*Lucas' Pov*
Over the last 6 years I'd been no slacker. I'd done as much as I could. Especially this last year. I picked up many of the hidden pieces in the duchy. Though I'm sure I lost a little of my humanity because of it.
I ended up almost getting both me and Aurelia killed in the fight with the cultists, and she had already advanced to the 5th circle without my knowledge. Despite that, the cultists drops were good. I retrieved a few artifacts, of which some were cursed.
Of the things I had retrieved I had a pair of boots that increased movement speed, and doubled as hiking boots. I got a foreseeing eye, which was cursed, a fleeting bracelet, and twin gauntlets, which were cursed. The gauntlets' effect was draining the user's lifeforce, but the foreseeing eye I couldn't tell.
One of the three dots above the eyes had gone dim, meaning it had been used once. I assumed it either was the same as the gauntlets, or it cursed the mind or eyes of the user. I wouldn't put it on until someone from the duchy appraised it.
Aside from that, the trip provided me with lots of goodies. And lots of injuries and near death experiences. Worth it though, since I got really strong, really fast.
Starting from the weakest I'll list what I retrieved. Wings of Azrael - an artifact that allows the user to fly according to a ratio of the people killed by the wearer. I believe it was 15 minutes per kill, and the ratio changed based on the strength of the person killed. Water skin - also known as the water balloon or holy hand grenade in game, once torn or splashed on target/victim, the affected area would heal.
I got maybe 14 of them. And finally the most broken item: The egg of one of the last living dragons, Maventuriafocalenius. A mouthful to be sure. The game does actually have a pronunciation guide.
However I'm bad with the phonetic alphabet so I'll do my best here. Maventuria is said like Manchuria, except between ma and churia the word ven (rhymes with hen) appears. Next is focalenius pronounced focal, like bifocal, and enius, which is like genius without the g.
Altogether the name is stressed like this Ma-ven-tu-ri-a-FO-cal-len-i-us. Again a mouthful so we gamers united and gave her a better name. Fiadh, meaning wild.
Anyways she gave me her child, which was interesting because, in game she almost kills you, in order to obtain this companion, but here she just asked me a riddle.
If I don't transmigrate or reincarnate again, this should be my last words as a 17 year old.
Goodbye my childhood, welcome academy life.
***
I turned 18 today and it was a massive affair.
Not as laborious as my debutante, but just as extravagant.
Many people showed up, not just from our duchy and it's held lands, but other nobles we'd interacted with.
The Orix family, another family called the Mensia family arrived, apparently they were also aligned with the Svarmet's in the royal court, and finally the Imperial family.
Charlotte, Leo, Marcus, and Revonia all arrived.
However there was another imperial who wasn't the Emperor and Empress.
Ristonia Von Ballard Masvis.
As soon as she entered the hall, Matthew's eyes were glued to her.
Interesting. Muwhahaha. I now hold his weakness.
Just kidding. I'm here to enjoy myself, not scare or threaten my rival and brother.
"I greet the rising suns and moons of the empire."
You don't need to greet-", Leo began.
"Lucas, Lucas, Lucas you're 18 now" Charlotte rushed up to me.
How was it she still had as much energy as she did when we were younger.
"I'm still 17, but since I turn 18 soon I'll be joining you guys at the academy."
Right the academy. They had me choose which course I belonged to.
Mage, Knight, Scholar, Engineer.
Two schools of thought, combat and research.
Aurelia had obviously chosen Mage, Matthew chose the Knight course as Ezechs did.
Revonia had surprisingly chosen Knight as well, even though she was highly skilled as an engineer.
Marcus went the Scholar route, and Leo took the Knights course.
I've always known what I've wanted.
A mage.
And that's what I chose.
For now though I put the decision beside me and chatted with the other nobles and people around the party.
***
As the party began to die down I found myself outside near the training ground near the main mansion where the party was. I was just walking aimlessly in circles around like I was supposed to do something. I was the point of the party, but I just wasn't feeling the party mood so much.
I decided to sit down and stop roaming for a bit. I patted the ground as if there was a blanket.
I guess I've picked up some of Aura's habits.
"Pffft. What a weirdo! Who pats the ground when there's no blanket?"
Oh great speak of the-
"I saw you leave the building earlier, so I followed along."
Got it. Understood. I'm not a loner okay? Stop looking at me like that.
"I'm not a loner."
"What how did y-"
"It's written all over your face what you're thinking."
Maybe she's picked up something of mine too.
"You've also learned how to read minds."
"Gahh. Stop reading my thoughts. It's creepy."
"How dare you call one such as I creepy. Perish for your crimes."
She brought her hand down on my head. Boop.
"Hahahaha"
"Hahahaha"
We both shared a laugh over her pretentious act.
"Hey, get up"
She got up and reached a hand down to me.
"Alright," I said taking her hand.
Naturally I wasn't going to do that.
I pulled her back down.
***
*Aurelia's Pov*
He pulled me back down.
And I landed in his arms.
Embarrassing. I hid my blush in his chest.
Wait. This is his fault.
I pushed away from him, and stood up.
"Wow, no scrapes this time?"
Why did he still remember that?
I turned away to hide my once again blushing face.
Why does he tease me so much? He's such a weirdo.
"Here." He held out his hand.
I took his hand and he placed my right hand on his shoulder and placed his on my back.
I understood what he was doing and moved to accommodate him.
Only a weirdo doesn't ask his dance partner to get into position.
He stiffened his arms to maintain a distance from me, but I didn't allow it.
He turned his face away from me. Rude. Hehe. I could see a blush on his face.
Eventually he turned back towards me and I met his eyes.
His black hair flowed in the wind the same as that day 6 years ago.
I remember I was so awkward. I could feel a blush come on again so I buried my face once again in his chest.
