Cæ directed a curious gaze at the enchanted items on his table.
Each of them was a crystal orb atop a little stand.
Each crystal orb contained magic energy, glowing with noticeable power. A myriad of runes inscribed in magic circles and encrypted to protect their secrets covered its entire surface. The sheer complexity of all the characters and patterns upon the surface of the crystal ball was quite significant, signifying just how special the enchanted items were.
These were not ordinary products.
"Now then," she continued. "All you need to do is place your hand on the sphere and cast any magic. It will automatically activate and scan you and identify your affinities as such. Go on then. Note that greater and more affinities will take a little longer to measure.
The students carefully followed her words, placing their hands on the crystal orb as they randomly cast magic. Cæ simply cast an elementary manipulation spell, allowing the orb to float ever so slightly.
One by one, the enchanted crystal orb began glowing.
Within each of the orbs, several lights began emerging.
"Light element!" the teacher nodded encouragingly. "As well as a little bit of the fire element. Very nice!"
"I didn't have the fire element before," the student murmured.
"Well, not quite, it's because it's harder to measure minor elemental affinities as I mentioned before," Professor Mieruko reiterated her earlier explanation. "Now you can keep this in mind when you decide to consider what to pursue in the future. The fire element is not a greater element, but it is a powerful element nonetheless, and when mastered, is capable of great feats."
The crystal orbs across the entire classroom began glowing as students measured their affinities once more as senior students.
"Life and earth! Good combination!"
"Heaven and death! How interesting!"
"Heaven and darkness! Very mysterious indeed!"
"Triple element! Heaven, life, and darkness! Very talented!"
There were more triple-elemental talents in the lecture than one might have expected ordinarily. After all, it was generally on the rarer side. But given that this was a course on the Six Greater Elements, it could be expected that students with greater elemental affinities would be selected for.
A wave of murmurs spread across the room as Mileila's orb glowed with five lights.
Professor Mieruko drew closer with an amazed expression. "Light. Life. Heaven. Earth. And of course…"
She directed a knowing gaze at Mileila.
"Metal."
Mileila smiled. "I am my family's descendant."
The Karjakin Family was a magical family that based its magic on the metal element. People with Karjakin blood contained a great affinity for the concept of metal and magic that involved metal.
It was nowhere near as universal as the six greater elements; however, it was surprisingly powerful.
Or perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the sheer importance of metal to human civilization.
In many ways, metal was the foundation of modern civilization, after all.
And yet, before they could even dwell on the matter any longer, Cæ's crystal orb also began shining.
The students widened their eyes as it began shining brighter than it had for any of them.
Within them, all six elements could be seen.
She regarded Cæ with a knowing expression.
"As expected of the polyelemental talent. You truly are something special. Indeed, the polyelemental affinity is rare but far from unheard of. They tend to be among the most promising and powerful mages."
Many students gazed at him with envy.
"…I don't appear to have gained any new elemental affinities since then," he murmured.
"Hah!" the professor laughed. "You have all six elements, and you are still unsatisfied! Hahaha!"
President Mileila smirked. "And to think that you have no intention of pursuing a magical career."
Cæ huffed lightly, shaking his head.
"Alright, now that we have measured your elemental affinities, let us get started with a basic exercise for your control over the six elements for the rest of today's class," she continued. "For today, let us just have you conjure the elements that you are proficient in and have learned the runes of. Let us have you conjure the magic of the six elements and cycle across the three fundamental forms that you have learned. Doing this will help you get a better intuitive feel for the elements and will help you utilize them better in the long run. Part of this course is simply exercising your control of the elements and putting you through great exercises and practice when it comes to casting this magic. By the time you get through to the end of this course, you will have gained great proficiency in using them in any field of magic."
Cæ looked forward to that.
Once he gained proficiency in his mastery of the six elements, he would be much stronger than he ever was before. He used the six elements in combat quite frequently, too, making it especially pertinent for him to get better at.
Cæ closed his eyes as he waved his wand, following the exercise.
While other students strained, he could do it pretty easily with his pure magic under the guise of conventional magic, although he still pretended to be strained. Mileila, on the other hand, smoothly completed the exercise as the professor walked across the lecture hall, giving advice to struggling students.
"Focus, Mr. Cæ," she advised him. "Picture the six elements as three pairs rather than six independent entities. They are not independent. Light cannot exist without darkness, and darkness only exists because of light. They give each other distinction and purpose. If you want to master the six elements, you will need to gain a better understanding of how these six elements integrate and interact with the world around us."
