Idle Mage: Humanity's Strongest Backer-Novel

The diary was entertaining.

Most of it was about the owner's struggle to find someone to be his lover and most, if not all, of his encounters were hilarious to Ashton.

At first, Ashton was confused as to why the System gave this to him, but as continued reading it, he finally understood why.

Despite the owner's hilarious fails on his love life, this diary contains useful information about White Mages.

There wasn't much but the owner did record his experiences as well the tips he learned from his seniors as he continued on his studies.

The subjects that he took, the questions he didn't answer correctly during the exams, his setbacks in his learning...all of this are recorded in this diary.

Despite the owner's initial dislike with his Specialization, he grew fond of it over time. Ashton read through the diary as if he was watching how the boy turned into a man with his experiences.

The owner lost a lot of people dear to him; family, friends, brothers-in-arms, women who rejected him...all because of the cruelty of life and invaders of this world.

Although the identity of the owner never really revealed his name in the diary, Ashton could tell that he was famous. He grew to become an exemplary White Mage of his era, he even had disciples worshipping him according to what Ashton read.

There are more information in the diary that he couldn't understand for now since he lacked basic information still but even if that's the case, this diary is still a very useful reference to him.

He figured the he would check it from time to time to see how far he's come. Maybe he'd even make one for himself, who knows?

But that's not really the focus of today.

It's July 02 9022, Monday. It's also the official start of the School Year.

Currently, Ashton is commuting towards the Mystic Academy.

He noticed that he was being stared at a lot on his way though, which came as strange to him. Last time he checked, which was like - five minutes ago, he didn't look weird, he doesn't smell bad either nor did her really do anything to be stared at so this was confusing to him.

But it really didn't take him long before he understood why he's being stared at.

There's this confident lass who walked right up to him and asked for his contacts. She even complimented him and asked him if he was already dating someone.

That's when everything clicked to him. He politely rejected the girl's advances and smiled wryly to himself.

That was really new, he had never experienced something like in his previous life. But at the same time, he should've known. Had he just looked closely or attuned his ears, he'd figure out that most of those who were staring at him were girls around his age. They're even discussing how he looked so dashing and heroic in his uniform.

There were no more attempts after that which made him sigh in relief. He reached the Academy without any hitches and with time to spare.

Yesterday, he was informed that there will be a bulletin board at the courtyard where he'd find the list of students. He'd find which class he's in and where the classroom would be.

Upon arriving at the courtyard, he saw what they're talking about.

Ashton walked closer to search for his name and he found it.

"West, Ashton. Class C-1. West Wing: 5-13."

Ashton hummed upon seeing that. It seems that he's a part of Class C-1.

Class C-1 should mean 1st Year, Class C. West Wing should be the area or the building where he should go. More precisely at the 5th floor of the West Wing Building, at Room 13 is where his classroom would be.

Ashton understood it enough. He checked his guidebook since there's map in there he could use to locate where the West Wing is.

"There." He murmured.

The West Wing is quite far from the courtyard. If he just relied on his legs, it'd take him hours to get there. Thankfully, he didn't have to.

There were Flying Transits parked just outside of the courtyard. Students can use these freely to get to places.

Deciding to not waste time, Ashton rode one and waited until it sets off.

From his observations, he noticed that the bus only waited for set amount of time from the moment the first student came in. Full or not, it'll leave within five minutes in order to save time. Also, there's no driver. The buses seems to be controlled by magic.

Ashton marveled at the sight outside as the bus flew, this was the first time he rode a flying bus so it was an experience for him. Despite being bulky in size, the bus was quite fast.

The bus seemed to be programmed to stop in places to drop the students off. Ashton's destination; West Wing, would be the next one.

When the bus arrived there, Ashton got up and got off of the bus. He then saw the environment around the West Wing.

The West Wing is surrounded by a sprawling forest. There's paved road which people can use to get to the tower in the middle of this forest. He also saw some benches and street vendors around the area.

It truly seems like this place is a school on its own but it's only a part of the the Academy itself. It has such a large space that Ashton didn't even know what its use for.

He followed the road until he came close to the tower.

It was massive and tall. It looked ancient, made out of stone and bricks but Ashton could clearly sense the sheer density of mana in this place. There's also seems to be some writings on the wall but when he looked closely, they weren't there so his eyes must be playing tricks on him.

There's mounted statues outside of the tower. Four Gargoyle Statues sat at the very top, their eyes seems to have ruby crystals embedded in them and they are all looking down their surroundings.

Knowing that there's a sentient Stone Gargoyle in this Academy, Ashton didn't doubt that these statues are alive.

Ashton entered the tower. As expected, despite it looking ancient on the outside, the interior is modernized.

There were shiny tiles which you can almost use a mirror. There's also air conditioning inside, computers, escalators and elevators as well.

Ashton saw that there's small rectangular board on the front which says: West Wing. This meant that he's in the right place.

He used the elevator which can have at least 50-60 people with how big it was. The elevator run on magic, just like the one he used on the Federation Center before.

When it stopped at the 5th floor, Ashton exited it and proceeded to search for his classroom. It wasn't so difficult to find it since the rooms are arranged in numerical fashion.

The real surprise, was when he entered the classroom.

'This...is a Training Room?'

Indeed. The sight that welcomed him the moment he entered was something he was familiar with, only much bigger than what he have at home.

At first, he wasn't convinced so he used the skill: Identify, on the room but the results confirmed it. The room was indeed a large training room.

"Ashton?"

That prompted him to look towards the origin of the voice and found a familiar face.

"Oh, hi there Mary."

Yes, Mary's in this class too. She beckoned him to sit beside her since there's nobody there and there's only a few of them so far. Once he sat down, Mary said:

"I didn't expect you to be here."

"Yeah, I didn't expect you either." He replied.

"...that's not what I meant."

"What was that?"

"Nothing." Mary shook her head. "But this is nice. At least there's someone I could talk to."

"Yeah, I feel you." Ashton nodded, "Are Alice and Blake classmates too?"

"I don't know yet." She shrugged. Then her watched pinged, she checked it briefly and told Ashton: "What a timing. Apparently, they are."

Ashton chuckled and looked around. He then said: "I didn't expect our classroom would be a Training Room."

"Yeah, me neither." She replied.

The two of them proceeded to talk to each other. They've discussed random things as time passed and more students came in. Around 10:00am, Ashton began looking around, a professor should've arrived by now according to the schedule.

That's when the door opened once more and revealed a cute little girl.

She wore a pair of oversized eye-glasses, a pink tutu and pink rubber shoes with striped pink-white socks. Her hair is similarly pink as well, in pigtails and she has a heart-shaped choker on her.

All eyes on her as she carried a tablet while walking in front of the students. She jumped and stood on top of the table and looked over the students.

"Ah, excuse me. I don't think you're supposed to be here, little girl." One of the students said while smiling.

"Call me Little Girl again and I'll break all the bones in your body." She snorted, she gave them a cold look and said: "Good morning Class, my name is Aisha. I'm your Class Advisor and your Professor on Magic 101."

"Eh!?"