After deliberation, Emery came to a conclusion and decided to do something instead of just standing here. There must be something he could do.
He went around, putting away the discouraging thoughts, and started shamelessly asking each acolyte, young and old, who was passing around the hall.
"Have you seen Magus Xion? Hi, can you tell me where Magus Zion is?" he kept asking all acolytes his eyes fell upon.
The skinny acolyte, whom he had asked earlier, was standing around. When he noticed what Emery was doing, he walked up to Emery and said in an irritated tone, "You! You are making people uncomfortable, wait quietly or leave!"
Emery frowned, this skinny acolyte was making life hard for him. He was about to say something when a voice sounded from behind him.
"Excuse me, did I hear you were looking for Magus Xion?"
Emery turned away from the skinny acolyte and saw a group of young men and women. The beautiful girl in front with the molten red hair tumbling on her shoulder approached him followed by about half a dozen acolytes.
Emery gave a nod and the girl said, "I see. It looks like you're a second year acolyte. Which class number are you in?"
"Class 77," he replied. The moment he mentioned 77, Emery noticed how some of the people behind her gave a chuckle and a smug look. For some reason, he couldn't help remembering that hateful Rowe. They must be from a higher realm too or probably a higher class, such as the elites.
The beautiful girl however didn't issue any jerkish reactions like those behind her. Instead, she still spoke casually and said to him, "Your uniform is a bit different. Are you a member of any other institutes?"
Emery said, "Yes. I am an apothecary apprentice."
Once he said that, those who had chuckled looked amongst themselves. They were whispering, but Emery couldn't hear them. Afterward, Emery noticed that they started to take him more seriously including the skinny acolyte who had stood by the corner again. It looked like his hard-earned membership with the Apothecary Institute gave some sort of respect.
"I see… well, we're actually heading to see Magus Xion now. He will be conducting a class in a moment. Come with us," said the girl.
Emery then looked back at the skinny acolyte. He was angry at that person because he could have easily told him there would be a class! Why did he have to tell him to wait here.
Anyway, Emery proceeded to follow this group of people. Although he really didn't know where they were heading, moving around to where Magus Xion might be was better than waiting around and wasting time.
The group made their way toward one of the tunnels. They didn't stop, unlike Emery earlier who was checking every time the path divided into more than one path, which showed Emery how familiar they were at the place. Finally, after exiting one extremely long tunnel, they arrived at a huge hall, lit with torches as well, but it had rows of seats, similar to the place Magus Minerva had first spoken to them.
The girl turned to Emery and said, "He's teaching darkness combat spells today. Look, he's over there on the platform."
And true enough, he saw Magus Xion standing in front and preparing himself behind a table. Emery looked around and realized that there were others, a few more dozen acolytes, sitting in the chairs. Searching a bit more, he found a person with the bun style hair, Chumo.
It was the first time Emery had heard there was an actual class. Well, now that he had thought about it, this was a place of learning, so of course there would be classes. It was just that he had never taken any of the academy's classes before; he never had the time. For this one though, Emery figured it would probably be good. He would be able to talk to Magus Xion and learn more about spells.
Emery was about to give his thanks to the girl and go to Chumo when suddenly the girl asked, "You, what's your name?"
"Emery," said after a moment of hesitation.
"Okay, Emery of class 77, I am Annara," the girl with the red molten hair said before leaving.
Again, Emery gave Annara his thanks for showing him where Magus Xion was as well as leading the way. Emery then walked toward Chumo who seemed to have noticed him talking to Annara.
When Emery sat down beside his friend, Chumo mentioned to Emery that the person he had just come with, the girl and the people behind her, were among the top 10 second year acolytes of the Darkness Institute.
Emery was surprised hearing that. He glanced at the girl once more, sitting in the front row before asking Chumo, "What about you? What's your rank within the institute?"
Chumo answered, "I don't really like to show off, but I am in the top 50 amongst the second years."
"That sounds great-"
"Well.. you know the number of second year acolytes who have affinity in darkness are only 50 so…"
A moment of silence ensued between the two as Emery stared at Chumo who was grinning. Emery facepalmed himself at the joke Chumo had just made.
This was a side of Chumo he had never seen before. As it turned out, if there were no girls around, Chumo became the talkative and humorous type. Emery then began to wonder if Chumo was just shy around girls. Still though, Emery hoped Chumo would be able to speak in the future and solve his problem with girls. It would be inconvenient if he couldn't speak like if they were on a mission with Klea around and he wouldn't be able to say what was on his mind.
The noisy classroom became quiet the moment Magus Xion stood up. All eyes were on him and he started his lecture by withdrawing two blades.
He waved it around first and showed them that the weapons were normal, but then he issued a spell without speaking and both blades started emitting a blackish aura waving on the surface of the blade like a black fire.
Magus Xion then explained that these two swords were under the influence of two different powers. One of them was enchantment and the other was infusion.
Enhancement, according to Magus Xion, was a spell built into a weapon or artifact by an enchanter. He raised the sword on his right hand and mentioned it was a tier three weapon enchanted by request of its maker. He explained that this weapon was an enchanted blade due to the writings written on the fuller of the sword. While the second sword, which looked like Emery's sword, was a tier two normal sword that had been infused with the spell [Darkness Infusion] element. Magus Xion was a combat magus that specialised in darkness element.
He then called out one acolyte to try out the strength of one of the weapons.
Magus Xion handed out the acolyte the tier three enchanted sales and the acolyte waved the enchanted tier three sword against a puppet similar to the one seen in the Combat Institute. It almost cut through the puppet's hard body in half. Magus Xion didn't seem to gave an approving nod.
He then handed the acolyte the tier two sword and asked the acolyte to infuse the sword with the darkness element. The sword glowed black and waved it at the puppet as well. But the damage this time was a lot smaller. It was clear that the tier three enchanted weapon gave a much superior result than the one infused by the acolyte.
The higher tier artifact had proved to be more advantageous for the user in its base form. However, Magus Xion took the tier two sword and personally cast his own infusion. Standing before the third wooden puppet, he cleaved it cleanly in half without much effort. This time, the tier two infused sword managed to do a lot more damage than the tier three sword.
He proceeded to explain that the result wasn't due to his battle power being stronger than the acolyte for he restricted that before wielding the blade. So, although the enchantments made the weapon stronger by itself, the spell inside it didn't become stronger overtime unlike the spell [Infusion], which was a basic utility spell always used by a combat magi, the stronger the spirit force of the caster, the better result it would be. The catalyst, which was the weapon of course, was a factor, but the biggest factor would still be the caster of the spell.
Such previously unknown knowledge about a spell was an eye opener for Emery. Emery had always wanted to be a knight this way he could be both a magus and a knight. Next time, he wouldn't worry as much about fighting an opponent with a stronger weapon. As long as he was able to continuously refine his spirit force to higher level, he would eventually come out on top.
The lecture ended on that note. Emery and Chumo then approached Magus Xion so he could collect his promise.