We all burst into the assembly room and quickly found seats at the back right before the beginning bell rang. Those around us gave us strange looks. 

"Welcome, new students, to Nefar Magic Academy!" A tall vampire man said, using magic to amplify his voice so it filled the entire room. "This is your first year here, so you are unfamiliar with the way things work." The man went on to explain.

Instead of schedules and fixed classes, the classrooms were open during school hours. Any student could go in and would learn or practice whatever that class was about. There were magic classes for each type, both advanced and beginner, alchemy, blacksmithing, gardening, weaving, and, the most popular, sparring.

The sparring class wasn't mandatory, but almost every single student took it. Those who didn't were usually those who couldn't use attacking magic in any form. The class had rankings, and the higher rank you were, the more respect you gained from others.

I couldn't wait. I had honed my magic to perfection and I was sure I would excel in sparring class.

"What are you the most interested in?" I asked my roommates.

"Definitely sparring," Charlotte answered. "And I'm decent at weaving."

"I want to practice my magic," Ava said. "And alchemy. Alchemy is fun."

"I'm decent at alchemy too," Scarlet said. "What about you, Evelyn?"

"Sparring," I said. "That's the best one for me. I'm great at it."

"Well, so am I," Charlotte said.

"Now I'm interested," Scarlet said. "Can we go there now?"

Just then, the vampire man spoke again.

"Thank you for attending this assembly," He said. "Now, you may all explore our campus. The first two days are reserved for you first years to find what you want to do and try everything. After that, you must decide which class you will go to. You do not have to have the same schedule each day, but you must attend at least one class per day."

"Awesome!" Charlotte said. "Let's go!"

"I'm going to go back to our room first," Ava said. "I need a drink. Then I'll find you guys."

"Alright," Scarlet said. She, Charlotte, and I went through the halls along with many other students to find the sparring room.

When we got there, we saw many people already there.

Spread around the absolutely massive room were hundreds of mats. On those mats were students. An area with gray mats had students using weapons and no magic. There were green mats where students were using magic without weapons. There were red mats that seemed to be used for hand-to-hand combat. Lastly, the purple mats seemed to be a combination of all three.

"I want to try the weapons mat," Scarlet said.

"I'm going for magic mat," Charlotte said.

"I am too," I said. Scarlet went over to a teacher and exchanged a few words. We went up to another one who was overseeing one of the green mats.

"Excuse me?" Charlotte asked. "We're first years and we'd like to spar on one of these mats."

"Against each other or random?" The tall foxkin man asked.

"Let's do it against each other!" Charlotte said to me.

"Sure, why not?" I said. We waited for one of the mats to open up and then stepped onto it.

Charlotte spread out all four of her arms, dark energy swirling around her hands. I smiled and concentrated my ice magic around my wings.

This was gonna be fun.