The life of a first student at Ardark Academy was difficult, especially if you enrolled in the latter half of the year.

Lauran had been swamped with work not just from school but from Adrianna as well.

Lauran’s duties weren’t just to stamp paperwork or sort files, she actually had to do dangerous magical experiments. Things like extracting the miasma from a decaying magic crystal or breaking a dungeon core that’s filled with impurities.

Both were unfair things given to an assistant who just started her first year. Surely only an experienced student could succeed in both?

Lauran got some mana poisoning but she managed to complete her assignments.

“Should I submit my report today?” thought Lauran out loud as she unpacked her schoolbag.

She just came back from class and was about to go to the library for some extra revising of her notes. This was something that Adrianna recommended since it was difficult to memorise all the work.

The report she mentioned had all the findings she wrote down about the experiments she completed for Adrianna. Lauran didn’t just have to solve them, she had to describe the entire process of the assignments.

Adrianna gave Lauran 5 assignments which she could only complete 4.

She was worried whether it was a good idea to give the completed reports now and hand in the remaining one later.

“I’ll wait. I guess I’ll need to check what the fifth assignment is at the library.”

Lauran didn’t know what it was but she couldn’t quite study in her own room. She had a roommate who was out most of the time but she preferred the library over studying inside this small room.

Her room was by no means unsatisfactory. In fact, it was even more comfortable than that small room in her parents’ house. Lauran will have to buy her parents a bigger house once she becomes an Elite Mage.

Anyway, the room had a magic item called a fridge where she could store her food, a toilet that had no water system but took care of any waste using magic utility formulas and her room had light orbs which she could command at any time. If anything this room was too good for a first year student. The best part was how she didn’t have to pay for anything. The Berkley Family had very deep pockets. They even gave her an allowance per week.

Though the room was very extravagant to say the least, she still wanted to go to the library. It had a kind of atmosphere that no other room in this world had. The kind of atmosphere that calms her soul, which gives her motivation to study more.

It had only been less than a month but Lauran quite enjoyed being a student despite the difficulties she faced: other first years, creeps, playboys and bullies.

Lauran could protect herself but it was still annoying to have to deal with them.

Many older boys had approached her and complimented her on her beauty. Lauran seemed to be one of the few students who had red hair. However, she was the only one who had blue eyes with red hair. This made her look like an exotic beauty to many.

Lauran could tell their intentions right away so she never fell for their charms or stayed with them any longer than necessary. She won’t act like some innocent virgin and pretend to protect her purity, she just wasn’t interested in any of the boys she met so far.

Besides that her school life had been smooth-sailing up until now.

Lauran finished putting on casual clothes. She packed her things in her magic bag and slung it over her head.

She left the room soon after.

◇◇◇

Lauran left her dorm room and looked in the direction where the sun was setting. The sky was a beautiful orange hue that bathed the academy in a cool light.

‘Where did Arnold go?’

It had been three days ever since she last detected Arnold’s lifeforce. He definitely left the empire. She just didn’t know why. Though she was curious she couldn’t just leave the academy to go look for him.

‘He can take care of himself. Why should I even care about what happens to him.’

He treated her like convenient transport. The last time she spoke to him was when he told her to teleport him to Whitage city.

Lauran spoke to Victoria in that short time that they were there.

Victoria and Arnold were apparently lovers.

Lauran didn’t particularly care but it left a bitter taste in her mouth how he was now with Victoria immediately after throwing her away.

Was Victoria better than her?

‘Humph.’ Lauran quickly forgot about those two once she neared school hall. The library was near the teacher board office building, which was on the east side of the campus.

The school hall—like the training grounds—took up a large area of the estate of the academy. There were many facilities inside the school hall—the gym, a study area, reconciliation areas, different exam halls and so on.

Lauran walked by the training grounds.

There weren’t a lot of students outside since it was after-school hours but there were some who were busy with their own things. The majority of students who were outside were those with extra-curricular activities.

There were also some students practicing their magic or swordsmanship outside. Most of them were first years, as expected.

