Author's note: chaps might come out a little less rn, im really tryna make smth good and come up with a deviation to the main story. comment whatever youd like, or any criticism u have. it would really help me.
At the mana manipulation practice
He blinked towards me without warning, swinging his blade down with a force that wasn't exactly 'easy.'
I had full intention of showing him who's better.
I stood still, unmoving, parrying or dodging his sword strikes with ease, as if playing with a toddler.
After a minute of constant swinging, Geist had to back off, because he was breathing heavily.
"Why do you keep dodging? Is that all you can do?!" Roared Geist
"If I needed to attack you, or felt you're a threat I would attack." I said, appearing behind him and doing a low sweep. I amplified his gravity 50x, making him snap to the ground with a vivid snap reverberating throughout the room, and making a huge crater.
"Get up, the fight hasn't ended."
Geist slowly got up, a bloodied shirt and a broken collarbone.
"Haaah!" He screamed, bloodlust leaking out of him.
"That's better."
Just as he launched at me, I whispered
"Static void"
All the fire suddenly disappeared, replaced by a monochrome world where time was stopped.
"Huh?? What did you do?!"
All my bloodlust suddenly leaked out of me.
I appeared right next to Geist, holding his shoulder.
"Professor Geist, this is my first and last warning. Resign from your position by evening, or you will face harsh consequences. Harm any one of these people, and I guarantee your death. And trust me, not even the Lances themselves can protect you from me. Is this clear enough?" I said, in a low tone.
Professor Geist, terrified, answered "Y-y-yes of c-course, please d-don't harm me"
And then, he blacked out, probably from the bloodlust.
Time was suddenly allowed to flow again, and professor Geist was lying on the floor unconscious. I was the winner.
"...A-Arthur." I heard a soft voice from behind me. It was Kathlyn running towards me with Feyrith following behind.
"I have to admit, you were impressive back there, Arthur. As expected of my rival." Feyrith crossed his arms, but his face looked a little disheartened.
I turned to Kathlyn, who was still a bit shaken up. "Are you an idiot?" I said to her, flicking her lightly on the forehead.
She looked at me in utter shock, and even Feyrith looked a bit panicked.
"If you chose to defend yourself instead of focusing so much on beating the guy, you wouldn't have put yourself at risk like that. Don't be so stubborn and think things through more carefully. You know... you're awfully emotional for someone whose face never changes." I gave her a playful smirk before turning around and starting to walk to my next class.
"How did you do that?" Asked Kathyln
I sure expected this question, but I had no idea how to respond.
"It's a secret. All mages have their secrets, don't they?" I still kept up the playful smirk from before.
at professor Glory's class
Tessia, Clive, Lucas vs Curtis, Claire, and me
It is going to be an interesting fight.
"LET THE MATCH COMMENCE!"
The three of us dashed forward.
Tess took on Curtis, Clive took on Claire, and I had Lucas. Oh this is going to be fun.
Lucas sensed a bit of the killing intent I purposely let out to shock him out of his pedestal as he began quietly chanting a spell while dashing backwards to get more distance between us.
"Inferno's cage"
With a confident smirk, he mumbled "activate"
Dozens of fire balls were closing in on me, more firing at a constant rate. I had access to only fire and earth magic right now, but that was quite alright. I dashed in towards Lucas, slashing every ball of fire coming my way.
After just a few seconds of dodging fireballs, I got pretty tired of it.
I created vines made of rock that started eating all the fireballs coming at me. This was a fairly difficult spell, because I had to control up to 15 vines at a time and give them enough speed to catch all the fireballs.
I amplified my gravity a hundredfold, and stomped the ground, making a huge crater with me in the middle. This made Lucas stumble and almost lose concentration on the Inferno cage.
I rapidly closed in, but Lucas still had a confident smirk. He put up a multi-layer barrier around himself made of hexagons.
I made my fist heavier, and in one fell swoop punched through all the layers of the barrier, and kicked Lucas at a tree.
"NOOO!!"
I took a quick glance up to where I heard Professor Glory's scream and noticed she'd gone full speed to where Tess and Curtis was.
Curtis had fired a concentrated beam of earth magic aiming right at Tessia, who had no time to dodge or block it due to not concentrating any of her mana in defense. Deja vu?
'Papa! She's not going to make it in time!' Sylvie echoed back.
"Tch" I fully unleashed my power, accelerating towards the beam of earth mana.
[Phase Two, Realmheart]
I activated Realmheart because I wanted to see how the beam worked, and if I could replicate it. Turns out I could, and would in the future.
I picked up Tessia and flew her to the side, safely out of the beam's range.