I hated not being able to face him.
We stopped. He put his head against mine. Who does this while stopping a dance?
Of course the only answer is a weirdo. My weirdo.
"Fufufufu"
Oh no.
"Looks like her classes didn't go to waste after all."
I could feel his head come off of mine. I felt my ears burning.
"She didn't dance at her debutante you know?"
"She saved her first dance for you."
I tapped him, letting him know I wanted to continue. He didn't respond.
"It's okay, you may continue, Stephen and I wanted to do our dance too."
I looked up to see my mother and father also starting to dance.
With that Lucas pulled me into a dance as well and we finished our dance as the music in the hall died down. Afterwards, I left back to my room and him to his. Tomorrow we would be leaving for the academy. Exciting.
***
*Lucas' Pov*
We left in separate carriages, after all it wouldn't do for two opposite gender people of age to be in the same carriage for so long.
Naturally things like cars existed in this world, even if they were only as advanced as the 1930's or so. However the roads through the duchy while paved, wouldn't handle the sheer engineering of the Mana car, short for mana carriage.
So that's how I ended up at the academy 2 weeks later right behind Aurelia.
Although I say right behind, it's more like she was a few carriages in front. I got out of mine and went to greet her as her knight should. Unfortunately there were your standard rich boy nobles standing near her carriage door.
"And who do you think you are to stand in front of the princess' carriage?"
I placed my hand on my sword, and tilted it forward.
"It would be best if you didn't unsheathe your sword, my knight."
I nodded my head. She could see me through the door, even if I couldn't see her.
"Oh, so you're her knight."
"I wonder how strong you are."
Aren't you people 18, how can you be so immature?
She opened her carriage door and I held my hand out to escort her.
"Careful, your highness, there seems to be trash here."
The noble scions seemed to catch on.
"Who do you think you are to besmirch the name of Marquis Iproline?"
"My knight thinks, says, and does what he needs to do, because it keeps me safe."
"If you think that the name of your house outweighs my safety, you are welcome to challenge me."
What is she saying? She's gonna get me into a fight.
"Therefore, fight him and recover the worth of the Iproline name."
Oh. So almost starting a fight wasn't good enough. She wanted a fight to break out.
And of course the scion decided to throw his glove at me. Wow. Not even evaluated and we're starting fights, a superb entrance to Atrevoir Academy.
A faculty member appeared before us.
"This duel cannot be officiated, or commenced before the opening ceremony, therefore we shall schedule it."
"No! I will not take this lying down!"
The faculty stared down the boy.
"Alright, fine."
The boy shivered.
"Great," a woman's voice slipped out, "the duel will be scheduled for 2 days after the entrance ceremony. Now disperse to your course placement test areas."
Aura took my arm and we walked into the magic course's pavilion.
"You aren't even in the Knight's course? What a disgrace of a knight."
Neither of us looked back.
***
We ended up in a square with about 300 other students.
"That is everyone. Well done, there were no late arrivals or no shows."
"My name is Vice Dean Rachelle."
"I will be proctoring this examination."
"For the magic course, this test is merely a formality. However you can fail this test and be removed from the academy."
"The one and only way to fail this test is for your potential to fail to reach the intermediate grade, or in other words fail to reach at least the 4th circle in terms of potential, you will be failed immediately. The academy refuses to graduate any beginner mage or knight."
"This orb in front of you will display your potential. You merely need to put a fraction of your mana in. The result will not change even if you put in more, so do not destroy these products the engineering grad students made."
"The orbs will display colors corresponding to the potential you have."
"The ascending order is this: 1st circle is white, the second is pink, then red, then orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and for those with Archmage potential are gold."
I have a confession to make.
I may have lied when it came to Fiadh.
She also gave me two other artifacts.
One was a consumable - diluted dragon blood and scale powder.
The other was to conceal my mana. In game it also functioned to hide one's potential, so it should work the same, otherwise, i might reveal a gold before shattering the orb.
"Now come forward 10 at a time as your names are called."
Aura went ahead of me. Her orb turned purple.
"Aurelia von Svarmet, as expected a child of his wouldn't be any weaker."
"Excuse me how do you know my father, or my brothers."
She looked confused for a moment.
"I see, although your brothers weren't in the magic course, their names are still well known."
"As for your father, I attended classes here with him."
"Ah." Aurelia bowed to the vice dean and stepped back from the orb platform.
I was called in the 27th group.
I hadn't seen the protagonist here meaning he probably enrolled in the knight's course.
I changed my potential to be right under Aura's.
"Wow, another advance mage potential."
"Quite a good batch we have this year."
My orb began to glow a deep blue.
Thank Nyx above that the Brooch of Fiadh works the same as it does in game.
"Final group step up."
In the game one of the most important characters gets turned away here if you take the magic course. She of course leaves the academy and meets another powerful person and they become enemies of the academy, or sponsors of some freshmen depending on how you play the game.
So what would happen if I prevented her rank from being misread?
It's possible I could gain two strong allies (Read: lackeys).
"Anise Caryths, White bloom. Failed."
I stared at the vice dean. Did she really not know?
I couldn't tell. I walked up to Anise.
"You did it wrong" I told her.
"Your letting magic release when it should just be a smooth transfer of mana."
I helped her move her mana internally a bit before she got a hang of it.
"Try again".
"And when did I allow that Mr. Lucas?"
"When you used me to guide her."
"Smart and talented. I like you."
"Go ahead and try again Ms. Caryths"
Her orb bloomed a green-blue color.
"Would you look at that. A half advance. Interesting."
"Alright. The test is over. 286 of you pass. The ones who failed may return via the gate to your left."
"As for who is our top ranker, it is without a doubt Ms. Svarmet."
"Please prepare a speech for tomorrows inauguration ceremony."
And with that my induction to the academy was over.