Lauran could understand why they were trying so hard. The jump from magic and knight schools to an academy was a broad leap.

Magic and knight schools only trained students until they reach Elementary Tier Knowledge of their chosen class. Lauran was currently doing her Intermediate Magical Knowledge course which could take years to finish.

Elementary Magical Knowledge tested students to draw simple magic circles to activate spells whereas Intermediate requires them to be able to draw magic circles, fix any broken runic patterns to get a desired result and detect changes in spells to determine what pattern is best to use with a spell.

Take the 1st rank spell [Fireball] for example. You can create the spell using two methods of runic patterns. But one formation was very important in forming the spell. The formation was known as “Ze” in rune language; it had no direct translation to common tongue. It was a snake-like pattern that binds two other formations to each other.

There was no fire spell without this added to it even if the structure of its formulas varied.

Lauran, being a student registered for the Intermediate Magical Knowledge course, had to learn different variations of magic circles for spells since there were more than one for every single spell in this world.

The only saving grace was how they didn’t need to know a lot of spell variations. Learning all of the variations in just her first and second year at the academy would take years.

It was different for knight course students. Elementary Swordsmanship/Spearmanship Knowledge required students to understand various footwork movements and fencing techniques. Amateurs usually didn’t master these things in the first year.

Many students in this course could only master the basic form of swordsmanship which was the Elementary Swordstyle Third Layer(G). It was most widely practiced swordstyle in the empire. Even commoners, bandits, slaves and serfs could use it.

The academies and knight schools withholds all information pertaining to sword styles that are higher in rank to avoid the wrong people from learning them. Like the Advanced Swordstyle First Layer(rank S) was only taught to seventh year students at the academy or students from the Imperial Order's training programs.

Swordstyle was just a ranking for different kinds of swordsmanship. Like the Imperial Swordsmanship was part of Elementary Swordstyle(G, F, E) while Arnold’s Flow of the Tide Swordsmanship was part of the Advanced Swordstyle First Layer(S).

Third layer was the lowest stage of a swordstyle while first was the highest.

There was another stage of swordsmanship and Arcane Arts called the Expert rank which students can only learn by becoming Elite Mages or joining the Imperial Army.

The MMA popularized this rank when they began accepting knights into their organization.

It's going to be a tough school life for Lauran since she had to balance her assistant work and her studies. Still, she wasn't scared of the challenges she might face because becoming an Elite Mage was now a dream of hers.

“Hm?” Lauran noticed someone crawling in a bush, seemingly watching another person who was practicing on the training grounds.

Lauran realized that it was a girl since she was wearing a long skirt with black tights. She was also wearing a big scarf with sunglasses and a big jersey as well.

‘…I guess she’s dressed snugly for the winter. Why can’t I feel her lifeforce? Is it hidden by some artifact?’

Lauran was looking directly at the girl but she couldn’t feel any presence at all. It was like the girl was a ghost. Normally only experts in martial arts or very talented mages could hide their lifeforce when they want to.

But how could a first year student be capable of that? The only answer would be that she was using an artifact.

“Hey, you there!”

Someone suddenly approached the girl.

The girl gave a “kyaa~” before falling out of the bushes.

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The young woman who called out to her was a member of the disciplinary committee. She was a sixth year senior with a glare behind her glasses that could kill. Judging by her uniform, she was a martial arts student.

The females typically had shorter skirts and wore short leggings underneath for flexibility.

Lauran noticed how long and slender the senior’s legs were. It was nice and firm too. Martial artists typically used their hands as weapons more than their legs. Maybe this senior used her legs the most?

She yanked the girl up by her arm.

“Admiring someone from a distance is fine and all but we have strict rules for those who choose to stalk others. I can clearly tell that you are stalking miss Ruria.”

‘Ruria?’ Lauran looked towards the first years who were practicing with wooden weapons.

She noticed a girl with larger than average breasts for her height.

