"Baron Randall, you have to do something about those peasants!" Complained Sir Fredrick. "They have no respect for the nobles. If we don't make them understand the might of our title, they will treat nobility as nothing more than common."
On the balcony overlooking the student hall's garden, Baron Randall, a green robed students with three stripes, landed a piece of white stone on a go board. His opponent, Marcus Yulu, another green robed student with three stripes, examined the move and began re-strategizing. They were surrounded by a group of young nobles and young clan masters.
The noble families sent their children to the Academy to learn the basics of magic and cultivation, but the main reason was for their children to build social relationships and connections with other nobles, clans, and even royalties.
"You sure have a lot of time on your hands, Fredrick, getting yourself into trouble with peasants," remarked Baron Randall. "You should hang yourself rather than kneel after losing to them."
It was unusual for anyone under eighteen to receive a title, but Baron Randall Carrigo was one of the exceptions. His father was an Earl and a high ranking member of the Pasadine Empire, an empire directly south of the Kelseran Empire. As the oldest son, he was bestowed the title of Baron.
The Carrigo Clan was also a powerful clan in the Pasadine Empire, holding onto a lineage dating back to the Kinbarl Empire. After Empire Sharon Paradine successfully usurped the Tesdine Empire 300 years ago, it was mainly due to the support of the Carrigo Clan.
"But Baron Randall, it wasn't just those peasants, Ashe was also fighting!" Sir Fredrick explained.
"Hmph! You let that pretty boy beat you up as well? Then you deserved it!" Sir Terrun sneered from in front of the crowd. Sir Terrun was Baron Randall's right hand.
Baron Randall clenched his right hand against a piece of stone and stared into Sir Terrun's cowering eyes. "I thought I told you to isolate him from everyone else."
"But Baron Randall, we've forbidden his presence on the 2nd floor!" Sir Terrun quickly tried to excuse himself. "We can't do anything if he makes connections with people from the first floor."
"I want you a find a way to expel him from this school," Baron Randall commanded.
"Baron, that might be difficult."
Sir Fredrick thought of something. "Baron Randall! We may be able to request help from Sir Ian."
Baron Randall looked curiously at Sir Fredrick. "Explain."
"It seems that Ashe is acquainted with Vincent."
Baron Randall nodded. Marcus raised his brow across the table from Baron Randall, he was curious to hear what these nobles were planning. Marcus was in Professor Aseroth, so he knew what had happened.
"I heard the rumors, do you know much about it?" Baron Randall asked Marcus.
On the first day of Professor Aseroth class, everyone was scheduled to arrive in the Professor's private study room, located in the Cultivation Hall. There were twelve seats in the room. The first row, lined with four seats, was usually reserved for the top students. Hobin Lancet, Sir Ian Camber, Obi Conway, and Marcus Yulu would naturally sit in the front.
Marcus walked into the dark, but warmly lit room decorated with manabeasts heads displayed as trophies on the wall. It was his first time in Professor Aseroth's study. The Professor wasn't there, so he walked up to the front where he normally sat. He was surprised to see the new student seated in front. It was likely that the new student didn't know about the customs of the school.
Hobin was already in their seats, but he didn't talk to anyone, typical.
Marcus sat next to Vincent.
"Hey, you're new?" Marcus asked.
Vincent nodded.
"You're Vincent?"
Vincent nodded.
"I'm Marcus. Just a little hint if you want to survive in this academy, you should sit in the next row."
"Are the seats assigned?"
"No, but the top students have always sat in front."
"So it's not required," it was all Vincent needed to know, and he didn't feel like moving.
Marcus wasn't the type to say more than necessary, and waited to see who would happen.
Obi walked in and he was also shocked to see a new student. He sat next to Marcus.
"Who's the new kid?" Obi whispered.
"Vincent."
Obi recognized the name and nodded.
"Did you warn him about the seating arrangement?"
Marcus nodded.
"Ian is last to come again, he's going to be pissed that his seat is taken."
"His fault for not coming in early."
At that moment, Sir Ian walked into the room. He moved right in front of Vincent.
"Move." Ian commanded and stared down at the new student with arrogant eyes.
Vincent craned his neck up to look at the student standing before him.
Vincent blinked twice, and then faced the front, looking directly at Ian's stomach as though there was no one present.
Ian grabbed a hold of Vincent front robe, dragging him up from the seat.
