Royal Academy

Light Novel

Anime

Web Novel

This Article is based on the Official Translations of the Light Novel series! The Light Novel series is the source material for the adaptation of the Anime and Manga series. The information and terminology on the article will be based on the source material rather than the adaptions.

Info Library Curriculum

A map of the south-estern parts of the Royal Academy

The Royal Academy (貴族院, kizoku-in) is located in the Sovereignty, the central zone of the country.

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

The continued running of the academy is funded in part by the Sovereignty itself and in part by the duchies, with the latter generally contributing according to their size. Despite the differing amounts of money that the duchies provide, the education is still the same for all attending students, regardless of their place of origin.

Surroundings

The Royal Academy 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.

During the terms, the entire area is generally covered deep blankets of snow, resulting in the view outside being dominated by white, with only the occasional bit of green from the trees peaking through. However by the time of the Archduke Conference, the snow has already melted, and the white blanks give away to abundant greenery and vast fields of colourful flowers, offing a beautiful view to those privileged enough to participate. The contrast comes as quite the surprise to those, who've only ever visited the place during the depth of winter.

Education

Rozemyne learning Ordonnanz in the Schtappe fundamentals course

Barring those sent to a 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 extenuating circumstances that prevented them from attending at the proper time, like severe illness, but these circumstances 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 exemption to attend the Royal 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 archduke candidates.

The regular education takes six 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 an 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 whirls and sword dances are chosen for the final performance. To be chosen for these acts is considered a great honor.

When attending the Royal 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 Royal 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 home duchies is done via letters delivered through the teleportation circles

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

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

With a large variety of ingredients growing near the Royal 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 a temple, rather than being educated at the Royal Academy. The most obvious decline happened among the apprentice knights, 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 need 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 professions without having to take too many more lessons after graduation from the Royal 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.

Schedules and Curriculum

For details on the schedules and lessons see Curriculum Tab.

Rules

• All nobles staying at the Royal Academy are only allowed to bring only a single adult retainer - traditionally an attendant - to stay with them. However, students are permitted to hire other students of their duchy as retainers. This rule applies to both students and Royal Academy staff, but not for short-term stays like visiting the Interduchy Tournament, meeting with Royal Academy staff, or participating in the Archduke Conference.
• The use of highbeasts indoors in any place other than the Knight's Building is prohibited, unless special permission is granted.
• There must always be a member of the royal family assigned to the Royal Academy during the regular semester to formally oversee the term and arbitrate inter-duchy disputes of a magnitude large enough to exceed the professors' authority.
• It is forbidden to even attempt to enter the dormitory or gathering spot of any duchy other than your own without an invitation by the Aub of the duchy. Only a royal decree by the king himself can grant permission to enter a dormitory without the local archduke's invitation.
• As a general rule, it is forbidden for adults other than the professors to come to the Royal Academy and directly interact with the students during the semester, until the start of the Interduchy Tournament. Any interaction between the students and the nobles in their home duchy is limited to sending messages through the teleportation circle.
  • Visiting Royal Academy staff is technically allowed, but generally frowned upon if done during the studying year, and thus only done in exceptional situations.
  • Another exception are cases where the guardians of a student are specifically summoned to the Royal Academy, which only happens in unusual cases like inquiries into crimes or a student failing mandatory lessons and needing extra study time beyond the usual time in which the Royal Academy is operating.
• Entering the corridor beyond the teleportation doors to the duchy dormitories and royal villas, is prohibited.

Advancement Ceremony

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 gives 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.

Fellowship Gathering

Greeting Prince Hildebrand during the fellowship gathering

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 duchy and then the second duchy before returning to their seats, and so forth, 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 Royal 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 are 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.

Dedication Ritual

In the year following the joint research of Ehrenfest and Dunkelfelger into the finer details of religious ceremonies and their connection to the chances of obtaining divine protections, Klassenberg begins organizing a yearly Dedication Ritual for the students. Since the ritual requires Divine Instruments, it isn't possible to hold it at the same time as the temple's own rituals. In negotiations between Aub Klassenberg, the Sovereign Temple - who would provide the Divine Instruments - and the professors, it was decided to hold the ritual at the beginning of the term, shortly after the Fellowship Gathering, to give the students of the appropriate grade the chance to participate, prior to the ritual to obtain divine protections and thus increase their chances of success. Furthermore it was decided to hold three rituals, separating the students by noble status, since doing the ritual with laynobles, mednobles and archnobles together poses great risk to the lower-ranking children with respectively low mana capacities. The Sovereign Temple argued strongly for a single ritual, but the professors considered the risk for the low mana-capacity students to be too big.

