The class had taken up a spot on the expansive training grounds standing around in a circle while Clara started her lecture. Visible in the distance, other freshman classes appeared to be doing the same, spread apart at equal intervals.

"Okay class! Are you ready?" Clara shouted in an excited mood, drawing my attention back before she began with a sudden seriousness. "All of you know the basics of swordsmanship or you wouldn't be here. What you've learned and who you've learned from is different in all of your cases, but here at Ashton you'll all be learning from a standard form. I'm sure you've all heard about the imperial sword arts, maybe you've even witnessed it personally, and yes this is the same sword arts that are taught in the military. All of what you'll learn here is a state secret, the jewel of the empire, the most powerful sword arts developed by the Ashton family over a century ago."

Clara paused for emphasis while everyone hung on her words.

"And yes, I know what you've heard. It's true. These sword arts will put you at the stage of actively using your mana. Turning something that is normally dormant into a valuable asset."

Clara drew her jeweled rapier from the scabbard at her hip, balancing the point in the air as she brought it upright. "Allow me to demonstrate."

She faced towards a training dummy more than two dozen paces away, far enough that it could even be a decent archery target. 

Pointing the sword towards the target, she held still for a moment, drawing in power from the air while her sword hummed to a dull tune. The space around the length of the blade began glowing in a distorted colorless-light as mana physically manifested, moving like a viscous ooze through the air before coiling around the tip like a snake ready to strike.

"Now watch carefully..." She said under her breath, a small drip of sweat visible from her brow as she pushed her concentration to the limit.

*Skreeeee*

The distorted air around her blade snapped forward, making a sound like the lash from a powerful bowstring. The 'arrow' in this case invisible but the effect was clearly there, and less than breath of time passed before the training dummy exploded into a cloud of shredded straw. Struck by some inexplicable force.

"Phew... it's really tiring... but the result is as you can see." Clara panted out, before catching her breath. "Any questions?"

Immediately several hands shot up.

"Teacher Clara, was that magic?" A girl who was with Ella's group asked, from the way they held themselves and acted around the others I could tell they were a clique of well to do noble who were banding together. Several of the other girls with her looked like they were commoners hanging onto the coat-tails of their group's influence.

"Good question, Anna. I'd say yes, but don't let any mages from the towers hear that. Mana can only be activated by utilizing magic circles. Mages normally use these magic circles either by crafting them beforehand with special material, or by speaking in 'arcane' which allows them to the manifest the magic circles through the power of language. We call these types alchemists and arcanists, respectively. As knights you're not going to be expected to have a talent for either of these methods, otherwise why would you be studying here instead of in the towers? And yet as a knight, I can still do what you just saw. Does anyone in the class want to guess why that is?"

"Teacher. You hinted at it earlier, it's the sword art form that's letting you use magic, isn't it? The imperial sword arts are themselves based on magic circles." A haughty blond male student answered with an air of confidence, extremely pleased with himself when Clara nodded to his answer.

Judging from the kid's reaction, I was pretty sure he was infatuated with our teacher, and ever since Clara hugged me this morning he'd been sending me nasty looks every chance he got. 

"Very good Edwin, that's right!" Clara clapped excitedly at the student's answer, causing 'Edwin' to smirk at me as he would a rival-in-love. Why is he even looking at me? I'm not aiming for Clara, I'm just here to learn. I thought with exasperation, trying to pay attention solely to the lesson.

"Like Edwin pointed out, the sword arts you're going to be learning are extremely important. It's the main reason that our empire's knights are so much more powerful than any of the surrounding kingdoms. The movement from these arts are themselves based on magic circles, and the more you train with it, the more your body will adapt to the presence of mana. Your body will begin to change, removing impurities from itself while you continue refining your flesh and blood into the form of a magic circle. It'll be a lot of work, but when you successfully create a circle, you'll definitely know it. Mana will flow through you much easier and your body will feel stronger as a result."

I had always heard of knights being referred to as 'first-circle', or 'second-circle', but to think that those were actual magic circles they were referring to. The more you had the more powerful you were. It seemed like such a simple system for ranking now that I knew what it meant. But if magic was such a central part of the curriculum, I worried it didn't bode well for me.

Raising my own hand, I waited until Clara's eyes met mine, acknowledging that it was okay for me to speak.

"If magic is going to be important for us here at school, why weren't we tested for this during the entrance examination?" Even if it was to my advantage that they didn't, this oversight puzzled me.

"Magic talent is not really that big of a deal for a knight, to begin with... you only---"

"No. I believe the young man has a point." A deep voice cut through our lesson.

You'd wonder who would be so rude to interrupt the teacher in the middle of her lesson, but I recognized the voice; unfortunately. 

William Ashton strode into view, wearing a simple yet elegant training garb. One that exposed his rippling muscles beneath the lightweight cloth, body thrumming with power despite being supposedly past his prime.

