Sam awoke the following morning to find a message in his delivery box. ‘For the attention of Samuel Holdridge. Please attend the reception desk in the administration building to collect the following. 5 X Academy Uniforms, 3 X Under Armour Clothes, 1 X Basic Warrior’s Armour, 1 X Mathematics Textbook, 1 X Finance Textbook, 1 X Culture Textbook, 1 X Keivanian Etiquette Textbook, 3 X Weapons Combat Textbooks, 6 X Magic Textbooks, 3 X Dungeon Diving Textbooks, 1 X Alchemy Textbook, 1 X Enchanting Textbook, 1 X Potion Craft Textbook, 1 X Equestrian Textbook, 18 Blank Lined Notebooks, 1 X Stationary Set, Student Identification Card and your personalized first day guide. Please collect these by the end of the day – Academy Administration.’
Holy frigging crap Sam thought as he finished reading the list. How many textbooks do I need. How will I even carry them all to my classes. There are enough books there to read for the next six years Sam thought as he slumped down into the couch in the living room. It was still too early to head to the administration building to collect everything and he was sure it would take him multiple trips considering everything he was being handed. He couldn’t go down to the dining hall to get breakfast as he hadn’t received his student identification card yet so instead, Sam decided it was time for his first trip into the city to find somewhere to get something to eat. He was running low on money until he received his first allowance payment. He had asked Elizabeth about it before he left the dining hall yesterday and she had said he would normally receive it on the morning of the first day. That meant he had to make his remaining money last him the next four days. Since he could eat at the dining hall once he had collected his student identification card he didn’t think he would have to worry too much about having money. Not to mention it seemed like he wouldn’t need to buy any of his own equipment for the dungeon diving class as it seemed like it was all going to be provided.
Sam was once again filled with excitement as he walked down the road from the Academy gates. When he passed through he had to get a pass from the guards to allow him back inside since he didn’t have his student identification card yet and had given his travel card to the academy administration receptionist but it seemed like this was a regular thing as it only took them a couple of minutes to issue him one and send him on his way into the city.
It wasn’t long before Sam had found somewhere to stop to have breakfast. After wondering the streets following his map he came across a street that seem dedicated to small restaurants and cafés which all had menu’s posted in their windows with what they were currently serving and the cost of each menu item. This was especially useful for Sam as it meant he could decide how much he needed to spend and what he wanted to buy before sitting down and committing to eating somewhere.
Eventually Sam found a small café one shop back from the corner of the street selling a full breakfast for a fairly reasonable price. It was still more than he would have paid for it in Rimour but it seems like the best price he would find around this area. He assumed that it was likely a more expensive area due to its proximity to the Academy as well as the Noble district and the miliary districts. He would likely be able to find something for much cheaper on the other side of the city, but it would have taken him hours to get there and didn’t really want to spend the whole day just trying to find a cheap breakfast.
Sam entered the café and sat down at one of the tables alongside the front windows so he could see out into the street. There was a menu on the table that he picked up and gave another look over. This one had both food and drinks listed on it. Sam turned it over to look at the drinks on offer. It was a fairly standard line up and he decided he would go with an Apple Juice.
It was fairly busy in the café, and it took a couple of minutes before one of the servers was able to tend his table and take his order. Eventually a blond girl maybe 16 or 17 years old dressed in a white buttoned shirt, a black skirt and a red and white checkered apron came over. “Good morning Sir, what can I get for you today” she asked. “I will have a full breakfast with extra bacon and an apple juice please” Sam said. “Full breakfast with extra bacon and an apple juice, got it. Do you want the juice now or do you want it to come out with the breakfast” she asked. “I’ll have it now thank you” Sam replied. “Alright coming right up” the girl said before heading back towards the kitchen.
A couple minutes later another serving girl arrived with his apple juice. It was quite nice and had clearly been freshly squeezed. Sam waited patiently for his breakfast to arrive, watching the people walking by the window to help kill the time. He had noticed that the people in the city tended to walk with slightly straighter backs. It was something he assumed was due to where in the city he was. He had only spent time in the better off areas of the city so far after all. He doubted that those in the residential or industrial districts would act the same way as those here.