Despite the rituals being organized by Klassenberg, the first set of ceremonies will be led by the Ehrenfest archduke candidates, with Lady Rozemyne overseeing the one for archnobles and archduke candidates, Lord Wilfried leading the mednobles and Lady Charlotte taking care of the laynoble ritual.

Officially these Dedication Rituals are counted as joint research, rather than actual parts of the curriculum. Since participation in joint research is voluntary, this arrangement allows individual students to decide for themselves, whether they wish to participate, without any negative consequences for those that forgoe it. As a downside however, this means it is not part of the regular schedule and thus they had to be set for Earthdays to make sure there were no overlaps with any lessons. The archnobles and archduke candidates will have their ritual on the first Earthday after the start of classes, with the other ranks following in one week intervals by status. For the youngest children, it is possible to voluntarily participate in the next-lower group, should concerns arise over participating together with older students, who are already compressing their mana. Prince Hildebrand, who got special permission to joint the Dedication Ritual despite not being a student yet, is one of the children, who participates in lower groups - he will join the mednobles - which serves to show everyone that there is no stigma attached to doing so, since even a royal is doing it.

Technically calling it joint research isn't appropriate, since actual joint research is conducted primarily by students, with the professors being the only adults involved. However for the Dedication Rituals, all the negotiations happened exclusively between Aub Klassenberg and other adults, with not a single student being involved until after everything except the exact day had been fixated. Either the adults forgot to consider this, or were of the opinion that the advantages outweighted the breach in protocol.

Graduation Ceremony

This ceremony is held at the end of each regular term of the Royal Academy for the students who graduate as part of the Interduchy Tournament.

See Interduchy Tournament

Crest Work

Crest work in the Royal Academy refers to the jobs students can take on to earn money. The name stems from the order forms used to ensure payment is received. These forms contain the names and crests of both the giver of the job and the one taking it and a description of the job in question. Anyone who doesn't receive the agreed compensation can use these documents to petition the respective Aub about it during the next Interduchy Tournament.

One example for crest work is Lady Rozemyne paying any student, regardless of faction or duchy, for transcriptions of books that aren't present in Ehrenfest's castle bookroom.

Archduke Conference

See Archduke Conference

Architecture

Royal Academy Central Complex

The Royal 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 its own hill, each smaller than the one of the central building.

Adalgisa Villa

This building, situated somewhere in the ring between the central building and the dormitories, is used to house the Lanzenave princesses that were sent to Yurgenschmidt, as part of a diplomatic arrangement between the two countries and their offspring. The name comes from the first princess who was sent to Yurgenschmit roughly 400 years ago.

It contains three seperate set of rooms, named after the flowers Koralie, Loweleier and Schentis. When the treaty was still in place, the rooms were inhabited by one princess each.

Prior to their baptism, all the children would be evaluated. Girls would be designated as either flowers, buds, gardeners or seeds. Of the boys, the one with the highest mana capacity was chosen as the successor to the King of Lanzenave and all others automatically became seeds.

Flower is the designation given to the princesses residing in the main building, in the set of rooms of each house, who's duty was to give birth to the next generation.
Buds were girls that were kept in reserve to replace the flower, should something happen to her. If a bud wasn't called up to become a flower and didn't find a marriage partner, she would eventually become a seed at some unknown point after her coming of age.
Gardeners would lose their royal status and be baptized as the children of their house's head attendant and be raised to become the next generation of attendants of the villa.
Seeds were destined to be executed and their feystones to be returned to Lanzenave.

Children stayed with their mothers in the main building until their baptism, at which point they were moved to the side building, where they would live together. Boys who weren't chosen as the successor of the king and thus designated as seeds, would be turned to feystone right away and thus never be baptized.

