After basking in glory for quite some time, Athar calmed his nerves and started to plan what he had to do next.
Without any doubt, it was clear that Athar was now set on the path to becoming one of the most powerful individuals on the planet. He had a silver-rank beast to start with, whose grade he could raise with an easy method. And in the future, he would be able to form a bond with another beast.
But Athar knew that he needed time to grow. And he did not have a powerful background to protect himself from unforeseen situations. Jealousy, envy and greed for secrets made many a human to buckle away from their morality.
The first thing he resolved to do was to always remain cautious and not waste the immense potential he had been granted. He could not relax or go easy in his hard work just because he had gained some advantage.
The second thing he had to do was to register himself at the Nawarin City Academy. Now that he was a proper beast tamer, he would be eligible to register in the academy. The academy would provide him with cultivation techniques and battle skills and most importantly resources. At the academy, he would be taught different aspects of cultivation and battles.
The Academy was a place where admissions did not stop. Generally, a school or academy took admissions once a year, but this method was not very feasible for beast tamers.
Every beast tamer formed a bond exactly on their 18th birthday, and if the academy followed the general practice, one student might have to wait for an entire year before enrolling. This would be wasting the potential of any tamer. The days immediately after becoming a tamer were very important and crucial for the development and growth of an individual.
Thus, a unique practice was followed by most academies across the world. Admission to academies was open throughout the year. Every month, a new class would begin for these newly admitted tamers, and thus no students had to wait for more than 29 days to begin their journey at the academy.
With time, all twelve classes admitted in one year were merged and joined to form a single class.
Having decided to register himself at the academy for quite some time, Athar decided to register himself today only. After returning, only then would he think about his bonded companion.
.
.
.
Athar had to travel for half an hour on a bus and traverse almost half of Nawarin city from the outskirts to reach the academy, which was located almost at the centre of the city.
As Athar stepped down from the bus, a grand and imposing building came into his view. This was not the first time he had seen the academy, but no matter how many times he had witnessed it, he could not help but feel amazed.
As the academy came into his view, he tightened his fist.
The building was made of a mixture of white and light blue stones, and the academy building was divided into four blocks, with each block forming an arm of a rectangle. Each of the blocks was four storeys high. A massive training area was enclosed between the four blocks.
"This is just the start," he muttered under his breath as his eyes burned with resolve.
With his resolve, Athar stepped inside the main hall of the building in Block A. The scene inside the main hall was chaotic. Various counters, like exchange counters and resource counters, were lined up in the main hall as a number of people ran across the hall.
Athar quickly spotted the counter he would need today: New Registration Counter. And thankfully, it was completely empty.
He approached the counter to find an old man with wrinkles on his face almost napping behind his glasses with his mouth half open.
A knock from Athar awoke the old man from his half-sleepy state as he shivered.
"Ah!" he muttered in surprise. "Who is it?"
Athar gave the old man a few seconds to regain his composure before he responded, "I want to register myself."
"Hmm," the old man responded as he pulled out a thick register from below his desk.
"Name?" he asked.
"Athar VonCruz."
"When did you awaken?"
"Today."
"Today," the old man repeated as he filled in the date in his register. "What is your beast?"
Before Athar could respond, the old man added with practiced ease, "If you wish, you can keep your beast a secret as well."
Athar pondered for a moment but thought that hiding the information was only going to draw more suspicion.
"It is nothing special," Athar replied. "Iron grade. A snake."
"Oh!" the man muttered, probably in disappointment.
It was quite a difficult task to determine the grade of a beast simply by looking at it if it was not a known beast.
As long as the beast was unique and one kept its abilities a secret, determining the grade was a difficult task. And no one would really think of a small snake to be a silver-grade beast.
Thus, Athar lied without hesitation.
The old man scribbled down a few more things in his register before he picked up a medium-sized paper bag and placed it on the desk.
"Your academy supplies," the old man said. "The classes will start after three days."
"You need to report to the academy by the evening of the third day," he continued. "The bag contains your uniform, a guidelines book, and a cultivation technique."
"The first two months of your dormitory and food are free of cost, but after that, you have to pay for them. If you are unable to pay for some reason, you will need a recommendation from a high-ranking member of the academy to grant you a deferral of your payment."
"If you are worried about payments, there are a lot of ways to earn crystals inside the academy. In a decade of my service, I have hardly seen anyone failing their payment because of financial reasons," the old man added the last part probably after seeing the battered condition of Athar's clothes. One look at him, and one could tell he was a miser.
"The rest of the things you can learn in the guidelines or after coming into the academy," the old man said.
"Any questions?" he asked as he finally lifted his gaze to glance at Athar.
"No, sir," Athar replied.
"Good," the old man said, dismissing him.
Athar picked up the paper bag and left the academy. He would need to remain just two more days in that hellhole.
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