Royal Academy

The Royal Academy (貴族院, kizoku-in) is located in the Sovereignty, the central zone of the kingdom. It is situated on a hill surrounded by forests of conifers. Due to its ability to sustain itself via teleportation circles, no supporting villages are found in the general area.

As the name suggests, its main purpose is the education of noble students, but it is also used as the site for the yearly Archduke's Conference.

Barring those sent to the temple to become priests and shrine maidens, all nobles are sent to the Royal Academy, usually in the Winter after their tenth birth season. Exceptions can be made to allow the attendance of older nobles if there were attenuating circumstances that prevented them from attending at the proper time, like severe illness, but these circumstance are rare and are not looked upon kindly in noble society.

After the civil war and the resulting purges, all the former priests that were called back to noble society all got special exception to attend the academy, even the ones already fully adult. The nobles are taught by professors who teach various fields of knowledge. Students are ranked by how much mana they have and the rank of their duchy, but while they are in class professors are always treated as the superior even to Archnobles and Archuduke Candidates.

The regular education takes five years. The first two years consist of courses common to all nobles and serve as a base for the later specializations. From the third year onward, the education splits off into courses specialized toward the field of the future career of the noble students. The courses are:


 * The Knight's Course
 * The Attendant's Course
 * The Scholar's Course
 * The Archduke Candidate's Course

In order to graduate one of these courses must be successfully finished. While it is uncommon, students can voluntarily take more than one course should they wish it. Generally each student may choose their course according to their own will, with the only exception being archduke's children - including adopted ones. For them the archduke candidate's course, where they learn how to govern a duchy and support the current archduke, is mandatory, even if they have no intention of competing for the position themselves. .

At the end of the final year, there is a graduation ceremony in which the most talented students of dedication whirl and blade dance are chosen for the final performance. To be chosen for these acts is considered a great honor.

When attending the academy, only a single adult retainer is allowed to be taken along. However, other students can be hired as knights, attendants and scholars. Apart from the wages they receive, the students chosen as retainers also profit from this by being able to gather experience in the future careers, while still studying.

While it is highly unusual and frowned upon for adults other than these retainers to enter the academy during a regular term, it is not technically forbidden, if a noble is able to come up with a believable excuse for a visit that does not involve any royal academy affairs. An example for such a case is Ferdinand of Ehrenfest paying a visit to Professor Hirschur for the official purpose of discussing magic tools he had made and left with her. Outside of such fringe cases, any communication between the students and the adults back in their homes is done via letters delivered through the teleportation circles.

Arguably the most important part of the curriculum of the academy is the acquisition of a schtappe. Only people who acquired a schtappe and graduated graduated from the Royal Academy, are recognized as full-fledged nobles.

To facilitate the timing of classes the bells in the Academy ring twice as often on days with lessons.

With a large variety of ingredients growing near the academy, the brewing lessons are standardized to use specifically those ingredients.

The losses of life in both the battles of the civil war and the purges following it saw the teaching staff greatly diminished. The influx of so many new teachers by itself caused many changes in the lessons being taught. The various syllabi were further adapted to fit the new environment, in many ways making it easier to successfully graduate, at the cost of the quality of the education, likely due to the pressing need for more nobles and the influx of nobles with very small mana capacities who in the past would have been sent to the temple, rather than being educated at the academy. The most obvious decline happened among the knight's candidates, where the replacement of treasure stealing ditter with speed ditter resulted in many new students being barely able to coordinate with their fellow apprentice knights. But this decline was not limited to just the knight's course. Other courses suffered similar issues which would then require fresh graduates to require further lessons in their home duchies to become equal to their predecessors.

Under Lady Rozemyne's guidance, Ehrenfest incorporated the old syllabus in addition to the new one in their study materials. While this would mean that they had to learn things that were not expected to come up in the exams, it would make it much easier for the students to perform the duties of their respective profession without having to take too many more lessons after graduation from the academy.

This also unexpectedly served the Ehrenfest students well when Professor Fraularm made an unannounced return to the pre-civil-war syllabus in sociology class in an attempt to undermine Ehrenfest's attempts to reach all passing marks in every written lesson on the respective first day of each written lesson for a second time in a row. Judging by comments she received, she was able to press this issue through with her colleagues by framing it as a way to ascertain whether the Ehrenfest students were only reaching their high marks due to cheating. Much to her barely concealed vexation though, the Ehrenfest second years still managed to all pass, thanks to learning both the old and new syllabus thanks to Rozemyne.

For details on the schedules and lessons see Curriculum Tab.