To keep the existence of the Adalgisa villa secret, the residents are forbidden from leaving the villa during the winter season. The king candidate is thus educated in the other three seasons, by a selected group of professors from the royal family or one of their branch families. To keep the caretakers of the Royal Academy Library and any regular professor who remains at the academy outside of winter from finding out, the king candidate is introduced to them as a member of a royal branch family, who couldn't attend during the regular semester, due to some made up excuse, like an illness.

The villa is permanently protected by a magic circle, invoking Verbergen's Concealment, to avoid any of the students accidentally spotting it from the air, when they fly over the academy grounds on their highbeasts.

Outside the side building, there is an area with gardens, a fountain, a pond and several flower beds, albeit they are all deteriorated and overgrown, from the years of neglect, since the villa was shut down shortly after the civil war. The two buildings look mostly alike, except that the main building has no balconies on the third floor and all it's windows are secured with sturdy-looking metal bars, to make sure the princesses and children can neither leave nor be interfered with by outsiders. The main and side buildings are connected by a raised corridor, but the main building has no windows in that direction, making it likely, that the inhabitants weren't even aware of this passage.

The side building is where the teleporter to Ahrensbach is located.

Male seeds aren't given proper names, but are refered to and registered with a number instead. Only the boy that is chosen as the next king of Lanzenave is given a proper name by their mother, at their baptism, after which they are moved to the side building. Since the children are registered with their temporary number as a name, due to how Yurgenschmidt works, this number because their true name, under which the gods know them. The only two numbers currently known are Terza and Quinta, which sound a lot like the Latin words for three and five respectively, though the books do not confirm if this is the case.

None of the male children are permitted to attend Royal Academy courses, albeit the chosen king successor is permitted to visit the library, while there are no students at the academy. The girls are getting a Royal Academy education, if they aren't designated seeds and thus executed in place of being baptized.

Central Building

The central building contains facilities used for the general courses that all students, regardles of their chosen course, have to go pass, a chapel and meeting rooms and the likes for the archduke conference. It also has connections to the specialty buildings and the library.

Farthest Hall

The Farthest Hall can be accessed from the main auditorium of the Royal Academy.

The door to the Farthest Hall can only be opened by members of the royal family, Aubs, or someone entrusted with a feystone containing the mana of a royal. To open the door, the person must pour their mana into a feystone set into the door or touch the feystone against it. The same procedure is required to close the door.
This magical lock is one of the reasons for the rule stating that there must always be a royal overseeing every term at the Royal Academy.

Chapel

The Royal Academy contains a chapel dedicated to the gods. This chapel contains the entrance to the cave of great importance to nobility as a whole.

It is also the place where the marriage ceremonies for members of the royal family and archduke family members are held by the Sovereignty High Bishop.

Farthest Hall Cave

Rozemyne in the deepest reaches of the Farthest Hall

The Farthest Hall has a cavern, that can only be accessed from a chapel behind the main auditorium of the Royal Academy. It is in this place that students acquire their Divine Will, an essential component of a schtappe. Its 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 its faint glow. This path leads steadily higher at a mild incline, occasionally going up steep enough for the ivory path to form a set of steps.

At the very end of the corridor lies a large 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.

From texts in the Underground Archive, Rozemyne later learns that the place with the crystal tree is called the Garden of Beginning and that all people who are omni-elemental when looking for their divine will - be it naturally or from divine protections - will find their will in this area, confirming her observation.

Small Hall

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, and basic brewing lessons for second year students.

Teleporter Hallway

This hallway contains teleportation doors, of the kind that people who don't know, don't even become aware they stepped through a teleporter, rather than just walking into the adjacent room, to the duchy dormitories and royal villas. The doors are ordered by rank, with the highest ranked duchies, being the closest to the main central building. At the furthest end of the hallway are the teleporters to the royal villas.

Every time the rankings of the duchies change, the connections between the doors and the respective dormitories are reconfigured accordingly.

Beyond that point is a conference room and a corridor, which connects to a teleportation hall, linked with the country gates. This room only contains the teleportation circle and is otherwise completely barren. Unlike the rest of the Royal Academy, it's walls shine in rainbow patterns, like the country gates themselves. It is secured with a heavy wooden door, that can be locked and unlocked by touching a Grutrissheit to it, but does not require any other incantation. Rather atypically for doors used by nobles, these doors creak, when they swing open or closed.

Students are strictly prohibited from entering even the corridor, much less the teleportation hall itself.

