Nagisa quickly slit through the gap of his door before closing it and running into the bathroom before changing back into his shirt and hung his blazer into his wardrobe. With a quick flare of his scale, his appearance also turned back into his original form.

After putting his other attire back into his bag and stowing it into a drawer in the bathroom, Nagisa made his way back to his room and threw himself onto his bed. It was already way past midnight and he had to get up early tomorrow for his first lesson, so he had to use all the time he had left to get some rest.

Nagisa woke up by a loud bang coming from outside his room and jumped out of his bed purely out of instinct. His heart was racing like crazy and he could still feel the slight vibration coming from the explosion. Without hesitating, Nagisa rushed out of his room only to see Karma standing in the middle of the living room while balancing different sizes of flames around. After squinting his eyes, Nagisa noticed that some of his flames looked somewhat… liquid.

"Oh hey, morning!" Karma snapped out of his focused state while raising an arm to greet Nagisa completely forgetting that he was still wielding a bunch of flames! A midsized fireball rushed straight towards Nagisa with incredible speed!

"Woah!" Nagisa yelped out of surprise while quickly conjuring some water with his mana and making an ice wall with his Status Control. The flame crashed into it and quickly dissolved, the weird thing was that Nagisa barely felt any heat or impact behind the blast.

"Huh, not bad." Karma watched with a smirk on his face, "Impressive reflexes."

"Did you do that on purpose?" Nagisa frowned slightly, if he purposely controlled the power and concentration behind the flame while wielding at least another dozen of flames at the same time, his mind must have been extremely well trained.

"No way." Karma just shrugged nonchalantly while putting his hand into the pockets of his pants, "Today is your first day huh? Want to go grab something to eat?" Karma suggested.

"I guess… what time is it?" Nagisa grunted before letting out a sigh, "I'll have to get to class on time."

"It's only a few minutes past 6, class doesn't start till 8." Karma answered, "Oh yeah, here.", he said while hurling a package towards Nagisa, "Your uniform has arrived just now, you'll probably want to shower and change.".

"6…thanks… just give me 10 minutes." Nagisa sighed and nodded while walking back to his room. So much for his plan to get as much sleep as possible…

The uniform he got was very different from the silver one he saw on his first day. All he got was a plain blue button up shirt with a black tie and some white trousers. Instead of the blazer with the emblem of the academy, he only got a pin with 2 stars that he could wear on his shirt.

Not that he was complaining, the shirt and trousers were finely made, and they were perfectly sized. It was just that he had really liked the blazer he had seen the day before. The school was also decent enough to provide them with 3 sets of uniforms instead of just 2. After quickly taking a shower, changing into his new uniform and grabbing his refilled pouch, Nagisa hurried downstairs.

While Nagisa was in his room, Karma took his time to change into his own uniform as well. Unlike Nagisa, Karma was wearing a dark red shirt with some black trousers and a black necktie. Judging by the colors, Nagisa could only assume that the shirts were colored with the element that they had. The other thing he had noticed was that Karma's pin had 4 stars! Which meant that he was either a stage 4 mage!

"So, where are we going?" Nagisa asked after hurrying down the stairs.

"Hmm, I'm sticking with the school's canteen. It's close by and they make decent food."

"If you say so, I've never been there so I can't judge." Nagisa simply nodded.

"Sure, just follow me." Karma smirked and started to walk ahead. "Say, you weren't in your room last night, right?".

Nagisa tensed up a little for a second before forcing himself to relax, "Hmm? Why would you say that?"

"I knocked on your door and you didn't answer so I went around towards your balcony." Karma explained while his smirk grew wider, "The door was being kept open by a chair when I got there."

"Ehh, I was just letting some fresh air in." Nagisa gulped silently and tried to explain, no way he was getting expelled on his first day!

"Cut the crap, Shiota, I went up your balcony and you definitely weren't in your room." Karma grinned evilly.

