36 Academy Life

"Strange, really strange." A voice sounded outside the door of the Alchemy workshop.

As the door slowly opened a face came into view, one that was rather well known in the Academy and the whole of the vampire covenant.

Erebos walked through the workshop and stopped before a small goblet that was lying on the ground.

"And you are?" He spoke with an ancient tone that gave him a lot of authority, if he wasn't known for being one of the more lax masters at the Academy he would surely be feared by many.

"You can actually recognize me?" A small amount of Liquid that was still on the floor started quavering as a voice sounded in everyone's mind that was close enough.

"What a foolish question. Of course I can, who do you think I am?" His voice was booming with authority now, no mortal or vampire could resist him now.

"I think you are a magical being just like me, I can feel it when I "see" you." The voice sounded again, this time Erebos didn't seem so stern, instead he snapped his fingers and what was left of the Liquid vanished from the spot it was on before.

A few kilometer away, a small puddle of Liquid formed in a closed room.

"Where am I?" The Liquid asked in bewilderment, in one moment it was on the floor next to a weird goblet and now it was out here on a desk of some sort.

"You are in my room. Something like you is new in this world, many people will want to test you out. You should remain here as long as you need to grow stronger." Erebos gave the small thing on his desk a pitiful look, he could see that it should be larger but that something tried to consume it but was interrupted. He considered consuming it himself but he was to strong to feel any change even if he tried, he knew the results beforehand. Had it not been consumed by someone before he could probable have tried his luck, in this state however it was practically useless to him. He only saved it so that he could observe this weird little liveform, perhaps he could learn something about its creation if he studied it here.

"Thank you!" The Liquid quavered slightly, almost moving from the spot.

"Don't mention it. I'm sure you are tired, rest some before dawn breaks." Erebos vanished from the spot, reapearing in the Alchemy Workshop from before. He strode towards the window and looked down, on the ground he could still clearly see a cloud of smoke hover in the area. Some streaks of smoke lead off in the distance but he could not see anything by looking that way, clearly someone was using an invisibility spell of some sort to hide himself from his sight.

"We will meet each other again, next time however will be a different experience." Erebos spoke this in a serious voice and clenched his hands so hard that the stonewall of the window started cracking ever so slightly. He was clearly pissed at missing out on such a rare opportunity, and he was sure that he could later find the assailant simply by its magic structure that was bound to have changed due to the strange Liquid.

Farsian on the other hand was running at top speed while under the cover of his invisibility spell. He was damn glad that he had made the right choice back then, to acquire this spell.

When he was running towards where all the other students would be now he suddenly felt something strange, something had changed. Not in a substantial way, but somehow he now had a better grasp about the magic that was all encompassing. He could even feel the magic energy flowing within him.

He came to a stop next to a tree, where he took his time to test this new feeling out. He started concentrating on the air around him and breathing in heavily. He could now clearly feel the energy in his surroundings enter him through his lungs, as soon as he reached his capacity he breathed out slowly. He repeated this cycle a few times and could now even "see" the magical veins of the tree next to him. Like any being in this world magic was flowing through the tree like some sort of invisible blood that circulated the tree a few times before leaving it. Like this magic power was in a constant circulation.

Farsian soon snapped out of it when he remembered that he still hadn't registered himself in the Academy as of yet.

He started going back to the grand hall where all the students had gone to previously to register themselves.

"Farsian! Where have you been?" Joelle asked him as he returned to the rest of the young vampires, many of which had allready left.

"I was... just out catching some air." Farsian said. He decided against telling the truth, that old man was very scary after all... who knew how much he had seen.

"You came back just in time, I was about to send someone to pick you up. You are next in line go in and tell them who you are and what they need to know." Joelle said.

Farsian then went towards the towering double door and opened it just a crack so that he could go through. The door was gargantuan, even just a slight opening was allready enough to let an adult male walk through easely.

When Farsian was inside he got blinded by the light, large chandeliers lighted everything up in brilliant light.

"Welcome young man, what is your name?" A voice sounded from behind a desk.

A vampire sat there, in his hands a newspaper that one could see in any mortal city.

"Farsian."

"Ahh right, it's you isn't it?" The other vampire said as he turned the page in his newspaper.

"You know me?" Farsian said, did they figure out that it was him in the alchemy workshop?

"But ofcourse, your girlfriend told us all about you in your absence." He turned to another page, putting a pair of glasses on.

"Aren't they interesting?" He asked.

"Excuse me?" Farsian was confused, what was the guy talking about?

"I mean the newspapers, the glasses, the humans. We don't really need any of them do we? But they are such a joy to behold." At this the man looked up from the paper for the first time and revealed a blood thirsty smile.

"We could survive without blood, if needed we could even eat the same food as them to survive. But here we are, time and time again we come back to drink. There is a city at the other end of the water, humans thrive there just as we do. The only reason we haven't chased them away is that we still need blood once in a while, why do you think thinks are like that?" The man now looked at Farsian with a cruel smile as if to say something.

"I don't know, I usually drink when I want to. Is that wrong?" Farsian thought about it but still couldn't come to a conclusion. Why did they have the urge to feed of humans?

"Well neither do I know, but you will have to change if you want to stay here. We have rules here, let me tell you the rules.

1) No killing for sport, your victims have to accept you biting them.

2) No drinking on Academy ground, not that you will find any human within the vicinity anyways.

3) Classes are mandatory, we don't pay those stung up teachers for nothing do we?

Well those are the most important ones anyway. If you want to know the rest as well, then read the books." With that the man searched in his pocket and took an item out that looked like some sort of badge.

"Here this is your pass, don't lose it or you will have to pay for a new one." With that he threw a badge on which was inscribeled "Student" in big letters.

"Thank you." Farsian feelt awkward, after he took the badge he hurried away.