Vizwel Royal Academy - Friday.

Anna nervously scratched her hands as she walked down the crowded hallways of the school building, one of the numerous buildings to exist in the school. With thousands of students all lining up to attend this academy that shapes the future of the entire empire, the school would need to have numerous buildings to facilitate all of its magical needs.

She bit her lips as she struggled to maintain her calm. How did things go so wrong? It was going as planned; she was gonna spy on them for a bit, see if the situation was okay and away from any potential danger, then walk out without being caught.

But, out of sheer dumb luck, Noel Crowley appeared and caught her in 32k Ultra HD High Res. There was no way to wiggle her way out of there, she was in the wrong, and she had to pay the price for it.

She was ready to bear the consequences of her actions - yes, but not from Noel fucking Crowley.

Memories replayed in her mind, memories of the arduous route to woo the person known as the Archmage of Miracles, an old guy who is technically hundreds of years old hanging around in a school for children.

He was a guy obsessed with magic and was fixated on uncovering the arcane secrets. In his route, the player - or in this case, Holly - would be able to explosively increase their skills in holy magic and in the end, gain the help of a powerful Archmage and a hidden ally that could only be acquired when met with the right conditions.

All in all, he was definitely one of the better picks in the game if one wanted to create a powerful team, especially when they unlocked his ability to, just as his name suggested, perform Miracles.

The only problem was that he was incredibly aloof, eccentric, and arrogant. If you’re not good enough, he’ll easily lose interest in you, no matter how talented you are. He wouldn’t even blink an eye to kill another person, and wouldn’t feel any grief when an ally dies. He’ll just shrug his shoulders and move on with life.

Only by catching his attention with an interesting enough thing would one be able to initiate his route in Lucky Lover. Yes, only initiate, not grow his affection or anything, it would just start his route.

And now, unfortunately, Spirit Magic was undeniably a unique branch of magic, a magic that only she, and only she wielded. No one else in the world, except for her ancestor who had long since died, wielded spirit magic. Coupled with Noel’s unique interest in all things magical, she had been forced to participate in a few… experiments so that he could better understand her magic.

At least there were a few benefits to this dilemma. First of all, she had already reached the level of a mage, with her Mana Heart completely formed. She had also learned a lot more about spirit magic than the month of research she had been doing on her own.

Anna had already theorized that Spirit Magic shares a common root with things like familiars and Monster Tamers - a magical profession that focuses on rearing monsters through magical bonds or other means, like legendary Dragon Knights or those who control armies of beasts.

If controlling beasts makes one a Monster Tamer, then she could be considered a Spirit Tamer, or rather, a Spirit Guide. She forms connections with spirits and gains their help, albeit she is unable to impose orders onto them and force them to follow her will. They’re just… friends who help each other out in times of need.

That’s why her ancestor, Van Hisprite, died - the spirits called out for help, and he simply had to help. That’s when he encountered the nameless alchemist who had terrorized the spirits with his strange magic.

With this new knowledge, she and Noel conceptualized a few spells that essentially mimic the common spells of those who have familiars and Monster Tamers. She can now share her senses with the spirits and even communicate telepathically with them, although it’s very rough and she can only receive and send out vague intentions.

But that’s more progress than she had in an entire month! It seemed that there is fortune in misfortune indeed.

As she walked out of the school building and out into the open grass fields, many of her classmates, and those from the other first-year classes, walked down the same path with excitement and anxiety bubbling to form a lively atmosphere.

She sighed. It was the end of the first month of school, which meant one thing - the monthly competition of classes every time the month would end! It’s an exciting competition where students can receive a huge amount of points if they are at a certain rank which means high grades.

Not only that, if one was in the top one hundred, one would receive some rewards from the academy, like no quizzes tomorrow or being personally tutored by some Royal Mages. Anna herself placed a high priority on this event in the game as she could learn some pretty powerful spells and teach it to her party members, explosively increasing the power of her party.

And, it seemed like Noel Crowley was no different because this time, she would have to enter a dungeon in the same party as him. Well, as much as it is called a party, a party of two members isn’t really that solid.

In fact, the only reason she’s in a party with him is because he wanted to enter a B Rank Dungeon! Anna knew all too well that if Noel was allowed to enter it alone, he would have done so already, after all, soloing one would net him more points and practically guarantee his placement in the top ten.

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Sadly for him, and unfortunately for her, only a party with enough credit and had shown enough qualifications would be able to enter a B Rank Dungeon. This meant that he - a publicly recognized quasi-Grand Mage, and her - a Mage, would be able to enter one without much problem.

Anna shook her head in dismay. Just her luck. Her plans were a lot slower than this. She only planned on entering B Rank dungeons after their summer break, after having had enough practice in combat and having a solid party, but oh well. He’s a male lead, and a reborn archmage, he’s strong enough to solo the dungeon even as a quasi-Grand Mage.

She herself had some level of confidence dealing with a B Rank monster depending on what it was, after all, spirits have the innate ability to bend the world to their whim. The only problem is her having enough mana to manipulate enough spirits to boost her combat prowess, and the mental capability to actually control a large horde of them.

