Ivan felt like explaining that he had stared in that direction by mistake, the stare of the other party was too intense.
The cafeteria was quiet as the handsome young man stared at Ivan for a solid 5 seconds before moving his gaze away and ascending the stairs with his group.
After they left, the cafeteria returned to normal as the first-year students resumed whatever activities they had been doing.
Ivan blinked and looked at Lucas in front of him. He knew the other party was a first-year student as well but Ivan still decided to ask.
"Do you know who that was?"
Lucas stared at Ivan with a confused gaze, his eyes asking if Ivan was messing with him. Nevertheless, he still answered.
"That's Ferz Castellan, a third-year senior student," Lucas revealed.
"Oh," was all Ivan said. After learning that the other party was a member of the Castellan family, Ivan now understood why the other party had stared at him like that.
Pushing the matter to the back of his mind, Ivan focused on eating his meal. After he was done, he stood up and left Lucas to continue eating alone.
He returned straight to his lodge and after taking a quick breath, he sat on his bed and started absorbing mana again.
...
Morning came quickly and it was time for students to resume classes.
After students left their lodge and went to get breakfast at the cafeteria, all of them headed for their respective classes.
Today, they were having a team formation class first and then Beast knowledge afterwards.
Ivan's assigned classroom for this class was classroom 19 which was also located on the 3rd floor. Arriving there, Ivan wasn't too surprised to find Carter, and a few of his classmates there.
Shortly after, all fifteen of them had gathered and Teacher May also arrived.
Taking a glance around, Teacher May nodded seeing that everyone was present.
"Today you'll learn about team formation. You all will be entering your first dungeon soon and you must pay attention to this class, as it will help you form the best team to achieve a good result.
As a weapon user, it is very important that you team up with other weapon users since your styles are similar and you'll be able to react without needing to communicate too often." Teacher May said as she went on to explain why it was important not to mix up with others.
If a weapon user teamed up with a mage, things might become chaotic as their styles are different from one another. The same goes for beastmen, they won't be able to coordinate perfectly.
While listening, Ivan couldn't help but shake his head internally. This formation was actually very good when it came to fighting magic beasts since their intelligence was low, but it was inefficient in dealing with intelligent creatures.
Currently, humans are suggesting that all mages team up together, beastmen work with beastmen, and weapon users can only rely on themselves. This thinking was incredibly wrong and caused them to look down on many abilities that were actually useful.
After Teacher May stopped talking, she proceeded to split the students into groups of three. Each group had five members, Ivan was in a group with Anabel, another girl named Lilia, and two other boys.
Anabel was an archer. Lilia had awakened as a gauntlet user. One of the boys was named Ray and he was a dual-blade user like Carter. Their last member, Jake, was a swordsman and used a great sword.
Teacher May continued her explanation.
"When facing a group of beasts, the archer is to stay at the back and provide cover while the three of you engage the beasts. You don't have to kill them, just decapitating them is enough while your archer deals the finishing blow.
This will decrease the burden on the three of you since you only need to make them unable to move. As for Ivan, your Paladin ability is best for defending. You can stay beside your archer and make sure no beast comes close to her.
In the case where there's no archer, you'll be in charge of protecting your team and watching their backs." Teacher May said.
Ivan immediately raised his hand, signifying that he had a question. Teacher May nodded at him and Ivan proceeded to speak.
"But a Paladin doesn't only have the shield, I can also summon a sword. Why can't I join the three of them in attacking? I believe it'll be better especially if there's a large number of beasts."
Hearing him, some of the students looked at him strangely while others shook their heads.
Teacher May stared at Ivan for some seconds before speaking.
"Doing so will already be contradicting the purpose of the Paladin-class. Paladins are protectors, defense is their forte.
And even if you can indeed summon a sword, you won't be able to do as much as the others. So it's best to put all your energy into protecting your team."
'And who decided that the purpose of a paladin is to protect?' Ivan thought but decided not to say anything. Not that he was scared or wouldn't be able to prove himself, he wanted them to see his reasons with their eyes.
And that would be during the assessment!
Since she was done with Ivan's group, teacher May moved to the next two groups and explained how they should deal with beasts according to the abilities of their members.
Since the students didn't have access to the training room yet, the team formation class ended quickly. They returned to classroom 3 and waited for Teacher May to come start the Beast knowledge class.
Teacher May entered the classroom shortly after and immediately started teaching.
"Since we're still on beasts that can be found inside dungeons, today we'll be talking about goblins. Goblins are green-skinned beasts that are very common inside blue dungeons. The chances of running into goblins in a blue dungeon are as high as 50 percent.
Compared to other beasts, goblins have the habit of creating settlements, also known as a village and a village consisting of different types of goblins.
There are the warrior goblins, these types are fairly strong and are equipped with crude weapons. They are in charge of hunting and guarding the village from danger.
There are worker goblins, who are the ordinary goblins that take care of the village. In a sense, they are like normal people.
Then there are the Wizard goblins. These goblins are rare and are capable of using magic like mages, only one or two can be found in a goblin village.
Lastly, the goblin chief…"
Teacher May spent over thirty minutes explaining the characteristics of goblins to the students. How each group behaved and how their power levels corresponded to humans.
After she finished explaining, there was room for questions and the students naturally had a thing or two that they were curious about.
In the corner, Ivan looked like he was paying attention but his mind was elsewhere. He already knew everything that Teacher May was saying, he even knew more than her so this felt like a waste of time.
Maybe he should just drop out of the academy and focus on raising his strength instead? With his knowledge and the mana chamber of his family, he was sure that he could improve his strength quickly.
'No, I have to endure it. If I want to change the way humans think of various abilities, the best place to start is the academy.'
Plus, Red Star Royal Academy was the biggest academy in the empire. Waves from here would definitely shake the entire empire.