"… Yeah, I was out." Nagisa struggled for a second but admitted begrudgingly.

"And not just out of your room, but out of the academy, right?" Karma was getting more and more interested.

"Yes… are you going to report me?" Nagisa sighed helplessly, there was no way for him to silence Karma. He had nothing to bribe him with and beating him up was definitely not a choice either with him being a stage 4 AND being the principal's nephew. And there's also Karma's skill to account for. Nagisa had never seen Karma in combat but judging from the two little shows that he had seen by now, Karma was definitely not a pushover.

"Naa, I told you to mind your own business so I'm just gonna do the same, it's just that you're a lot more interesting than I have assumed." Karma just grinned and looked towards the sky, "Pretty nice weather today."

- HUH?! He's not gonna do anything? –

"Huh, thanks I guess." Nagisa's eye widened a bit from Karma's reaction, "Oh yeah by the way, about the smokescreen bullet you were working on, have you tried to lower the temperature of the bullet. It looked to me as if the explosion was caused because of an overheat due to your mana."

"Hmm? So you've noticed too?" this time Karma was genuinely surprised, "Yeah, that's the problem alright. But I have no way to keep the temperature in my room low enough. I am merging Smokescreen and Fire Bullet after all."

"Hmm, maybe I can help with that." Nagisa thought for a second before offering.

"How do you plan to do that?" Karma raised an eyebrow and asked.

"Like this." Nagisa grinned while gathering a fist-sized water ball in his palm before instantly turning it into ice with his Status Control. "If it's just your room, I can cool down all the water elements in your room and keep it at minus degrees while you work on your new spell."

"Ha, I'll take you up on that." Karma started to smirk uncontrollably, "If it works I'll let you be there when I test it out.".

"If it works I'll have to be there when you test it out on someone anyway." Nagisa just smiled back.

"Hehehe, you're really a lot more interesting than I thought. Welcome to the dorm Shiota." Karma grinned as they walked into the canteen.

"Just Nagisa is fine." Nagisa answered as he followed Karma into the building when a sudden burst of aroma hit him straight in the face, "Woah! What the heck?"

"I told you the canteen makes decent food." Karma just grinned when he saw Nagisa's face.

"Well… I wouldn't really call it decent if it tastes like it smells." Nagisa gulped slightly.

"How much do you have on you?" Karma asked after a silent snicker.

"Hmm, right now? About 20 Silver coins." Nagisa answered after weighing his pouch, he never takes all his money with him.

"Hmm, the canteen offers 3 different menus, the regular, deluxe and supreme menu. The regular cots 30 copper, the deluxe 5 silver and the supreme 1 gold." Karma explained, "What you're smelling right now is the supreme menu, the deluxe isn't bad either and the regular is, well, actual canteen food.".

"…I think I'll take the regular." Nagisa gulped after hearing the prices, the price gap between the meals was insane, after all, 100 copper coins equaled 1 silver coin and it was the same from silver to gold. Nagisa was by no means poor, from his mission the day before, Nagisa had saved up 10 gold by now, for a normal family that would've been enough money to live for months! But in this school, it was merely worth 10 meals!

Now he was really thankful that he had formed a partnership with Akari, with her aid Nagisa might be able to do more rewarding missions that were too dangerous to do alone, not that she'll ever know that…

"Forget that, it's my treat.", Karma gave Nagisa a slap on the back and walked straight towards the supreme counter.

"Ehh… thanks, but I can't do that.", Nagisa quickly followed and told Karma.

"Seriously, don't bother, it goes on my uncle's tab anyway.", Karma smirked.

"… Isn't that even worse?", Nagisa deadpanned.

"Naa, he doesn't even care, my parents are providing him with the ingredients here to begin with." Karma shrugged nonchalantly, "Oh yeah, forgot to mention, they use magical beasts and plants as ingredients for the supreme menu."