Garden of Beginnings

This place is at the very center of the Royal Academy, underground. In the center of this vast cave, is a circular ivory plaza, surrounding what looks like the statue of a tree, made form the same material, beautifully illuminated, by a hole in the ceiling.

The tree is actually the former god Erwaermen, who takes on the shape of this tree while dormant. When a Zent Candidate, passes the trial of character, Erwaermen will transform into a Human shape to interact with them and grant them Mestionora's Wisdom, to fill their empty Grutrissheit, albeit the colour and texture of this body, is still that of an ivory construct.

Apart from being teleported, the Garden of Beginnings can also be accessed by going up the staircase at the end of the Farthest Hall Cave, albeit the opening for the staircase closes up, while a Zent Candidate treats with Erwaermen and only open up, once they are finished, or from the shrine in the chapel of the Royal Academy, which opens a path directly into the garden, when someone omni-elemental finishes the ritual to obtain divine protections.

Despite the appearance, the hole in the ceiling is not a viable entry point. It is nigh on impossible to pass through and the only person confirmed to ever do so, is Ferdinand, much to the displeasure of Erwaermen, who considers this a gross violation of etiquette and decency.

In the past, Erwaermen was able to freely transform into his Human-like shape, and converse with any noble entering the garden to obtain their divine will. But this transformation uses up mana, so once Yurgenschmidt was hit by the mana-shortage, so severe it threatened the kingdom's very existence, he was forced to forgo those opportunities of conversation and only transform, to grant Zent Candidates the Wisdom of Mestionora.

Duchy Dormitories

Each Dormitory contains the living quarters of the students, as well as the teleportation circles connected to the capital of the respective duchy. Each dormitory has a door, that is in fact a teleporter, leading to a hallway connected to the central building, where it connects to the counterpart marked with the number of a duchy's current rank.

Since the dormitory buildings 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. Members 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 tokens to enter, like the brooches that are handed out to students.

These tokens are only handed out to members of the duchy, though on rare occasions the Aub of the duchy can hand out a feystone infused with their mana to allow people from other duchies to temporarily enter their dormitory.

Without the respective Aub's cooperation, 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 instance of such a thing happening was the investigation of the former Werkestock dormitory after a ternisbefallen attack on the Ehrenfest gathering spot, during Lady Rozemyne's second year at the Royal Academy, which was traced back to that duchy, and reopened briefly to hunt for rebel nobles during the the Civil War, or find evidence.

Apart from the student's living quarters, the dormitories also contain rooms for the archducal couple and their attendants to 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 have separate rooms on 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".

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 Royal 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 Royal Academy fully reopens the next winter.

Generally duchy dormitories have a basement and three levels for servants, students and guests to stay in, with a fourth floor being used like an attic to store things that would be in the way in other areas.

Drewanchel Dormitory

The current supervisor of the Drewanchel dormitory is Professor Gundolf.

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

Dunkelfelger Dormitory

The current supervisor of the Dunkelfelger dormitory is Professor Rauffen.

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, ornamentation, or intricate carvings usually found in meeting rooms at the Royal Academy. This extends to even the highest-class meeting room for archduke candidates, which has only a single piece of decoration, a statue of a knight on a highbeast, carved from a blue crystal of superb craftsmanship.

This lack of decoration is even more severe in the dormitory accessible only to Dunkelfelgerians, where the walls are completely blank, except for the occasional bit of blue to show the duchy colour, just like it is back in their Archduke's castle in full alignment with Dunkelfelger prioritizing practicality above all else.

Unlike most other duchies, the Dunkelfelger dormitory houses its own training grounds for their apprentice knights. These fields are available for the students to organize small-scale ditter matches among themselves, or in very rare occasions, private matches against nobles of other duchies. One such case was a ditter match between Lord Ferdinand of Ehrenfest and Lord Heisshitze over the publishing rights of a book, suggested by Aub Dunkelfelger himself and approved by Aub Ehrenfest.

Ehrenfest Dormitory

First Floor

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.

Second Floor

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 Lady Rozemyne's second term at the Royal Academy, a set of bookshelves were added to the common room, which she filled primarily with learning materials, 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, and subdivided by the genre.

The bookshelf in the common room also contains a catalogue. This lists 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.

