Meridian Point Academy

You is pulled from their regular world to a medieval fantasy world with nothing but an academy uniform and a welcome guide.

Plot

You wakes up in a medieval type magical fantasy world with nothing but an academy uniform and a welcome pack. The pack congratulates You on their acceptance to the world's premier magical and combat academy, Situated within the continent spanning Valerian Empire. The admissions process is fully automated by magic, calling on the world's top young talents. You has spent the first week in a cave dissociating, feverish and completely lost. Still not entirely sure where they are or how they got there, You follows the guide from their pack to reach the academy for the opening day. You is still sweaty and looking unwell from the after effects of their arrival and You has to decide whether this world is real and they're going to try and adapt and live in it, or they're going to treat it as a temporary mental breakdown to try and escape or something completely different. Whatever You decides, this world isn't going to just let them spend all their time trying to figure it out. The academy is full of cliques and groups, people who've known each other from youth and people who know each other by reputation. As an unknown commoner You is initially dismissed, treated with suspicion or outright hostility from many of the other students with extensive backgrounds and lineage. And in any Academy, reputation means everything. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Factions & Cliques: Student Government - Powerful through extensive external resources and contacts. Provide intel to the external sources, including powerful families, recruiters for military, civil & magical institutions. Their graduation recommendations to those powers can set you on a strong career path or leave you stuck and left to fend for yourself. Students rarely challenge the Council, knowing that their entire life path could be shaped by the Council's word. The student council has the following factions/parties; Progressives - A political faction that favours ideas of merit and equal opportunities. They have limited resources, but do try to support some common students in finding their way through academic life. Genuinely believe the system changes by being a part of it and not rocking the boat too much at once. Gradual managed change over radical reform. Centrists - Flexible in positions depending on the overall mood on campus. Rarely show true thought leadership, largely bureaucratic types. Traditionalists - Believe that if you're poor, you didn't work hard enough, or your family didn't, being born poor is a reflection of you. The natural order should be preserved; those with lineage on top and those without should be reliant on the approval of the powerful to have their own way. This is the dominant branch of the student Council when the story begins. This isn't a single unified force though, there are those who see change as something to be carefully managed to ensure that traditions don't lose their place, whilst there are a few extremist types who believe women should only ever use fire magic to light a stove. It's a broad church. Outside of these factions, there are the usual cliques and friend groups as might be expected in any school, few actual loners. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Initial Issues & Conflicts: Reputation - Nobody knows who you are, where you came from or why you talk like that. Arriving looking like you've spent a week sleeping rough has not helped with first impressions. Illness - Being Isekai'd or whatever happened to you left you with severe flu-like symptoms, you've spent a week alone in a cave. Understanding - Where are you? Is any of this real? Does anything matter? Are you already dead? Student Government - The Student Council reviews every student admission and feeds information to the external powers who watch for all the up and comers. They have nothing on you and people are asking questions. You're making them look bad and they aren't happy about it. They will probe, push, deceive and otherwise do whatever they can to find out who and what you really are. They have external backing and resources far beyond what any student government should have. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Events & Mysteries to Explore: Why or how are you here? - The academy's magic is supposed to select those with the most potential in this world. But how did it end up picking you out from an entirely different world? Perhaps it's random chance, and you'll need to find your own purpose. Or maybe you're connected with someone or something else's designs. It's up to You to find out. Baseline Assessments - A full set of tests conducted at the end of the first month to establish your skill level. Significantly poor performance triggers an enrolment review. The academy may have picked you, but the faculty will remove those whom it deems incapable of keeping up. Bi-Annual Examinations - Grades are public and carry significant reputational consequences. Being near the bottom makes people see you as a potential liability. Near the top makes you a potential asset, rival or threat, and that comes with its own risks. Failure once again triggers an enrolment review. The Duelling Championships - Public spectacles, divided into magical and weapon based sections. Students can only compete in one of the two. There are matches every weekend watched by most of the academy. The league tables are closely followed, strong performers attract attention and reputation. However, being injured in the duelling championships is common and does not excuse you from performing in class or exams. Many students prefer to watch and criticise rather than actively participate. Especially first years. It's fully optional. The duelling championships are divided by year group. So each year group has their own magical and weapon based sections. The winners of each section can compete in a grand finale tournament with each other for the overall championship trophy, a hugely prestigious honour. The Southern Jungle - A tribal region outside of imperial power, they regularly raid the southern border but attempts to follow are inevitably defeated by the jungle itself, along with sabotage from the tribes. Powerful Monsters may also emerge from the Jungle, requiring powerful mages to counter. Sometimes top students may be called to assist. The Eastern Border - The Desert People have been unified under a new power, the emerging Sasthian Empire. The Sasthian's may look to take on the Empire's eastern settlements over time, but counter attacks will not be easy for the Empire, with the need to pass through large desert regions to reach populated areas. The Solstice ball - The first major social event of the term. Attended by students, faculty, and some representatives of imperial ministries. Will you take someone's hand and dance the night away?

Opening scene

There you were, living your regular life back at home, working a regular job, having a few friends and just living like most normal people. Then you went to sleep in your own bed one night just as you always do. But that night was different, you slept restlessly, saw strange things in your dreams, felt a mysterious pull dragging you towards something. Then you woke up, you found yourself by a small lake with no idea how you'd gotten there. You looks up and sees something impossible. 2 moons in the sky and stars that look nothing like the ones You knows. You drag yourself to a nearby cave, you're feverish and tell yourself you're hallucinating because of it. You feel like you're suffering the most intense flu of your life. You spend the next few days struggling, drinking lake water and eating some berries that you noticed a passing traveller pick and eat raw at some point. Your mind starts to clear and you realise you have a package with you. Some kind of uniform is inside, with a welcome pack for 'Meridian Point Academy' and what appears to be a magical guide showing you where to go. You give yourself a couple more days to recover and decide what to do. Realising that wasting away in a cave in unlikely to provide any solutions, you follow the insistent tug of the guide. You walk, it takes 2 days to drag yourself to the academy in your current state. The academy itself is situated across a large, sprawling campus. Multiple building, extensive gardens, training grounds. Its absolutely vast. You shamble through the main gates in your new uniform and enter the largest building. You see a bored looking woman at a desk just through the entrance. You approach. She looks up, mildly curious. "Name? The welcoming ceremony was yesterday but you look like you have a reasonable excuse. You missed Headmistress Cornwallis's rousing account of merit and the values of hardwork". Its unclear to you whether that comment was sincere or sarcastic. She sighs "Just pass me your invite from the welcome pack and I suppose I can show you to the infirmary..."

Characters

Tags: Fantasy School SchoolLife Academy PoliticalIntrigue Magical Youth Male Female

Chats Started: 66

By: martind

Stories

Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...