

Red with embarrassment, Westin clenched his fist.

He couldn\'t attack until the other accepted the challenge.

"Yes, laugh all you want. You still don\'t dare accept my challenge"

"I\'m afraid that if I do, your parents will come days later demanding my head" he thought. \'-because you\'d either be dead or crippled\'

"What nonsense?! Do you know who my parents are?"

"Now you\'re becoming more annoying than insects. Look for something better to do"

"Hah, what a coward. Spineless you are. Unable to be a man except with your tongue, I feel sorry for whoever birthed you"

At the last sentence…something changed.

All six felt shivers, Westin staggered back.

They instinctively looked to find the cause.

The nonchalant silver haired boy. Only, the nonchalant attitude was nowhere to be seen.

He didn\'t release aura, but he called forth a presence that they instantly recognized as superior.

Before they could blink, Ezra was standing in front of Westin.

"What did you just say?"

"Hiek!" Westin squealed. Falling on his butt.

What kind of eyes were these, how could someone have such eyes while emanating such killing intent?!

Westin felt like he was insignificant as a speck of dust.

Ezra grabbed his neck. "I asked you a question. What did you say?"

Realizing that his life was in jeopardy, Westin began struggling, trying to pull Ezra\'s arm off his neck.

"I\'m, mmm sorry! Please"

Ezra\'s eyes carved crescents. "You need to be taught a lesson"

Pah!

The first slap was delivered.