Broad River Academy, situated in the outskirt of the Rhubet Kingdom, it was one of the biggest academies of the Kingdom and it was one of the few that almost entirely focused on education tailored towards battle. With its expansive grounds and large funding’s, it had become closer to an autonomous city state than an academy within a kingdom.

Arriving Ashur was surprised at the immense walls that surrounded it, guards and what looked like armed students could be seen walking around almost everywhere.

It had taken him and Gwen close to a fortnight, before they could reach the Academy, on the way she had explained about Broad River Academy.

Broad River Academy prided itself on being one of the Rhubet Kingdoms foremost academies when it came to combat power. Three major forms of education were available at the Academy, the biggest major being the combat major. After that came the clerical major, and the smallest was the magical major.

According to Gwen the three majors could were as following.

The combat major was where people training their vigour could be found. Vigour being the force that gathered in the solar plexus of humans, or the second heart as they called it. The second heart would pump out vigour into their bodies and strengthen them slowly. Most combat professions focused on training their vigour, in fact pretty much everyone trained their vigour since it was something that was occuring naturally as people breath, but some were just better at it and those people could be found at the Academy learning special techniques to grow stronger.

The clerical major trained its students in divine power. Divine power was special in that it was closely connected to the gods. It worked similar to how someone able to use magic had made a connection to their astral spirit, but in the case of divine power, this was a connection made to the gods. Divine power was also different in the way that it depended heavily on how powerful the god one devoted oneself to was and how much favour one was given from said god.

For example, if it was one of the major god, its power could be compared to a large river but if too many streams were made from that river it would grow shallow and the divine power would dry up. This was however an unlikely scenario, since more devout followers would mean more belief to the god which would in turn produce more divine power. The divine power of the stronger gods usually had greater strength compared to the weaker god, and this could create a vicious cycle that could potentially make the weaker gods lose their followers entirely.

Favour in turn worked like a tap for these streams. If the favour was high someone using divine power could grow immensely powerful quickly, while if the favour was low it would be almost impossible to grow strong. This part was often the saving grace for the weaker gods, since a god with many followers would usually be stingier with their favour while a less popular god would throw its favour at the once that followed it.

The last major the magical major, of course was for the ones who held the talent and could thus cultivate their astral soul.

Walking towards the gate Gwen walked ahead and chatted a bit with two guards that came out to meet her.

Peering out from his robe Ashur could see that the two of them was eyeing him suspiciously. He did rather look a bit suspicious standing there in a robe that covered pretty much everything about him.

Gwen had bought it for him a few days back saying that he should try to avoid drawing unwanted attention to himself. While not really sure what this unwanted attention entitled, as it was the first request his servant had ever made of him, he decided on a whim that he should try to reciprocate her for all the help he had received.

After a few minutes, she returned and said that they were cleared to enter.

Heading inside they soon came across seven buildings that were situated close to the gate. Four of them had lines of burly youngsters going all the way till outside the gate, clearly these were for the application to the combat major. Two had some people gathered in lines outside of the building. While the last and smallest one had no one standing in line outside.

Entering it, he could see four people standing in front of a counter waiting their turns. The four of them seemed to be around the age of ten compared to all the people waiting outside whose ages seemed mixed from anywhere of ten to fifteen.

Standing at the back of the line Gwen told him she would have to leave him for a while now. She would have to go to report on her progress.

Waving her off, he noticed that the person in front of him had turned around, it was a small girl that stared at him.

“What do you want?” Ashur asked.

“How come your mom got to come along with you while mine had to leave me by the gate.” She harrumphed at him.

“That wasn’t my mom, that was my… servant.” He flatly replied to this rude girl.

“What!? Your normally not allowed to bring servants along here. Are you super rich or something? Or are you perhaps… royalty!?” She shockingly asked.

“Not really I don’t have any money and neither am I part of the nobility of this kingdom… I am however the future ruler of this entire world!”

“Oh really? Then how come you got to have a servant in here and I don’t? Also, aren’t you a bit small to be thinking of ruling the world? Wait a second… her clothes looked similar to the people in charge of the applications here! Is she working here?”

“Yes, she is a magical combat instructor here.”

“You! Have you been taking me for a fool, you’re calling an instructor here your servant and your spouting some nonsense abou…” Anger flashed across her face and voice as she started to think that Ashur was making fun of her. She was however interrupted mid-sentence by.

“Next.” Someone said from behind the counter and it was the girls turn to walk up.

All she could do was threateningly swing her small fists at Ashur before leaving to conduct the tests.