After finishing her research into feybeasts, Leonore compiled her findings into documents and put them into the bookshelf as well, so that future generations of Ehrenfest students will have access to them, even after her graduation.

Further back are the living quarters for boys and stairs leading to the third floor. The boys' rooms are exclusively 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 are reserved for archduke candidates. Attendants currently employed by higher ranking students are exempt from this, staying instead in rooms directly next to their master's, so they can stay near to their charge.
The final room is reserved for the exclusive use of the archduke or the husband of the archduchess, and barring very unusual circumstances, it only sees use during the Interduchy Tournament and Archduke Conference
Students can choose to share rooms with others to save money or if they like the company.

The Ehrenfest Dormitory also has at least one room fitted out for brewing potions accessible to all students.

Third Floor

This room contains the living quarters for girls. Any male, be it boy or grown man, is strictly forbidden from going up to this floor, and to ensure everyone adheres to this rule, guard knights are stationed at the bottom of the stairs. Even male retainers of female students are forbidden from entering the rooms of their lady, requiring their female co-retainers to pass messages to her when she's on the third floor. As a result, female students use exclusively female retainers at the Royal Academy.
As with the boys' quarters on the second floor, the highest status students have their quarters the furthest in the back with the final room being reserved for the exclusive use of the archduchess or the archduke's first wife.

Basement

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 Dormitory

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 having expensive furniture made from a marble-like stone.

Duchy Gathering Spots

In the vicinity of the Royal Academy, each duchy maintains a so-called gathering spot. Originally, these spots were created as the home-base for treasure-stealing ditter and thus were secured with various barriers and protective enhancements.Soon after their establishment, the students discovered that the mana from these barriers attracted feybeasts and also helped feyplants to grow. It is unknown when the idea came up, but at some point in the distant past, the people in charge decided to utilize this side-effect for the curriculum of the Royal Academy.

The duchy's spots were all fitted with a magic circle and would from then on be used to grow specific feyplants. The brewing and crafting lessons would from then on utilize precisely the materials that can be found in the spots, and at some point, the students took to calling the places inside the barriers "gathering spots" for this very reason.

Should a gathering spot be damaged, it was the responsibility of the Sovereignty Temple to enact Flutrane's Healing Ritual, which activated the magic circle of the gathering spot to guide Flutrane's healing magic to grow the feyplants into a fully grown state. This ritual usually takes dozens of Sovereignty blue priests several days to complete, on account of the massive mana requirements. Since priests tend to have far less mana than regular nobles and they have no access to rejuvenation potions, they have to take turns and wait for hours or even days to recover their mana before they can participate again.

After discoveries made by Ehrenfest, many duchies take up the practice to have their students regenerate their gathering spots during the academy term, to both increase the yield and the chances of the children to obtain more divine protections. Contrary to initial believe, it is possible to rejuvenate the Royal Academy gathering spots even without Flutrane's divine instrument, likely due to the complex magic circle worked into the foundations of the spots.

Ehrenfest Gathering Spot

During Rozemyne's second Royal Academy term, the Ehrenfest gathering spot was attacked by a Ternisbefallen, and a considerable part of the plants within were destroyed. Thanks to her ability to turn her schtappe into divine instruments, Rozemyne was able to enact the healing ritual completely on her own, albeit with the use of several of Ferdinand's "ultra nasty potions," in less than a bell.

The following year, the students discovered that thanks to Lady Rozemyne's mana, the Ehrenfest gathering spot is more plentiful than it was before, with more feyplants growing and generally all the ingredients containing more mana and thus being higher quality. They also discovered that the more plentiful bounty also attracted more and stronger feybeasts than usual.

The higher than usual number of feybeasts had further detrimental effects in addition to increasing the danger of gathering. The feybeasts also eat up more of the plants if not kept in check, which is why in the period before Ehrenfest became aware of this issue, while the quality of the plants rose, the quantity diminished significantly. When Rozemyne returns to the Royal Academy for her third term, she enacts another healing ritual help offset this issue.

In Rozemyne's fourth year at the Royal Academy, she leaves rejuvenating the gathering spot to the other students, to future proof Ehrenfest for the time when she will no longer be around.

