He was a man of average height who dressed plainly, and bore no vibrant colors. There was some youth left to him, but it was almost completely blocked by his proclivity to furrow the region around his eyes. Still, most would consider him decent-looking.
"Welcome to your Magic Foundations class, I'll be your primary instructor for the term. This is my eighth year teaching here, so I have seen every type of student, and heard every kind of excuse. I am not your parent or guardian, I am your educator, and your disciplinarian. Do not try to take advantage of me, it will not work. I will treat you like an adult, so you must act like one. This is your first day of class, and maybe your other instructors will be less strict, using it to introduce themselves, and get to know their students, but Magic Theory, the field of study, and what this class will become after the first semester, stops for no one. None of what I said, nor what I will say is directed at any of you, but it is something I must go over because of experience here."
"As much as I'd like to begin the lesson, I am required to go over some other information first. As you've heard during your orientation, schedules may be subject to change after the first semester depending on your score on the midterm exam, but I will first go over the general format of schedules here, which will apply to you your entire time at the academy."
"The Academy bell rings at 07:00 every morning. Magic Theory begins at 0800 every day and will continue until 10:00. If you are not in my class by 07:59, or leave before 10:00, you will be marked absent. You will be in your Academic subjects from 10:00 to 13:00, which will continue after lunch from 14:00 to 16:00. Your Magic Combat class will be from 16:00 to 18:00. After that, you are free to do anything you'd like until 01:00 where you are required to be in your dorms. Your allotted meal times are 07:00 to 08:00 for breakfast, 13:00 to 14:00, and 18:00 to 19:30. This will be your daily schedule Monday through Friday, and you may do with your weekends as you'd like."
"Food will only be provided at the mentioned meal times, you are not forced to attend, but other sustenance must be bought with Academy Credits. You will receive a weekly stipend of 1,000 Academy Credits, you are free to use it on whatever you want, or if you'd like to save it, you may do that as well. I am obligated to say that attendance is not mandatory in any of your classes so long as your grades are satisfactory, but if they aren't, your instructors reserve the right to cut off your stipends until your grades improve. I don't know how lenient others will be, but I will not hesitate to request your stipends be cut off if I see any correlation between absence and a lower assessment grade. And I'm telling you, if you skip my Magic Theory for even a day, you will fail. My supplementary classes cost 3000 credits to begin, and another 500 for every student attending. These classes may be requested at lunch on any of the weekdays, and Sundays if you have no religious obligation, but I will not be available on Saturdays."
"Skipping classes to work on your Research Project is perhaps the only remotely justifiable reason, but I still do not condone it. You are required to submit your research before your fifth year in order to graduate, but time has been allocated in your fourth year to allow you appropriate time, and having a full understanding of the fundamentals of Magic is more important than that. It might seem impossible, maybe you're not the most creative person, and to that I say, it's true. You will find this extremely challenging if you do not have an imaginative mind, and I regret to inform you, throughout my years here, many of my former students have failed to complete the task. Some of my best students, who were the most brilliant minds, were not able to complete their Research Paper.
"It is a very difficult task, but there's one thing in common that all of those who failed shared. They lacked commitment. It doesn't matter how smart, creative, or talented you were at one point, but if you are unable to maintain that, and instead become slothful, you will fail. Everyone that I have ever taught, who dedicated themselves to this, have found themselves graduating with their complete Diploma."
For the first time, his face changed. He was smiling.
"With this diploma, you can do anything you want. You can continue your apprenticeship at your Magic Tower, Knight Order, or other organizations, taking the accelerated path, because you learned everything at the Academy already."
"With your Research Paper, you can publish it at the Intellectual Society, or Mage Association to advance your field, be offered positions, gain widespread recognition, and riches. The others are great, but contributing to your Magic field is the greatest accomplishment of all. You will be remembered for the rest of time as a pioneer, a hero."
He found his open hand on his chest, looking up at the faceless copper statute placed above the entrance of the room, and quickly rearranged himself.
"Ahem. Research guidelines, your fourth year will be completely empty of classes for this, you may request your third year for research as well if you have the required credits already, but if you fail to complete it in time, your fifth year will not be at an external organization, but you will be here continuing your project. I do not recommend this unless you are truly on the brink of a truly monumental breakthrough, because you will receive essential practical experience at those external organizations, but as long as you submit your Research Paper by the end of the fifth year, you will graduate. The topic you decide to research must be a Magic field. The School of Academia also has a Research Project due by their fifth year, but if you wanted to research something other than magic, you shouldn't have enrolled into the School of Magic then."
"The grading scale here is not proportional to the amount of time each subject takes up in your schedule. "Your grade for the combined five hours of five academic subjects make up 40% of your final grade, while the four hours of two non-academic classes make up 60%. If you noticed, there are four hours of non-academic classes every day. Magic Theory is a required course, but you are free to change the other one to whichever path, whether that be Magic, Swordsmanship, or Divinity."
"Any questions?" He waits for a single second. Just as he's about to continue, a student speaks.
"What grade is considered passing?"
"I was just about to get to that."
He stares at him for about five seconds and finally asks: "What is your name?"
"..." "I'll remember that."