First day at the academy

The sun rose in the sky as a new day started in Ashen village

"Good morning Kes."

Kes stepped out of his room and was greeted by his mother Nora

She had long sand blonde hair and gray bluish eyes.

Her long hair was tied up in a ponytail, which was different from normal, she usually never tied her hair up and just let it flow on her back.

Her clothes also differed from what she normally wore.

Her outfit consisted of a black robe with a white shirt and pants, these clothes were usually not worn because they could get dirty easily. This was a teacher's uniform at the academy.

"I see you are already dressing up for your teaching job mom." Kes said as he looked his mother up and down.

His clothing also differed from what he usually liked to wear.

He was wearing a brown robe with a gray shirt and gray pants.

Nora sighed as she too looked Kes up and down. "It is not really dressing up if it's a uniform is it? You know how much I hate these robes but it is what we decided on for the academy."

"Oh? I think they look pretty cool actually." Kes replied as he spun around trying to get a feel of his new academy uniform.

"I get that the academy as a whole is a concept this village copied from the big cities but I don't think the uniforms were all that necessary. We only have 10 people participating in the class after all." Nora complained

"They are necessary there as a show of prestige, but here it seems like we just copied them just because they had them in the first place. Our uniforms don't even look a bit like theirs, ugh that decrepit old man."

Kes shook his head as he listened to his mother complaining. "The village chief just wants to get along with the times. And as long as the uniforms look good and are practical I don't see the problem."

Nora shook her head. "That right there is exactly the problem. You are enabling him, don't you think we should preserve the culture of this beautiful village and stop copying things out of the big cities? Where did the romanticism of the village go?" 

Nora was a bit of a strange character. She had always been obsessed with the culture of small villages around the world.

This was also why she started her research on villages around the world, eventually settling down with Yosen in Ashen village.

Kes was different, he always heard stories about the big cities from his mother and fantasized about going and potentially moving there when he grew up.

He liked the small changes that happened in his village. Especially the addition of an academy to nurture younger people in learning more about the wide world and becoming proficient Flow users, and thus liked the village chief for being open minded enough to bring changes to the village.

"Talk about uniforms aside, let's hurry up, eat and go to the academy building together." Kes said as he excitedly walked to the table and began eating his usual potato filled breakfast.

After they finished eating they walked out the door together and began walking towards the building which was now being used as the academy.

"Ah, I cannot wait to start learning how to get better at controlling my Flow." Kes said, sounding very excited.

This was rare, Kes usually wasn't that excited about anything.

He didn't really like life in the village, which was why he couldn't wait to start looking for opportunities and excitement in his life when he got older.

But to get anywhere in life he needed to get better at controlling his Flow, which was why he was unusually excited for his start at the academy.

"Don't get too excited about that. Don't forget you have my class first, it is actually much more interesting than that boring Flow control class." Nora said, trying to calm her son down.

"My class is actually a lot more important if you ever want to get anything done outside of the village."

Kes returned a look of disappointment but his excitement did not completely fade. "I know, I know, but I just can't help but get more excited when I think about learning more about Flow. Maybe that's just a thing girls like you can't understand."

Nora raised an eyebrow. "You shouldn't look down on girls like that. Before you know it one might catch you off guard."

Although males were born physically stronger than females it was possible to make up for this difference with Flow.

If a female was more proficient at using their Flow she could become many times stronger than the average male.

A great example of this was Viola, the strongest female on the hunting team. Although she was a female she was still many times stronger than a lot of the males on the hunting team.

"I'll let you know I'm not weak either, on a good day I might even beat your father. It's just that ever since settling down in this village I have not really needed to fight. I was never interested in joining the hunting team but when I was still traveling the world I needed to hunt and fight to survive." Nora scoffed

"Sure, sure." Kes rolled his eyes clearly not believing his mothers boasting.

They soon reached the academy building where Kes saw Nash standing in front of the academy building's doors.

"Hey good morning Kes, oh and good morning miss Nora." Nash greeted them as he saw the two approaching.

"Good morning Nash." The two replied.

The three of them entered the building together and saw almost all the students were already seated.

There were three girls and four boys making for a total of seven students, nine with the inclusion of Kes and Nash.

