After informing the very clumsy maid about his eating and sleeping habits, Ron holed himself up in his little room, where he proceeded to lightly bash his head against one of the walls.

For the remained of his time in the airship, Ron refused to leave the room. Instead, he entertained himself by both cultivating and also playing around with his rather meager spiritual energy. While his findings weren't that great and he lacked more or less all the basic knowledge acolytes had, he still found it rather fun.

He also didn't relent on his knight training, even if the airship wasn't a suitable place to do it in. He couldn't exercise before using the breathing technique, which meant it's effectiveness was reduced by well over a half. Still, at least it was better than nothing.

With Erika bringing him breakfast, lunch, and dinner, he didn't even have to worry about food or water. He even had his own little bathroom complete with shower, which just boggled Ron's mind. How the hell did a fucking airship have running water?

In the end, he just chalked it up as 'weird magi voodoo stuff'. During his monotonous days, he would also som sometimes chit-chat with the maid, although she wasn't really the sort of person to carry out intelligent conversations with.

Still, he could at least hear some gossip from her. Apparently, there had been some scuffles going on between students, and their professors were too lazy to care. Hell, they even rewarded the winner at the end with some small benefits.

Not that this had any impact on Ron, though. He was nice and secluded.

After an insufferable month of mind-numbingly repetitive and dull cultivation, the airship landed at the stop for the Fire Mausoleum.

Ron hadn't had any breakthroughs in his cultivation during that time, however, he was now at the very cusp of both the Grand Knight realm and the rank 2 acolyte level. Both were so close he could practically taste it.

Under Erika's coaxing lead, Ron at long last reluctantly left his little nest, going back out into the big, bad world outside.

It only took a couple of minutes after the arrival announcement for the group of students belonging to the Fire Mausoleum to gather, Ron included.

Although he refrained from saying anything, Ron still gave them all the stink-eye, which served it's purpose well enough in blocking those filthy peasants from approaching him.

'Careful there, princess. Your inner royalty is showing' Ron said to himself in a very much self-mocking tone, well aware that he'd more or less forgotten and forgiven the kids. Sure, he wasn't someone that forgave easily, but at the same time, he also wasn't a particularly vengeful guy... or girl.

Sighing as he tried to once more banish those thoughts, well aware that puberty was once more slowly creeping closer, he perked up when the airship landed with a dull thump, and slowly, a small bridge came out from the airship and extended down towards the sweet, sweet ground.

As Ron and his group descended, led by Professor Fiona, the lady that had so kindly blessed Ron with her treasured meditation technique, Ron couldn't help but be awed by the sight before him.

An absolutely massive building with large, fiery red arches that interweaved with one another, with the highest point towering in the skies and the lowest going deep underground. While he was still quite a distance away from it, he could still feel the oppressive might the building radiated.

"Wow..." One of the girls in Ron's group let out at the sight, and Ron spared a glance at his fellow students.

They all had dreamy expressions on their faces, some of them filled with ambition, some with awe, and some with hope. Despite all of them being children, it was quite strange to see them look so... mature.

'Well, not that I can say anything about age not corresponding with maturity...' Ron mocked himself once again, although he too was very much looking forward to learning as much as he could. It was almost like going to college all over again.

When they reached the ground, the group of students and the single professor were quickly accosted by a middle-aged man with a long, long beard walking around with a fancy staff in his arms.

He gave a pleasing smile as he spread his arms out wide. "Professor Fiona! What a pleasure it is to see you. Your beauty truly leaves me breathless, my dear." The man said, his grin splitting his face in almost two.

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"Professor Oxon." Fiona curtly replied, not saying anything more. Still, that didn't deter the man from fawning over her as he spoke endless praise of her beauty, all the while his eyes never left her breasts, ass or hips.

At this point, the entire student entourage was blushing red, Ron included, as they followed after the weird duo. They passed through pillars of flames rising into the skies, buildings made out of bright red materials, and the deeper they went, the hotter the air around them became.

To be honest, although Ron had been gradually growing to be more comfortable in higher temperatures, he still found himself sweating buckets. The other students fared even worse judging by the pained expressions on their faces.

They walked for a total of thirty minutes, none of the students daring to let out a single noise. Finally, they reached the main academy, which was the towering mausoleum at the center of this hell of heat and flames.

