Classrooms at Arcadia’s Knight Academy were all very uniform. They were tertiary classrooms, meaning each row of desks, which consisted of three long tables capable of seating three people, was higher than the one before it. There were two sets of stairs in between the three tables, allowing students to ascend to the higher level desks, and there were five rows in all.

“A Sorceress is a woman with the ability to summon Spirits, allowing them to reside within her body in order to utilize that Spirit's power,” the teacher, a nondescript man with a balding head and brown eyes said, lecturing as he stood in front of the class. Like the students, his uniform was reminiscent of a military outfit. It was very utilitarian: black wool pants, a white shirt with red at the hems and a red shoulder cape, black leather boots, and white gloves. “The ability to take a Spirit into themselves is a gift that only females are capable of due to the overabundance of Mana they produce, which is essential for creating life.”

Caspian sat in the top row near the left corner of the room―his favorite place to sit because no one bothered him. He was hardly paying any attention to the lecture their teacher was giving. He'd heard this song and dance many times before. It wasn't like they were being taught anything new. He could probably recite the current lecture being shoved down their throats by heart.

When a Sorceress allowed a Spirit to inhabit their body, they formed a temporary contract with the Spirit in question. This contract was what allowed a Sorceress to use that Spirit's power. These powers were as great as they were varied, and each power depended largely upon the Spirit that was summoned. Different Spirits controlled different aspects of the universe, from elements to fundamental truths that applied to the very concepts of human existence.

A good example would be Apollo, a Spirit who controlled light. Say someone was in a small dungeon. It was dark and they couldn't see. Calling on Apollo would enable them to summon a light to guide them on their way. That was a very basic example, however. Apollo was an elemental Spirit, not a conceptual Spirit, which was a vastly more complex subject matter.

The relationship between Sorceress and Spirit was very much give and take. In return for being able to use a Spirit's power, the Sorceress was drained of the life energy that all women naturally produced. Because it took the energy that went into the process of conceiving life, the Sorceress in question was left sterile. In return for leaving them unable to bear children, Sorceresses were given incredible longevity, due in no small part to the Spirit's vitality mixing with their own. The oldest living Sorceress was over one-thousand years old, and he knew for a fact that she did not look a day over twenty.

Life energy, or Mana as it was often called, was the energy that women produced in order to create life. While the act of creating new life also required a male to involve themselves during procreation, it was the woman's Mana that did most of the work and allowed new life to be born. This was just another reason only women could earn the title of Sorceress, and why women were held in such high regard.

Caspian knew all of this. He'd learned it two years before coming to the academy, which was why he didn't pay attention to the boring old man and his equally dull lecture.

“Can anyone tell me the name of the first woman to claim the title of Sorceress?” the teacher asked. For several long seconds, no one raised their hands. Caspian looked around at the students, all of whom refused to speak, though he didn’t know whether it was from embarrassment or disinterest. He would have scoffed, but he honestly didn't care enough to scoff, or so he kept telling himself.

Eventually, one of the young men stood up. He was a bulky teen, and not in the way the woman who manned the cafeteria was bulky. This particular individual looked like he'd spent his entire life lifting boulders for a living. His uniform looked like it might tear at the seams if he so much as flexed.

“Sylvia de Floresca,” the heavily muscled teen answered. There was a confident, borderline cocky smirk on his face, which Caspian knew was not really anything new. The boy was almost always smirking. He had that “holier than thou” attitude that the nobility loved to flaunt when in the presence of a peasant.

Caspian disliked him all the more for it.

“Correct, Julius. Now, can anyone tell me what she is most well-known for?”

When no one spoke up to answer his question, the teacher looked around at all of the students before spotting Caspian sitting at the top, his chin set on the butt of his left hand as he stared out of the window.

“Sol!” the man snapped, causing everyone to look at him. “Since you don't seem to feel the need to pay attention, you must already know the answer. Why don't you share it with the class.” It wasn't a request.

Sighing, Caspian stood up, ignoring the looks of loathing he received from his classmates. Much like how he was used to receiving a less than warm reception from the staff, he had also grown desensitized to the animosity he garnered from his peers. What did he care if a bunch of inbred idiots despised him? If they wanted to make something of it, they could come at him anytime; he would be more than happy to shove his foot in their asses. Maybe one of them would even leave in humiliation for being beaten by “that peasant boy.”

It wouldn't be the first time such a thing had happened.

“Sylvia de Floresca is best known for ending the Elven Wars exactly seven hundred years ago, when she made a contract with Odin to wipe out an entire section of the Averantasia forest, which, at the time, held the elven stronghold, Meravil. Even to this day, the scars from Odin's attack are still present.”

“That is correct…Sol.” The instructor grimaced, reluctant to admit that Caspian was right, and probably embarrassed that his plan to humiliate him had backfired. “You may sit down.”

Caspian did as told, sitting down and going back to his staring.

By the Spirits he hated class.