PROFESSOR GLORY POV
I'm too late! Damn it! What happened to her? Why did she suddenly collapse? Is something wrong with her mana core? Why now?
I could only watch in horror as Prince Curtis' breath attack made its way towards Princess Tessia. With absolute no defenses around her, would she live? If so, would she even be able to continue being a mage? Forget mage—she might have to live crippled for the rest of her life!
I could feel tears well up in my eyes as I desperately made my way towards them, but I knew I wasn't going to make it. What would the consequences be? I would be happy if it just ended with me getting fired. I was more concerned that this would start a civil war. During this important time in the continent, was I going to be the cause of the split between the three races?
After what seemed like hours, the beam slowly dissipated, and what I saw shocked me even more than the worst possible scenario I imagined.
Where is she? I frantically looked around for any possible place she could be, when I saw Arthur Leywin carrying her 20 meters to the right.
How the hell did he get there? Just moments ago, he was occupied with Lucas inside Inferno's Cage. Instant teleportation? Was that even possible?
No... no no... no... that wasn't possible.
ARTHUR POV
I put Tessia down, and immediately professor Glory landed next to me.
"How did you do that? Was that some kind of instant teleportation?"
After being interrogated for what felt like forever by professor Glory, Tessia and Curtis, My school life became normal again, other than people staring at me all the time.
at my first class
After an influx of various insults thrown at me, a student jumped down and landed on the floor with a loud thud.
"Don't get so cocky just because you beat the old professor! Do you think you could've won if Princess Kathyln and Feyrith didn't tire him out?" a different second-year jumped down and landed on the stage with a loud thud.
He took long strides towards me, preparing to carry me off the stage. Feyrith stood up, ready to jump on the stage as well to stop the big guy but I just shook my head at him.
Misunderstanding my gesture as a taunt, he roared, "You shaking your head at me now? Who do you think you are?"
Half of the students were a bit nervous, not wanting to get caught up in another drama during class, while the other half was cheering Mr. Brute on.
Shifting my gaze back down at the boy approaching me, I uttered a single word.
"Sit."
An overwhelming influx of mana assaulted the poor boy, who promptly began to back up and climb to his seat again.
"If any of you has a problem with this, you can take it up with this cute little fox here, though I guarantee that she will easily wipe the floor with any of you." I scooped up Sylvie below her armpits and show the entire class.
...
"Correct. Then the last question of the day: is the color of a conjurer's or even an augmenter's mana core a truly accurate way of measuring the level of the mage's power?" I leaned forward, shifting my weight from my left leg to my right.
I hold in my chuckle as Kathlyn's usually composed face scrunched in deep thought. "That'll be your homework for today."
after class
I took a deep breath as I sat outside on a nearby bench. Realizing that I ended class a bit too early, I noticed the campus was fairly peaceful with most students still in their classrooms. It'd been awhile since I'd felt this weak, but getting up and walking around definitely helped.
I sat idly, watching Sylvie chase after a butterfly through the lawn in front of me when I heard footsteps approaching from the right.
"Is this seat taken?" I turned my head to see Princess Kathyln leaning forward so her face was level with mine.
"Yes it is" I said, making a gesture as if leaning on an invisible person sitting next to me.
Even though Kathyln rarely shows emotions on her face, I could see the confusion on her face as she tried to determine whether it was a joke or not.
I grinned at her and said "No, I was just joking, go ahead." She carefully placed her handkerchief over the bench and took a seat on top of it, straightening out her rumpled skirt. We sat there, silently, as both of us just watched Sylvie finally capture the agile butterfly that was now struggling in her paws.
"I heard about what happened from my brother... I'm sorry." Her voice grew quiet at the end of her sentence.
I kept my eyes focused on Sylvie but responded with a soft chuckle. "Why are you saying sorry as well? Even if it was your brother's fault, which it isn't, he already apologized. And besides, nothing happened."
"It's just... I feel like my family owes you many apologies. For what happened with Sebastian and my father as well. That time at the Auction House... he's not usually like that but he was shocked as well at the turn of events and he needed to keep his image and..." For the first time, I witnessed Kathyln getting flustered as her usual composed face became flushed, her expression panicked as she tried to make me understand.
"I think this is the first time I've seen an actual difference in your expression, Princess. It's a nice change." I snickered as she blushed even brighter, turning her body away from me.
"...Please, don't mock me, Arthur. I didn't expect you to be this type of person," she said with her head still turned.
"Oh? What kind of person did you expect me to be?" I tilted my head in curiosity.
"W-Well, when I first met you at the auction event, I noticed you held yourself with much maturity..." she murmured, not turning back around.
"You noticed how people hold themselves when you were barely eight years old?" Reading the posture of a person was something keen adults barely learned how to do later on with years of meeting many different kinds of people.
