‘And what about that cute little fox sleeping on your lap?’ Jihoon enquired, pointing to Azu who was beginning to wake up from her nap.

‘Oh, this is Azu, she’s my familiar… although she serves as more of a living plushie needing endless hugs and love from her master,’ I chuckled, prompting Jihoon to break out into laughter as well.

‘Who. Is. The. Master. Here?!’ Azu glared at me with her crystal-blue eyes, now fully awake, having heard my nearly accurate description of her.

‘Relax, I’m only kidding! You know I don’t mean that…’ I quickly consoled my familiar, as she formed a playful grin and started jumping around the room with renewed vigour before settling for being pampered by Jihoon’s right hand stroking her fur. Although Azu and I had only been connected for two weeks or so, our soul-bond or connection made it seem like we had known each other all our lives. I guess when you can share everything in your head with a simple thought, you naturally grow ‘close’ very quickly. Although to be fair, I wasn’t really able to accurately access Azu’s psyche the way she could access mine. She had chalked this down to my primitive human brain not having the ability to process her ‘pure thoughts’, although I did occasionally get glimpses of her emotions when she thought about her past life, along with being able to easily communicate mentally in the present.

‘Wait, I’m petting the cub of an A-rank white demon fox?!’ Jihoon shot up from the floor he had been sitting on for the past two hours as I explained what my familiar was, or rather, what she wanted everyone to think she was. ‘But you’re a fire elemental, how did you manage to form a mana-link with an A-rank mana creature?! I mean you just said your family was quite… average,’ Jihoon asked, a small look of frustration in his eyes, before he quickly corrected himself, ‘…sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m actually from a pretty average, no rather, less-than-average non-affinate family in Busan so… so I guess I got a bit jealous,’ he replied, apologizing for something he didn’t really need to apologize for.

‘Ah, so that’s why…’ I shared with Azu via our mental link, trying to form a mental explanation for her curiosity at Jihoon’s behavior. It was no wonder he had been so excited after seeing our dorm; if he was from a non-affinate family, and one that hadn’t had any ‘other advantages’ such as my dad’s academic genius, there was little chance of him having lived an easy life so far. I could guess that he had probably studied in public schools all his life, with no private tutoring in mana arts either. He probably didn’t have any well-off friends either, like I had Fang, so our current living situation would probably be the first time he had come across such a high-end interior design. I actually felt incredibly impressed at his natural genius, having become a B-ranked gatekeeper at only twenty years of age with virtually no special background. Worse than anything else however, was the realization that he probably thinks I lied about my modest background, knowing that I was walking around with an A-rank familiar.

As I mentally explained to Azu, summoners were the only mages able to naturally form a mana-link with mana creatures. For other types of mages, if they were to set out to form a mana-link, especially with a B-rank mana creature or higher, the chances of that happening successfully were maybe 0.5% out of a 100%, making it an incredibly expensive risk for non-summoners. This was because to form a mana-link with any mana creature, the mana creature needed to be in a good, healthy condition. But for mana creatures B-rank or higher, capturing one alive and in good health was an incredibly difficult task for even skilled parties of high-level adventurers. 

For this reason, many of the prominent ‘auction houses’ of our kingdom, which dealt with everything ranging from equipment to mana stones to regalia, had also pioneered the business of purchasing mana creatures captured in good health from adventurers, safely and humanely storing them, and selling them to the highest bidder. And as they were so rarely captured, a B-rank mana creature would normally sell for millions of wingtips, while for A-rank mana creatures, bids usually started from a hundred million wingtips and upwards, depending on the type of mana creature.

This wasn’t all. It would be insane for even elite-families to spend that much money on trying to obtain a high-rank familiar for their family members, only to have it die from the strain of an unsuccessful mana-link initiation, since 0.5% was too low a chance of success. For this reason, the world’s strongest summoners, like our S-ranked Chancellor Ashford, charged exorbitant fees from these families to help ‘facilitate’ the mana-link through their natural abilities as summoners. 

Although only S-rank or extremely talented A-rank summoners could facilitate mana-link initiation between a mage and a mana-creature of B-rank or higher, the chances of success for successful mana-link initiation rose to 50%, or sometimes even higher in these cases. So, it was obvious that to Jihoon, me having an A-rank mana creature as my familiar meant that I must have spent at least a hundred million wingtips, and up to the same amount contracting a high-rank summoner, in order to initiate my mana-link. It was something only someone from an elite family could do, a direct contradiction to my previous claims of a ‘normal’ life.

‘Ah, it’s not what you might think Jihoon,’ I replied after the few brief seconds of mental transmission to Azu. Although I would actually prefer if other students assumed, I was from an elite-background, I didn’t want my roommate for the next two years to have the wrong impression of me, especially when he was being so honest with me about his own life. 

‘I actually sneaked into the Serpentine Forest a few weeks ago, I kind of knew a shortcut from my childhood days playing on the eastern outskirts. And I came across Azu by chance, alone and scared, near the edge of the forest. I’m not sure how it happened then, but there was a bright light from Azu’s eyes, and the next thing I knew, I was somehow linked with her. I found out later that she had initiated a mana-link with me herself and somehow, we had both been extremely lucky it had worked. We were told by someone at the Summoner’s Association that it probably worked out because she’s still a cub, although even they were quite shocked. So yeah… that’s the story, although I would appreciate it if you could keep it to yourself,’ I finished my explanation, injecting my narrative with half-truths to make it just enough of a believable miracle.

‘Oh wow, that’s insane! Sorry I was jealous, I mean you are incredibly lucky, but it could all have gone incredibly wrong as well. I’m glad Azu made it out okay,’ he replied, his eyes looking at Azu with a renewed kindness as he stroked her white fur once again.

