Awakening Horde

In a world with four-element magic, street rat Pax awakens a forgotten fifth element in the government enforced RPG Class draft. He's shipped off to magic school, where any deviation from the norm is Very Bad News, and has to disguise his magic to keep from getting caught. His closest allies are a himbo fire mage and cautious water mage.

If you've been craving a magic school story that actually focuses on how magic works and what happens in classes, this is a great choice. Pax quickly learns to hide system notifications until he pulls them up, so the LitRPG elements don't interrupt scenes.
Students are sorted by their elements as well as combat and support based on their power levels. There's also a wide social/wealth range, so there are some scenes of bullying but not as much as many school based stories. Pax makes more friends than enemies.

There is some monster fighting throughout and the awesome cover art does eventually pay off.

A few gripes: The prologue chapters are heavy combat without context, which I found off-putting. Most character descriptions include what mix of human-elf-dwarf they appear to be, but this never really matters in this book. Some repetitive word/phrases. I look forward to reading future books in this series and from this author.