28 A new start
Ronan went back to the Red house dormitories as a changed man ,Although it was impossible to change one’s nature in a matter of minutes , he became actively conscious of his wrongdoings.
Although he found it slightly repulsive , he did calmly chat about pointless things and his future ambitions inside the academy with his house mates. As a large crowd gathered in the Bhakti House common room to finally have a chance to talk with their young prodigy.
Ronan’s tale had already started to spread like wildfire inside the campus , as everyone inside the red house was excited to meet this new talent on whom the house spent a whopping 122 merit points.
However in an even more shocking turn of events , some red house seniors claimed to have personally witnessed Ronan’s fight against Jessie as at the very first day of academy as Ronan defeated a fourth year prodigy in a one sided fight , knocking his opponent unconscious.
The entire event sounded like a dream to the first year juniors who looked up to the fourth year students in reverence and respect , as they could not even imagine even provoking a fourth year student for a conflict , much less dominate a fight to beat them.
Most students had not even started to properly train yet , and were hardly level 2-4 , as it was inconceivable for them to even properly fight a second year student at level 10-13 , much less a fourth year prodigy like Jessie.
Naturally , this made Ronan a celebrity on his very first night at the boys common room of the red house.
Everyone expected Ronan to lead the house to glory , as nobody had a shadow of a doubt in their mind that this individual was bound for greatness. Hence , the seniors very generously offered to guide him with anything he needed , to which Ronan politely thanked them.
This made Ronan even more likeable amongst his peers as he was humble despite having the strength to be arrogant. The seniors who were worried about the temperament of this new comer were naturally elated to observe this..
‘ Just like Percy eh , I guess the Draco are one of the rare noble families worthy of respect ‘.
This was what most commoners said about Ronan , as they appreciated him not looking down on anyone and talking to everyone like an equal.
Although they understood that Ronan was a man of few words who did not show any emotions while conversing , his polite words and soft spoken nature won over everyone.
‘ Too friendly with the commoners , I guess the second prince doesn’t know whom to mingle with and whom not to. Sigh , but a good lad , just like Percy ‘.
Was the consensus of the nobles in the red house as they were fine with Ronan’s overall temperament.
After two hours of celebrity interrogation , Ronan gathered a lot of knowledge about the academy in general , as he was told a lot of trivia that he had no clue about.
Apparently in the first year , everyone had the same resources provided by the academy and were taught the basics of every single essential course.
Basic Geography , Basic History , Basics of elemental affinity , Basics of close combat and basics of craftsmanship .
Everyone had to undergo the same studies irrespective of their class and sections. However things started to shuffle once it was year 2.
Based on the first year performance , people would be shuffled into merit based heirchy classes from A to Z . With the top 100 students being in class A and 101-300 in B and so on and so forth .
The resources allotment were vastly different for different classes and soo were the faculties teaching them.
However the position was only for one year and everyone had the same end of the year exam as depending on new scores candidates could shuffle at anytime.
This system made it so that everyone pushed each other to reach new heights , as healthy competition promoted the chasing of excellence , and since the result was based on overall performance and not on a single subject , a myriad of different people ended in the same classes creating a vibrant classroom environment.
For every single student of a house to enter a upper classroom, from Z to A , the points were 1 to 26 in order. And usually this was the biggest decider of the house results at the end as it contributed to nearly 50% of the overall points pool.
This system made it so that housemates would usually study together and share resources together to try pull each and every member of their house above and contribute to the house’s collective victory.
It was a brilliant system and perhaps the reason behind why most people at the school canteen sat with their own house groups , and those who did not sit with their housemates , chose to sit with their classmates.
However for the first year students , all the classes were taken by the same faculty in a massive auditorium that could seat 6000 people at once. As the 12,000 entrants this year were divided into batch A and B , with alternating lectures by the same faculty .
Ronan’s daily life from now would see him have two lectures a day and then training for 3 days a week and craftsmanship for 2 days , with Saturday and Sunday being for house events.
There were 9 house events spanned across a year with a massive end of the year house competition to end it all.
During regular months , there would be a single competition that would go on for every week.
For example , During June the competition would be Pressure Ascension .
As for the first week ( Saturday – Sunday ) , it would be the first year students participating in that event
For the second week it would be second year students doing the same event and so on until the fifth week where the fifth year students took part.
This made week to week life of students exciting as everyone was present during the weekends to cheer on their housemates and celebrate each win and mourn each defeat together.
Enthusiasm was contagious as although Ronan did not show it on his face , slowly he too felt anticipation about the coming house event this week , as everyone wanted to see how far could their prodigy go .
The previous record holder for first year was Percy Draco , ascending 55 steps however with Ronan coming , everyone expected that to be broken.
55 steps is what third and fourth year students usually climb , hence Percy’s record seemed astronomical at the time , however when one looked at the monster Ronan Draco , one only thought that if it was this wonder kid there was a chance …. A chance to bring that record to the Red house.
As from the very first day the seniors started priming the first year’s and especially Ronan about the first upcoming house event and Ronan was naturally all ears.
He wanted to challenge himself , he wanted to see if he could win rookie of the year like Percy and he wanted to see if he could beat Percy’s record. A fire was lit under him as he finally felt interested in school activities.
A similar atmosphere was seen across all house common rooms , as there was an energetic atmosphere following the injection of new blood as everyone wanted to kick off the new years house competition with a win for themselves to get a early lead.
However the mood in red house was especially strong , as if there were no major upsets it would be Ronan Draco for the win at the first event.
If it were up to the kids , the discussions would have gone on all night long , but the discipline committee came for rounds at 11 pm and put everyone forcefully to their beds .
It was a mood killer for everyone , however there had been enough taking already. Ronan for one was glad to have some peace and quiet.
The rooms in the academy were twin sharing , as Ronan shared his room with an obese kid who was apparently from a royal family too , from a small kingdom across the ocean.
The kid was a stark contrast to Ronan who had seen a rough life as a royal , as the kid was struggling to even drink water from the glass of steel that were given in the academy , being so accustomed to using gold.
” I can’t take this … *sob* , *sob* , i want my momma “. The fat kid complained gloomily to Ronan , who was aghast by such a display of weakness.
‘ Draco men don’t cry ‘ , a stern voice resounded in his mind , as he wanted to b*** slap this fatty. But the kid looked soo gullible with his chubby cheeks and protruding belly that Ronan could just not bring himself to tell him anything.
Since the only way he knew how to pacify crying kids , was like grandma Luna used to pacify him as a one year old , he picked up the fatty like a ragdoll as he put him over his shoulder and started to pat his back.
‘ Heavy ! ‘ , was the first thought on Ronan’s mind as he jerked his knees up and down while patting the fatty to calm him down.
” There , there , it’s going to be okay “. Said Ronan as the fatty actually stopped crying .
After a while the fat guy slept right there on Ronan’s shoulders leaving him wondering what the hell was wrong with him .
However little did he know , that this fatty would one day be called as the king of gluttony Beelzebub!