Academy Cafeteria

'Mister Richard' Max repeated the name of his new teacher.

"Today is the first day so I will keep it simple enough for everyone. I am a High-Tier Water Elemental Magician so those of you that awakened the water element will have an advantage over the others in terms of knowledge in the beginning." Richard said as he got up from his seat.

He was holding onto a sheet of paper and while he read it he stopped talking, examining it with his full attention. "From what I am able to see here, there are a few with rare elemental awakening so congratulations to you. Your actions will decide your faith as these elemental awakenings are not rare for no reason."

"Before we begin class I will like to announce one thing. A competition will happen four weeks from now on in which students from the same year will fight each other to prove their strengths. For the ones that have a rare elemental awakening, I recommend holding onto the secret as it will give you a major advantage but for everyone, I recommend working hard until the competition day. The competition is a tournament type, which means the fights will be one on one. The rules are simple and will be going through them some other time, for now, let's start the lesson"

And so he did. Richard began talking about different types of elements and characterizing them, during which some students including Max weren't that attentive. He was already aware of the different types of elements and the way they are characterized as he was told before by lady Eva. From what it seems she told him the general stuff which everyone will mostly remember, Richard was just a little more descriptive about it.

"And this is all for today, as some people weren't that appreciative of my teaching today I have to tell you this. You do this for yourself and not for me. I do this to get paid while you do this to get insight into the world you will soon step in." Richard sounded a bit annoyed but after speaking his mind his face had once again devoided of any emotion.

'It wasn't that I didn't like it, I already knew it.' Max rebelled inside his head, he knew he was one of the people he referred to but wasn't stupid enough to say his thoughts out loud.

"Alright then!" Mark loudly said as he got up from his seat after he saw the teacher walking out of the class. "Let's go eat something" He proposed to Max. They didn't have anything else to do after two hours of lecturing that they just went through. They were free for today and the day just started, giving everyone lots of time to attend to their own things.

"We'll go," Max got up from his seat as well "But first let's pass by the dorms, I want to get my shield" He requested of Mark. They weren't allowed to bring weapons at lectures so they had to leave them at the dorms which left everyone vulnerable and Max wasn't a fan of it.

***

The two boys went to the dorms and they were currently inside Max's room.

"Hey, Max I didn't want to talk about it while others were around but now that we are here..." Mark closed the door and continued. "What element do you have? I got so scared my soul was leaving me when I stepped inside your room that time" Mark laughed awkwardly while recalling the events from a few days ago.

Max turned towards Mark with a surprised expression which made Mark feel uneasy. Max had just equipped his shield on his right hand while Mark was still weaponless. They were inside Max's room as well so if Max got mad and began attacking him it wouldn't end well for him.

Such a reaction from Max made Mark anxious so he continued, explaining his behavior "It's alright if you don't want to tell me, My element is earth. I know it's nothing amazing but after all the talk our teacher did with mutated elements I became interested, that's all" Mark had his hands up by his chest as if trying to say 'I am not going to fight you over it'. His fast reply seemed to work as Max seemed to relax a bit from his tensed up position.

"I really want to keep it hidden, the unknown is always the worst enemy of people and I want to exploit that at it's maximum. After the tournament is over I promise you that I'll tell you personally. Of course, if you didn't figure it out by then."

The sudden question put Max on his guard as he wasn't expecting anything like this coming from Mark. 'So that is why he was so scared that night,' Max wondered for a while why he found Mark in such a frightened state after he disrupted the formers concentration.

"Alright then, let's go" Mark quickly opened the door as he stepped out of the room.

***

They left the dorms and walked towards where the cafeteria was.

The cafeteria was a resting place for a lot of students after their hours as most of them would grab something to eat before doing anything else during the evening. The cafeteria was big, it had two floors which in total could house about 500 people at the same time, excluding the personnel working in the kitchen.

"What are you getting to eat Max?" Mark asked, trying to make conversation. They didn't talk while on the way here and the awkward silence got to him, which is why he finally said something.

