It all began with a simple statement,
“You should apply for the Juniors’ Advancement.”
His homeroom teacher had called him to the teacher’s office after class and had recommended the event to him.
“The Juniors’ Advancement?”
“Hmm…as I thought. You didn’t know about it.”
The teacher handed Demund a sheet of paper to look at, which Demund accepted. On the top, the words ‘Juniors’ Advancement 2156’ was written in large, bold letters. Below it was a deadline that read, ‘Submit by December 31.’
Demund quickly scanned through the paper’s contents. At a glance, it was akin to a science competition, or a science fair. Applicants would have to submit their documents through the school. Each school could only have three contestants, and the projects were supposed to be submitted individually, though outside resources could be used.
Finalists would have to,
“…go to Zone 1 and present the project…first place gets a trip to the Preliminary Islands?”
There were other prizes listed along with other details, but the trip caught his eye the most. Normal people like him could never dream of setting foot in the Islands. It was a privilege, something you couldn’t earn through hard work. A normal student getting a chance to go was something incredible in itself, but for Demund,
His best friend, Jothan. He’d be at the Islands, training and studying. Maybe, just maybe. There was a chance.
That he’d get to meet him. It had been so long.
But reality wasn’t so kind and easy.
“I…never did anything like this before,” Demund said. “Is it difficult?”
“Oh, yes it’s difficult. It’s very, very difficult. The smartest students from all 25 Zones are signing up for it, after all.”
Demund set his eyes on the paper again.
“But I believe you can at least become a Finalist.”
Upon his teacher’s words, Demund looked back up again.
“Do you really think so?”
“Demund, you’ve done splendidly during your time at Tartis. Just looking at your results, you are more than qualified. Think about it. But be sure to tell me by next week. Is that fine?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Tucking the paper in his bag, he left the room.
〄 〄 〄
“Excuse me. Is the captain sick?” asked Demund.
After spending some time at the MMA Club, he now recognized all of the leaders who often moved together with Enariss. These were the highest-ranking students in the club or those who were handpicked by Enariss herself.
Enariss hadn’t visited the club for a few days now. In fact, she was visiting less and less each week. Demund hadn’t had the chance to ask her during their study sessions as she hadn’t missed out that much, but he was curious as to why she wasn’t present so often. When he asked her after school, she simply said, “Sorry, school work.”
“Ah, you’re Demund, right?” said the rugged, dark-haired student.
His name was Pamel if Demund remembered correctly. A junior who was one of the top twenty, or top ten. Demund didn’t spectate others’ matches that much, but he remembered this person as a laid-back kind of guy. A chill dude.
“She had something to do,” he said while flexing his biceps with a thirty-kilogram dumbbell. “She’s pretty busy nowadays. Has a little assignment going on. Or something like that.”
“I see. Thanks.”
“No problem. Hey, dude, I was just curious, or I’d say we’re all curious, but what’s your relationship with the captain? I don’t see you with her usual friend group, and the only time you are together is when she goes home with you…ah, whatever. Forget I asked. But really, are you guys like…childhood friends?”
“No, I don’t think so. We ran together after school, so we’re more like exercise friends?”
“Workout buddies, nice. You said you ran—”
Pamel’s eyes fell towards Demund’s prosthetic leg, and he casually tried to look up again, away from the awkwardness.
“We study together now,” Demund quickly added. “And don’t worry about the leg. I’m used to it. It’s also why Enariss picks me up after school.”
“So that’s why…”
“Yeah. Anyways, thanks for the info.”
“No prob. See you around.”
Demund quickly departed the area and returned to where Riley and Rhyne were.
“Today is leg day!” exclaimed Rhyne.
His friends were still the only ones who were casual about his leg. The other students seemed more careful about his disability, and with sufficient reasons. Demund didn’t have other friends other than the three he always spent time with. He never went to parties, dances, meet-ups, and there was little chance he was going to get invited within the special class and its rich students. Come to think of it, there had been some sort of dance last year, but he hadn’t paid much attention.
Enariss’s friend group. He had caught glimpses of them before. He wondered what others did during their free time.
He was living in the dark, wasn’t he? Just focused on studies and school, caring not of other matters. He had promised himself, hadn’t he? That he would be content with his dream world.
But…
It’d be great if he could enjoy himself more.
〄 〄 〄
It was another Thursday night, and the usual group was sitting around the table at Rhyne’s house. His sister, a senior at TISE High, was in her room, laughing about something. Not that it mattered. Everyone was focused on their studies, as another test would be taken the day after. Demund was especially motivated, his eyes solely concentrated on the textbook and his notebook.
“AHH! I’m taking a break,” shouted Rhyne after a while. He, too, was pushing himself lately. “I’m going to grab some food. You guys need anything?”
