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Dave and Sam, like most of their lives growing up, did things together like brothers from different mothers. During their time in the academy, they concentrated mainly on the martial side of their education, only learning enough magic to start a fire and conjure enough water to wash themselves.

The most important thing they picked up from the past three years was access to their auras. Their technique of wielding their aura was the kingdom’s standard, so there were no fancy techniques formed over many generations like many of the martial noble houses. This means the way Dave and Sam trained their auras was pretty much the same as mine, seeing that my dad also used the kingdom’s standard and taught me as such.

This made training with them easier, and I mentored them on the finer points of aura control so they could get closer to my level.

Next was Elise. She had clicked with Emma after her first visit to my house, and with Emma constantly by my side, she had another girl to talk to and slowly came out of her shell. That did not mean she was still not a shy person, but she became a lot more talkative among our close clique. She will still tighten up like a clam when Lavinia Castilene comes around though, so there was still much to work on.

However, aside from improving her social skills, she has also grown a lot as a mage. In the subsequent tournament’s Magic Duels, she was a lot luckier in her placement, allowing her to show off her skills before running into me or Alistair Arundel, but even then, she puts up a good fight that not many on her level can.

This led to many people trying to poach her, but when it was publicly known that I had already signed her as a family retainer, most backed off. But there were still a few who tried to approach me to buy out her contract like she was some football player.

I rejected those offers, of course. But there were a few from high-ranking noble families who did not take a hint and actually took my rejection of their offer as an insult to their family name, and actually challenged me to a dual while thinking that I would back down and acquiesce to their.

They did all this while forgetting one important detail, while we were in the academy, there was nobody to represent them in a dual like outside of school grounds, so they had to face me themselves or look like a bitch and besmirch their family name if they backed off after challenging me.

Long story short, the honor duels did not go well for them.

As for Alistair Arundel, while he got closer to my clique, he still spent most of his time with his group of high-born kids, who I understand had grown up with him. At the end of the day, I can describe our relationship as… professionally friendly. We bonded over our interest in magic, but our social circles were worlds apart. All in all, he is a lovely chap without a stick up his arse like quite a number of hoity-toity nobles do.

Lastly, there was Lavinia Castilene. After getting to know her better, I felt sorry for her. Growing up, she never really fit in. She was too rough and too into what boys were into to fit in with girls her age, and immature boys, being immature boys, did not really want to play with her.

When she tried to make friends outside of her social strata, being the child of a Duke did not lend itself well to making true friendships with commoners who were not viewed through the lens of social hierarchy. So, the commoner ‘friends’ she had over the years were essentially yes-men, and she picked up on this quickly and distanced herself from them.

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So, as it turns out, when she first met me during the tournament and fought her, she was grateful that I did not pull my punches and was not weird about a woman fighting a duel, and when I did not seem to care about her unladylike behavior despite being a noble myself, she took her mother’s advice about getting men to heart and proposed to my face while being clingy.

It was only after her mother stepped in and cleared up the social norms of interacting with a boy she likes (me), that she kind of cooled off after a few arguments with Emma that almost broke out into catfights. It was later, when I eavesdropped on a few of the more socially savvy gossip girls, that I learned that Lavinia did not pull noble rank on Emma to get her way because it would be the equivalent of resorting to name-calling when losing an argument.

Eventually, when things calmed down, while she was frosty towards Emma, she got along well with Dave, Sam, and me when we sparred outside of school time.

In other news, when going back for my third year at the Academy, my sister, Charlotte, came along to start her first year of lower education. So, as naturally as scavengers circling a prime piece of meat, upper-class students and outsiders who had children, siblings, or relatives in the same year as my sister started sending their children, siblings, or relatives to make friends with my sister.

At first, I was happy that my sister was making friends, but when she started excitedly rattling off house and business names and the sheer amount of people introducing themselves to her, I got suspicious. With Emma’s help to keep an eye on Charlotte, I found out why my sister was so popular.

Not even a week into the school year, Charlotte was receiving invitations to tea parties hosted by her “friend’s” parents, and in those invitations, it was hinted that I was also invited. At first, Charlotte was happy that she got to go have tea parties with her new friends and that she could also bring her big brother along.

It pained my heart to shatter her naive view of things, but I had to explain to her that most, if not all, of those invitations were actually from her “friend’s” parents, aimed at me. That night, she cried her little heart out, and I wept a little for her little loss of innocence due to the scheming world of politics.

After that, I asked Emma to keep an eye out for Charlotte because both of them were in lower education and thus had more opportunities to see each other. I also asked Emma to teach my sister what to look out for when making friends.

As for the vultures using eight-year-old children to try and pull me into their schemes via my sister, I had some help dealing with them. With Alistair and Lavinia’s help putting in a few words through their older relatives, the vultures soon got the message and buzzed off.

Lastly was Emma’s younger brother, Otto. Long story short, his academic tests did not make the cut for the Royal Academy, but he did not care. As long as i have known Otto, he has been an energetic boy, a little too energetic if you ask me.

That did not lend well to sitting still and learning from words and numbers in a book or on a board. He always had to run, jump, and swing at things if he had a stick. Eventually, Dad’s knights took a shine to the boy when he was hitting their training dummies, and took him under their wing to burn his extra energy. His parents were very grateful for that.

So, after flunking the academic portion of the Royal Academy's entrance test for commoners, Dad recommended that Otto be enrolled in a more knight-focused academy. So, after an aptitude test from some academic recruiters who camped outside to scoop up those who failed the Royal Academy entrance tests, Otto was enrolled in one of the better knight-focused academies, The Ironspire Academy. If I am not wrong, his academic year should end at the same time as mine, so I will see him back home.

And now that all of us but Emma and Charlotte have graduated, we are saying our goodbyes mainly to Alistair and Lavinia, as Dave, Sam, and Elise will be coming to work in my territory a year later after they turn sixteen. So, as Dave, Sam, Emma, Charlotte, and I loaded up on a carriage back home, we waved goodbye to Elise, who lived in the capital.

Now that this chapter of my life has come to an end, it is time to take a break.