Pareth opened the door to two guests, who turned out to be Alith and Cinthia.
Alith strode inside. “Hoy! You good, Sof? No one’s seen you in days.”
Sofia raised a hand but she couldn’t talk, with her other other hand, she helped guide the bone threads out of her chest.
Give me a minute… Pierced lungs aren’t great for the voice.
“Do you need help?” Cinthia asked, uncertain about what she was even looking at.
Sofia waved her off, pointing at the chairs followed by a thumbs up.
“If you say so…” Cinthia’s voice trailed.
Alith nodded and jumped, landing right on top of a chair with a flip. “Just Sofia doing Sofia things, don’t sweat the details. Viewers going up?”
“Uh… Sorrow has been there with the regulars for half an hour already, someone else just joined but it’s my first time seeing them, their nickname is [ResoundingEchoes].”
Resounding Echoes. Could be anything. Maybe sound related, Cacophony?
Alith naturally suggested, “Resounding Echoes, the god of Stubbed Toes!”
Cinthia pained to suppress a cackle.
“Hey, it might not be this, but I thought it sounded nice,” Alith continued.
“You might in fact not be far off,” Cinthia said, “From what I gather… This one would be Pain, or Suffering. Or both at once, I guess, no one is saying a real name but that seems to be who this is.”
“No way, it’s really the god of stubbed toes… The resounding echoes of one’s scream when they hit the foot of a stone table? My genius astonishes me.”
Finally Sofia finished unraveling the bone guide, and she could finally speak. “I think I get why they would come to watch me…”
“Yeah to no one’s surprise, Sof. I don’t know what you were doing, but it didn’t look very pleasant. Also, in case you didn’t notice, you’re sitting in a pool of your own blood.”
“This is just a way I found to speed up learning new wild spells. It’s a bit painful, yes, but it’s also very efficient. Look what I can do now!” Sofia rose a finger and activated the magic in the now familiar pattern of [Call Elemental sprite].
Shit.
The spell failed and backlashed, adding another mouthful of blood to the puddle on the floor.
“Wait,” Sofia told her two friends worriedly observing her wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, “Almost there, let me try again.”
She spat blood twice more before at last, a small yellow dot of light took form on top of her raised finger. With a shit-eating grin and a bloody mouth, she presented her new magic.
“That’s… A tiny light? Seems like quite the downgrade compared to the stuff you could already do,” Alith commented as she observed the sprite from her chair.
“It’s an elemental of light,” Cinthia corrected her, “go look through the spirit plane, you’ll see the difference.”
“That so?” In just a second, Alith’s body turned misty and ethereal then back to normal. “Oh, it kind of looks like a ghost slime. I don’t really get what it’s meant to do but it’s a nice ghost pet.”
“It’s smarter than it looks, the offensive power is not great yet, but new magic is new magic. I’m sure I’ll find a way to make it work with everything else. Well, thanks for checking up on me, but I need to get changed and go teach my first class of the week…”
“Can’t we just watch?” Alith asked.
Cinthia’s red skin got redder, “Alith, W- what do you-”
Alith raised an eyebrow. “The class, Cin, I meant watch the class.”
“Oh, oh…”
Sofia blinked a few times. I don’t think she can go any redder than that.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t watch,” Sofia answered with a shrug. Nevermind, she can. “That makes me think, do the Recessed watch you… You know?”
“Ah- A, I can turn off the thing, but it leaves me with very few working skills so I usually…” Cinthia’s voice trailed off as she looked away.
Quite the class she has. Why did the system give it to her of all people?
“I’ll go change in another room then…”
“Ah, wait, you have a message from Death!”
“Yeah?”
“Uh, here it is…”
‘[|||||]: (▀̿ ̿ᵕ̿ ̿▀ )’
I don’t know what I expected.
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The class came and went with Alith and Cinthia spectating from the back of the classroom. Erian was absent that day, so Sofia took the opportunity to cover a topic which barely applied to him with his [Invoker] class, which was to know when to take a hit for your summons and when to let them take a hit for you. It was something Pareth handled by himself most of the time, but that hadn’t prevented Sofia from putting a lot of thought into it.
When the time came to end the class, Sofia Alith and Cinthia stayed behind for a bit to chat after the students left, but were interrupted just five minutes in by someone knocking on the door.