That sounded more complicated and difficult to do than just a simple magical exercise.
Cæ heaved a sigh as he suspended his effort for a moment. "Isn't that rather straightforward and elementary, professor? Day and night. The atmosphere and land. Life and death. I won't say they are simple concepts, but they are not particularly inscrutable, are they?"
She shook her head.
"You underestimate just how vast these concepts are, and just how vast the corresponding elements are," she continued. "Because they are so fundamental to our understanding of the world, they are capable of much more than the other elements are, although they require greater effort to learn their true power, of course. You will understand as you journey through the path of the six elements."
The class went on for quite some time until, of course, time had finally come to an end.
"The next class will be exclusively theoretical," Professor Mieruko announced to all of them. "After that, we will have a few practical classes based on the theory, and then back to theory and corresponding practicals. Class dismissed!"
She hurried out of the class, muttering something about being late, while the students also began dispersing from the lecture hall.
"Well," President Mileila smiled at Cæ as she got up. "I look forward to seeing you in this class for the rest of the year. Also, don't forget to come to the student council meeting today early. We have a lot of important things to plan."
Cæ nodded. "Will do."
The rest of the day passed by smoothly as Cæ grew introduced to the first classes of all the courses he had chosen.
Of them, some were less enjoyable than the others.
In particular, he didn't enjoy the course of communication magitechnology all that much.
It was a highly technical, dry, and theoretical course with not much in the way of practicals.
He simply decided to learn it to gain a foundation in one of the most important magical industries and sectors in the world.
The maginet was a revolutionary technology that connected the entire world, although the further one was away, the lower the bandwidth and connectivity were.
It still revolutionized the very fabric of human civilization.
If he wanted to destroy the world order and build a better one in its place, he would need to understand this technology extremely well, for it had an impact on virtually everything. If he wanted to create a better world, he would need to gain a lot of proficiency in this field.
He also found magineering to be somewhat uninteresting simply because it was applied magic, as opposed to pure magic.
He needed to learn design and engineering for this field of magic.
Another field that he found himself not liking very much was magical material science.
It was also a very theory-heavy class that focused on understanding and learning about the properties of magical materials and their applications in engineering.
The rest, however, he enjoyed.
Alchemy was definitely more interesting.
He had gained an introduction to it from Seliphaz as she had broken down her design of the Haven housing unit. She had taught him the very basics of how alchemy functioned, which was quite interesting.
The idea of creating a causal model of the desired substance that described the properties and causality of the substance was truly fascinating to him. Each causal model needed to be deep, broad, and comprehensive, and was jam-packed with information.
Yet, they allowed the birth of new substances and materials with magical properties that were of great use. Alchemy was one of the reasons that human civilization harbored so many magical substances.
He looked forward to gaining a deep mastery of this field in the future. He definitely intended to make it an important part of his magical skill.
Another course that he enjoyed in the first class was divination.
To a lesser extent than Melia, he too was amazed by the Headmistress and had instantly put divination on the list of magic skills that he needed to master. Information and knowledge were power, and if he sought to change the world, he would need to harness this power.
He had already decided that creating an intelligence apparatus that he could control and trust was a vital part of the future if he intended to seriously achieve his ultimate ambition.
Other fields that he enjoyed were enchantment and alchemy.
Enchantment involved imbuing already existing objects with magic effects through the Fundamental Form of Automation. This was a field that was industrialized by nature because it focused on quantity over quality, at the cost of power. As someone who intended to become a businessman, gaining proficiency in this key part of the industry was important for him.
Artificing was just as joyful as a field because it produced an extraordinary outcome in the form of a powerful artifact that was much more powerful than mass-produced products. Artificing required him to learn how to craft products with his own personal labor, unfortunately.
He had never been a craftsman by any means, and even the concept was almost alien to him, but artificing allowed him to create powerful artifacts that were to his liking and needs, which could be great in the future when he gained the magicapita to craft some powerful artifacts.
All in all, he looked forward to his first year in the Senior Program with such topics at his disposal. With such a rich and diverse foundation in many fields, it would elevate his propensity to innovate ideas to a much greater degree than he could ever have done so in the past, engaging in more creative destruction than ever before.
This was key if he wanted to achieve his ultimate goal.
He couldn't just be successful.
He couldn't even be extremely successful.
He would need to achieve a realm of success that was hitherto undreamt of.
He would need to amass more power than he ever had in the past.