Gardens

Outside of the main building, there is a set of gardens maintained by the professors and protected by magical barriers that keep snow and rain out. In a part of the gardens with lots of flowers are placed ivory gazebos that are favourite spot of romantically involved students to meet. It is common to leave one's highbeast at the entrance to indicate a gazebo currently being occupied.

Knight's Building

This building houses the quarters of the Sovereignty knights and Knight's Course professors, classrooms, and training rooms for apprentice knights, as well as a medical room to treat injuries to severe to be healed by rejucenation potions alone. The professor in charge of the latter, at times uses the injured apprentice knights as "teaching fodder" for other students learning the art of healing. It is the biggest of the three specialty buildings, on account of the many large training grounds.

Due to the size of the Knight's building, it is the only building of the Royal Academy library in which it is allowed to freely use highbeasts indoors, something that pretty much all nobles do as a matter of course, since it would otherwise take too much time to traverse.

Ditter Stadium

Attached to the Knight's building is a stadium for ditter matches. It is 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 feybeasts in place during treasure-stealing ditter matches.

Training Grounds

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 tournament itself takes place at the largest of the training fields, with all the socializing and research presentations taking place on the surrounding terraces.

Like the smaller ditter stadium, 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.

Library

See Library Tab

Royal Villas

Rather than having buildings for members of the royal family, the Royal 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 Royal Academy.

Unlike the teleportation circles used to transfer between the Royal Academy and the duchies' Archduke's castles, these doors 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 usually won't even notice having been teleported, and often believe they are just in the different part of the Royal Academy adjacent to the hallway they entered by.

In contrast to the dormitories, access to a 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, currently Lady Magdalena
• 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 doors for more princes.

Scholar Building

This building contains the living quarters for the Sovereignty scholars and classrooms for the apprentice scholars. It also houses laboratories, both for teaching and researching purposes, a large number of storage rooms, and personal labs for the residents to pursue their own research when off duty. Due to the presence of so many labs, the corridors are suffused by a variety of odd smells at nearly all times from all the brewing going on.

Shrines

Scattered across the area of the Royal Academy are a large number of shrines. One of these shrines was once accidentally destroyed during a match of treasure-stealing ditter by Bonifatius, during his days as a student, earning him a very severe scolding.

These shrines have been constructed some distance between the central buildings and the duchy dormitories and appear to be far enough from either, to be entirely out of sight from both directions. The six large shrines dedicated to primary gods, have equal distance to each other and form a circle around the central building. Scattered around the large shrines, are smaller ones dedicated to the subordinate gods.

Due to being made of ivory material, they are quite well hidden, since they blend in so well with the snow that is covering the area while the regular term is going on. Likewise they are quite difficult to spot once the archduke conference comes about, since even the large shrines are still small enough to be hidden beneath the trees around them. As such, the vast majority of today's noble population isn't even aware of the existence of these shrines.

From their outward appearance, it is quite clear that they have not only been forgotten by the visiting nobles from duchies, but also the caretakers of the academy and the royal family themselves, since they show very clear signs of having been entirely neglected for at least a decade, with plants growing over them, making them even more difficult to spot.

Should a woman, not yet aware of being pregnant, pray at a shrine, the divine voice informs her of her condition, advises her to stop her prayers, and returns the mana already expended in the current prayer to her, so the unborn child will not come to harm.

Large Shrines

As Lady Rozemyne discovered by accident, the large shrines, dedicated to the primary gods, are an integral part in the process to obtain the Grutrissheit.

When a qualified person touches the door, a small amount of mana is sucked out of them and they will find themselves transported to the inside.

What exactly qualifies a person isn't fully clear yet. What is certain, is that the only known people to have entered the shrine are those, who have already been omni-elemental by the time they obtained their schtappe, while other people who became omni-elemental, when they already had their schtappe were unable to enter. However, apart from becoming omni-elemental after they got their schtappe, they also share, that they gained the elements they have no natural affinity for, from the divine protection of a subordinate god, but so far still lack the protection of the associated primary god. As a result Rozemyne, Anastasius and Eglantine speculate that it might be possible for those people to enter the shrine, once they gained the protection of all seven primary gods.

Inside the shrines are thirteen statues. One for the primary god - usually in the center - holding their associated Divine Instrument in one hand, and twelve for their respective subordinate deities around them. If the supplicant has already offered mana to the god of the shrine in any ritual or ceremony held at the Royal Academy, the other hand of the statue of the primary god will hold a feystone in their associated colour. If sufficient mana has been dedicated, this feystone will eventually take the shape of a translucent slate, with words written on them.

