Royal Academy

The Aiwood Royal Academy is the country's top educational institution, located in the capital. Its purpose is to raise those who will run the state: royalty, nobles, knights, mages and officials. Graduating all but guarantees one's future — a path to court or to favourable service with the nobility; without a diploma it is extremely hard to hold any state post, including that of court magician.

Study lasts three years and is split into five departments, each with its own campus: Magic, Knight, Civil Service, Clergy and Arts. The Magic and Knight departments are the most prestigious, drawing princes and high nobles. Within a department, students are sorted into classes from A to D by exam results, and one's class strongly affects one's future.

It admits youths and maidens aged 15 to 18, both nobles and commoners. Places are divided into noble slots (one may enter with the family head's permission) and commoner slots (a letter of recommendation from a noble is required). The entrance exam is written plus practical, 200 points total, with a passing mark of 140. Nobles are clearly favoured, and commoner slots remain only on a leftover basis; for a commoner to reach the top five is a great rarity.

The Magic Department trains mages: future court magicians, battle-mages of knight orders, bodyguards of the nobility, alchemists. The Knight Department turns out warriors for the Royal Guard, the orders and private troops; its teachers are mostly knighthood veterans.

The Civil Service Department teaches politics, law and economics, raising administrators and diplomats. The Clergy Department imparts theology, medicine and healing, purification magic and barrier arts. The Arts Department produces painters, musicians and poets. At the Magic Hunt Festival the clergy serve as medics while mages and knights are the combatants.

In the Magic Department's practical exam, the applicant strikes a target and a magic item measures the power of the blow (the cap is 100 points). At the interview, each is tested with the 'crystal of possibility', which measures room to grow: for Rest it blazed dazzlingly, while for Cedric Eberun it barely lit, which is why he was rejected. The headmaster is the genial but shrewd elder Verroid Hahn, a member of the Council of Sages and the kingdom's strongest mage.

Rest entered the Magic Department as a commoner on Marquis Rosemary's recommendation, placing 5th (190 points); his true practical score was the highest of all, but the 100-point cap lowered him in the ranking. In his cohort are the top scorer Celestine Crocus (200 points, 'treasure of the kingdom'), the Rosemary sisters Primula and Viola, and Yuri Cattleya. Rest's half-brother Cedric failed the exam.