"I don't," Troy said with a bitter smile, "Given my own situation, how could I discriminate against others? Besides, Luoxi hasn't done anything wrong - she hasn't even started learning dark magic."

"Good that you understand." Luo Wei's expression softened slightly.

It was Troy who had insisted on saving Luoxi back then. If he were to abandon her just because she had the talent for dark magic, his knightly code would be nothing but a joke.

Luo Wei gave him a warning look: "Don't let anyone know about their magical talents."

She said the same thing to Luoxi and Roman.

"The innocent suffer when bearing precious jade. You don't have the ability to protect yourselves yet, so you must keep your secrets. Understand?"

Roman and Luoxi nodded solemnly: "We understand."

"I'll help you find suitable magic books, but before that, you'll learn swordsmanship from Troy."

"Especially you, Luoxi. Don't think you can skip this because you're a girl. In fact, being a girl makes you more vulnerable to bullying, so you should focus even more on strengthening your body."

She tucked Luoxi's sticky black hair behind her ear and spoke earnestly: "Luoxi, you can't stay underground forever. Once you become strong enough, you can remove this disguise and walk proudly in the sunlight."

Luoxi looked at her and nodded firmly: "I'll remember, my lady."

"Don't call me 'my lady' anymore. Like Roman, call me 'Miss.' I hope you'll become a magnificent female knight."

"Yes, Miss!" Luoxi called out with a choked, hoarse voice.

Roman glanced at Luoxi, feeling a strong sense of crisis rising in his heart.

He was no longer Miss's only little knight!

Someone was going to compete for his place in Miss's heart!

Roman lowered his head, his large gray-brown eyes rolling around, his little hands unconsciously clenching into fists.

He made up his mind!

From now on, no matter what Troy taught them, he would practice ten times more than Luoxi, and become much, much better than her, to show Miss that he was the most capable knight!

After Luo Wei left, Troy's crash course in knighthood officially began.

According to the handbook, he was supposed to first paint a rosy picture, describing the benefits and glory of becoming a knight, then explain what knights are and how to become one.

Troy didn't understand why he needed to paint a picture first, but that didn't stop him from drawing a circle on the ground and starting his lecture.

"The benefits of becoming a knight, well, you can have your own knight's fief, collect taxes from the people in your territory, like land rent and household tax, and have them help you build houses and roads."

Luoxi lowered her eyes; she knew what paying taxes meant.

Siria's farmers had to hand over one-third of their crop yield to the city lord, work twelve days without pay for the lord each month, and pay one-tenth of their land tax to the temple.

Like the sheep her uncle raised on his farm in the suburbs - one-third had to go to the city lord, and if they wanted to sell the meat in shops after slaughter, they had to pay a high turnover tax, which could take up to half the value of the goods.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Roman also frowned. Although he had been a vagrant before, even vagrants had to pay taxes.

The city lord's followers would collect begging tax and passage tax from them every month. If they couldn't afford the tax, they would be driven out of the city.

Seeing both children's obvious disgust at tax collection, Troy couldn't continue.

He switched to explaining the process of becoming a knight.

"Children from noble families are sent to a knight's household as pages at age seven. At fourteen, they can enter the knight's castle as squires, learn the seven knightly arts, and study etiquette with the lady..."

"...then they can participate in the investiture ceremony, where senior knights will lead us in taking oaths and perform the sword-giving ritual."

"During the knighting ceremony, the lord will tap your shoulders with a long sword. Don't resist - it represents his acceptance of your loyalty..."

"A knight's loyalty is precious and can only be pledged to one person in a lifetime."

"However, if you meet someone you love, you can also offer your loyalty to your beloved. Your beloved will stroke your head to accept your devotion."

Roman and Luoxi listened attentively but looked somewhat dejected afterward.

Troy asked curiously: "What's wrong?"

"Can we become knights even though we're not from noble families?" Roman asked sadly.

Of course not.

Only those born into nobility could become knights.

But looking at the two pairs of hopeful eyes before him, Troy couldn't speak the truth.

"Yes, you can. Although you're not nobles, you're both talented and can become knights as exceptions."

Troy wasn't good at lying - he would nervously look at the ground whenever he lied, but both children believed his lie and were immersed in the joy of potentially becoming knights.

Seeing Roman and Luoxi's smiling faces, his guilt about lying also faded.

Perhaps Luo Wei really had a way to knight them, after all, she was from the royal family and had noble status.

Troy thought about the words Luo Wei had shared with him, and the blood in his body began to boil involuntarily.

If he could help her claim a territory, she would have real power. Then not only could Roman and Luoxi's dreams of becoming knights come true, but his wish could also be fulfilled.

There were still one month and eighteen days until Siria Magic Academy's vacation.

A little over a month was enough time for his old subordinates to arrive from the southern countries.

For the next two days, Luo Wei didn't leave school.

Firstly, because the city was under strict security, making travel inconvenient.

Secondly, because they had another rune class coming up, and she hadn't finished her homework yet.

She had terrible luck when playing gacha games before, once earning the title of "ultimate unlucky" after failing to get a shining card in a thousand pulls.

Now her luck was still terrible - she seemed to have gotten a cooked flower seed.

Luo Wei checked the runes and soil; everything was fine, but her seed just wouldn't sprout. When she dug it up, the outer shell was rotted!

How could she test if the runes were effective with a seed that wouldn't germinate?

Luo Wei held up this rotten seed under the oil lamp for observation. By structure, it looked like a morning glory seed.

Morning glories grew everywhere around the school; it would be easy to find an identical seed.

Luo Wei took a turn around the garden and successfully gathered several seeds and some morning glory flowers.

Back in her dormitory, she laid out these seeds in a row, arranged the morning glories in another row, then took out a stack of iron plates she had purchased and began drawing runes.

A magic apprentice's mana storage was limited; she only managed to engrave ten acceleration runes and ten growth-promoting runes before feeling dizzy and exhausted.

After resting for a while, she paired the two types of runes together, then placed seven seeds on them, with morning glory flowers on the remaining three pairs of iron plates.

As all twenty runes operated simultaneously, small whirlwinds of air arose on the desktop.

Luo Wei watched helplessly as the three fresh morning glory flowers quickly withered and rotted in the vortex, turning into mushy piles.

The seeds on the other plates also quickly grew moldy and rotted.

Luo Wei picked up the iron plates one by one to examine them. She could confirm these runes weren't drawn incorrectly, but why did they have the opposite effect?

The Infernal Arachne had crawled out at some point and jumped onto her desk, excitedly raising its two front legs as it rushed into the air vortex.

Under the washing of magical elements, its bristles stood straight up, its fur color became even more vibrant, and its black eyes gleamed with joy.

"""