‘I like this one,’ Azu said, somehow perfectly echoing my sentiments at that moment.

‘I wanted to wait for our third roommate but I suppose we should head to the auditorium for the orientation since there’s only ten minutes left,’ I proposed to Jihoon who seemed to have forgotten all about it.

‘Oh yeah, let’s go… although I have no idea where we have to go haha,’ he replied with a guilty laugh.

‘No worries, the auditorium is in the academic building not too far from here so we’ll get there in time. Just follow me,’ I instructed with a confident smile.

Soon, we had left our dorm building and found ourselves walking on the gravel footpath that led to the academic building, Azu safely nestled on my left should as Jihoon walked on my right side. Although we were increasingly surrounded by first-years as we approached the academic building, Jihoon and I mainly focused on our own conversation rather than to pay attention to the whispers of those around us. We had figured out during our conversation that apart from practical lessons, which differed according to our comtype, most of our theoretical classes in the first year were also different, so we probably wouldn’t run into each other in class often. He also told me about a bonfire tonight on campus for first-years at Walren Lakeside, kind of like an ice-breaking event which I hadn’t known about; this kind of thing seemed more of Jihoon’s cup-of-tea, although I promised to go with him nonetheless.

As we entered the academic building and searched for the auditorium, even I couldn’t help but notice everyone’s eyes on us as we walked around. Jihoon must also have noticed because he finally said with a confident grin, ‘I guess we’re too handsome to not stare at!’ Although I might have agreed with him anywhere else, it was obvious that there was an altogether different reason for everyone’s stares; our uniforms. Similar to most places in the world now, where one’s rank as a mage had a lot to do with the position they enjoyed in society, Ashford Academy was no different, requiring us to literally wear our ranks on our bodies. So, while our uniforms were designed similarly, their colors dictated an unseen order, or hierarchy. 

For instance, E-rank mages had to wear simple white uniforms. On the other hand, D-rank mages swapped their white blazers for yellow blazers, while C-rank mages swapped their yellow blazers for blue blazers. Of course, the most talented of us as determined by rank, B-rank and A-rank mages, had an altogether different colored uniform. For instance, B-rank mages such as Jihoon and myself wore all-black, with maroon blazers, while A-rank mages wore all-black with indigo colored blazers. I had even heard that S-rank students wore all-black, even the blazer, but of course, there hadn’t ever been an S-rank student in the history of the academy from what I was aware of. 

This uniform system was the same regardless of whether a student was a first-year or second-year student; in other words, a first-year C-rank mage was considered higher in hierarchy than a second-year D-rank mage, even in a place like the Korean province where age was considered extremely important.

‘It’s because of our rank…’ I quickly felt the need to correct him, hoping he wouldn’t bring unnecessary attention to us even more than what we were already experiencing. Although I didn’t blame the other students, heck, I would have been in the same position as them if I’d joined as an E-rank elemental. It was true that our ranks after Magiharu were not meant to confine us, but rather to act as stepping stones to higher ranks through the study of mana arts at a magic academy and beyond. 

That was why out of the approximately 5000 students studying at Ashford Academy right now, most of them were E-rank, D-rank and C-rank students who had been offered admission based on their potential to grow as mages. However, because there were only about eighty B-rank and twenty A-rank mages currently at the academy, both years combined, even at this prestigious magic academy where getting an admission was a honor in and of itself, the lower-ranks couldn’t help but be intrigued by the proverbial crème de la crème.

‘I still don’t get what this fuss about colored clothes is about Junie, it’s silly!’ Azu spoke in my head having been eavesdropping on my thought process. To an extent, I could understand where she was coming from. To a mana creature, ranks didn’t mean anything. They simply had to use their keen mana sense to obtain an overall idea of a mages strength by observing the development of their mana channels, mana flow, etc. It was true that there were obviously ‘ranks within ranks’ and that between B-rank and A-rank mages at least, the outcome of a battle depended on various factors in addition to their rank, such as battle experience, proficiency in skills such as martial arts, the element of surprise, etc. But for C-rank and below, even with all these advantages, I imagined it would be quite difficult to surpass the simple raw power of a high-rank mage, afforded to them by their exponentially higher mana capacity and speed of mana flow through their mana channels.

‘Hey! Excuse me! Do you know where the auditorium is?’ I heard Jihoon’s voice addressing someone as I snapped back to reality, directing my gaze to the target of his inquiry.

‘Well… great,’ I mouthed silently as I saw him approach a slightly taller-than-average girl with black hair styled as a cleopatra bob, drawing attention to her piercing golden-brown eyes. Having fair-skin and a slim, toned-body, I could understand why Jihoon may have approached her, if not for the simple fact that she was also wearing a maroon blazer. ‘Azu, were going to be outcasts…’ I conveyed mentally to my familiar, lowering my head as I envisioned the possibility of all the lower-ranked students thinking of Jihoon and I as elitists who only hung out with high-ranks.

‘Yeah, I’m heading there now, we can go together,’ she said with a genuine smile before adding, ‘I’m Yuri by the way… Seong Yuri. It’s nice to meet you.’

‘Likewise! I’m Moon Jihoon, and this is my roommate, Minjun…’ Jihoon responded, looking at me apologetically.

‘Hi, I’m Park Minjun, it’s very nice to meet you!’ I spoke with a bright smile as I stretched my hand out towards Yuri, discretely throwing Jihoon a wink to let him know it wasn’t a big deal that he hadn’t remembered my full name.

‘Umm, yes… hello…’ she spoke almost blushingly as she quickly shook my hand before retracting hers altogether.