Crap, is there another class here right after me?
Pareth stood up to open the door, his armor flaring up on the way.
The door opened to reveal a frowning Exidian man in his forties wearing a student uniform. Ignoring Pareth, he walked into the classroom, a dainty air of superiority etched on his face.
What does this guy want? He would be handsome if he didn’t look like a self-righteous ass. Reminds me of those scummy nobles from Skyreach.
[Warrior - Lv.249]
Saying nothing he observed the three seated ladies, ever so slightly shaking his head. “Teacher Vakaria, I have come to challenge you to a duel!” he coldly announced.
You can do that?
“No, thank you.” I want nothing to do with you.
The man’s frown deepened. “I am afraid that is not an option you have.” Clearing his throat, he summoned a scroll in an iron tube and unfurled it, with a steady voice, he read its contents, “From the competition’s second week onward, students may challenge teachers within their filter in a singular duel for their token, to be overseen by Sir Tartaros. Each student may only challenge any given teacher once, and must wager ten times the teacher’s token holdings in gold coins for the challenge to be valid. Once these conditions are fulfilled, the teacher must attend the duel within a week if possible. The competition’s previous rules still apply.
C. Beryl Deathmarch.”
“Did you write that yourself?” Alith asked bluntly, and was promptly ignored by the man, who only had disdainful eyes for Sofia.
This feels like the kind of thing that I should be warned about in advance, no?
I guess I was hauled up in my room for three days, but if this is real, it must be quite new, or Alith and Cinthia would know about it.
Cinthia looked uncomfortable in the presence of the openly hostile man, “Sh- Should we go to the administration to check if this is real?” she suggested, eyeing at the door. The man threw her a disdainful glance.
A small system window appeared at the edge of Sofia’s vision.
‘[Daddy Hatred] : HE SNEERED AT CINTHIA! THIS FILTHY GOBLIN TURD! YOU BETTER GO FUCK HIM UP! BREAK ALL HIS BONES AND HEAL THEM AND BREAK THEM AGAIN! BATHE IN HIS BLOOD! MAKE A BLOODY MASK OUT OF HIS DENTED SHIT-HEAD SKULL! I’LL KILL HIM MYSELF IF YOU DON’T!’
[Invalid quest title: thoroughly humiliate the opponent in a fair duel without losing any health]
[Reward : [Evasion] skill evolution]
[Will you accept? Yes/No]
Hum. Alright, uh. If you ask so politely.
[Quest Accepted!]
[Time limit : one duel]
I can’t kill him though. Or permanently injure him, for that matter. But everything else should be fine. I’ll be looking forward to that skill evolution, Hatred.
“Fine, I’ll duel you, do you have the gold?” Ten times the amount of tokens is no small fee.
The man threw a small golden ring at Sofia like it was trash. “I see you have come to reason. Forty-five gold ingots.”
So I have four hundred and fifty tokens? Never bothered to count them. Sofia quickly inspected the contents of the ring, which were exactly as announced, then she threw it back to him. I guess TLDR really has a monopoly on storage rings; it’s what they use all the way to Exidion. Old Lich must be filthy rich.
“What’s your name and when do you want to fight?”
“Marquess Ferdinand ProudWall. We will hold this duel this evening. I shall demonstrate your inadequacy as a Brighthall teacher,” he spewed with contempt before turning on his heels and leaving. Sofia had to explicitly order Pareth to not clobber the man on his way out as she could feel the hit coming.
ProudWall…
Silence regained the small classroom.
“Lovely individual, eh,” Alith sarcastically said and snickered, “Should’ve been born in F̸͎̾̔̿̐͂̆̃̊̕r̴̡͓̘̜̳̪͐͂͆͋̋̕͝ą̷̺͖̯̯͍̂̆̔̀͐̌́͝͝n̸̨͕̣͕͖̘̺̺͕͔̽̽̎̓̒͘͠͝c̶̜̭̞̎͋̐̀̋̑̈̏̕̕ͅͅe̷̷̺̤͈̙̰͚̟͍̬͖͒̇̍̽, he’d fit right in with the nobles there. A conglomerate of prickly baboons.”
“What’s a baboon?” Cinthia asked.
“Wait, that word ain’t censored?”
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