Furan looked at the packed course schedule before her and fell into deep thought.
Was she being too greedy? She had selected over twenty courses, and many of them had scheduling conflicts.
Furan sighed.
"I guess I have to delete some."
With a swipe of her small hand, she first deleted the courses that conflicted with the majority of her schedule.
"'Introduction to Magic Craftsmanship' has to go. What kind of crazy class has over sixty sessions? It's better if I just grind proficiency directly."
"'Rune Exploration' can go too. Although it gives points, the Teacher might not even know more about runes than I do."
"'Analysis of Common Metal Materials'... how did I even pick this? Wouldn't it be better to just learn blacksmithing?"
...Finally, Furan finished deleting all the conflicting courses. Seeing only eleven courses left on the schedule with no more conflicts, she felt relieved.
"Hey, Furan."
Furan looked up and saw Bella and Lai Yi, who had already arranged to look at her course schedule with her.
"Uh... hello."
Bella caught sight of Furan's schedule at a glance and said in surprise,
"Why did you pick so many courses?!"
"Is it a lot?"
Furan was a bit puzzled. Selecting a dozen or so courses was very common in her previous life's university days.
Moreover, in her past life, it was a dozen courses per semester, whereas here at the academy, it was a dozen for a whole year. Spread across a year, it didn't seem like much at all.
"Take a look at mine."
Bella handed over the paper in her hand; she had placed checkmarks next to the courses she intended to take.
Furan scanned it and saw only four courses selected. She asked curiously,
"Why did you only pick four?"
"Since I've joined the Sword Chant School, I only need to learn related subjects. Besides, these require points to select."
Only then did Furan understand why she had so many courses.
A normal apprentice would struggle just to get in contact with a School. Once they knew the relevant content, they would only study the required courses to successfully join the School and become a High-level Apprentice. If they failed, they would be kicked out of the academy.
A normal apprentice wasn't even sure if they could meet the entry requirements for a single School, so naturally, they couldn't pick a pile of courses like she did.
But she was relying on her status panel. Thinking that 'more skills never hurt,' she chose courses for crafts she didn't know at all and weren't on her panel.
Having figured this out, she still stuck to her choice. The key was to maximize the utility of her panel; she didn't have the energy or time to focus solely on one thing.
"Instant Casting Techniques, Materialless Spellcasting Instruction, Elven Swordsmanship Instruction..."
Furan looked at the courses Bella had checked and realized she hadn't even seen these on the course selection list.
Furthermore, the content was too different from what she had chosen. The ones she picked were theoretical by name, with words like 'Analysis' or 'Application' at the end of the course titles.
But the ones Bella chose were all instructional courses, the kind that taught you how to actually do it.
"This is a course list only available to those in our Sword Chant School; other apprentices can't see it. If you want to take them too, I can get you a copy."
"It can be chosen by others?"
"Yes. Everyone attending these classes is either a student of the Sword Chant School or someone they know. Everyone does it this way."
Furan couldn't help but let out a bitter smile. It was that damn gatekeeping again; even picking courses required connections.
"Then thanks."
Furan canceled a course on her schedule called 'Application of Combat Skill Release.' She had chosen it because she heard that excelling in it would grant a rare Combat Skill. Now that Bella had better courses, she naturally went for those.
School Teachers were always better at teaching than Teachers of other courses, not to mention that most of these internal School courses were taught by Formal Mages.
"I'll pick this Elven Swordsmanship Instruction then."
Furan knew that things called 'XX Swordsmanship' were actually combat styles, including many Combat Skills, as well as footwork and attack frequency.
Although generally, a complete style required a matching Breathing Technique to be truly whole, it was impossible to learn an entire style just by picking a class.
In this era where gatekeeping was rampant, people were desperate to set up barriers requiring connections for even a single Combat Skill so that others couldn't get them.
She estimated they would teach two Combat Skills at most, followed by some footwork, and that would be it. After that, it depended on whether you had connections to find the subsequent teachings.
However, the main reason Furan was interested was her panel. After she had practiced the incomplete Breathing Technique to mastery last time, she discovered something:
Now, as long as she wished, she would automatically activate the Swift Wind Breathing Technique as if she were born with it, completely removing the influence of its incompleteness.
She didn't even know what the missing parts were; she felt like she had completely mastered the thing, though she'd have to think carefully about how to teach it to others.
So she wondered if she could fully digest the major style of Elven Swordsmanship just like she did with the Breathing Technique.
On the other side, Lai Yi seemed to notice her thoughts on course selection—that she wanted to learn many other crafts.
"Are you planning to learn these things first while looking for other Schools?"
"Yeah, I want to see what other Schools are like first."
But Lai Yi didn't seem to think much of her choice.
"But you're trying to learn too much! Potions, basic Construction School Spell studies... who picks classes like this? A normal person would be lucky to learn one of these well in two or three years, and you want to learn so many."
"What if I learn them all?"
Lai Yi didn't take the bait and instead brought up something else.
"I still suggest you drop most of your classes... haven't you been looking for information on other Schools?"
"Yes, do you know where there's a summary of information? I really need that."
"There isn't one, but I have a big piece of news related to a School."
Furan's interest was piqued. She was currently very sensitive to information regarding these schools; several of her courses were chosen based on rumors.
For example, one of her courses, 'Basic Construction Spell Study,' was said to recommend excellent apprentices to the Construction School; the Teacher of 'Explanation of Common Alliance Creatures' would occasionally recommend students to the Necromancy School... "Let me think, it should be a course available to all academies that doesn't cost points, I think it's called 'Weapon Forging'."
Course selection was divided into courses available only to one's own academy and courses taken with other academies. Generally, you could get into your own academy's courses, but this kind... "I've seen it, that course seems to have been full long ago..."
Furan had seen this course before and wanted to pick it to practice Weapon Forging skills, but it was already full, so she had dropped the idea.
"Use your points to force your way into this course. Let me tell you, this seems to be the first time this School has come to Apprentice City to recruit apprentices."
When a free course was full, an apprentice could use points to forcibly add their name to it; this was a minor but useful function of points.
Furan was also moved by Bella's words. Recruiting in Apprentice City for the first time? Maybe this School's Spells were very powerful?!