"… No wonder.", Nagisa finally understood why the food was so overpriced. The reason humans and dragons were able to become mages or combatants is because mana and aura naturally exist in the atmosphere in the first place. Becoming a mage or combatant is only a process of being able to control either of them and turning them into their own.

So if humans and dragons were able to do that, naturally there are also animals and plants who accidentally managed to absorb mana or aura from the atmosphere. And poof, magical beasts and plants came into existence.

There were rumors that a high-level magical beast has the same level of intelligence as a human or a dragon, but all the magical beasts Nagisa had met in the mountains in his three years of training were merely ridiculously strong versions of their race or mutated versions that were able to breathe fire and creates windstorms and so on. But if there was one thing Nagisa remembered about them, it had to be that they were absolutely delicious.

Nagisa still remembered the night where he had managed to slay his first magical boar and Kagero had roasted it for dinner.

"Hey, you want pork or chicken?" Karma was already at the end of the line when Nagisa came back from the initial shock.

"Ehh, pork," Nagisa answered subconsciously before he remembered that he was supposed to decline. So, in the end, he just decided that he would let it be.

"Here you go.", it didn't take long, and Karma came back with two huge tablets and handed one to Nagisa. The portions were huge but very balanced, Nagisa's meal had 3 Porkchops, a huge serving of fried potatoes and some stir-fried vegetables at the side. For a normal 13-year-old child this would be way too much food, but for mages or combatants, all this food was needed to keep them going in there training through the day. The menu also included a free drink and any kind of dessert that was available for the day… but there was just one problem for Nagisa.

"Thanks, but ehh… that's what we get for breakfast?!", Nagisa took his tablet from Karma's hand and asked. Don't get him wrong, the menu was great, and the food looked really appetizing, it was just that this was not what Nagisa would see as a typical breakfast.

"Well no, technically this is the lunch menu since the canteen doesn't really serve breakfast. Why do you think there are barely any people here?", Karma shrugged as they just randomly took a seat since most of the tables were completely empty. "Most of the students either eat breakfast at their dorm or get something outside of the academy."

"I see… so why are we here?", Nagisa wondered as he took his first bite. The flavor was just as he had remembered, just a lot of times better! This meal was prepared by professional cooks after all! While Kagero was decent at cooking, he was just doing it as something he had to do to survive. On top of that, he barely had any spices to work with.

"Meh… I don't feel like cooking myself and getting something from outside is too much of a hassle. And well, I don't really understand the concept of why people divide food into breakfast items or lunch and dinner items. As long as it tastes good and has the nutrition's, I don't care.", Karma just shrugged while taking a huge gulp from his bottle.

"Well… you're not wrong.", Nagisa easily accepted Karma's opinion and continued to dig in. Quite frankly, he was pretty much used to eating whatever he could find for any meal. It wasn't like he had had the choice when he was living in the mountains.

The rest of the meal went by with Karma telling Nagisa the concept of his smokescreen bullets and what they would have to be careful of when they were going to make them. By the time they were done, it was already 7:30 and Nagisa decided it was time for him to go to his class.

"Which class are you in?", Karma asked while strolling along with Nagisa.

"Second-grade class C.", Nagisa answered, "But I guess I won't be there for long anymore."

"Hmm? You're about to break through?", Karma smirked and asked, "You just turned 13, right? Not bad at all."

- Heh… if you knew I only started 3 and a half years ago... -

"Yeah, I think in a week or 2.", Nagisa just laughed it off and said, "But I'll still have to go there before that happens."

"Every grade has its own area, they're quite easy to find. I'll be heading back now so have fun.", Karma told Nagisa, shrugged and turned around.

"Wait, don't you have classes?", Nagisa wondered and asked him.

"Technically I do, but they don't really teach me anything and I can't do my experiments there so naa.", was the last thing Karma said before he disappeared from Nagisa's sight.

Nagisa was shocked at first, but after he thought about it for a bit he realized that it made complete sense. Karma was able to fuse different spells together, for that you need a perfect understanding of all the basic spells which are taught in class. So yeah, Karma indeed didn't need to go to class anymore.