“You got any cookies?” said Riley.
“Yeah, we do. I’ll bring a bowlful.”
“Yes, please.” cheered Riley.
“Here, let me help,” offered Demund.
After a short while, cookies abundant and cups of milk were set up on the table. While they were having their short break, Rhyne swallowed, cleared is mouth with a swish of milk, and turned his attention to Enariss.
“Hey, Enariss, how come you don’t come to the club anymore?” he asked. Demund also looked up in curiosity.
“I wouldn’t say I’m absent,” replied Enariss.
“But I never see you anymore. You’re the captain, aren’t you?”
“There’s a vice-captain who takes my place when I’m gone.”
“But why?”
Enariss put down her pen and sighed. “I have this project I need to do. It’s very important to me, more than the club. Is that enough as an explanation?”
She sounded a little annoyed to Demund. Rhyne just smiled and nodded, returning to his book straight away. Riley observed his friend with apprehension but didn’t seem to care much afterward.
It would be a lie to say Demund wasn’t disappointed. He, too, wanted to know what kept Enariss from visiting the club. It was always great to see her instruct others and show feats of strength, especially that one time when she sent her challenger flying out of the ring. And he wanted to know more about her.
With each passing day, he felt like he was becoming more distant with Enariss. The more he discovered about her, the more things he realized he didn’t know.
If he hadn’t gotten into his accident and had been able to confess…
What would have happened?
Would he be in a better situation than where he was now?
It felt like it had happened so long ago. Years ago. The memory was a distant one and now, they were nothing more than friends, with all emotions of nervousness gone.
Did he still feel the same about her? Not likely. After spending so much time as Shaden, and traveling with Eilae and Lytha, he felt more and more that…romance wasn’t necessary. He liked his friend-state with Enariss.
Wasn’t he also afraid to lose it? Wasn’t that why he was being careful around her? Knowing so little, he was frightened that he’d strike a wrong chord and—boom. Lose everything.
He laughed inside. A hearty, relaxing laugh. Maybe the small random aggressions had gotten to his nerves. He hadn’t thought they would. They had been so petty. They had stopped recently, but he still didn’t feel good about them.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He peeked at Enariss. She was hard-working and wonderful to look at as usual. She had told him not to worry, hadn’t she? That first trip to school together in the same car had been so…exhilarating. Did he still feel the same?
Did she still feel the same?
He shook his head.
He hated overthinking.
〄 〄 〄
Was he in trouble? He didn’t think so. His biology (homeroom) teacher had called him to meet her in her office after school, but her expression hadn’t been stern. It had been fuller of expectations than worry. No, maybe a little bit of worry.
Anyways, he was making his way towards the office, bag on his back, prosthetic working well as usual. Students gave him glances here and there, but he didn’t mind. He wasn’t in trouble. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
Right?
Honestly, being called to the teacher’s office was a common fear among students. He probably wasn’t the only one; he was nervous for some reason. Just a little. It was funny to him.
Finally, he reached the doors to the office and pushed them open.
“Demund!” his teacher exclaimed. “You’re here! I’d like to say congratulations.”
“Huh?” Demund said dumbly.
“You scored perfectly on your test again.”
“Ah.”
“Come have a seat first.”
Demund sat on the chair in front of his teacher’s desk and looked around. It was his first time in her office, and various models of bones and organs were hanging on the walls.
“You graded them very quickly.”
“Only yours and—I shouldn’t say her name. But you know who I mean.”
Demund slowly nodded. His teacher smiled and put her hands on the desk.
“With this, I am even more convinced. Please, Demund, sign up for Junior’s Advancement.
“Oh!”
Truthfully, he had set if off to the back of his mind. The upcoming test had the priority, after all. The paper was still inside his bag, untouched for four days.
“I—my grades might decrease.”
“Demund, is it okay if I tell you my thoughts?”
With his nod, the teacher held her hands together and took in a deep breath.
“You are earning perfect scores on your tests. I’ve asked other teachers, and it seems like you’re scoring perfectly in their classes too.”
Demund nodded.
“The Junior’s Advancement is a splendid opportunity for a student such as yourself. You could always put if off to Junior or Senior year, but you’ll be even busier then. Now is the time.”
“But my grades may drop. Is that fine?”
“I will be frank with you. Grades are important, yes. But making it as a Finalist in the Junior’s Advancement will outweigh the scores you lost during school. Very much, in fact. I would say until a B, or maybe a C in one class.”
“That’s…really good.”
“Yes! And for a student such as yourself—”
The teacher suddenly paused for a moment and cleared her throat, as if remembering that privacy was important.
“It looks very good on your resume, and universities love to recruit Finalists. Also…there are many scholarships for Finalists. If you win the first prize, the government will pay for any schooling you apply to.”