Shortly after she had left it was his turn, walking up to the counter he was greeted by a short man that hadn’t shaved for days and a short stub had started to emerge.

“Fill out this form then give it back to me” The man demanded.

Luckily for Ashur back when he had absorbed some of the souls from the caravan, he had also gained some of their basic knowledge like the language that they knew, which enabled him to read the form. It did however only ask for things like name, birth, family, status and recommendation.

He could therefore only write his name, age and list Gwen in recommendation. Giving the almost empty form back. The man eyes scrunched up as he read what was written.

“So, you’re that kid Gwen brought along.”

“Yeah that’s me”

“Well just go through that door on your left then you’ll get to do some tests and we’ll see if you get to stay here.”

Giving the man a short nod, Ashur looked to his left and found a wooden door which he walked through. On the other side a room filled with doors on all sides and a middle-aged man with most of his short hair starting to turn white.

He beckoned Ashur to come closer and then pulled out a small vial filled with a light blue liquid.

“Now begins your first test.” The man stated “A simple test, simply hold this vial.”

Before the man had barely time to finish his words, Ashur impatiently snatched the vial from his hand. Holding it in his hands the vial slowly started to change colour from light blue to green, then yellow and it slowly started to turn orange before stopping, at a very light orange almost yellow colour.

“Hmm, on the border between orange and yellow. Your astral soul’s strength is just a bit above the acceptance level.” A hand quickly stretched out and grabbed Ashur’s head. “Your link to your astral soul is above average. Your talent is simply a bit above the average person who has the talent. Nothing that would approve of a scholarship status” The man said as a matter of fact.

“Hmph a simple mortal such as yourself has no right to judge me.” Ashur snapped at the man.

“Ahh, but Gwen stated that you seem to have already started to grasp magic before coming to the academy. Perhaps if you would share a bit of what you know, my opinion of you would rise.” The man seemed to ignore Ashur’s words and simply watched him curiously.

Ashur stared at the man disdainfully, hmmm hmm, I’ll show you. Starting to cast the strongest infernal spell he could muster at his level, corrosive flames. He suddenly remembered that all that would happen was a puff of smoke. How embarrassing would that not be?

Instead he formed three runes together lightning, circle and expansion. A circle of blue lightning quickly formed around Ashur before it expanded like a dome in all direction covering the field of view with lightning. Normally a simple lightning and circle rune would allow him to control the lightnings direction to some degree, but with the addition of the expansion rune it would simply expand everywhere from Ashur with great force for a short distance.

The man became shocked at the lightning that suddenly appeared and even more so as it then seemed to be heading in his direction. Hadn’t Gwen only said that the boy could conjure puffs of smoke? His right hand stretched out and he easily tore an opening for himself through the lightning.

Looking at Ashur with great interest the man gave his evaluation.

“Weak, impractical and too high usage of your mana for this small effect.” He said while continuing in his mind. While all I said was true, I have never seen nor even heard of anything like it, what were those signs in the air before the spell went off? Did he make this himself or did someone teach him, if a nine-year-old child truly made this…then he’d be a genius above geniuses in creating spells.

“Who made this spell, did you do it?”

“Yes! I created this myself.” In a previous incarnation Ashur had created this kind of rune magic for his children as a way to play and make flashy effects. Rune magic had later after his death caught on and become further developed making it much more advanced and in depth. It was much later in another incarnation reintroduced to him in its now further perfected state. Rune magic however never did become more then a kind of magic people wielded on the side.

“You can truly see a childish and immature side to this magic, yes this would barely make you acceptable as a scholarship student.” Can’t let the boy’s arrogance become more inflated then it already is we’ll have to keep him on the ground. But this innovation and his young age, perhaps he will revolutionize the magic we use in the future.

Ashur was fuming at this random peasant’s condescending words, how dare he look down on him. In the future, he would have to truly show his domineering side so as to prevent the mocking words of random passer-by’s. Patience Ashur your still weak and still need to investigate the problem with yourself. Taking deep breaths, he managed to prevent himself from tearing this man limb from limb.

“Now only a small test is left before you can be accepted, use your astral spirit and feel for a door you wish to walk through.”

Looking around all Ashur could see were wooden doors that all looked the same. Connecting to this astral soul directly all the doors changed from the brown wooden colour into a multitude of colours. Red, purple, black, green… there was so many different colours, but somehow, he could feel a certain attraction to a door covered in grey.

Stepping closer towards it a connection with the door could be felt and as he reached it he stretched out his hand and opened the door.

Grey… bit of a shame, but I guess for the kingdom he could become someone greatly helpful. The man mused at Ashur’s choice.