Unfortunately, Nagisa was the complete opposite, he had absolutely no knowledge of any spells except Healing Touch. As an almost stage 3 mage, all he could do with his mana was use them for his Unique Skills.

He quickly found the area for the second grade. It was a huge building that was decided into 5 parts. Each part was a single classroom with its own training field. After finding the part that had a huge "C" at the entrance, Nagisa quickly found the position of his classroom.

Rather than a classroom, it was a class-building that was equipped with a classroom, a completely isolated room that was built to resist any kind of impact for demonstrations and practicing new spells, and last but not least, a first aid center in case a student messed up and hurt himself or a classmate.

"Class, we have a new transfer student today.", since Nagisa was a little bit early, it still took a while until classes finally started. It felt a bit odd to be standing in front of a bunch of people roughly about his age. He was around the middle when I came to the age of the students in this class but considering that he only started training a little bit more than 3 years ago and that he was already nearing the next stage, he was doing quite good. "Please introduce yourself."

The teacher was a gentle looking middle-aged man around his 50's wearing a very typical mage robe. An emblem with a light green mana crystal and 5 starts under it was pinned to his right shoulder and showed that he was a stage 5 wind mage. He didn't wear any gloves and there were no scales on his hands, so he was most likely human. There's always the possibility of him using illusion magic or a magical item with similar effects.

"I'm Shiota Nagisa, just turned 13, I'm from the dragon tribes and a water mage. Nice to meet you.", Nagisa introduced himself a bit awkwardly. It has been a while that he's been speaking in front of a large group of people in his real appearance. When he was in his disguise for his work at the branch organization of the dusk, it felt rather easy since no one knew who the other one really was.

"Ehh? A 13-year-old dragon and only just got into the second grade? Guess not all dragons are gifted. Is he even qualified to be in this school?", a kid not wearing the school's uniform but some unnecessary fancy looking clothes blurted out loud which made Nagisa raise his eyebrows a little.

A transfer in the middle of the semester is usually only possible through breakthroughs. So naturally, the students in this class assumed that Nagisa had just reached the second stage with the age of 13, which would be pretty mediocre even among humans.

- Annoying… overconfident… has some kind of pride issue when facing a dragons… -

Was what ran through Nagisa's mind after hearing what the kid had to say. But since he won't be staying in this class for long anyway, Nagisa simply let the comment slide and looked at the teacher asking him to continue.

"Well, hope you'll all get along with Mr Shiota. My name is Leim, just go ahead and sit at any free table please.", the teacher told Nagisa with a confusing respecting tone.

"Ehh, sure. Thank you.", Nagisa answered a bit weirded out by the way the teacher talked to him. What he didn't know was, that this was the standard way of addressing the students in this school.

The students of this school were picked with very high standards, and on top of that, you had to have some kind of recommendation to even be allowed to take the entry test. As a result, only human children of wealthy, or noble families with high potential were allowed to attend this school. On the other side, almost all the children of dragon families that support the Dawn have joined this academy.

"Mr. Leim?" Nagisa suddenly remembered something just when he sat down on a random table, "Can you give me the spells for the rank 2 water spells after class?".

"Huh?... Uhh, of course, just remind me again when classes are over.", Leim seemed a little bit confused since he knew that Nagisa was a stage 2 level 9 mage and not a just-promoted mage like the students assumed.

Nagisa demand only further stabilized the students' assumption and it didn't take long and all the interest in Nagisa has faded. And Nagisa was fine with that, he came here to learn more about magic, the opinion of his classmates didn't really bother him… at least as long as they leave him alone.

And there we go, Nagisa's first lesson in the academy and first decent interaction with Karma. What do you think?

That's actually all I have to say about this chapter :D, tell me what you think about it in the reviews!

And as always, thank you so much for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter! ;)