“Wait. Really?”
His teacher nodded. “But you must decide by the time you leave this room.”
Demund stared at his teacher, who smiled back broadly.
“The school will also provide you with any materials for your project if you are worried about funds,” she added. “The official deadline is next Friday, but you must submit the topic of your project by then.”
“You wanted to give me a week to think about it.”
“Exactly! Please, Demund. This is a great opportunity for you.”
Demund looked at the expectant eyes of his teacher. The reason why he had maintained good grades—a part of it at least—was for the school’s scholarship. And mostly for his future too. Going into a good university was his plan and this thing that the teacher had recommended him…
He breathed in deeply. Why not? He would simply try harder.
“……fine. I’ll do it.”
“Excellent.”
The teacher took out a form from her table and set it in front of Demund.
“The instructions are listed here. But if you are unsure about anything, feel free to email me. I would gladly help.”
Demund took the paper and skimmed over the contents.
“A simple research outline by…next Friday.”
“Have you ever created one before?”
“No,” said Demund while placing the sheet where he could clearly see it, “but I think I can manage. The internet has a lot of resources.”
“Mhmm. But just to be sure, I will send you an example outline through email.”
“That will be perfect.”
After saying his thanks to the teacher, Demund left the room and stretched his arms out.
He smiled. This would be a new challenge for him. Truthfully, schoolwork had become somewhat boring. The topics had been too easy and simple.
And the scholarships. His parents would love that. And the trip to the Islands?
First prize, was it? He wanted to aim for it.
Now then. The only problem was—
What would his topic be?
〄 〄 〄
The Junior’s Advancement was more complicated than he had thought. He had thought of it as a simple presentation of a difficult topic, but it turned out that he actually had to conduct a study. It could be about anything, like how potatoes give off electricity, but looking through the presentations of the winners from prior years—
“…removing light via a homemade, handheld device through destructive interference, creating a vaccine for a mutated microbe through household substances, determining the atmosphere of a distant star through light spectroscopy…”
They were all absurd. Unbelievable. Almost all of the subjects that had been dealt with were extremely difficult, and though Demund understood some references, he was puzzled in many.
He understood why his teacher had emphasized on being a Finalist so much. The winner would almost always be leagues above the others, with a presentation that one would see in university.
At first, he had underestimated researching. But one look at the light spectroscopy of stars made him realize how complicated things were. The project had taken months with hours of collected data each day, and a whole lot of writing, comparing, and contrasting. The calculations on the paper looked dreadful.
He would have four months to do this, so not a single moment was to be wasted if he were to win.
“Oh…”
The more he scrolled through past presentations, the greater his dread became. Sure, there had been very simple ones in the past, but recently…some people had even prepared for two years to win.
To win, he had to display something incredibly outstanding, something that would blow people’s minds. Something that hadn’t been done before…but what?
〄 〄 〄
When Demund woke up the next day, after a week in Exarria, he got his answer.
In a fury, he threw off his blankets and turned on his old laptop. After going into the website and searching through past presentations, he knew what he had chosen was perfect. It could possibly bring him that win he had been looking for.
He wasn’t good at making devices. His experience with labs was minor. These other students had had influential backgrounds to support their projects, but his own family lacked connections. He was new to this, with not much to guide him.
However, there was one thing that he had that no one else did.
Access to a different world’s knowledge.
〄 〄 〄
“Please!” Shaden begged. “At least, until my birthday, could we stay—”
“It would be three months,” Lytha stated.
“The place is known to only have books,” Eilae further said.
“Eilae, didn’t you say you wanted to learn about magic?” pleaded Shaden. “This would be a great opportunity to learn, right?”
“Mmmmm……”
“We can also send letters back home, to tell them we’re doing well.”
Where Shaden wanted to go to was none other than the Great Library. There, he would be able to gather knowledge for Demund’s project. They were around a week’s journey away from the city of Saiton where the Great Library was located, and the sooner they went, the better for him. He needed as much time as possible.
“Why so suddenly?” asked Lytha.
“Let’s just say I had a strong urge to learn more about magic.”
“Hmm……”
His tutor closed her eyes, thinking, arms crossed. Eilae spoke up in her steed.
“I assume you want to visit the Great Library. But to gain access to it, you must be a member of the Saiton Consortium.”
“It’s not open to everyone?”
“Of course not! There is a millennia’s worth of precious texts within its doors.”
“Ah…but you also said that Saiton is filled with books, correct?”
“Well…yes.”
“And you want to learn about magic. Where else than Saiton?”
“It’s not that simple. Learning magic through texts is…difficult. One requires a tutor. Grimoires would be sufficient enough to teach me, but they are very expensive.”
