The brunette stood separate from those she would have preferred to share the event with. Instead of being part of the crowd, Rhona was forced to stand next to several of her fellow Alliance members who’d played a role in the day’s events. They were not teachers or school administrators like those arrayed on the other side of the stage. Instead, they were the forces that generally stayed behind the scenes.

Forces not dissimilar to the woman now standing at the podium giving a speech now that each of the inaugural class members had already walked across the stage.

Rhona watched as Leslie Buirch, the Sound Mage who served as the face of Atlas Inc, gave the convocation speech for the recent graduates. While the tall blonde woman likely wouldn’t bother with such trivialities in the future, the inaugural class of Junction High warranted extra attention from the Atlantis Alliance’s most senior human assigned to the mundane planet’s reintegration.

Unlike other so-called virtual schools, Junction High was the first truly virtual school rather than an online academy. While some may argue the difference was a matter of semantics, they couldn’t be further from the truth. She would know.

Rhona clapped politely with the rest of the attendees as the woman finished speaking and stepped away from the podium before signaling for the next speaker to approach. While she knew, or at least had met, around a quarter of the graduates since they’d been recruited from her area of responsibility, she was only really familiar with a few of the more exceptional ones.

Ones she regularly monitored and occasionally met with within the game.

The woman scanned the large group of robed graduates, quickly homing in on her targets. Sumi Amari was the first she noticed in the sea of tan robes. They’d worn their standard uniform for the ceremony since it looked much nicer than most of the graduation robes and gowns used in the varying cultures of Earth.

The contrast between the primarily tan robes with black trim and the solid black caps with tan tassels also looked nice… At least, as nice as having a fake tablet attached to one’s head could look. But the flat board hat was a tradition in several locations worldwide, making it hard to argue against.

Not that she’d been asked. The woman had entirely too much to balance without having to worry about minor decisions such as what the children should wear to their graduation ceremony.

But Sumi… she was something special, even for Alliance members. The girl was one of the few tri-affinitied people to exist throughout the known universe. As far as she knew, Sumi was the only tri-affinitied person on Earth. However, given the higher-than-average number of people on Earth with two affinities, it was entirely possible that another tri-affinity mage would appear. If another did appear, Rhona hoped they used the DIVE gear to discover their affinities; that way, she’d have a method of finding them.

Rhona’s eyes slid over several people until landing on another interesting talent. Emie Mercer, sister to one of the military members attached to her organization as a beta tester. While her impressive Space and Time affinities were noteworthy, the more interesting factor was that she was the first – and so far, only – naturally awakened Earthborn.

Others had been forcibly awakened – mostly world leaders and those influential enough to warrant their involvement in the transition process – but they didn’t count. The fact that this girl had awoken after such a short exposure to mana was also remarkable. It was part of the reason she’d intentionally withheld information about the girl from the old elf.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

While the human Alliance representative felt confident the ancient elf wouldn’t have done anything to violate the Accords, she knew he only cared about growing his own knowledge. Everything else was peripheral. Sir Eri’Non cared nothing about the consequences of his actions so long as they didn’t contaminate his study. Rhona had already learned that the old elf believed the best way to avoid contamination was to remove the target from the study after he obtained whatever data he was after.

He wouldn’t kill them since that would directly violate the Accords. But what he did was not much better.

Not only did Rhona like the girl, she knew that allowing her to disappear would have a direct, negative impact on the girl’s brother and niece. Really, Amie probably wouldn’t even realize her aunt Emie was gone, given her young age. Still, given that the toddler had already effectively lost her mother, intentionally allowing another close family member to disappear was not something Rhona felt comfortable doing.

Besides, given Emie’s talent for Enchanting, Rhona felt it had been an excellent decision to keep her existence from the elf. Hopefully, the recent graduate would be amenable to transitioning from a beta tester to becoming Vasilla Maker’s permanent assistant full-time. Besides, she had more than enough beta testers anyway, especially since the new graduates had all signed contracts as part of the virtual school testing program.

After reviewing the girl’s time spent within the greater simulation, it was apparent Emie preferred crafting over exploration and testing. However, she had already delved enough to nearly complete the interface upgrade if the woman’s calculations were correct. How the Earthborn had found that feature buried in the interface was beyond Rhona, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

While the manager couldn’t see the girl’s actual status through the simulation, the guard she’d assigned to delve with the native had kept her up to date on the girl’s progress. Based on the reports from the Nature Mage, Emie may also have some talent with magic since she was reportedly able to modify one of her spells after only using it a few times. Even with the girl’s lessons at the virtual Mages’ Academy, that was beyond what the Administrator expected.

The last of the exceptional students Rhona had been involved with recruiting was a young Fate Mage. Fate was an extremely rare affinity, only slightly less common than Arcane – an affinity that was practically legendary in its rarity. While Fate Mages were almost useless from an offensive magic standpoint, anyone with insight would see the value of having someone on hand who could interact with Fate.

Though the strength of Joseph Washington’s affinity for the element was unknown, any connection to the elusive affinity was valuable. More so, ensuring the young man was under a proper system-enforced contract was critical. Given his affinity, Rhona expected he would be among the first to awaken naturally.

After Emie, that was. Perhaps her affinity for Time had something to do with her early awakening. Given the strength of the girl’s affinity, it wouldn’t surprise her.

Rhona looked back at the podium, relieved to see the Principal speaking again. That meant the long ceremony was finally coming to an end.

Thank the Ascenders.

While a lot of the Atlas manager’s work could be done within the simulation, she had a lot of responsibilities in the physical world as well. With the construction of nearby housing units for the various Junction-based university students nearing completion, Rhona was being called upon more often to deal with the issues that cropped up.

Mundane construction was the worst.

If not for the abysmal mana regeneration caused by this mana-starved planet, she’d have set up wards to block curious eyes and had her mages do everything the right way – with magic. Unfortunately, that was all but impossible, even with the higher mana levels immediately surrounding her headquarters building due to the mana-gathering enchantments and the Tier Two rift she’d had her people establish in the basement.

Living on this planet was difficult, even with all the mana cores and manatech they’d brought to mitigate the effects of the mana-starved environment. Quite frankly, Rhona was surprised that the Council had decided to draw out the reintegration instead of just turning off all the siphons.

Then again, the ones making the decisions hadn’t been the ones forced to exist in such horrible conditions. Combining that with the fact that they could use the acclimation and training period to monitor the population and identify standout talents for potential recruitment… the choice was not wholly without merit.

That didn’t mean she liked it.