After about 10 minutes the first serving girl returned with his breakfast. “Here’s your full breakfast. I see you’ve finished your apple juice. Would you like me to get you another one?” She asked as she placed the plate of hot food in front of him. “Yes, I’ll take another apple juice please” he said as he picked up his knife and fork and dug into the steaming food.
On his way back to the academy Sam made sure to use his identification skills on everything new that he saw. While a lot of the things he saw he knew what they were and had used his skills on them before, there were a lot of variants which counted as something new allowing him to gain more skill experience when using his skills on those items. By the time he reached the academy gates he had managed to gain a level in general identification and a level in item identification. He didn’t bother reading the notifications as he was aware of what they were and was planning to do some more skill practice later and thought he would just look at them all then.
Once Sam had passed through the academy gates he headed straight for the administration building. He wanted to pick everything up before doing anything else as he wanted to make sure he had his student identification card before lunch so he could use the dining hall. When he arrived it seemed like he wasn’t the only one who had the same idea as him as there was a short line leading out the front door of the administration building.
Sam joined the end of the line with a short sigh of acceptance in knowing he was going to be waiting a while. While waiting in the line Sam learned that there were some students who had just arrived at the academy and were going through the same process that he did. He learnt from one second year students that arrivals to the academy start to pick up from this point on which is why the school normally recommends coming a week early so that they have enough time to process everyone before the start of the term.
Apparently it was mostly first years that show up early for school as the returning students already have the same dorm room and only need to fill out a couple of forms when they return. Apparently some students who have to travel long distances to get home actually stay in their dorm rooms during breaks. This however made sense to Sam as it had taken him nearly four weeks to travel to the academy from his village and with the length of the break it would only give him two weeks back at home before he would have to travel back again. And that was assuming the travel times were the same and there weren’t delays during travel getting back.
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Sam wasn’t sure if he would be going home at the end of the school year. He knew he wouldn’t be going during any of the end of term breaks but even the break between years wasn’t really long enough for the amount of time it takes him to travel home. Sam pushed the thoughts aside as it wasn’t something he had to worry about for a while yet refocusing on the line in front of him. He had finally made it through the font door and there were only four people left in front of him.
When Sam finally made it to the reception desk he was greeted by the same receptionist he had seen on his first day. “Good morning deary, Samuel wasn’t it; how may I help you today?” she said. “Yes, Samuel that’s correct. I received a notice that my textbooks, uniforms and student identification card are all ready to be collected” Sam replied. “I see, let me go out back and fetch them for you” she said as she got up and headed through the door behind the counter. Sam wondered how she would manage to carry all of the items as it was a lot of stuff. It wasn’t long however before he had his answer.
Julia returned to the reception desk carrying two bags. One was black with a white picture of the school crest on it with Sam’s name “Samuel Holdridge” written below it. The second bag was white with the school crest in black but had nothing written on it. “This here is your bag with your uniforms in it. Please be sure to place this back in your delivery box once you have emptied it. This one here however is yours to keep. These bags are enchanted with storage magic so that you can carry everything you need in the one bag. I’m sure you’ll pick up your own storage skill further down the line, but we provide a storage bag like this one for all students so that they don’t have to make multiple trips back to their dorm room to collect their books after every class” she explained. “I see, that’s really handy” he replied. “Handy indeed. Now here is your student identification card” Julia said as she placed it into a slot underneath some sort of glass orb she pulled out from under the desk and place in front of Sam. “Now place your hand on the orb here and push some of your mana into it. This will then link the student identification card to you” She explained as she motioned for Sam to place his hand on the orb.
Sam placed his hand on the glass orb and released a bit of mana into it. Once he released the mana he felt the orb pull on it a bit before it stopped and gave a short flash of white light. Sam removed his hand from the orb and Julia removed the card from the slot under the orb and place it on the desk in front of him. “Here is you student identification card. Make sure you don’t lose it as issuing another can be quite the pain especially if you have linked other magic cards to it” she said.
Sam remembered what Elizabeth had said about being able to link your student identification card to your adventurers and divers guild cards and nodded in acknowledgment. “Alright, off you go then. There are plenty of others waiting behind you” she said as she gave Sam a friendly smile. Sam looked back at the line behind him and noticed it had gotten longer than it was when he had joined it. “Thank you for you help” Sam said as he gave a short nod of his head in thanks and headed back towards the dorms the two bags in hand.