Starting at third bell, the Advancement Ceremony is the first event held at the royal academy at the start of a term.

All the current students gather in the main auditorium, with the students entering by duchy ranking and remain standing for the duration of the ceremony. Once the members of the lowest duchy have entered and taken their place, a representative of the teaching staff holds a speech, celebrating the advancement of years, which is more or less the same each year. To make sure the speakers are heard loud and clear, voice amplifying magic tools are used.

Following this, the professors announce information regarding the upcoming classes, as well as some more general information for the sake of the first-years.

Once this is finished, the students are told which room to go to for the fellowship gatherings.

After the conclusion of the advancement ceremony, the students are split into groups according to their status with each level of nobility being assigned a separate classroom. Sixth-year students are expected to guide their juniors, especially the first-years.

At the room in question, once again the students enter in order of their duchy-rank.

Once everyone is seated, a representative of each duchy is expected to introduce themselves to all the higher ranking duchies, again in order of ranking. In practice this means the highest ranking duchy's students can remain seated the entire time. The representative from the second highest duchy will then introduce themselves to the first and return to their seat. Then the representative of the third duchy will first introduce themselves to the first and then the second duchy before returning to their places and so on until the last duchy has finished their introduction to all the higher ranking ones.

In case of the room with the archduke candidates, there will always be a member of the royal family present. If no royal child is currently at the age to attend the academy, an appointed overseer will take the place. Apart from the royal standing even over the highest ranking duchy, the proceedings are the same as with the arch-, med- and laynobles.

At the introduction first regular noble greetings are exchanged. If the person greeted is of the royalty, the students are expected to finish their greeting with an introduction of their names, followed by "...here to learn to become proper nobles fit to serve Yurgenschmidt. May the future be bright."

Once the formal greeting is finished, the students may choose to hold short conversations, but are generally expected to keep anything said short so as to not drag the already lengthy greetings out too much.

After all the greetings have been finished, the students served food, followed by time to socialize amongst each other before they have to return to their dorms.

The fellowship gathering for royalty and archduke candidates is held in the small hall.

This ceremony is held at the end of each regular term of the royal academy for the students who graduate.

Part of the ceremony are the Dedication Whirl, were seven hand-picked students perform a prayer-dance to the gods a performance of the most skilled sword-dancers.

The students for dedication whirl are chosen from among the archduke candidates. Only if there aren't enough archduke candidates graduating in a given year are archnobles chosen to fill the open roles. Sword-dancers are almost exclusively archnobles since it requires significant mana capacity and skills, though mednobles might also earn the honor to perform in very rare special cases. In Angelica's case, she is able to perform thanks to her exceptional skill, mana capacity and a personal endorsement by Professor Rauffen. As a tradition, female graduates are to be escorted by a male, whereas male graduates are to escort a female. Graduates could also be escorted by younger students or older adults. Since this is a de-facto open declaration of relationship, the pairs are usually engaged or at least romantically involved with each other. Nobles who are either unwilling or unable to find such partner for their graduation are often accompanied by a member of their family that far exceeds their age. Non-romantic acquaintances or relatives of similar age are seldom chosen, to avoid giving wrong impressions that the two being involved with each other, which could deter prospective marriage partners.

The Graduation Ceremony itself is conducted by the Sovereignty High Bishop personally, by giving his verbal blessings to the graduates.

See Archduke Conference

The Academy consists of a big central complex, erected on a sizeable hill, where the Library, classrooms and other rooms meant to be used by nobles of more than a single duchy are located. This includes separate buildings for scholars and knights. From this central complex, the dormitories of the various duchies radiate outward, each in the style of their home. Students may only enter their own dormitory and the common areas. Each duchy dormitory is situated on it's own hill, each smaller than the one of the central building.

The royal academy contains a chapel dedicated to the Gods. This chapel contains the entrance to the Farthest Hall.

It is also the place where the marriage ceremonies for members of the royal family and archduke family members are held by the sovereign high bishop.

The Farthest Hall is a cavern that can only be accessed from a chapel behind the main auditorium of Royal Academy. It is in this place that students acquire their Divine Will, an essential component of a Schtappe. It's entrance is hidden behind a staircase, that can be moved to the side by a professor pouring mana into a concealed feystone.

From the entrance and throughout most of the way, the place looks like a long corridor hewn directly from the natural rock, with the ivory footpath being the only visible artificial structure, serving both to provide secure footing and as the only illumination, with it's faint glow. This path leaders steadily higher at a mild incline, occasionally going up steep enough for the ivory path to form a couple of steps.

