Seeing Vaeryl’s big smile, Keith’s first impression of him was pretty good. “What were you doing?”

“Oh, I was just meditating. The entrance test will arrive in two days, so I was just preparing already.” When Vaeryl started talking about the entrance test, his face grew more serious and his previous big smile disappeared. “I have to perform well and make my family proud,” Vaeryl said, clenching his right fist.

Keith was intrigued by the relation between meditation and the entrance test, so he couldn’t help but inquire: “How will meditation help you later?”

Vaeryl was silent for a moment and nodded, seemingly coming to an answer. He hadn’t seen Keith smile since the moment he entered, but he was still happy to make conversation with him. “Well, mages depend on mental power to control spells. Even warriors need mental power so they can strike at the right opportunities. I was trying to think of nothing, training my mind that way.”

Keith raised his eyebrows and asked “Just think of nothing? That shouldn’t be that hard, right?”

Hearing this, Vaeryl couldn’t hide the surprise from his face. He observed Keith up and down again and asked: “Well, you’ll be surprised… but does that mean you have never meditated before?”

Keith thought a little before answering: “Well, our official training back at home starts when we are ten years old. Before that… well, we only learn about common stuff.”

“I see… well, mental training is the only part of the entrance test you can at least train by yourself. The other part, the amount of affinity you have for elements, can’t be trained at all.”

“What are you talking about?” Keith asked. He still didn’t know what affinity meant, but he bluffed it anyway. “Do you know what our entrance test will be?”

Vaeryl was shocked once again. “Wait you don’t know? You weren’t told what the entrance tests will be?”

Seeing the surprise on Vaeryl’s face for the second time, Keith started to grow a little irritated. “Well, the vice-principal only told me it has two parts, but he said it’s better to enter the tests without knowing what they’ll be.”

“Oh,” Vaeryl nodded, seemingly enlightened about Keith’s situation. “Well, some people think you are better off when you don’t know what’s coming. That way you will be more nervous, sometimes resulting in people performing better.” He then shook his head and continued: “But the opposite is also true. While some people perform better if they’re nervous, others will perform worse. At least if you know what’s coming you can prepare for it.” He then chuckled and questioningly looked at Keith. “Well, do you want to know how the tests will be held?”

Keith thought for a moment, before nodding.

Seeing Keith accept his proposal, Vaeryl smiled and started explaining. “Well, you know about the two core tests, right? One part is a mental control test. The other part is determining the amount of affinity you have towards elements.” Vaeryl saw the partly confused face of Keith and calmly continued: “The mental control test will consist out of students manipulating a spell. Even though you can’t cast it, you can still manipulate a spell the professor gives you. But that’s only because of their special light element magic.” Seeing Keith nod, he explained about the other part, “and even though we don’t have a full-grown mana core yet, our bodies still have a preference towards certain elements. They can observe what elements are attracted and how strong the attraction is.” He saw that Keith understood most of what he said, so he concluded his explanation and jumped up from his bed. Vaeryl clearly had a special background. He possessed a lot of knowledge for his age.

“Hey,” Vaeryl said as he walked towards the door. “You must’ve just arrived at the academy, right? Do you want to explore a bit? I know my way around already, so how about I show you around?”

Keith promptly declined and pointed at the wooden sword at his waist. “I’m not really interested. I’m planning to go outside and practice my swordsmanship a little.” Keith had started to become a little anxious because of all knowledge that Vaeryl possessed and he didn’t. He was about to follow Dillim’s advice and just calm his mind by using a sword. Then he wouldn’t feel nervous for the upcoming entry test.

“Oh yeah! I was wondering what you were wearing that sword for, but it seems you actually know how to use it? How about we spar for a bit?”

Keith stopped in front of the door and looked back at Vaeryl. “You can also use a sword?”

“Well, yeah. Everyone in our family gets trained from young age. That way we can excel at everything and choose whether we want to become a warrior or a mage. I eventually chose to become a mage, but I’m not going to completely stop training the sword. It just feels good to be physically active you know?”

He then grabbed a wooden sword that was lying under his bed and walked towards Keith. Afterwards they both went down the stairs and walked towards a nearby field behind the building they just exited. Vaeryl looked around before remarking, “Well, it’s not exactly the training field, but at least it’s something. This way we won’t attract too much attention and we don’t have to walk very far.”

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Vaeryl then gracefully drew the wooden sword he had fastened to his hip. “Alright,” he smiled confidently. “I’m ready, show me what you got!”

Keith carefully observed Vaeryl’s stance. Vaeryl was holding his sword loosely with the tip aimed down. He had about a shoulder width of distance between both his feet and his knees were slightly bent. It seemed like he really received formal sword training before.

Keith drew his own sword. Even though he just started training seriously recently, he should still be able to match someone his own age.

While Keith simply drew his sword, Vaeryl started to grow serious. He was extremely confident in himself, but he didn’t expect that it was possible for the air of a ten-year-old to change after Keith drew his sword. There seemed to be a big difference between the Keith who he had been talking to moments before and the Keith who just drew his practice sword. Even though Keith had been serious looking most of the time, the moment he drew his sword his gaze increased in intensity.

‘It seems he actually knows how to use it a little…’ Vaeryl thought. He then started smiling again, saying, “Alright, come at me!”