"Come on Ian! He's new," Marcus jumped and attempted to defuse the situation.
Bang!
Ian flew all the way back, knocking into the magical infused wall. Any other type of wall would have been destroyed on impact.
Vincent had head-butted Ian and punched him in the stomach right before Ian could attack.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Everyone was shocked by the event, even the top four students.
"Holy s***! Did the new student just knock down Ian?"
It was one thing to knock down Ian, but it was another thing to see Ian's head bleeding. The Windel robe and force barrier were supposed to prevent that from happening.
"Haha, never thought I see the day when Sir Ian gets his ass handed to him by a newbie," Norick laughed from the back corner. "Quite impressive."
Sir Ian glared at Norick, but he prepared himself to charge directly toward Vincent.
Professor Aseroth walked in right as Ian got up to retaliate. Looking at the position of everyone, Professor Aseroth could decipher what had happened.
"Sir Ian, I would hold off if I were you," Professor Aseroth warned. Professor approached Sir Ian to briefly inspect the injury, and cast a light heal spell. The blood stopped bleeding, but the wound was still apparent. "Go take a seat."
Sir Ian wiped off remaining blood from his forehead and stalked his way to the second row. He whispered something to Vincent as he passed by, but Vincent remained expressionless.
Vincent did something that everyone thought was unbelievable, his attack completely ignored the force barrier.
After rethinking the events, Marcus decided to stay out of the conflicts between the nobles and Vincent's acquaintances. Marcus didn't say more than what was rumored.
Sir Lougram, sitting by a nearby table, couldn't resist joining the conversation. "You're really keeping mum about Vincent's technique?" Sir Lougram asked Marcus.
"I really don't know much about it, so I would rather not speculate."
"What special technique does he have?" asked Baron Randall asked Sir Lougram.
"His attacks can ignore force barrier. We aren't sure about body aura, but assumes that he can also ignore it. We went to train in Grisham Range for a couple of days, and let me warn you one thing, with his technique, he can become a terror to the manabeast terrors."
"It looks like I should really keep an eye out for this new kid," Baron Randall placed another white stone on the board.
"You don't really think Sir Ian will assist you just because Ashe knows Vincent?" Marcus asked Baron Randall.
Baron Randall chuckled. "Of course not, inflicting harm on the new kid won't affect Ashe. I'm just excited about more players entering the game." Baron Randall grinned deviously "If I recall, Vice Dean Araba is Ian's grandfather."
Marcus eyed Baron Randall suspiciously.
****
Windel Garden was heaven for many magicians and cultivators, as it provided a rich mana filled environment. However, it was also one of the reasons why the garden was restricted by the Academy.
No form of meditation was allowed.
If a person was to meditate inside the Windel Garden, they would have interfered with the growth of the plants.
Nico regretfully sighed, it was such a shame.
"Nico, Professor Stance said you can take home another cutting today," Elmara instructed as she was about to leave for the day.
Elmara and the other assistants were surprised by how well the manaplants were growing, and it had only been less than a month since the boy Nico had started working in the garden.
The changes Nico made to the plant's regiments were minor, less water here, and more sunlight there. However, they could tell that the overall growth had improved.
"Great!" Nico stopped surveying the plant and thanked Elmara.
Elmara left, and Nico returned to his survey.
Nico had been recording the height and length of each plant every night in a journal. Although it wasn't necessary, he needed a way to explain how he was able to gauge the growth of the plants. The changes were so minute that most people weren't able to differentiate.
Even Elmara, who had a plant spiritual root, wasn't able to notice. She could analyze the manaplant health status and diagnose it, but that was the extent of her ability.
The other assistants assumed Nico was some sort of crazy plant boy who was obsessed with plants, but Elmara thought that Nico was more methodological in his approach.
At the end of the working day, Nico took an extra cutting of a plant.
Nico returned to the dorm, and prepared five sets of ingredients and brought them to Killo Restaurant Inn.
On top of the inn was a quiet slightly sloped rooftop. Nico had prepared all the necessary items to create the Plus-One Pill.
The Plus-One Pill required five ingredients, Kaibera, Topen, Renshaw, Shishio, and Manamarigold.
Nico had exchanged APs for the Kaibera. The Topen he had discovered from Arango Forest. The manamarigold he had cultivated himself. And the remaining two manaherbs he had taken as part of his payment while working as Professor Stance assistance.
