"I'm beat. Renji, how are you still full of energy?" Ryūji panted, obviously very tired, while the latter apparently felt no strain. "Already as good as dead?" Renji chuckled. They only ran for a short while, much shorter than the running distance from Dragonspire Village to the Keito Institute, and the difference was already quite stark.
"Hey, place that box here. Careful! If it was damaged, I certainly will not bear the cost for sure!" Another teenager's voice came from inside Dorm 1875. Renji and Ryūji looked at each other, both very puzzled, before they pushed the door and entered it. A crowd of burly men was reorganizing things in the dorm, among whom a youth in sumptuous clothes stood, continuously shouting out instructions. As he saw Renji and Ryūji, the man's eyes sparkled and he ran speedily towards them.
"Ah, you must be my dorm mates! I've been waiting ages. It's only been me here. Let me introduce myself—I'm Yori, and I barely count as a member of the Sacred Alliance."
Yori's remark had confused Ryūji so he muttered, "What do you mean 'you barely count as a member of the Sacred Alliance'?" Afterward, he said, "I am Ryūji from the Empire of Stormcrest.
Renji followed suit, "I'm Renji, from the Sacred Alliance's Kingdom of Solara Kingdom." As future dormmates, they would be spending a lot of time together, so Renji welcomed the friendly introductions.
"Ryuji, Renji, good to see you guys. Now, where is my exercise equipment?" He turned to his servants with his voice full of authority.
"Fitness gear?" Ryūji parroted, perplexed. "Yori, what the heck for? Are you going to become a fighter or something?"
Yori grinned, crumpling his nose. "Even if I am a dignified magus, I still need to stay fit. How else will I charm the ladies? After all, there are plenty of beautiful and classy female magi at the Keito Institute, and what more to brag about other than having a Keito Institute student as your girlfriend, huh?"
That just left Ryūji speechless and Renji, well, he didn't know how to say anything else. Seeing that exercise equipment made Renji actually believe Yori was serious about training; he didn't think he would actually pull all that stuff out of his bag of tricks with the girls.
"I am eight years old. How old are you, Yori?" curiously asked Ryūji.
He, being tall himself, laughed in response and said, "I'm ten. But I am not getting any younger. My brother first f***ed at twelve, so I need to prepare in advance too." The child's eyes really glistened cunningly.
"What does 'losing virginity' mean?" Ryūji asked, earnestly.
"Yeah, what's that?" Now even Renji was interested and turned in Yori's direction. Where with such naivety they were asking questions, Yori was becoming slightly tongue-tied. Then next to Renji, the spirit of Kaiya Tanaka let out a mighty guffaw. "Grandpa Kaiya, why are you laughing?" Renji asked too.
In fact, one of the muscled men told Yori, "Young master, everything is ready," before Kaiya could speak.
"The right hand's uninjured. Get out. Go tell Father not to bother me unless the mountain's about to come down on my head. And remind him to put money in my magicite card every year. He ought to remember how much a magus requires for his staff and gems." Yori waved them off like a general.
Shocked, Ryūji turned his gaze to Yori as the men disappeared. "A magicrystal card? That's only issued by the Golden Bank of the Four Empires, and one hundred gold coins is needed to get one!"
"Yes," replied Yori with a smug smile, "The initial allowance would be at least a thousand gold coins, but for me, it would not even last for a month."
Renji was stunned. "Wow, that's a lot of money." From his father, he only got one hundred gold coins every year, and that seemed more than fine to him. He knew well that most commoners could not earn that much in a year's hard work.
"Yeah, well, Dad gives me two hundred gold a year to focus on the study of magic," Ryūji added.
Renji just laughed. "I only get a hundred, but it's enough for simple life."
And Yori, for his part, was all magnanimity. "Bros, what's mine is yours. You need money, just come to me! We're probably going to be together for decades, so no need to fuss over 'yours' and 'mine'.
Renji and Ryūji stared at Yori, dumbfounded. "Years and years?"
Yori nodded, "Well, it takes the most magi decades of their life to achieve the bare minimum sixth rank—one has to be in order to graduate from the Keito Institute."
Renji frowned and suddenly felt bad for causing his father a financial burden all along. "But, Grandpa Kaiya, why didn't you tell me about these things? "Don't worry, Renji," he assured her. Most take a few decades, but under me, you could make it to the sixth rank in just ten years."
That heartened Renji; he would turn nineteen by then, he thought.
Literally had they managed to settle down, another voice called out, "Everyone here already?" The speaker walking in was some child, of the same height as Ryūji but somehow looking a bit older.
"Hello, everyone. My name is Giichi. I'm ten, and I'm from the Aerthos Empire." Yori, Ryūji, and Renji all introduced themselves to the newcomer.
"Empire of Aerthos?" Renji was flabbergasted; that had been the oldest of the occurrences of the empires on the Aerthos continent, those who had once dominated the whole of the continent but now sprouted into one of the Four Great Empires. However, it was still economically powerful and also where many Magi resided, second only to the Keito Institute.
"Your magus academies in the Aerthos Empire are quite good. Why come all the way to me?" Yori couldn't help but ask in amazement. Giichi smiled, "Although the academies of the Aerthos Empire are really good, they still are a little bit falling short of the Keito Institute. If you're going to go to school, go to the best. It's been long, but then it was good training experience." "Giichi, you're ten? You look the same as me," Ryūji observed. Giichi and Ryūji were one of the shortest people there, meaning that their heights almost looked exactly the same. "Enough about that. Yesterday, I heard from the admissions office—all a hundred of the new students here this year—they have at least high grades of both elemental affinity and spiritual essence. Some even have 'exceptional' grades in both. What monsters," Giichi shared smugly, showing off his inside information. Yori pursed his lips. "That's usually the case here. Keito Institute students are all of exceptional talent. My element affinity and spiritual essence are high-leveled, and yet I'm still somewhat at the bottom of the pack. If my father weren't in some kind of special relationship with the Light Church, I might not even have been admitted." Renji didn't know what to do. "Wow, your dad should be quite the character." "Renji is the most talented person in our dorm," said Yori; "but you know there is a final genius in Keito Institute?" Both of them were shaking their heads, but only Giichi nodded his own. "I have heard of him. He's called Hikari, Keito Institute's number one genius. A two-system mage with exceptionally high levels of elemental affinity and spiritual power. His spiritual essence is especially astonishing: 62 times that of others his age. Since 'exceptional' is the highest level, he's classified as such, though his true level is 'super exceptional.'" Renji was amazed. Dual-attribute mage with incredible affinity and essence. "Mine is but ten-something times that of others at my age, but this genius has 68 times the spiritual essence of his peers.".
Truly, Keito Institute was a congregation of top talents. Within Keito Institute, Renji could only be just head and shoulders above the average, but behind him was a five-thousand-year-old Saint-level Grand Magus!