Gestation, John Gold [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

to go to jail for high treason, too?” He goes back to laughing. “Their training program, the way they develop skills, and everything about magic potential are academy secrets, and considered state secrets. You can find information about the academy on the second floor. Everything about the magic arts is up there.”

“I don’t need your secrets! I just want to know what they teach there and what the academy is.”

“Ah, that’s okay. Second floor, east wing, last row. That’s where we have books about the Academy of Magic for the human nations.”

“Why the human nations?”

“You’d have to be a kid like you not to know that, with some hints but no real knowledge. Nobody really likes humans. Dwarves and elves are immortal, and they think of humans as untalented, shortlived, and disjointed. Orcs despise us for being weak. Trolls and orcs both think of us as something between food and the dirt under their feet, while goblins only like us when we’re fried. Kobolds are wild, without a single city—just villages. Anyway, that’s why humans set up the Academy of Magic. The races all protect their knowledge, and here you are just asking about how people study at the academy.”

“It’s so complicated! Does everyone talk in different languages?”

“Yep.”

“Crazy! Will I be able to read the books up there?”

“Yes, human children know our language from the time they’re born.”

It really is complicated. All I wanted to do was read about magic, and now this. How do they write? I decide not to ask. I can just read about it.

“Do mages speak the normal language?”

“Each race has its own language. I’ve heard that mages all use one alphabet—the true mage alphabet. The academy itself is in the capital, so go read and see what you can find. Bernard sometimes hangs around here, and he’s up on the second floor now. You can ask him.”

“Thanks. Do you know where I can learn the animal taming or cartography skills?”

“Those are class skills, so you won’t get them if you become a mage. But I’m not some stranger you can just ask everything. Go in, though first, leave ten gold here.”

“Wow, that’s a lot.”

“The right to use the library costs five gold a month. You get to use it for free, so stop whining.”

Murokami wasn’t lying. The books about the Academy of Magic make up a whole wall, and I read the spines until I find what I’m looking for: A Description of the Academy of Magic for Visitors and Future Students. It isn’t your usual academy. It’s more a library, a training range, and a testing center all at once. Graduates can get the mage class and a specialty, learn class skills, and study the magical arts. There are ten steps to the program, after which you get the rank of apprentice. Then, there’s master, followed by grand master. Each course and test gives you an additional 5% bonus to the damage you do within your specialty. Each new rank adds 12.5%.

Students at the academy have to wear a mage’s ring. For battle mages, tests are a duel with their teacher, first, with a Level 75 teacher who has the same level skill, second, with a Level 100 teacher. For the tenth step, the teacher is all the way up at Level 300. Knowledge tests are harder though: the apprentice test is given by a Level 350 teacher, who’s both a master swordsman and a mage. From what the book says, in all the time the Academy of Magic has been around, only 27 people have reached the rank of grand master in their specialty. There’s nothing about archmages. And why did Bernard say that your specialty gives you a 50% bonus? It’s actually up to 100%. Mages at the third step and higher can work with their own mental body. That’s the focus of half the fourth step, though there isn’t anything about skills. With that in mind, I go off looking for a book about them. I also want to find out what mages learn after the fifth circle, though I can’t find so much as a hint.

Bernard told me a lot last time that isn’t in the books. I have everything stored in the logs, so cutting out the best parts leaves me with what I need to know. “The mental body and the ability to work with it; enchanting; creating artifacts; the path of the sword in magic; assassination methods; working with the astral; magic sieges; a general course on blood magic, ritual magic, demonology, chemerology, malefism, mysticism, necromancy; and part of how to fight them.” At the fair, he said that they teach kids born into mage families from the time they’re born. Let’s just say I’m that kind of kid. Thanks to father, I’ll teach myself.

I walk away from the shelves with a bag full of books—just a few more, and I won’t be able to run. Bernard gave me the most valuable information I have without even knowing it. Now, I have a few reasons to talk with him.

He’s sitting in the same spot as the first time I met him here. Rachel is hovering around in the corner, not able to make up her mind whether to bother him or not. She has already written in chat that she found him, though I was busy reading. Just like last time, he isn’t surprised to see me.

“Get out of here. I’m not going to play your games.”

“Hi, Bernard. I’m actually not here to ask about me; there’s a girl that really wants to become a mage, so maybe–”

“If you leave now, they won’t find your body in a gutter somewhere.” Bernard is in a lousy mood.

“Is there something I can help you with so you’ll help the girl?”

“Hm, a child…” Bernard looks at me closely. “Okay, but you should know that this isn’t exactly legal. I need a book…a forbidden book. It’s in the basement of the main Temple of Teurus, the god of moderation. The author