"Selena! Hurry up or you'll be late. You already have a bad enough reputation, you can't make it any worse by being late to class!" a loud voice yelled which abruptly wakes up the sleeping woman.
Selena wakes up groggily in their spacious and luxurious dorm room. They are in the royal magical academy, the highest and most prestigious educational institution within the Kadence Empire.
Selena looks over at the voice's owner, "I'm up, I'm up, Gosh Ivory, why do you have to be so loud?" She says in a whiny tone.
"You're complaining? If it wasn't for me keeping you in check, would you even survive here? Hmph!, I'll be leaving now. I feel like you-know-who might cause some trouble in class again" Ivory says in an annoyed voice and she leaves the room to give Selena some time to change.
Selena smiles at the departing back of the young woman. Ivory was not wrong, she was Selena's only friend and main mental support throughout her 5 years in the royal magic academy. Magic Education is geared towards offensive magic due to the Kadence Empire being a military nation. Non-offensive magic takes longer to learn, it's more intricate and it naturally does no damage to one's enemies. Due to these conditions, non-offensive magic is not studied at all and deemed a waste of time. Selena is the only one who doesn't study Offensive magic so most her peers look down for her and thinks she's begging for attention.
Selena looks over and sees an old but big book. She rubs it lovingly, "Don't worry Mother, I'll show everyone just how beautiful your magic can be". Her eyes showed with determination as she dresses up and heads towards class.
As she's walking to class, voices from other students starts ringing in her ears.
"Oh my gosh is that her?"
"The woman who can't even do one offensive magic spell?"
"What's the point of being here and how's she even about to graduate?"
"I heard she's a little too close to the Dean, maybe that's why..."
"Wait, you don't mean... Ew, What a disgusting woman"
Selena's face had a look of indifference as she walked by. She knew what she was signing up for when she decided to forsake offensive magic and learn the magic her mother invented instead. Her original plan was to learn just enough offensive magic to pass her classes and then focus all her attention on her mother's magic but the Dean was surprisingly very cooperative and allowed her learn her mother's magic without having to care about offensive magic at all. In hindsight, even with her original plan, she would be incompetent in both offensive and her mother's magic but at least that was better than nothing. But thanks to the Dean, She spent all her efforts on her mother's magic and grasped the basics of almost all the spells. She's far from being a master like her peers but she could now do things like this.
Selena then snaps her fingers and then a small invisible barrier surrounds her. The once loud voices now became much more muffled. She smiled as she continued to walk to class in peace.
She enters the room and a spear made out of fire quickly charges at her face. She quickly sets up a barrier but gets blown back by the force, hits the door, and falls to the floor in pain.
"Whoops, seems like I missed my target, I apologize, dear Selena, I didn't mean to hurt you. You'll forgive me right?" a voice then sounds through Selena's ears.
Without even looking up, she knew who it was.
"Fiona..." Selena says while gritting her teeth.
Selena looks up and sees Fiona looking down at her with a smirk on her face. Selena then turns over and sees a poorly set up target practice poster near the door. Fiona is far too talented to ever miss something this easy which irritates Selena even more.
She clenches her fists again. Fiona has always been like this. Constantly targeting her because she doesn't want to use offensive magic like everyone else. The sad thing is that Fiona is the most gifted offensive mage in this generation and her father, Marquis Flamor, is a rising star in the upper military. Even the dean has a hard time speaking against Fiona.
Before Selena could speak, She hears some commotion and saw Fiona quickly turn around and use her barrier. A quick magic water bubble crashes into Fiona's barrier and disperses into the air. But before the remaining water fell down, it converged once more and attacked Fiona from the back and wet her hair.
"Whoops, looked like I missed as well. Turns out we are both having an off day today, right Fiona?"
"Ivory..." Fiona says in a cold tone.
She then lights her palms on fire and meiticulously dries all the wet parts of her hair. Within a few seconds, it's impossible to tell that this woman was just drenched with water.
Ivory is the only other mage who can compete with Fiona. She's the daughter of Duke Mandeline, a house known for its immense amounts of magic power and its strong political influence. Fiona may be confident in herself but she knows she has to be wary of Ivory.
The atmosphere in the classroom turned cold as the two geniuses of their current generation stared at each other coldly.
Then a loud but majestic voice rings throughout the classroom, breaking the tension.
"That's what I want to know too, Why exactly are my two best students "missing" such easy targets? Am I that lacking of a teacher or are you much more incompetent than I gave you credit for?"
"Dean!" They all said while bowing respectfully. He stares at both Ivory and Fiona and then sighs deeply before signaling for the studnets to go back to their seats.
The Dean then helps Selena up and says quietly, "Sorry I couldn't come here in time"
"It's alright Dean, this is nothing. thank you so much for all the care you have given me all these years. I'll never forget it". She says with a smile as she cleans herself up.
Selena never understood why the Dean was so nice and caring towards her but she knew that this man had no evil intentions so she stopped worrying about it.
"better to be grateful for your blessings rather than doubtful of your benefactors", she says to herself while glancing at the Dean once more and giving him another smile.
The Dean looked back at her with a caring smile of his own.
"Jason, You're quite the lucky child. It's seems you've really got yourself a good girl." He thinks to himself while lightly chuckling.
He then arrives in front of the class and resumes his majestic demeanor.
"The finals are coming up so we will be reviewing the history of our empire. Pay attention because this is all important information. Knowing history is knowing the future!