As they entered through the main gates, the stream of students passing through was immense, but nonetheless, they all made way for the professors. However, the gazes they sent towards the new students were anything but friendly, with some bordering on being predatory.

Ron kept his head low as he followed after the two professors while the rest of his group looked around with ever-increasing wonder, even if they felt as though they were being boiled alive.

"Miss, we're almost there." Erika silently whispered into Ron's ears, her breath cold compared to the air around them, causing Ron to shiver a bit, feeling very uncomfortable.

"I can tell." He curtly whispered back, pushing Erika away from him. Her smile didn't fade though as she kept on following.

A minute later, they had arrived. They entered en masse into the room they were directed to, with only Ron being kept back by the middle-aged professor, who waved for him to come over to him, which Ron did without much fuss.

"Wait here. The director wants to have a one-on-one chat with you." He said to her, his voice serious... only for that seriousness to evaporate as he then turned and began to once again fawn over professor Fiona.

 Ron tried to look away from the show but found that she couldn't tear her eyes away from the comical sight of a grown man throwing himself to his feet and begging to be allowed to lick his crush's feet. 

Nonetheless, Ron said nothing. He didn't know the relationship between the two, and besides, they were both official magi. While they might be allowed to banter with each other, he, as a mere acolyte, would be putting himself in serious risk if he dared interrupt, genius or not.

Finally, the door to the office opened after a while, and Ron was called in. It wouldn't be fair to call what Ron did afterward as fleeing, but, well... It came pretty close.

The director looked, surprisingly, quite young. Less surprising was the perennial-looking scowl on his face as he stared at a huge stack of paperwork with clear hate in his orange eyes. 

However, he visibly perked up when Ron entered the room. He waved his hand, and immediately, the door shut close with a loud bang, startling a yelp out of Erika, who'd been about to follow Ron in.

Ron too flinched at the noise but kept his gaze firm as he stared back into the man's eyes. After a moment, the man let out a smirk, and Ron looked away, a slight blush on his cheeks.

'Weirdo. His eyes have gotta be some sort of magi spell-thing...' Ron silently told himself, berating his stupidity for not seeing the obvious. It was obvious those pretty eyes of his were enchanted, and yet he'd actually stared.

The director was the first to speak, breaking Ron out of his internal monologue. "I see you're about to break through to rank 2, correct? For having cultivated for only a little over a month... Extremely impressive." The man spoke, his voice causing shivers to run down Ron's spine.

"Y-yes. Thank you." Ron answered timidly, bowing at the waist. The man chuckled before waving his hand, causing a scroll to magically float up in the air in front of Ron.

"That is a list of all available teachers within the Fire Mausoleum. There have been quite a few who've been clamoring and generally causing a ruckus in order to get their hands on you, but the rules are strict here. The students must be the ones to choose the teacher." He spoke as the precious parchment landed in Ron's hands.

"Of course, there is a name not listed there. If you were to choose that name, I would certainly not mislead you." He added after a moment, the smirk on his face fading away into a poker face.

Ron peeked up from the paper in front of him, looked into his eyes, and then quickly looked back at the scroll. It listed all the names of the teachers, their strongest subject, as well as some lines of praise for themselves. It even listed some benefits that they would be willing to give out, such as free lessons or materials. 

One thing they all had in common, however, was the little note next to each name with a 1 on it. Ron wasn't one to choose a teacher based solely on strength, but he knew that, in this world, strength was indeed everything.

"May I ask for more information on the... name... not written here?" Ron asked carefully, trying to keep her eyes away from the director's beautiful orange ones. The man smiled leisurely, reaching underneath his desk and pulling out yet another piece of paper, which then floated over to Ron.

He caught it easily and quickly began to read it. Still, he couldn't help but gulp slightly at the larger note next to the name with a 2 on it. 

The paper wasn't actually very descriptive, but it did clearly state that 'the student will not be mistreated nor shall he or she be left unattended and uneducated', and while it wasn't exactly the clearest of descriptions, it was still much better than some of the descriptions for the weaker professors.

In the end, Ron just bowed his head, and with a small smile on his young face, he spoke. "Thank you for the opportunity... Teacher."

The man just smiled widely at him, causing Ron to suddenly feel as though the room had turned even hotter than before.