Keith then made a few steps towards Vaeryl, before suddenly striking out at his arm. He was planning to use a simple combination Dillim had taught him. Seeing the incoming blow, Vaeryl’s face changed. He immediately jumped back, completely out of range. Keith saw Vaeryl hurriedly jumping backwards and strangely looked at him. He thought Vaeryl would definitely parry his blow, just like Dillim had always done. Afterwards he would be able to continue with multiple blows and beat Vaeryl, but instead he didn’t parry but jumped way out of range.

Vaeryl chuckled awkwardly after he saw Keith look strangely at him. He then rushed forward to quickly defeat Keith. He thought Keith would come up with some miraculous attack, making him overly defensive. But after he saw the simple attack Keith made, he understood that he severely overestimated Keith. He would rather just end it quickly now.

He swung his sword sideways at Keith, not intending to injure him. When Keith saw the sword being swung towards his side, he simply raised both his hands to his side and aimed the tip of his sword downwards, receiving the blow. He then immediately twisted both his wrists, making the sword form an arc towards Vaeryl’s head. Vaeryl already had his sword sideways and was able to quickly reposition his arms to block the incoming blow. He then stepped back, out of Keith’s range. It actually turned out that Keith wasn’t as simple as he had expected. Right at the moment he wanted to test Keith again, someone could be heard yelling: “Look! Everyone look! The Second Prince is sparring with someone!”

Vaeryl stopped his attack and looked towards the source of the sound. He then smiled wryly and focused on Keith again only to see the tip of a wooden sword coming his way. He didn’t expect that Keith would make use of the opportunity to attack him without a second thought. Vaeryl was able to hurriedly duck, narrowingly avoiding Keith’s sword. They then continued to make several exchanges, neither having an advantage nor disadvantage.

Slowly more people started to gather and observe the sparring. “What? Someone actually dares to spar with the prince?” Someone who just started watching asked no one in particular.

“Ha,” another bystander started, “Not only does he dare contend, they are even each other’s match!”

After the fight continued for a while, another commotion broke out among the students who were observing the fight. “Oh, the princess is here too!” A young girl who couldn’t be much older than the two boys fighting was also watching the fight. “So he was here,” some students heard the young princess mumble. She had long black hair and was quite pretty for a young girl her age.

When Keith’s sword crossed a few more times with Vaeryl’s, something happened. Vaeryl seemed to have noticed someone from the corner of his eye, making him look distracted for a second. Keith immediately tried to use this opportunity and win. Vaeryl seemed to be in dire straits for a moment, but he managed to step back and turn his body, making his back face Keith. After Keith missed his first attack, he still kept his momentum going and attacked Vaeryl’s back, but right before he could connect, Vaeryl had already turned around. Keith could feel Vaeryl’s wooden sword rest on his throat while his sword arrived at Vaeryl’s stomach a split second later. “Damn, I lost,” Keith said while putting his sword away. After he and Vaeryl stepped back, he heard Vaeryl sigh and mumble something that resembled, ‘We still made commotion after all’.

He then actually looked around and saw a group of people staring at the two of them. His eyes grew wide for a second while he processed what was going on. He hadn’t realized at all that they became the source of attention for so many people.

Keith then suddenly felt an arm around his shoulders and when he looked at what was happening he could see Vaeryl smiling happily towards the crowd. “Yeah, yeah, no need to speculate, this is my good friend, Keith! We were just comparing our skills for a moment.” Vaeryl had seen a lot of people in the crowd starting to gossip, so he cleared everything up in one go.

At that moment, the girl who caused a commotion before walked up towards Vaeryl saying: “Hey, hey! Why are you playing around here with him? You promised to play with me!”

Seeing the sulking face of his sister, Vaeryl just relocated his hand from Keith’s shoulder to her head and patted her. “Alright, we still have some time remaining. I also want to introduce you to someone, this here is Keith!”

The girl had a strange look on her face for a split second before beaming towards Keith. “Uhn! Nice to meet you!” She then looked back at her brother saying, “Let’s go, let’s go!”

Keith stood there awkwardly for a moment until he saw Vaeryl poke his sister’s forehead while saying, “Silly! You haven’t even told him your name!” She sulked while rubbing her forehead, but still looked towards Keith again, retrying her previous introduction. “Nice to meet you, I’m Niyla!”

Keith awkwardly stood there for a second, until Vaeryl asked him to join him and his sister to explore the academy. He didn’t really feel like joining the two of them, but after continuous urging of Vaeryl he still gave way. When they walked away, the group of bystanders parted for them, giving them the space to walk towards the academy.

In this manner, two more days passed. Keith explored the academy with Dillim once, but most of the time he spent together with Vaeryl and Niyla. He got to know them a little better and he kept practicing the sword together with Vaeryl. Niyla seemed like a nice girl, but she would easily throw a tantrum if her brother would do something that didn’t go her way. Keith thought it was funny, because she would behave like a very good girl when other people aside from her brother were present.

Finally, on the morning of the third day, Keith was woken up by Vaeryl’s voice, “Good morning, Keith!” When he slowly opened his eyes, he could see Vaeryl already standing in front of him. “Today is the day of the entrance test, are you ready?”