Nash and Kes quickly took a seat while Nora walked to the front of the class.

Nora scanned the classroom. "I see most of you are already here but let's wait five more minutes for the last one to show up." 

Fifteen minutes later and the last person had still not arrived.

Everyone knew very well who the last person that had not yet shown up was, it was Ade. She was a girl and the granddaughter of the village chief.

Ade had very good looks, making her very popular with the boys. Kes did not really get their obsession with her but he knew Nash was very attracted to Ade and supported his friend in his pursuit.

Aside from her good looks and her being the village chief's granddaughter she was also the most promising female of their age group.

But to think she would show up late on the first day of the academy.

"Well it seems little Ade is late or might not be coming today, so let's get this lesson started." Nora announced to the class.

Nora knew Ade and her grandfather quite well.

Since she was an outsider in the village, but was very knowledgeable, and the chief really liked innovations from the big cities and the rest of the world, she was often asked by him to help explain things or discuss changes to the village.

She would meet Ade here too. She knew this girl was very curious about the outside world and would often ask questions about Nora's travels. So she really did not want to start the lesson without her but decided to do so anyway since she was running way too late.

Nora looked at the class and started explaining. "First and foremost welcome to the academy. Here you will be learning a lot of things, mostly things about the big cities, other countries and how to start to get better at using your Flow."

"The so-called academy is something new within our village, and is an initiative started by me and the village chief. It is a common concept in the bigger cities but usually not something done in smaller villages, especially not a village as small as this one because there are few children in the same age group."

"But we decided it was important to start teaching like this anyway because the old style of letting people either work on the farms or join the hunting team was not working anymore."

"In recent years a lot of villagers have decided to move to the big cities so we decided it would be important to prepare the next generations in case they wanted to do the same thing."

"It also used to be expected for parents to just teach their children how to use and control their Flow which we think weakens the village as a whole. This is why all the children are put together in a single class to learn from one excellent teacher, gain experience from fighting each other and help each other improve."

"You will of course still be allowed to be taught extra techniques or lessons by your parents or learn on your own, just be sure to practice in moderation so you do not overwork yourself."

Nora sighed. "Well with that out of the way, I know you all are looking forward to the Flow class but I will be the one giving the first class. I will be teaching you about the countries of the world, the customs and cultures there, as well as languages spoken for anyone interested."

"The only language you will be required to learn here is Paenese since this is the language that is spoken by most of our continent and in big cities. I also speak Zeocian for anyone interested. I will be teaching this after normal classes are over, just come to me and as long as one of you wants to learn it I will teach it to you."

Nora in fact still knew the basics of a lot of other languages but she figured no one would be interested, none of these languages were particularly important unless they really wanted to travel the entire world in the first place.

If no one was interested she would obviously not teach anything. So she decided on only making Paenese a mandatory class so the children would learn at least one extra language.

This was fortunate for Kes, he already spoke quite a bit of Paenese and Zeocian.

His mother had drilled it into him since he was young, but he was not fluent. So he was still required to take the language class.

After explaining a little more Nora actually began her class.

It was a simple Paenese class. Kes was bored out of his mind he already understood all of it. But near the end of the Paenese class the door suddenly slammed open.

"I am so sorry for coming too late, truly so sorry, on my first day too, oh this is too embarrassing." It was Ade

Her long gray hair flowed along her back, it was a bit disheveled like she had just woken up. Tears seemed to be almost forming in her icy blue eyes.

Her icy blue eyes also were not normal within the Ashen village, no one knew where exactly she got them from. Both of her parents were born in Ashen village after all.

She probably got them from her grandmother, but no one really knew her.

The village chief was quite mysterious, he had one child, a son, but he was born outside the village. And when the chief returned to the village with the child in tow it was without the mother.

The chief did not like to talk about the woman who had given birth to his child. He always ignored questions about her and never talked about her himself.

Nora sighed. "Don't worry about it Ade I will privately explain the important details to you again. Just make sure to not make a habit out of this."

After explaining the important details to Ade too Nora turned to the class. "Alright everyone that was it from me for today. Make sure you visit me after class is over if you want to learn Zoecian or have any questions in general."

At once the whole class got excited.

This was because everyone knew what the next class would be about.

It was the class about Flow!