Maria- Today it’s your official first day here, this means that, if any of you is already skipping class, I will have to note it. While you’re not forced to be present in every single class, you do have to at least have a full day per week, or the total of classes that you were present, they have to be equal to a full day or more than that. What is a full day you might ask? Roughly 5 hours or five classes. Take notes of this if you want, it does not need to be 5 hours from five different classes. There are some cases in the Academy where a student only has classes from a single class, all throughout the week. This alone made the Academy change its rules a little bit in this regard or in other words, as long as you have 5 hours completed per week, you are good to go. Although I would not recommend such but, you’re more than over legal age, in that sense, you are more than free to choose what you do with your life.
Maria- If before you didn’t take any notes, now, you should do it. What happens if you miss that requirement? For the first time you will get a warning, the second time the same warning and a punishment that can vary a little bit, it will depend on your behaviour inside of the Academy and in some extreme cases, even outside of it.
“The third time you miss this requirement, it does not matter the excuse you will give, the Academy will expel you in that precise moment so, be careful.”
Well, that’s rather extreme. Not really, this is a private Academy, they can make the rules as they want and to be honest, I do agree in this case. If you don’t even bother to do 5 hours per week, what the hell are you even doing here? Her face was quite serious as she said this, a difference from her early nonchalant look and even tone of voice. But it seems that, this will fall deaf in a few of them as they seem a little too occupied talking to their neighbour, on the other hand, Kiana and the other normal students, they do recoil a little bit as they understand the severity of the situation after all, you just need to be sick for a whole week to miss this requirement. This thought does cross Kiana's mind but it seems she’s a little afraid to ask, now that’s odd. Yesterday she easily and without her heart beat increase a single digit, she defeated three C rank monsters and yet, here she is with so much trouble asking a simple question. Oh, silly Kiana, you really do need to work on your social skills. Don’t worry, it seems the goddess of luck is on your side as a student does lift up his hand to ask the teacher a question. He looks rather nerdy to be honest but he sure is taking notes on everything the teacher is saying, that alone I give him my props, he means business.
Nerd Student- Hmm, excuse me! I have a question!
And he sounds like you would expect, not really, I’m sorry, I’m being a little mean now... He does have a lisp that is why I said this. Alright, enough of my jabbering and nonsense.
Maria- Go on, at the very least one of you is interested in what I’m saying.
Nerd Student- What happens if we are sick? We can easily end up missing a whole week if said sickness requires us for such. What are we supposed to do in this case? Is there any way that we cannot get a “strike”?
Maria- That’s a good question, but a simple one to answer. As long as you have some type of acceptable proof of such, you’re good to go. This is also acceptable for other matters after all, a few of you do have busy lives and sometimes, you have to go abroad for a long period of time. However, be aware that abusing this will lead to being immediately expelled. Anything else you want to ask? You do seem to have more questions.
Nerd Student- Ah yes, one more… Not related to this and I’m not sure if I can relate to the first point but, can we create a class specific for us? If so, what do we need for it? Can this class count for us to not get a “strike”?
Maria- Now, that is a good question, I will explain it then. First of all, no, it cannot and it will not be counted for the mandatory presence. Secondly, yes, you can create a class that is “only” for your needs, as long as it’s not something criminal or illegal. However, there is more to this of course, the other important factor that you have to have in mind is that, if the Academy administration thinks that whatever you have proposed is up to their standards or not. After the proposal is accepted you will have a period of time where you will have to find members, ten in this case and a teacher that can teach you and your classmates said subject.
Maria- I’m already seeing the defeated look on your face, it seems whatever you had in mind is long gone by now, but I’m not done yet. For last, your class must acquire some type of results at the end of the year, Academic one in this case, so that it can keep going for the next year and so on. Failed to do so and it might get disbanded however, since the Academy knows that not all years are good years and in the first year is the hardest one, there is a good chance that the Academy won’t do anything. Unless it has been several years in a row that is. These are the factors that you have to have in mind when you are thinking of creating your own class. Understood?
“Yes sensei... Thank you, I will keep this in mind.”
Maria- Good, moving on then, let’s talk about rules now, as these ones are extremely important for your academic journey. The most basic one is to have respect for your fellow classmates, the teachers, janitors and everyone that works here. Failing to do so and you will receive a punishment and depending on how bad you were per say, you might even get expelled. Keep the Academy clean, don’t make too much noise and so on, all the normal civil things you can think of. As you know the Golden Eden Academy has an arena where you can challenge your “foes” to a fair battle. With this you can add some sort of stakes to it, you can bet something, make the loser do something and so on, just be reasonable about it however, as all of you are over the age and some well above it, the Academy will not be responsible if you decide to bet your business away in a fight. Injuries is another topic as while the Academy is not responsible if you break an arm or something of that sort in a battle, the Academy will still provide medical attention if the case arises.
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“If, and I do hope it never happens, if someone is killed in a battle, the Academy will not and I repeat, will not be responsible not only that, the Academy will take all the necessary actions.”
Maria- Anyway I’ve been going for too long now, but please have these in mind… Who am I kidding? You won’t have and you will forget them by tomorrow morning. Since I’ve been at this for a few years now, I know well that you will forget this with time and when it’s most convenient. Here’s a paper with the most important rules written on it.