At the very end of the corridor lies a big spiral staircase going up roughly one story, leading up to a large cavern with a circular ivory plaza surrounding a sculpture of a tree made from the same white material, beautifully illuminated by a hole in the ceiling above it, allowing sunlight to pour in.

Going by Rozemyne's observation, it would appear that the less mana capacity a student has, the nearer to the entrance they find their Divine Will. Laynobles generally find theirs in a matter of minutes, mednobles have to go about halfway up the path and archnobles very near to the end. In her age group she was the only one who had to go up the spiral staircase.

Each Dormitory contains the living quarters of the students, as well as the teleportation circles connected to the capital of the respective duchy. Since they are made from the creation magic of past Archdukes of their region, their aesthetics match with that of the home-castle, both on the in- and outside. Member of a duchy are strictly forbidden to attempt to enter the dormitories of another duchy. The dormitories are secured by magical barriers, that allow only those with magical token to enter, like the brooches that are handed out to students.

Only the king himself has the authority to grant permission to enter another duchy's dormitory, which is only given in exceptional circumstances and under the oversight of knights from the sovereignty knight's order. The only known instances of such a thing happen was the investigation of the former Werkerstock dormitory after a ternisbefallen attack on the Ehrenfest gathering spot during Rozemyne's second year at the academy, which was traced back to that place and hunting for rebel nobles during the the civil war.

Apart from the student's living quarters the dormitories also contain rooms for the archducal couple and their attendants for use during the interduchy tournament and archduke's conference. Due to the strict partitioning of males and females into separate levels of the building, the archducal couple too have separate rooms in the respective levels.

In addition to the student facilities the building also contains parts that are not protected by barriers and thus accessible to visitors, which contain meeting rooms for inter-duchy socializing.

Generally these rooms are big and can be fitted with many tables. When not needed excess furniture is kept in nearby storage rooms. To offer more privacy for smaller meetings, parts of the room can be partitioned off.

Near each Dormitory exists an area that is protected by a barrier that keeps snow out and may also contain wards to prevent people from other duchies from entering. Originally these spots were created as the home-base for treasure-stealing ditter, but the absence of snow ended up providing a good environment for various feyplants to grow, which in turn attracted feybeasts, making the spots ideal for gathering ingredients and hunting. With the ditter tournaments now being changed to speed ditter played in the stadium, these places are now solely used for gathering and thus commonly known as "gathering spots".

Spoiler from Royal Academy Stories - First Year

At the end of each term the dormitories are completely closed down once the last students have left for their home duchy. Should a student require remedial classes, the entire dormitory needs to be kept running and remain staffed with cooks and servants, putting a burden on the duchy, which is one of the reasons why dormitory supervisors are very invested in making sure all the students from their duchy finish their classes within the regular semester of the academy. Once all the cooks and servants have left together with the students, the dormitory supervisors eat with the other professors in the shared facilities for the rest of the year until the academy fully reopens the next winter.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 7

The current supervisor of the Drewanchel dormitory is Professor Gundolf.

Their archduke candidate-level meeting room is decorated in a way that gives of very natural vibes. The wainscoting running across all the walls is curved and flowing in shape, the clothes the have hung up depict flowers and trees and there are many potted plants. Rozemyne likened the atmosphere of the room to being in a forest.

The current supervisor of the Dunkelfelger dormitory is Professor Rauffen.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 7 Fitting with the martial mindset of Dunkelfelger nobles, the meeting rooms of their dorm are rather spartan. Fitted out in a blue and white colour-scheme, the room is built for functionality first and lacks any of the decorations, ornamentations and intricate carvings usually found in meeting rooms at the royal academy. This extends even the highest-class meeting room for archduke candidates, which has only a single piece of decoration, a statue of a knight on highbest carved from a blue crystal of superb craftsmanship.

The first floor contains the meeting rooms for inter-duchy socializing and is thus not protected by the barrier that keeps people from other duchies out of the student facilities.

Ehrenfest's meeting rooms are decorated with tapestries that still show quite a lot of the surrounding ivory walls. Most of the furniture is made from carved wood.

The second floor contains the room with the teleportation circle, as well as an exit to the outside. Both are guarded by a pair of knights each.

The first room one enters after exiting the teleportation circle is the common area on the second floor, where all students, regardless of rank, gender or grade can socialize together. Apart from several communal rooms for studying, socializing or spending free time, this area also contains a common dining room. While each student is free to eat in the privacy of their own room, most Ehrenfest students seem to prefer eating together in the common area.

In Rozemyne's second term at the academy, a set of bookshelves was added to the common room, which she filled primarily with learning material, but also set aside some room for entertainment books. The former are organized by term and course, while the latter are organized by the duchy the stories originate from, as well as the genre.