"Yes... being the only princess of a kingdom, you end up acquiring that skill fairly quickly. Also, with both my father and brother being quite the characters, I felt like my mother and I were the only normal ones at times." By this time, Princess Kathyln turned back to face me.
"Oh? I didn't really find anything unusual about your brother. He seemed quite charismatic." I remembered meeting Curtis for the first time at the Auction House. Compared to then, he'd matured quite a bit.
"Yes, he's gotten a lot better, seeing as he's able to apologize to you. That would've been very hard for him a while back because of his pride." She let out a sigh as the both of us spectated Sylvie's little battle with another bug. "When I first saw you, I noticed right away that you were very different from everyone else. How should I say this? I was very intrigued by you..." Her head lowered a bit as she continued speaking.
"Haha... is that right? I thought the opposite since your face had no reaction or change the whole time." I let out a soft laugh in reminiscence, remembering the event that happened four years prior.
"I apologize. I-I'm not the most proficient in using my facial muscles effectively." I found it cute as she pushed her cheeks up and down with her fingers in an attempt to forcefully make different expressions.
"Tell me about it. I was beginning to think you were wearing a mask by how stiff your face was." I felt her gaze on my face when I smiled, making me feel a little awkward.
"...I will practice." Princess Kathyln suddenly nodded to herself as I noticed her expression looked slightly more determined than usual.
"Pfft! I'm not sure if this is something you can practice. Just don't force your emotions down and let your face move the way it wants to according to how you feel. When you feel sad, your face will naturally want to frown. When you're happy, your face will naturally want to smile. Like this!" I overexaggerated the expressions on my face as I switch from an ugly frown to a bright smile, causing her to suddenly turn away from me.
KATHYLN POV
I couldn't read minds, but it wasn't hard to see that all of the males that came to me, both my age and ones a lot older, had ulterior motives. Royal lineage, superior ability, and physical appearance... the things that all people believed would make their lives easier were shackles that robbed me of the freedom I wished to have.
Yet, here I was, with a boy my age that was so much more talented and sought after, yet still so... bright. He shined with a brilliance that made me want to be like him. What made him so different from me? How was he still able to express his emotions freely without being afraid of how others would view him?
I couldn't control myself from letting out a laugh as Arthur contorted his face like that. He looked so silly.
I immediately covered my mouth after giggling, trying to hide my smile.
"See! That wasn't so hard!" His exaggerated smile turned gentle, comforting me.
"I should teach stuff like this instead of Mana Manipulation, right?" He let out a pained laugh as he leaned down to pet his bond that was sitting between his legs.
"Arthur, could you train me?"
...
ARTHUR POV
I went into my training room graciously given me by director Goodsky to prepare for training Kathyln.
A few minutes passed, and the large doors connecting the training room to the rest of the academy opened, and through walked Kathyln with a servant carrying a huge bowl full of various potions.
"H-hi.. Isn't that a bit excessive?" I said, pointing at the bowl
"You never know what can happen" She responded
"Well, anyway. This is Tobi" I pointed at the large metal golem with a big number 7 plastered on its chest
"It is a training golem, that has different levels of difficulty. I figured level 7 would be a good enough test for you, as it is about the level of a dark yellow core adventurer. You're going to be fighting him, and then I will tell you some constructive criticism about your fight. Feel free to use any weapons you wish."
Kathyln nodded, putting on a determined face.
"You ready?" I asked, and was met with a nod
"Alright, go!"
Kathyln immediately withdrew her wand, creating 12 ice spears around herself along with a field of ice on the floor, presumably to make Tobi lose balance.
Tobi stomped on the ground, cracking the ice and kept making his way towards Kathyln, although it was obvious the ice was somewhat obstructing his movement. A whip of water appeared behind Tobi, catching his leg and making him fall to the ground. At that moment, the ice spears all launched, aiming for his head. Tobi however managed to got up, and managed to destroy 5 ice spears using his his hand and tank the rest with his barrier, sacrificing a few hexagons.
"Serve my will and protect me from harm!"
[Ice guardian]
An ice golem twice the size of Tobi started throwing rocks and various other debris at him. Tobi, however, kept approaching, tanking some with his shield and some with his hands.
When Tobi got in melee range with the ice guardian, Tobi swiftly dodged a kick and started his onslaught on the leg of the guardian. It soon started cracking, but not before a concentrated cannon of water pierced through one of the hexagons and hit Tobi straight in the chest, giving the guardian enough time to stomp on Tobi and get in a few good hits.
Tobi's left arm was dented, his chest had a deep hole and his leg has twisted into an inhuman angle.
A metallic voice said, "Mana reserves used"