Just as she entered the fortress-like building, she felt a tug at her mind and sighed. She followed the source of that mental tug and soon found herself in front of her dear teammate.

He was incredibly handsome, with looks that were… she hated to say it but on par with Rob’s looks. She didn’t know how, but like magic, Rob’s appearance turned better and better with each passing day. Anna suspected that he must be using some sort of magic to do so, but Noel denied that claim.

Instead, he explained to her that it must’ve been due to some potion or something related to alchemy. She couldn’t properly understand what he meant, but in his words, he said, “It’s way too organic to be done with magic. Instead, it must’ve been through a potion or something similar, which allowed his natural looks to bloom faster and had perhaps enhanced it even, but that would take incredible luck to actually do so, so I’d rather believe that he’d look like that inevitably with enough time and having the proper nutrition and training. It’s a complicated subject, you won’t understand it.”

Bloom his looks? Anna snorted as the two walked toward their dungeon. Oh well, at least it was partially artificial, no matter how organic it really was.

The only thing she found surprising was the potion part, because with her knowledge, there’s no potions that worked like that.

“It’s not just a potion,” Noel said, breaking her out of her thoughts. “I did my research and compared past data with the present one. His body fat had drastically been reduced, his muscles also increased way too fast in a short period of time, and even his height had increased a notch in what seems to be two days.”

“It should be multiple potions working in tandem, which might have had an interesting side effect when combined that caused his body to react that way, achieving the effect you see now,” Noel explained.

“W-What? I didn’t ask anything…,” Anna muttered in confusion before she widened her eyes in fright. “Did you read my thoughts?”

“I read your face,” Noel said with a condescending snort. “It’s practically written all over you. What’s your fixation on him anyway? Is he your crush?”

“No, he’s not!” Anna rolled her eyes. The two really were similar when it comes to their annoyingness, but one was more murderous and morally grey while the other… also appeared to be morally grey.

Perhaps this was the reason she had a particular hate to Rob. She had an endearing hate for Noel in the game, and perhaps she had saw a little bit of him in Rob, which had caused her negative impression of him.

“We’re here,” Noel said and paused his steps.

Anna looked to the side to see what dungeon they were entering in. The moment she saw the word ‘Troll,’ her stomach sank.

Trolls were one of the most annoying monsters Anna had faced in the game. They had insane regenerative capabilities, and there were various subspecies of them, with each one having different abilities added to their regeneration.

Their biggest weakness is fire since it would halt their regeneration, but even that isn’t that effective. Unless the fire covers their entire body, they were usually smart enough to eventually cut off their burning limbs and just regenerate them back.

That’s perhaps one of the things she hated most about Lucky Lover. Some monsters were just fucking smart, and when she thought of Grim Hallow, the demonic organization wanting to destroy the world, she felt a chill crawl down their spines.

Monsters given wisdom on par, and perhaps even greater than humans would be called Devils. Grim Hallow was full of those devils, demonic monsters given wisdom by the Demon Lord himself. This is one of the various reasons for their terrific strength, after all, an organization as large as that, with monsters that were innately born stronger than the measly humans being given intelligence on par with humans, is just outright despairing.

She shook her head, dismissing her thoughts. Worrying is useless, only results would prove effective. Rather than remaining anxious, she should do her best to grow strong enough to survive the apocalypse and help in the fight to defeat the Demon Lord.

“Troll Caves,” Noel murmured with a light smile. “It’s decent enough to land us in the top ten.”

“Why do you want to enter the top ten anyways? From what I’ve seen, there’s really nothing the school can provide that would help you-“

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” Noel said with a grin. “Knowledge is power. Magic is simply an application of knowledge and skill. By knowing more, the stronger I will be.”

Anna could already tell what Noel wanted. He had been dead for hundreds of years, magic had developed so much that he was basically learning something new every single day, spending hours of his life inside the library and inside his laboratory. She didn’t even bother to ask how he had one in the first place, since even in the game, he didn’t explain how he got it.

Because of his undying curiosity and thirst for knowledge, Noel would most likely want to gain access to the section in the library restricted to the higher year levels, and other restricted sections given access to the professors and such.

So, because of that undying thirst for knowledge, she had been dragged here, to fight for her life against those damnable trolls.

“Ugh, let’s just go,” she groaned.

“Fufufu, let’s go indeed,” he murmured with an excited grin.

…

A group of five stood in a straight line as they crowded in front of a glowing portal made out of swirling blue and purple lights that formed a magical entrance leading to an unknown place.

The five in question were Rob Fortune, Elaine Fortune, Melvin Dolton, Leo Regulus, and lastly, Holly Lavestine. They all wore their equipment, wielded their staffs and wands, and readied their potions.

“Let’s go,” Rob muttered in an indifferent tone as the metallic machine in his hand glistened with a silver luster, a machine reminiscent of the gunpowder-powered rifles recently gaining popularity all throughout the empire.

As he walked into the portal, the others followed from behind, ready to tackle the B Rank Dungeon - Ogre Swamps.