She was one of the most popular girls at the school, not to mention one of the most famous of her grade. She wasn’t just cute and bright but she was strong as well. She could fight splendidly against any of her classmates despite using two daggers as her main weapons.

She was fighting against a larger guy who was using a spear. Despite the advantage he had in height and reach he wasn’t able to hit Ruria even once. She was just too nimble for him.

“I-I wasn’t stalking her!” the girl protested.

“You were muttering her name over and over again. Was that just a sign of obsession? Whatever it was, it was creepy. I’ve been watching you for a while now.”

“Eh?”

“Can’t lie now, can you? I’m letting you off with a warning. You’ll make people feel uncomfortable if you keep doing this,” the sixth year let go of the girl’s arm and left the vicinity.

Lauran approached the girl who clicked her tongue in annoyance.

“You should listen to that senior’s advice.”

“?”

“Ah, sorry. Let me introduce myself—”

“I know who you are… You’re Lauran. You worked at the Berkley family’s castle for a few years as a slave to Arnold von Berkley.”

Lauran’s eyes opened wide.

“I-I heard a lot about you..” the girl said as she averted her eyes.

Her face was covered up a lot so Lauran couldn’t make out what the girl looked like. She had a very beautiful voice though. Even Lauran was getting jealous about the girl’s soothing voice.

“…I guess it isn’t a secret so it’s not surprising that you know. Nice to meet you, um…”

“Ah, I’m Lizette. Nice to meet you too!” Lizette bowed, “Uhm, what did you mean by I should listen to that girl from earlier?”

“The Disciplinary Committee have a lot of influence in this academy. Getting a warning on your first offense should serve as an example to not make another one in the future. Getting on the bad side of even one of them can make your school career at the academy hell incarnate.”

Many students had been publicly shamed or even expelled by the authority of a committee member. Even teachers didn’t dare to cross them since they answered directly to the teacher’s board executives.

The Teacher Board executives were the ones who paid the professors. The committee were basically the underlings of the TB.

“Uhm, thank you for the advice. But I can’t do that.” She said timidly.

“Why not?”

Lizette pointed at the girl she was stalking.

“I need to get rid of her so I’m finding a way to uncover a weakness of hers. Observation is the first step to someone's downfall."

“Get rid of her? Like suspending her?”

“….”

Silence.

“What did she do to you?”

“….”

Lizette remained silent again.

“Fine, I won’t pry. But if you want to stalk someone, I suggest you work on your stealth abilities.”

“Eh?”

Lauran pointed to the training grounds.

Many of the students were looking directly at them. Even Ruria was looking towards them. There was an unhappy expression on her face.

“Eek!” Lizette instantly backed into the bushes and covered her head with her hood.

“There’s no point in stalking someone if you get caught, right?”

Lauran wasn’t particularly interested why the girl was stalking someone else or what she would do. She was more interested in the girl as a person.

Lauran was still unable to sense the girl’s lifeforce. It really felt like the girl was a ghost.

That couldn’t be. Only corpses had little to no lifeforce.

Lauran decided to walk away since the girl didn’t want to come out of the bushes.

◇Academy Library◇

A thud sounded when Lauran dropped all her study materials.

She had a lot to cover. Thankfully they had two days off before they have to attend classes again so Lauran had enough time to go through her schoolwork and the assignments given to her by Adrianna.

The library of the academy was huge so there were many places where one could get peace and quiet. Lauran was sitting next to a window on the second floor. This was because most students preferred the first floor than any of the upper floors.

“Okay, I’ll go through the last assignment before doing my schoolwork,” she took out and opened the letter Adrianna sent with the work.

· I need your help with something very important. It’s something only you can do for me. But first I want you to do some extra studying since it’s needed for this project. Go through some divine magic books and learn their theories because the project I just mentioned has to do with divine magic. I attached the assignment in the notebook I’ll send. ONLY look at it once you’ve gained some knowledge about divine magic first.

“Divine magic? Why would she tell me to study divine magic when I’m an arcane magic user?”

Lauran decided that it was better to begin working than trying to figure that out.