If the person has yet to obtain all seven, then the words are:

Your prayers have reached me, and your worth has been acknowledged. I shall now grant you a word necessary to obtain the Book of Mestionora. This word alone, however, will not suffice; a Zent candidate must obtain the words of the gather gods as well.

If the person has already obtained the other six, the final one will show the following text instead:

Your prayers have reached me, and your worth has been acknowledged. I shall now grant you the last word necessary to obtain the book of Mestionora. O great Zent candidate, who has obtained the words of the other gods as well, reach out and seize that which you seek.

Once the slate is complete and the supplicant touches it, it will be absorbed into them like a divine will, fuse with their schtappe and they hear the word in their minds, after which they will find themselves outside the shrine.
Should the supplicant run out of mana and rejuvenation potions, before they can offer enough mana to complete the slate, they will hear words in their mind that they have to offer more prayers and be expelled.

Regardless of whether they succeeded in obtaining the word or not, the supplicant will find themselves in the same position as they had, when touching the door, without any time having been passed on the outside, regardless of how long they felt they spent inside the shrine. If they succeeded, they will see pillars of light rise from the roof of the shrine, in all the colours of the tablets they have obtained so far, but only visible to the person themselves. Once several different tablets have been obtained, the pillars will intertwine and begin to form a complex pattern. Upon obtaining all seven, the pattern will be completed and reveal itself to be a gigantic magic circle hovering in the air, large enough to encompass the entirety of the Royal Academy.

Leidenschaft's Shrine

The shrine dedicated to Leidenschaft is in a forest, directly south of the library, between it and the Dunkelfelger Dormitory. His word is "Kraeftark".

God of Darkness' Shrine

The shrine dedicated to the God of Darkness is located nearest to the scholar building, past it's herb garden, next to Schutzaria's shrine in the circle. To finish the prayers within, it is necessary to say the name of the God of Darkness. His word is "Willedeal".

Schutzaria's Shrine

The shrine dedicated to Schutzaria is located between the shrines of the God of Darkness and Ewigeliebe. Her word is "Teidihinder".

Ewigeliebe's Shrine

Ewigeliebe's shrine is located between the shrines of Schutzaria and the Goddess of Light. Unlike the other five shrines, the statue of the primary god is not in the center. Instead there is another, smaller shrine inside the large shrine, with all thirteen statues, including that of Ewigeliebe himself, forming a tight circle around the small building.

Upon completion of the slate, the supplicant will hear Ewigeliebe's voice in their mind, giving them permission to pray to his wife and a door will open in the small shrine, revealing a statue of Geduldh, the Goddess of Earth inside. However, the statues of the God of Life and his subordinates will remain in place, barring direct access of Gedludh's statue, only allowing the supplicant to pray to her, but not approach her.

Once the prayers to Geduldh are complete, her red slate will teleport from the hand of her statue, into the hand of Ewigeliebe's statue, next to his white slate and the door will close again. The words of both gods are announced in Ewigeliebe's voice, with his word being "Neigunsch" and her's being "Tolerakeit".

Goddess of Light's Shrine

The shrine of the Goddess of Light is located next Ewigeliebe's shrine in the circle. Like with the God of Darkness, the prayer to the Goddess of Light requires the supplicant to speak her name. Her word is "Austrag".

Flutrane's Shrine

Flutrane's word is "Rombekur".

Small Shrines

There shrines are dedicated to a single subordinate god. Mana dedicated in these shrines will make a feystone appear. Once it's fully formed, it can be absorbed into the supplicant, which will guarantee that the next time they perform the ritual to obtain divine protections, they will gain the protection of the associated deity. According to old texts, if one is able to obtain the divine protection of all twelve subordinates of a primary god, they will also be guaranteed to obtain the divine protection of said primary god.

Trivia

• Although it is possible to take multiple courses, no one can complete all of them -- regular nobles can't take the archduke candidate course, whereas archduke candidates are not allowed to take the 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 courses.
• According to Justus, there were twenty rumors or mysteries surrounding the Royal Academy during his time as a student, though none of the current students 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.