When Sam arrived back in his dorm room he placed the two bags down on the living room table and took out his student identification card to take a better look at it. The card was a bright white with blue lettering. At the top of the card ‘Keivanian Royal Academy’ was written in bold lettering. On the left side of the card was the academy crests. On the right side of the card there was Sam’s name followed by his age and general level. At the bottom of the card, it had the school year he was in which was first year followed by a green stripe along the bottom. Sam turned the card around and looked at the back. On the back of the card there was more writing however this time it made less sense. There were 4 things written on the back of the cards in bold letters with a line underneath it. The first one from the left side was Linked Cards then Classes, Test Results and finally Friends.
It was weird how these ones were written and Sam tapped on the one that said classes with his index finger and suddenly a system projection appeared in front of him. The projection listed all of his chosen classes as well as having a grade collum that said N/A which he assumed was because he hadn’t actually taken any of his classes yet. Sam closed the system projection and clicked on all the other options. Each of them opened a different system projection window. It seemed like the student identification card did more than he originally thought. Sam hoped that there would be some actual information of the functions on the card sometime soon as he was curious as to if that was it or whether there were other hidden functions.
Once Sam had finished looking over his student ID card he picked up the white bag and placed it on the table in front of him before sitting down on the couch. This was the bag that had his uniforms, under armour and armour in it. Sam cleared the other items off of the table in front of him and lay the bag down on its side. Sam peered into the bag but could only see darkness. He wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to access the items in the bag and decided to put his hand into the dark void and see what happened.
When Sam put his hand into the dark void a system menu popped up in front of him with the contents of the bag listed. Sam mentally selected a uniform shirt, and it appeared in his hand. Sam pulled his hand out of the bag and sure enough the shirt was in his hand. Sam spread the shirt out and had a look at it. It was a white collared buttoned short with green things on the shoulders. He wasn’t sure what you would call them, but they were about 5 centimeters long and were green. Upon closer inspection it looked like you could remove them from the shirt. Sam folded the shirt back up and placed it on the table in front of him before he plunged his hand into the bag again and began to pull out all its contents.
Sam had removed all the uniforms from the bag as well as the black under armour which was a long-sleeved pull-on shirt and trousers made from a thick but stretchy fabric. It had loops sown into the fabric which looked to be places for the armour to be tied to to help hold it in place. Sam moved the uniforms and under armour onto the sofa across from him and stuck his hand back into the bag. Next Sam took the armour out of the bag. First there was a chainmail shirt which looked like it also covered his upper legs as well. He placed it onto the table in a heap as he wasn’t quite sure how to fold it. Next he pulled out a chest and back piece that looked to go over his head and cover his chest and upper back. Next there was what the system menu called a stomach plate which he assumed would hook onto the chainmail or under armour and cover his stomach. Next there was another plate similar to the stomach plate however this one was made from some type of leather and was slightly flexible. Sam continued pulling different plates out of the bag until it was empty. It seemed like it would be a pain to put this armour on. The armour he had seen the soldiers and adventurers wear all looked like they were larger pieces of armour rather than plates attached to chain mail. After a brief contemplation Sam had concluded that those were likely made custom for the person wearing it and were a lot more expensive whereas the armour the academy had given him was a more one size fits all kind of thing.
Once Sam had emptied the white bag out completely he got up off the sofa and placed it into the metal delivery box as requested by Julia and sat back down on the sofa to look over all of the items in front of him. It looked like he had a uniform for each day of the week but no spares. He guessed that if he needed a replacement he just had to put in a request for one. He also wondered since he had received armour if the academy would also provide weapons to them for the weapons combat classes or whether they would need to bring their own. Sam had his sword and dagger but that was it. Hopefully they at least have loners Sam thought as he got back up off of the sofa and began putting the clothes away in the large walk-in wardrobe in his bedroom.
Once Sam had put everything away he took a quick peek into the bag with his name on it. As listed on the notice he had received earlier in the morning it listed the numerous textbooks and notebooks that he had for his lessons. It was a pretty spacious bag considering everything stored inside of it Sam thought as he placed it down by his bedside table. He had decided that he would spend some of tomorrow looking at some of the textbooks he had been given. It wouldn’t hurt to familiarize himself with some of the material before he started class after all he thought as he left his dorm room and headed towards the dining hall.