She pressed the magic item that was on her table. It blinked for a second before a voice came through:

--Do you need something?

It was the librarian’s voice.

“Yes, Miss Lyra. I would like to know how many books about divine power there are in the library.”

--455 600 books.

“….” Lauran frowned deeply, “How many are about divine magic spells?”

--60 000.

That was still too much. What the hell? Why did humans need this many books about divine power and its spells?

“If you were to recommend one to read first, which would it be?”

--The Prophecy by the first Oracle would be the best option. It dates back 300 years ago.

“Can I please get that one for now?”

--I’ll be there in a second.

A blue magic circle suddenly formed on the floor next to Lauran, followed by an explosion of mana.

A person with blue hair, yellow eyes, a blue robe and blue skin appeared in front of Lauran.

“Oh my. Lauran? I didn’t expect it to be you. The transmitter is so old that you can’t even make out what the person is saying if you don’t listen closely.” Lyra smiled at Lauran as she patted her shoulder, “How has school been going?”

“Just a lot of work but other than that I have nothing to complain about.” said Lauran with a smile.

Lauran and Lyra became acquainted the very first time she came to the library. She wasn’t interested in what race Lyra like all the other students. Rather, if Lyra wasn’t part of the magic race then she wouldn’t have lived this long and become so knowledgeable about magic.

Lauran learned a lot about the Elementary Magic Knowledge course from Lyra when she first came here to study. The two bonded like this. Though they weren’t that close, Lauran liked talking to Lyra about magic more than she did with her fellow classmates.

“Here’s the book you requested,” Lyra flicked her wand. A thick book appeared in her hand.

Lauran took the book and thanked Lyra.

“Has A-Arnold come back yet…?” Lyra asked as she scratched her right arm.

“…Arnold’s lifeforce is faint now. All I know is he’s gone somewhere south.”

His lifeforce faded as he went further south so Lauran was certain he went in that direction.

Lyra sighed as she leaned against the bookshelf.

“Why couldn’t he say goodbye in person at least. He has some nerve telling his roommate to deliver his message. Humph!” Lyra pouted.

‘It seems Arnold charmed this woman as well…’

Lauran decided not to ask Lyra about their relationship. Most of her classmates also had a crush on him. Lauran never went a day without hearing one of them talking about how dreamy that guy was.

“So why are you looking for books about divine power? You’re not going to become a priest.”

“I need to study to complete a project my professor gave me. I’m not entirely sure what it is yet. She told me in the letter that I should only look at it once I’m done studying.”

“Going through thousands of books won’t be easy, you know? You should focus on only a few books per day. It won’t matter if you didn’t learn everything since that’s clearly unnecessary. But I guess it’s not up to me to tell you what to do, is it?” Lyra sat opposite Lauran.

“……” Lauran felt her soul escape her body when she opened the book Lyra gave her.

“W-What kind of person writes stuff like this…”

Lauran could barely understand what she was reading. Was the First Oracle some kind of scholar in the common tongue!?

There were words that she never even heard of before so she had to grab a dictionary out of her bag.

“If you want, I can make a summary of the books.”

Lauran’s head instantly shot up when Lyra said that.

“R-Really!? How!?”

“I had all the time in the world to read most of the books here." she then said in a whisper, "What else could I do while trapped in the academy for more than a century..."

“What do you mean trapped?”

She's probably used to talking to herself out loud so Lauran could hear her whisper clearly. Of course, Lauran won't judge someone who finds company in themselves when left alone.

She laughed awkwardly in response to Lauran: "Ahaha, forget you heard anything."

"Anyway, luckily for you, I have a very good memory. I’ll skim through the pages and summarize the important bits just for you.” said Lyra with a smile. "So, do you want me to make a summary of the book?” she tapped the book in Lauran’s hand.

“Yes, please!” Lauran took out her notebook and pens and gave it to Lyra.

Lyra said “it won’t take long so wait here” before leaving.

“What does she mean it won’t take long…? Does she have some bizarre magic that can help her write faster?”