"--Ah. Headmaster? It's good to see you!" Clara looked somewhat flustered at first, seeing her boss show up so unexpectedly, but quickly changed to a smile before bowing her head slightly. Showing no disapproval with the man's unexpected arrival.

"Magic is never a useless talent, even if it is a rare one, Ms. Sommer. It's true that magic is not the emphasis of our academy, but those suffering from a lack of magic capacity may find themselves stalled at the lower circles forever. I'm pleased that a student like Mr. Fuzzear here was able to recognize a weakness in our admission standards. Perhaps instituting minimum magic requirements would be a good thing going forward."

I cringed at his words. Even if he phrased it as a compliment, it was obvious to me what he was getting at. Our magic capacity measurements from yesterday were something the school was keeping track of, and from the sound of it the principle probably already knew my talent for it was as abysmal as it could get.

"Um." Ms. Clara interjected, looking at the principle with admiration. The man was a hero after all. "We were just going over the first form for the sword arts, but I'm afraid my attempts all fall short. We would be honored if you could show us a demonstration." She asked with hope in her voice.

"Unfortunately, I must decline." The headmaster shook his head, with a subtle grimace.

"Ms. Sommer. I wanted to give your class an assignment, of sorts. A bit of a joint-training exercise between the freshmen and sophomore student bodies." He said while taking out a scroll from his sleeve and handing it to off to our teacher. "We've had a bit of a goblin problem lately, it would make wonderful training material for the students. If you could have them ready by the mid-year, that would be for the best."

Giving a slight nod in farewell, he left the class in silence. Leaving us only with the knowledge that we would have our first real combat in just six months time before he disappeared off to the next class present on the training grounds.

With his departure, a fire was lit in the bellies of the students. Most had never fought real monsters before, myself included. The threat and the anticipation of danger was pressuring us, pushing us to grow stronger, faster.  

We followed along with Clara's class, all of us focused while she showed us the first form of the imperial sword arts. The movements themselves reminded me of a well choreographed dance, but every movement was extremely technical. The class held training swords, moving in a cheap imitation of what we saw, but it was clear that everything we did fell short of what we were seeing. When Clara moved, every turn of the body had a meaning behind it, her moves looked effortless but there was a hidden force behind it. The movement of mana which followed her like a storm, pressuring us even at this distance.

"You're learning some pretty interesting stuff here." A curious rabbit spoke to me from his invisible perch in the air. Hiding his presence from the rest of the class while he conversed. 

"I suppose a mere mortal like myself has no concept of what a god would find interesting." I said, dismissing his comment off-hand. Somewhat irritated at the distraction. I usually humored him, but right now I was dedicating all of my attention towards absorbing every aspect of Clara's movements as I could. 

Unfazed, the rabbit god continued. 

"This 'art' that you're practicing right now, it was made by a human right? It looks like what the human god used to use, those glowing circles with complicated shapes. I remember she was really into studying those kinds of things. Brings back good times..."

"Magic circles?" My ears perked up. Itchy at the talk of  yet another unbelievable story involving the gods of our world. Eyes still glued to Clara while half listening. 

"I always thought it was a strange way of using magic, but she had no natural talent at all. A god that can't use magic, can you believe it? It's a problem with the humans in general. They're all terrible when it comes to magic."

Hearing his casual and somewhat blasphemous words, I took his words in with a grain of salt. 

"Doesn't all magic need a magic circle?" I was no mage, but that was simply common sense as far as I knew.

"Course not, ever seen an elf use a magic circle before? They wouldn't be caught dead. Only the humans need to do that, and well, beastkin to an extent. Owing to your human side."

"I've never met an elf before, so I wouldn't know." I said while feigning disinterest. This whole conversation was too much of a distraction,  just a second ago I had missed a crucial moment in Clara's movements and I was still mentally kicking myself over it. What I told him wasn't necessarily untrue though, half-elves did exist in the empire but pureblooded ones were practically unheard of. Trilheim was the nearest Elfen country, and it was all the way across the sea.

The rabbit god simply chuckled at my worldly struggles, continuing to observe the rest of the lesson while floating along lazily. Often turning his attention to the female students in our class, he continued commenting as he pleased. 

After our instruction ended around noon, it was self-study for the rest of the day. The school granted a lot of freedom as well as opportunities, but being admitted didn't mean you'd get an unconditional free ride. The school's rigid standards were still applied each year you attended, and if there was no progress you obviously weren't going to be allowed to continue. In order to graduate one needs to attend for four years, but depending on the student's capabilities they were sometimes filtered out. Probably half of the students fell out this way, but even if someone wasn't talented enough to make it through the full education at Ashton, they'd still be more than welcomed in the military. Getting a captain's position or better should be easy enough, even if they couldn't call themselves knights.

I had no such intentions of failing. I'd go through the full education, command a high position as a full-fledged knight, and repay my mother's devotion with my own success.

And having heard the connection between magic circles and the training method I had witnessed today, my destination this afternoon was already decided. There were too many things I didn't know, and I couldn't be content to stay ignorant. There was only one place I could go.