Chapter 168

Ajax took five steps towards the classroom before he realized that the ring on his finger didn’t have anything to write with or anything to write on. He quickly popped into his office and shoved two pencils, a sharpener and a small notebook into the ring before he headed towards the classroom.

Looking at the other students that were messing around in the hall, Ajax noticed a few distinctions between his uniform and the one that the students who decided to wear one had. Unlike theirs his had a star surrounding the academy’s emblem that adored the pocket on the chest of the uniform.

While that was the first thing he focused on the second was the weapons they all carried. The quality of the weapons was superb, more so from the ones that weren’t wearing the school's uniform and instead they wore their own fancy clothes with a school emblem pinned somewhere on their chest. In terms of ability the swords seemed to match the same level as his own blade that he took from one of the recruiters but theirs were obviously lighter and usable by level twenty-threes.

For the wands and staffs he didn’t have a point of reference however the amount of jewels adorning some of them and the mana he could feel in them made it clear that they were even more valuable. Surprisingly however, of the ten students in the hall only one of them carried a ring that felt similar to the one professor Silvertongue gifted him and the wearer looked a bit younger than everyone else.

“Who are you?” one of the students who didn’t have a uniform on asked him as Ajax approached the entry to the classroom.

“I’m a teaching assistant assigned to this class.” Ajax said with as humble of a voice as he could manage. Despite having a better opinion of the nobles in the capital after the last few days he definitely didn’t want to be picking a fight. He directly gave his answer and entered the class heading straight for one of the desks on the side of the room.

Inside the class there were fifteen more students, this would make the class total twenty-five, well twenty-six if he counted himself as he would always be a tag along for them. In total only ten of the twenty-five were wearing their uniforms. He had been told that on the first days only the children of barons, marquis and commoners would be wearing a uniform as the dukes would be looking to represent their houses but that number should increase as the less well off ducal houses would be in uniform outside of special events.

The first thing that arrested his attention was the staff Annabeth had lying against her desk, the crown was formed by five smaller gems surrounding a bigger one. The smaller gems were about the same size as the ones other students had as their main gem, as for the bigger one Ajax could fire mana inside it.

The second object to catch his attention was a sword left unattended on top of a desk in the back. The handle presented two medium size gems in cross guard as well as one in the pommel, judging it by how the formations felt he could tell that the two gems on the sides were used to power an Enchantment while the last one was for a runic magic formation. Whoever it belonged to was clearly a spell wielding melee fighter like himself.

As Ajax was setting up his desk he and the other students were measuring each other. Looking at the spread it seems that there were three clicks forming in the class. The first was formed by the ten students outside, the second was gathered around Annabeth and the third was a group of nine sitting at their desks, with everything prepared waiting for the teacher.  As he was looking out over the class he realized that one person he was expecting wasn’t here.

“Ajax, you finally made it.” Lexi greeted him from the doorway as she made her way towards him with her usually bubbly personality. “I was wondering if you were going to be late on the first day.”

Lexi’s entrance shattered the standoffish atmosphere. While the students sitting at their desks turned back to talking to each other and only occasionally giving him a glance, the ones that were surrounding Annabeth were giving him friendly smiles. It took Ajax a few moments to catch up to what happened. Lexi was clearly part of Annabeth’s group and with her greeting Ajax like that it all but marked him as one of theirs.

“Ajax, was it?” one of the boys that were grouping around Annabeth’s desk approached him. “Those desks are for teaching assistants, why don’t you take this one?” he said as he pointed towards one of the free desks on what he realized was Annabeth's side of the room.

Ajax was quickly putting together what the social situation was going to be inside the classroom. The class had already split into three according to the powerful houses that had a member in this class. Annabeth was Archduke Goldmancer’s daughter and the boy in the middle of those seated promptly displayed the sigil of Archduke Steelblade which meant that the boy wearing outside in the hall was prince.

“Oh no, Ajax is really a teaching assistant.” Lexi answered for him once she noticed that Ajax was thinking about something else.

Ajax politely nodded back to her after her answer brought him back from his own thoughts.

“What? But he looks young enough to be part of the class, let alone a teaching assistant.” the boy exclaimed. Some of the people here were around the limit of twenty-one years old as their families kept them from enrolling so they would join the class with a member of the core archducal houses.

His exclamation was heard by all despite not being very loud as all the students outside were entering the class and heading towards the back of the room. Nobody however had a chance to ask the questions obviously floating in their minds as professor Silvertongue followed the last student into the room.

“Everyone find your seats.” he said as he strode towards the main desk in front of the class. “As I hope you all remember from two nights ago I am professor Silvertongue and I will be your homeroom teacher for the next six years. Any questions before we begin?”

“Yes, sir.” the same boy who questioned Ajax in the hall stood up. “Who is he?” he asked, pointing at Ajax.

“Please stand up Ajax.” the professor addressed him before turning back to the class. “This is Ajax. Due to a few special circumstances Ajax here was assigned as a teaching assistant to your class specifically and will be joining you for the next six years.”

“If I may, sir.” One of the boys who had been seated at his desk before Abbot came raised his hand and waited.

“Go on,” Professor Silvertongue prompted.

“I was under the impression that the Academy didn’t bend over special circumstances.” A few in the class snickered at his statement but were quickly cut off by a sharp glare from Abbot Silvertongue.

“That is usually the case but your class as a whole is somewhat special.” Abbot said.

“How so?” the boy pushed. “And what makes him so sp-?” The boy cut himself off when the member of house Steelblade frowned at him.

“How so? Well first of all your class has twenty-six students where they normally average around sixteen.” Professor Silvertongue started. “Secondly, I am your homeroom teacher despite this being my first year teaching at the Academy. And lastly, His Highness joined the class roster three days ago despite normal registration limits. While under most circumstances the Academy is removed from politics it isn’t fully insulated.”

“As for young Ajax here.” the professor nodded to him. “His situation is special due to a different reason. Ajax is a special case of the likes of which the academy hasn’t had to deal with before and this was the best possible solution.”

Ajax felt four people in the class try to use an identification skill on him at that. Since he hadn’t set up any fake information all four of them suffered the backlash of [Enigma] and winced.

“How so?” one of the girls sitting by Annabeth asked after she recovered from the backlash.

“Ajax is the only commoner that is part of this year's class.” the professor started and a number of the students gave disapproving looks towards Ajax.

“We’ve had commoners be part of the class before.” the first student to speak chimed in.

“Yes, I too am aware of that, if you would be quiet I will explain this to you.” Abbot rebuffed him. “As I was saying, as a commoner Ajax will have quite a busy few weeks at the start catching up with some of the knowledge that your families have imparted to you as part of your basic education. This normally doesn’t stop commoners from joining the class normally.”

“What is different here is that Ajax has already surpassed level thirty, him joining the class as a student would unbalance quite a few of our tests throughout the year, as I can assure you he is by a solid margin stronger in combat than any of you. As such this was the workaround that was chosen.” The professor's tone marked an end to the topic.