There was a difference between a spellbook and a grimoire. The former was simply incantations on paper with a basic explanation for its spells, while the latter was imbued with magic that would assist the reader in using its spells.
“I learned spells through spellbooks.”
Eilae shot him a small glare. “You’re a special case.”
Shaden’s shoulders drooped. He looked over to his tutor for support, but she was still thinking. He had to come up with a topic soon and gather as much information as he could. He had been pretty selfish before, and this was his most selfish act yet, but it was necessary.
He looked at Eilae, who stared back at him. Suddenly, a lightbulb lit up above his head.
“What if I teach you?” he said. “I can learn the spell through the spellbook and use my experience to tutor you.”
Like how he had done for Prem.
“You will tutor me?”
“Yes.”
“………”
Now Eilae was lost in her thoughts. It seemed like she had her doubts before, but Shaden’s statement had caught her attention.
Or so he hoped.
Lytha finally opened her mouth.
“Shaden, this trip is for you. If you insist on going to Saiton for three months, then we will go. My worry is that…will you enjoy yourself there?”
It was weird for her to worry about his entertainment, but Shaden nodded.
“I will absolutely be satisfied,” he said with certainty.
〄 〄 〄
Demund realized that he had never actually looked into SAP before. He had read numerous biographies of superheroes, but those were hardly suited for research material. He wanted something more basic, something about SAP that could apply to anyone.
There had been some Finalists who had presented on individual powers and how they worked, but none of them had won the first prize. Looking through the previous winning projects of Junior’s Advancement, Demund discovered that the judges wanted something…special. Broad. Investigating a specific superpower was too limited. Interesting, but dismissible.
He wondered who else would be submitting their ideas to the competition. Each school could only submit three, so he’d also have to compete with the students at Tartis first. And out of those three, who knew how many would make it as a Finalist? All three, or possibly none.
The computer screen flickered as Demund scrolled down the pages. There was so little information on SAP. Not many readable studies existed on the internet. There were lots of rumors, like where it had come from, or what it did to people’s bodies, but none of them were credible. There weren’t any scholarly articles to back those claims up.
It made sense why no one had presented a topic on SAP. There was just too little information about it. It didn’t make sense scientifically, like the conservation of energy and mass.
Or perhaps all of the information was not available to the public. The Preliminary Islands definitely had facilities to evaluate SAP and superpowers. Maybe they didn’t want the information being leaked. Or maybe, they were clueless themselves.
Eventually, Demund gave up searching. He’d have to find everything he needed in Shaden’s world.
〄 〄 〄
“Why? Why would he be called to the teacher’s office?”
“I don’t know. I just wanted to let you know.”
Davis thickened his skin as the student in front of him kicked him on his chest. His hands met the cold, concrete floor, and he stumbled back from the force.
“Hah, you’re so useless. You should try harder.”
“…I’ll try harder.”
The student let out a large sigh and returned to staring at his phone. It was always important to him to stay connected to everyone, to know what things were going around in school. The bulky dude in front of him was good to kick around for fun, but he was a very boring person.
He frowned.
“Hey, Davis. When was the last time the new kid had a match in the Club?”
“Do you mean…the prosthetic kid?”
“Who else would I talk about, you dimwit.”
He threw the nearest object within his reach at Davis – an eraser. It harmlessly bounced off Davis’s thick skin and landed on the floor.
“I don’t remember. He didn’t fight recently.”
“Tch. He doesn’t care about the rankings, does he? That’s no fun.”
The student wanted to teach that new, conspicuous brat a lesson, but by the looks of it, he had better grades than the student, who couldn’t necessarily challenge him to a match. It would look bad on his character.
Bluntly, the student was frustrated with that Demund guy. He seemed unfazed by rumors and taunting. It got on his nerves a lot, and he wanted to teach him a lesson for leeching off the queen of the school—also his longtime crush—but this dude. It was like he had no social life.
“Gah. This sucks. Shoo, you can go now.”
Davis nodded and left the area.
If this particular student had been in a humble academic setting, he may have been able to flaunt around his ability and wealth to create a gang. He might have been able to become a kind of ruler in the caste of students, beating down those who dared to disobey him. He would have been able to be the smartest student in the school, with all of the support he received from his family background.
But he was in a special class at TISE High, where everyone had wealthy parents, where many had strong abilities. One act of violence outside of a club match would cause a lot of trouble for him.
He had a dream once of conquering TISE High and becoming the king. But there had been many towering walls before him. One whom he had taken a strong liking to.
But this outsider, who didn’t even seem that special, who was a defect—had managed to reach the top of that wall.
It made him frustrated to no end. Why him? Why had she chosen him? Now he was third in the school. It made him angry. And sad.
“I’m pathetic…”
Muttering words of depression, he walked away, sipping on a carton of mint-flavored milk.