From her decent sized backpack, she takes out said papers and gives them to each student here. The paper is simple, with both sides written on them, though Kiana should keep that in a safe and in a somewhat close place as it might be important for her in the future.
“Keep that extremely important paper in a safe place, one that you can easily remember of. Don’t lose it, don’t let water fall on it, don’t let the fireplace somehow grab it and burn it, don’t let the dog, cat, chicken neither your brother eat it and whatever joke of an excuse you will come up with.”
Huh, this is a rather odd remark and request to make, I guess? Seriously, just how many times has she gone through something like this? Imagine this scenario, you are the teacher and you assign a project to be completed at the end of the week. The day comes and one of your students has not done said project, when you ask why, he says one of these excuses not only that, he does so with a nonchalant tone of voice and a serious look on his face. I can only imagine what she would feel when that happened.
Maria- Moving on to another topic, what about exams then? Yes, you will have those at the end of each month, however since the Academy promotes independence you can choose what subject you want to have the exam on. You will have two exams, one from my classes for example, while the other one will be related to the class you have chosen, the Personal Class as we call it here, PC in other words. Not PC from personal computer, don’t make that mistake. However, they are also called Special Classes so, keep that in mind in case you end up hearing it. Each 4 months there will be an average of your scores in the exams, in other words, when the term ends and a new one starts. If your grades are below the mark, you fail and therefore immediately expelled. Now listen well and carefully, let’s say that in one of these exams you happen to fail, don’t worry too much about it, or it’s better to say that, don’t overly panic, as long as your average score is above the requirements you won’t be expelled or anything of that sort. Though just like I did with the rules, here’s another paper with all the information needed.
And so, she does the same thing as before, however, instead of being only one paper with both sides written on them, this time there are three papers. The Academy sure is strict but at the same time, it does give the students a nice leeway, after all, you can have a bad day in the exam and have a bad grade because of it. While I understand the need to keep your anxiety, your nerves in check, this however, it’s hard for a lot of people and because of that, an exam ends up being their biggest enemy and from this fact alone I think the Academy should grade the students differently. From the other perspective, how many subjects can you think in this moment that you can show off what you know and how good you are in a practical way? Let’s say that you want to be a historian, how can you show that you know history unless you write it in a paper? The majority of subjects are done in that way, the only exceptions that I can think of is for example Alice's situation. Even Anya research she still needs to have her theory on paper but in her case, she needs both of them. It’s hard to make a system that is good for everyone, but once again, here I was yapping about nothing.
Maria- Another thing, while I did say you had to take 2 exams, that number is the mandatory one, what I mean by this is that, you can take more exams if you want to. It might help out in the long run as everything you accomplish here will be recorded. The more exams you take and if your grades are high or good enough, I think you can see the advantage you will have in the “work world”.
Of course, the more “experience” you have behind you, the easier it will be for you to find a job. Another good thing that she mentioned is the simple fact that you can take more than those two exams, after all, you can grab all the subjects that you are good at and from there, have a good average because of it. Yes, the more exams you do the harder it is to have said good average but the opposite is also true. Now I wonder, what will Kiana choose? Well, time will tell, no point in thinking about it right now.
“This is it; I will reintroduce myself and then, one by one I want the same from all of you. Once this is done, the class will officially start.”
With this, one by one just like she said, the introductions start, but before that, one simple observation. As I briefly mentioned before, the class is not full by any means, while there are at around twenty students, since the place is quite big, it can easily and comfortably fit more than forty students. Either some students are already missing the class or since this is the last room of the building, it could mean that the class didn’t get full as there weren’t enough students. The other observation that I noticed is how and where the students are seated. As I said, Kiana is sitting at the furthest corner all by herself, almost literally, while in the row below her there is a single girl, I would say around her age. The seats next to both of them until the set of stairs, they are empty. The majority of the students are seated next to one another, down in the first and second row and in the middle, while the third and fourth have a few of them here and there but they are in groups. There is a contrast between them, what I mean by this is that, the rich “kids” are all sitting together, the ones lower than those are also sat together in said third and fourth row, mind you the nerd student is in one of them. The “poorest” ones are all alone, in other words, Kiana and the girl in the row below her. Well, as long as they don’t mess with her then it’s fine?
Of course not.
Even if Kiana right now is quite excited and happy at the end of the day humans are extremely social, if this situation keeps up, she might end up feeling lonely. Sigh… from everything that has happened to her I really can’t see her having that many friends if any in her classroom. I would love for her at the very least to be on neutral terms with all of her classmates but something tells me that it won’t be possible. At the end of the day, it’s better for her to be alone than for her to suffer the same bullying that she went through and also Anya.
Ah, it’s the first day and things are already not looking good at all.
Well, as I was doing my usual jabbering, time did its thing and the day went by like anyone can expect. For roughly 5 hours Kiana had classes, although there were some short breaks here and there, the official time ended up being 4 hours, finishing at 13pm, time for lunch. Since this still is the beginning but only for this week, the academic day is over, she has no more classes for the day is what I mean. With this small fact in mind, she decides to have lunch at home rather than at the canteen. It would’ve been better for her to spend some time with her new friends but it seems she still has no clue where the canteen is. That silly girl, anyway, once she was done with lunch, she remembered the fact that she needs to make money, adding a massive need to farm some money, in other words, she goes to the guild.
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