"I have no idea what they serve, I'll see about it" Max responded to Mark in a calm voice. It seemed like he doesn't care about what happened a while before.

"I'll treat you to something as an apology, what do you say?" The still-feeling-guilty Mark offered to Max.

"It's alright I am not mad, your question came as a surprise so my reaction was really exaggerated." Max tried to explain to Mark, which led to them finally breaking the awkward atmosphere around them.

"Alright then, I will stop dwelling on this topic." Mark finally let go as he began shoving food on his plate.

It took a while but Max and Mark finally got their food and found a seat in a more separate place of the cafeteria.

"Max you should've grabbed some of this medium-grade meat, it's so tender!" Mark, gorging himself, told Max as he admired the taste of the piece of meat on his plate.

"I'm not made of money like you, for me even what I have brought is pretty expensive," Max said, dissatisfied at the prices of food in the academy.

They had to pay for their own meals at least as otherwise the academy would not be able to function, offering expensive meals to the hundreds of students they have every year would deficit them constantly.

The cafeteria food was at least from Low-Grade Magical Beasts, leaving normal food out of the question. The academy higher-ups thought that removing normal food from the list would be advantageous for the students as it is known that magical beast meat is imbued with magic which could be absorbed by the latter. Though what mattered was the elemental awakening of the individual, if the killed beast was a Low-Grade Earth Elemental one, then it would do nothing for any of the students except for those that have awakened as earth magicians.

This meant that most of the time Max wouldn't be getting anything out of eating any amount of magical beast meat because of his element, which was also rare in nature.

Max grabbed the fork, ready to dig into his food as well but something crashed on their table which brought it all on the floor.

*** A few seconds earlier ***

"Watch where you are walking through, freshman." A guy with bulging muscles and high stature warned the youth in front of him. It was crowded inside the cafeteria but it didn't mean that they didn't have space to go around each other. Someone would have to deliberately push anyone to hit them which just had happened.

"Why are you not getting out of the way peasant?" The shorter guy responded with an imperative voice. "Didn't you see I was going towards my table? Or are you blind?" The guy continued as if trying to mock the former.

"I have seniority, if someone was getting out of the way it should be you" The muscled man stopped walking and looked towards the confident and big-mouthed person in front of him.

"You think that I would step away from a person like you? Do you know who I am?" At the last question, the muscled man's veins could be seen almost popping out but soon his looks were brought back to normal.

"I almost forgot that you don't really understand the hierarchy in this academy," The man walked towards the annoying person in front of him. He stood right next to him, their height difference made it look like there was a hill standing in front of a mountain.

"There is no rank in play here," The muscles that looked defined through the clothing before now looked like they were going to explode the attire of the muscled man but then he grabbed the other by the collar, keeping him in the air. "There is just strength to speak of, got no strength? Then don't bring trouble to yourself" With that, the former threw the latter into the air which landed on the table where Mark and Max stood.

The table broke down as it softened the fall for the individual that landed on it.

The food which Max didn't even begin to eat was already on the ground which, to be honest, enraged Max. He got up from his seat, he paid for that food and the money he spared on it isn't something he could give away daily on just a meal.

"So which one of you is going to pay for my food? I didn't even touch it!" Max looked towards the muscled individual as the other one was unconscious already.

"I'm sorry for that, um... I can treat you a meal this time, it wasn't my intention to bring someone else into this" As the man calmed down he realized that he accidentally annoyed other people because of a loud freshman.

Max walked towards the man "I hope you don't go back on your words". He was not as mad as before but he still warned him, though he didn't know he might not be able to do anything to the individual.

"Don't worry I am not an unreasonable guy, do you mind me asking for your name? I'm Dylan." The individual named Dylan addressed Max. He was able to see that he was also a freshman based on their magic fluctuations but he didn't think Max was a rich person thinking of their status still being effective here, Max just looked mad at the food that was wasted because of the aftermath.

"I'm Max," He responded still feeling a bit annoyed.