If it was someone from a magic race then that was probably possible. Though Lyra didn’t reveal the highest rank magic she could use, Lauran could already tell that she was very strong and had powerful spells.

Maybe she even had her own exclusive spells? Lyra was a magic race from another world so she shouldn’t have that many arcane spells since humans were the ones who invented the magic and its derivations.

Magic races and demons typically used curse, blood, druid and demonic magic which was created by one of their demon gods.

‘If the demon gods created the magic of their kind then maybe we also had certain gods who passed down their magic to us?’

Maybe it wasn’t that humans created arcane arts but perfected it. Perhaps the first magic was an incomplete runic formula that only needed a new pattern to be used as a spell. The gods only provided the first humans with this incomplete rune formula while humans completed it. That was her theory.

Lauran wasn’t certain if that was true. She was just making up her own theories on the matter.

But that seemed much more logical than humans creating magic from scratch unlike building a house. For a house there had to be things you could work with: like logs, a platform for foundation, a roof, windows, among other things... Meanwhile humans creating magic from nothing seemed illogical since there would be nothing to work with.

There had to be something that was left for them—

“Done.”

“Eh—?”

Lyra dropped Lauran’s notebook onto the table.

“Already!?” her mouth gaped when she flipped through the notes.

There were about ten pages worth of content that Lyra covered.

“Arcane mages capable of using divine spells are rare. Even more than magic swordsmen. Are you sure you want to do this project alone? It will be better if you asked a student from the Divine Studies division to help you complete it.”

‘Why are you nonchalantly lecturing me when you work this fast!? What kind of magic does she have!?’

“….” Lauran thought about what Lyra said for a moment.

Was it really required of her to finish the assignment on her own? She could hire a priest adventurer or even go to the temple to seek guidance.

But what good will it be if she did assignments like this on her own if she didn’t understand the work she was doing? Because of this she didn’t need to shy away from asking for help.

There will surely be more to come in the future. Many of them will probably be much more difficult than the one she was busy with now.

But didn’t Lauran accept Adrianna’s offer because she wanted to work hard to further her studies in magic?

Lauran noticed a smile on Lyra’s face.

“If you’re so determined then I won’t stop you. But will you do this alone?”

Lauran shook her head.

“The professor didn’t state in her letter that I was forbidden from seeking someone’s assistance. Please help me, miss Lyra.”

◇◇◇

What day was it?

What time was it?

How long had she been there?

Lauran’s groggy mind suddenly cleared up as she rubbed her sleepy eyes.

She lifted her head from the table.

“….” There was a blanket thrown over her shoulders.

‘It’s morning…? Did I stay here all day yesterday?’ she thought as she looked out the window, ‘How many books did I finish…? Ah right, about a hundred…’

She groaned remembering how many books were left. Maybe it wasn’t necessary to read them all? Adrianna clearly said that she only needed to study “some” books.

“Ugh, I should stop thinking about it…”

Lauran noticed someone sleeping on one of the chairs at the table.

“Miss Lyra stayed until the end…” Lauran looked at the table and noticed all the work she managed to complete.

Lauran stood up and took off the blanket from her shoulders so she could put it on Lyra.

She touched Lyra’s arm slightly.

“Eek, why is she so cold!?”

Lyra definitely had a lifeforce, Lauran could feel it clearly but why was she as cold as a corpse? She didn’t have any kind of warmth at all.

Maybe people from magic races couldn’t regulate their body temperature or maybe they never needed to?

Lauran decided to just throw the blanket on Lyra since she was worried Lyra would get a cold.

Lauran collected all her work and put it away. She left the library soon after.

She came to the library a lot after the first day. Though there was a lot to do, Lyra helped her every step of the way.

It took an entire week for Lauran to finish her studying before she was able to finally start with the assignment.

Needless to say, she was unhappy. Adrianna would leave the academy in a few months to become a contracted professor at the University of Magic Arts so Lauran didn’t have a lot of time to finish the assignment.

But that was a story for another time.