Fear No More

Chapter Eight

"Why are you so slow?" Rosalie groaned as she tried to show me around. But as everything here was new to me, of course I wanted to stop and stare at a few things.

"Calm down." I said as my gaze stayed on a class being taught magic inside the academy arena. To be honest, it looked amazing. The one thing that bothered me was the fact that only a handful of the class was actually paying attention.

The rest were huddled together chatting away as if whatever the teacher tried to say, meant nothing to them. It was a clear case of superior thinking.

I turned to see Rosalie glaring at me with her arms crossed. She looked angry. Well, angrier than earlier.

"Don't tell me to calm down." She said calmly which frightened me more that if she shouted. "You are wasting my precious time and you don't seem to care." She added as she promptly turned and began walking. Her lecture continued as if she expected me to follow her. "As I began to say earlier. Here at Ashford Academy, we are ranked based. The higher your rank, then the better job offer you receive when you graduate. Of course there are some exceptions whereas a person is born for a specific role and it doesn't matter his or her rank. They would be the candidate for the job.

"Every month there are smaller tournaments that aid in raising or lowering your rank, with the final tournament at the end of the year. This tournament is the one that properly affects your rank wherein prospective employers come to watch your progress and maybe find recruits of their own.

"Since you are new, your rank will be last. Rank four thousand and forty one. Whether you try to raise it, is your concern. Just don't expose yourself for what you really are." She added as she continued to walk further and further into the building and finally walking into an elevator.

I watched as she pressed the button that said 18 noting that there was only one more floor above it.

"I am taking you to the special floor. The floor where people with extraordinary magic and power reside. It is also my floor so I will be able to keep an eye on you." She said as if it was obvious.

"So you do have amazing abilities then." I said more to myself that anyone else. "What's on the nineteenth floor?" I added as I cast my gaze towards her folding my arms over my chest noticing that my arms have become far bulkier that before. And by bulkier, I mean more muscled. It looked as if I was a regular weightlifter but not so overly done.

"That is the headmaster's residence. Forbidden to all aside from personal guests." She said as she began to watch the orange display above the door that displayed the current floor number.

The elevator opened to the eighteenth floor revealing a destination that I did not expect. I was expecting a more hostel type dwelling that had separate rooms divided by the normal walls and doors. But instead the elevator opened to a wide open area. Directly in front of the elevator doors was the "entrance" to the floor. A large wooden table draped in a white cloth to the right, with a group of dark red soft couches directly ahead of us. The couches almost in a half circle shape facing the left.

To the left of us was an enormous kitchen with an island separating the kitchen from the rest of the rooms. The island holding a stove near its center as well as two steel cutlery holders on either side.

Clear glass steel framed doors showing glasses and plates within the cupboards that hung above the counter tops.

Instead of a floor of individual rooms, this seemed to be more of a group residence than anything else.

I noticed two offshoots from this main floor, if you will, one leading to the left just in front of the kitchen, and the other leading to the right, between the lounge and dining room. I found it strange that there were no others here but Rosalie and I.