Waking up in the afternoon, I proceeded to take a shower before getting into my school uniform.
Changing into my Ashen appearance, I put on the regular mask before injecting spiritual energy into my earrings.
In a flash, Iris and Indira appeared before me.
They immediately got down on one knee and bowed their heads.
"We greet the master." They said at the same time.
"I'll give you 3 commands now."
"One, don't ever use the Darkness Dimension when you feel that the monarch is using it."
"Second, Iris, please send this letter to the principal of the school in the usual way. Stay there until you sense (SS) spiritual energy. Then, bring me there as fast as possible."
When they heard this, their eyes couldn't help but widen for a second even when they had been trained from birth to hide their emotions.
"Third, Indira, go and kill this person, and make sure to get rid of his body through the darkness dimension. He shouldn't be that much of a challenge for you, if you want to have fun, just do it in a way that doesn't disturb the neighbors."
After handing my black haired sister a picture, I snapped my fingers, giving them the signal to carry out their duties.
I watched as the shadows around the room suddenly wrapped around them, causing them to disappear without a trace.
I then just sat back with my hands clasped, and waited, deep in thought.
...
As night fell, I suddenly felt a small hand grab my arm, before the shadows around me swallowed me up in the darkness.
As I was being pulled through the Darkness Dimension, all I could see where shades of black, gray, and white before I was thrown into a particularly bright area.
Finding myself in a hall with a door in front of me, I could easily guess where I was.
Feeling that indeed, there was an immense spiritual energy coming from inside the room, I knew that my infiltration of the palace had succeeded in provoking the empress.
And although the room was cloaked in layers of magic, so that no sounds came out of it, I could tell that the empress and the principal were in tense discussions, each having received a strange letter to meet here at this time.
Raising my hand, I rapped on the door.
Quickly throwing myself to the side, as if on instinct, I watched as a huge beam of energy incinerated the spot where I had previously been, blowing a hole in four subsequent walls behind it.
This was the second buff of the Magician job, the ability to detect whenever an immediate danger would strike them. This was basically just a permanent buff in the perception and agility stats whenever a magician's life was in danger.
Standing back up and dusting myself off, I calmly walked though the hole into the room.
In the room, there was a middle-aged man in a top hat sitting at a desk with a placard reading "Principal Sherriden" and a young lady sitting next to him with her palms out, which were currently in the process of brightening up as steam rose from the air around it.
Putting my hands up, I said, "Come on! I almost died from that!"
Not bothering to talk with me, the young lady released another beam of light magic.
Waving my hand, I easily dispelled it with a shield of antimagic.
"Can't we just have a civil discussion? And what are doing just sitting there when one of your students is being attacked by a crazy maniac."
"Oops!" I said, while covering my mouth with my hands.
"Your majesty, may I please take back the words that have just come out of this lowly citizen's mouth?" I said, with apparent sarcasm dripping from my voice.
Watching my disrespectful behavior, the man couldn't help but redden in anger, but before he was able to say anything, the lady held out a hand in front of his face.
"You've got my attention now, so what do you want?"
And as she was saying this to me, she was simultaneously talking with the man mentally, which I could only detect through my antimagic.
Infiltrating the connection, I heard, "Don't do anything rash! You are not a match for a person that can easily dispel my magic."
"Uhm, you know that I'm only 13 right?"
"Let me formally introduce myself, my name right now is Ashen, currently Rank 1 of this year's Class 1, and a mixed blood."
"If you want to confirm my origins, you can easily grab the data on the drops of blood that I spilt on the orbs of measuring, but before that, please give me some of your time to listen to a proposal of mine."
"Also, if you want some comfort, know that Xion agrees with the deal that I am about to propose."
The man composed himself before they both looked at me with interested expressions.
"So, it's simple really, I'm a wielder of demonic stigmas that isn't connected with the Monarch, so I'd like to create my own class in the academy with 10 handpicked students to teach them with real life experience in fighting against demonic humans."
"Of course, your majesty, you're probably wondering why you're here then, well it's because I want to take you as one of my students."
"Xion can vouch for my credibility and I can even form a spiritual contract with you that guarantees that you will learn some interesting things and definitely become more powerful before your expected death date in 3 years."
"The terms of the contract will be as follows:
1. Both parties must not harm each other.
2. Party 1 will not harm any citizens in Party 2's country, unless it is for education.
3. Party 2 will gain enough knowledge from Party 1 to get significantly stronger before Party 2's expected death date in 3 years.
4. Party 1 will be paid a salary of 500,000 Lams a month from Party 2 for his activities that will not directly harm Party 2's citizens.
5. When one party breaks any of the previous statements in the contract, they will immediately die."
"Are these terms acceptable?"
I threw the contract on the table before turning and walking back through the hole.
"You can take a day to decide, come to room 221 in the temporary dwellings of Class 1 if you accept."
Turning back around, I bowed at them before falling backwards with my arms outstretched, disappearing into the darkness dimension.
Immediately after the strange boy disappeared in the strange way of appearing to be forever falling, I grabbed the contract that he had left on the table before immediately teleporting to my room in the castle.
I called for one of my personal attendants, before telling them to do as much research as possible on the Rank 1 student of Class 1, the one who called himself "Ashen".
After the attendant left, I looked back down at the contract in my hand.
'How does a kid know that I'll die in 3 years? Was it Xion? No, he would never reveal a person's personal information."
"Maybe the kid's part of a fallen branch of a noble family? Well, we'll see in a few seconds when my attendant brings the report."
And as I thought, a few seconds later, my attendant knocked on the door gently.
"Here are all the reports on the Class 1 Rank 1 student." She said, before bowing and handing the files to me.
The first file I flipped through was the genetics report from the blood.
'So, he isn't a noble, but how are his genetics so perfect, I mean, the only problem with his genetics is that they create a really forgettable face!'
After it, were the reports from his performance on the Train to Purgatory.
I played video after video of his seemingly easy clears of all the carriages on the train, before proceeding to perfectly clear it without even using a single stigma.
'And those weapons are really weird looking too.'
I then looked at his background check.
I flipped the page, and then the next, then went back to the beginning and checked them again.
'Are my eyes seeing this correctly?'
All the pages were completely blank.
The only words present in the whole file were on the last page, and all they stated was, "Subject's mysterious first appearance was out of thin air in Leonor."
'Hmm, so could he be a homunculus controlled by a Master or Grandmaster black mage?'
'But he seems too sentient to be a homunculus.'
'Then, what is he?'
After I finished flipping through the reports, I couldn't help but glance at the contract again.
'A way to gain a good amount of power before I die, is that even possible?'
My mind fought between the dangers of an unknown possible entity and the benefits, but eventually, my desire won out.
Taking the contract into my hands, I made a decision, I would visit the strange boy tomorrow.
As soon as I arrived in my room, I immediately ran towards the washbasin.
"Cough, cackkkk, cough, cough, cough!"
I washed off the blood that was dripping down my chin before cleaning the washbasin.
'Even with my increased rank due to the "performance", I still couldn't fully withstand a small amount of power from a (SS) rank.'
"Sigh, I can only do my best to get stronger."