The bookshelf in the common room also contains a catalogue listing all the books of the royal academy that have been transcribed the previous year to avoid students accidentally creating unnecessary duplicates of already finished transcriptions.

Further backward are the living quarters. The boys' rooms are also on the second floor, while the girls' rooms are one level up. The third floor is strictly off limits to males. To assure that everyone follows this rule, guard knights are at all times stationed at the staircase, taking shifts to never leave the post unattended. The quarters closest to the common areas are traditionally used by laynobles, with the status going up the further toward the back one goes. The rooms furthest toward the back of their respective floors are reserved for archduke candidates. Attendants currently employed by higher ranking students are exempt from this, staying instead in rooms directly next to their masters', so they can stay near to their charge. Students can choose to share rooms with others to save money or if they like the company.

The basement contains facilities for servants, like the kitchen.

Ehrenfest Dormitory is officially overseen by Professor Hirschur, though she often neglects this duty in favor of her research.

Klassenberg's current dormitory supervisor is Professor Primevere.

Klassenberg's meeting rooms are fitted with massive tapestries that cover the entirety of the surrounding walls like wallpapers. Over the tapestries many expansive paintings are hung to show off the duchy's wealth, along with expansive furniture made from a marble-like stone.

This building houses the Sovereignty knights and contains the classrooms and training rooms for apprentice knights.

Attached to the Knights building is a stadium for ditter matches. It has roughly the size of a baseball stadium, but does not have tiered seats for the spectators. The top appears to be open to the sky, but a transparent ceiling prevents wind and weather from affecting the field below. It is unclear whether this is a physical material or a magical barrier.

The field itself contains four magic circles meant to keep captured feybeast in place during treasure-stealing ditter matches.

Spoiler from Part 4 Volume 7 The Knight's building has multiple training grounds. Ever since speed ditter replaced treasure-stealing ditter as the main event of the Interduchy Tournament, the ditter tournament itself taking place at the largest of the training fields and all the socializing and research presentations take place on the surrounding terasses.

Like the smaller ditter statium, this big training field appears to be open to the sky, but no rain or snow falls into it, making it very likely it is protected by a magical barrier in place of a roof.

 See Library Tab 

Rather than having buildings for members of the royal family, the academy instead is fitted with doors that have teleportation magic built into them, which directly connect the royal villas in and near the Royal Palace with the academy.

Unlike the teleportation circles used to transfer between the royal academy and the duchies' archduke castles, these teleporters do not need to be specifically charged for each teleport or have their short time-delay and magical sparks, to the point where the person using them won't even notice having been teleported and often believe they are just in the different part of the royal academy adjacent to the corridor the entered by.

In contrast to the dormitories, access to the royal villa is possible for all nobles, provided they have the permission of the owner of the villa.

The doors themselves look identical, but are marked with the elements of various gods to show which villa they connect to. They are as follows:
 * Darkness: Villa of the king, currently Zent Trauerqual
 * Light: Villa of the king's first wife
 * Water: Villa of the king's second wife
 * Wind: Villa of the king's third wife
 * Fire: Villa of the first prince, currently Prince Sigiswald
 * Life: Villa of the second prince, currently Prince Anastasius
 * Earth: Villa of the third prince, currently Prince Hildebrand

It is not known if there are further teleportation door for more princes.

This building contains the living quarters for the Sovereignty scholars and classrooms for the apprentice scholars. It also houses laboratories, both for teaching purposes and personal labs for the residents to pursue their own research when off duty.

This room is where the fellowship gathering for members of the royal family and archduke candidates is held.

During the rest of the year it is used for various other courses, like dedication whirl lessons, the course for transforming schtappes into shields and weapons for archduke candidates , basic brewing lessons for second year students.


 * Although it is possible to take multiple courses, no one can complete all of them -- regular nobles can't take archduke candidate's courses, whereas archduke candidates are not allowed to take attendant's course.
 * Ferdinand stayed at the Royal Academy all year and only returned to Ehrenfest when summoned, because of the bullying he received from Veronica. Due to this, he completed the knight, scholar and archduke candidate course.
 * According to Justus there were twenty rumors or mysteries surrounding the Royal Academy during his time as a student, though none of the current student has ever heard of them, likely due to the civil war. The ones he mentioned are a forbidden archive in the library only accessible by royalty, a statue of a goddess that is supposed to dance on the nights of the graduation ceremonies, a gazebo where the goddess of time plays tricks and a gewinnen set that decides the outcome of ditter matches.