He didn't have the correct age of the ingredients, but he was sure the amount would be accurate. Unlike food recipes, the amount were units of shadow symbols.
He had no cauldron, but he had a large copper stockpot and a grill he had borrowed from Killo Restaurant Inn's kitchen.
As the sun settled beyond Grisham Range, Nico chopped up the manaherbs to best capture the amount of shadow symbols required.
The chopped Kaibera plant went in first.
"Add Green Rain." Nico said to himself as he took out the Green Rain Talisman and released the rain into the pot until it was half full.
Once the shadow symbols loosened and released into the pot, he added the Topen. Unlike what was taught in class, the mixture did not need to be separated out or refined. Nico added the remaining manaherbs one at a time, and used the Black Flame.
Nico watched as the shadow symbols formed black manalines. Nico then used the Blue Ice Talisman. A shard ice crystal shot into the pan.
Pang!
"Crap!" Nico looked at the dent appearing on the bottom of the copper pan. "Busho is going to kill me!"
Luckily, nothing was leaking. Maybe he should have bought a cauldron, but the cheapest one was 500 gold pieces, he would be broke if he buys it.
Inside the soupy mixture, the manalines began to bind together and crystallize.
The recipe had instructions on how to build the structures with the manalink. Instead of using Minko, Nico used the manaring from Saturn to manipulate the structure. Manipulation was easier with Saturn, but the disadvantage was his short range.
Nico moved his head closer to the copper pot. The manaring spiraled out from Saturn and into the pot. Nico controlled the tiny spiral tentacle and moved the black manalines to form hexagonal structure. As the manalines continued to form, a honeycomb shaped orb could be seen.
Within an hour, the Green Rain water had evaporated and what was left inside was a single ugly pill the size of a small pea. It was too out of shape to be called round.
Congratulation, Plus-One Pill Grade F created.
According to the recipe, the pill could be ingested.
Nico wanted to enhance it with lifeless water, but he also wanted to test it out without the lifeless water for baseline information. Nico thought about it again, it was useless to test for a baseline if every pill he took could weaken to a degree.
Nico decided to wait until dawn to use the lifeless water.
Nico took his second set of ingredients and followed the same procedure. The only alteration was that he aimed the Blue Ice Talisman up in the air and waited for gravity to drop the shard. He caught the falling shard with a tong and dropped it into the copper pot. This saved Nico the trouble of causing more damage to the copper pot.
Before dawn, he gave the twins some instruction.
"If I pass out, wake me up in the morning before dawn. If I look dead, go get Busho, okay?" asked Nico.
Snowy nodded. Junior was a little slow, and tilted his furry head side to side.
Woof! woof!
Nico enhanced all the pills. After everything was settled, he ate the lifeless water enhanced Plus-One Pill.
As the Plus-One Pill traveled down his throat and Minko took a little nip at it, but the rest was immediately gobbled up by Chaos Manaroot.
Status:
Manaroot: Chaos 7>8
Mananode: 2
Manaspirit: Midnight Koi 29
Strength: 45
FP: 26/28
Defense: 32>33
Speed: 33
Magic: 39
MP: 74/75
Resistance: 35
Casting: 27
Nico manaroot and defense went up by one.
The 2nd pill raised his speed by one, and 3rd pill didn't have any effect on his status.
The 4th pill raised his manaroot and Minko,
Status:
Manaroot: Chaos 8>9
Mananode: 2
Manaspirit: Midnight Koi 29>30
Strength: 45
FP: 26/30
Defense: 33
Speed: 33>34
Magic: 39
MP: 74/78
Resistance: 35
Casting: 27
Minko wriggled with joy.
Looking into Minko's vision, Nico noticed that the shadow symbols were brighter than before, especially the manalines that ran through all the objects in his surrounding field of vision.
When it was almost 9:00am, Nico finished the 5th set.
Congratulation, Create 5 Alchemy Pills Task Complete.
Nico selected the Roulette Coupon.
Receive Elder Wand Recipe.
Nico scanned through the recipes with his droopy eyes. It was another complex recipe.
Task:
Plant and Harvest 1 Manafruit. 0/1. Reward: System Reward.
Kill 200 Manabeast Terrors. 15/200. Reward: Roulette Coupon.
Create 5 Inscriptions. 0/5. Roulette Coupon.
*New* Create 200 Alchemy Pills. 0/200. Reward: Roulette Coupon.
He yawned, he better get to class.