Life at Hillhold academy was a lot more peaceful than out in the forest. After a week, Kai was starting to get used to the safety and security brought by the stronghold. His mornings were occupied by classes. There were a similar number of students in the knight section as there were in the mage classes, and the dynamic between students was similar as well.
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree-or the other apple- when it came to Angela’s brother, Rylon. Just like her, he had a small crew of Heritage faction cronies following him around everywhere he went. Unlike in the mage class, though, Rylon faced more opposition.
“Beat his ass, Kai!”
“Hit him in the gut!”
The best way to improve was by doing, and for knight students, that meant sparring.
“Stop dodging, you filthy rat!”
Kai smirked as he ducked, his long hair swaying to the side as Rylon’s wooden training sword whooshed over his head. Rylon followed up on his missed strike by driving his elbow down toward Kai’s head, but it was once again dodged.
Kai swept his sword toward Rylon’s midsection, but he managed to recover and block in time. Both of the young men took a step back, but their expressions were vastly different.
“I already know you’re just as strong as me, why do you fight like such a coward?” Rylon’s forehead creased in anger as he glared at Kai.
“Practice like it’s a real fight. Only an idiot would try to trade blows with real swords. There’s no point in winning if you get hamstrung at the same time.” Kai ran back in as he finished speaking, and after their blades clashed three more times, Rylon ended up on the floor. A chorus of cheers echoed from the surrounding students.
Kai let out a deep breath as he walked back to the rest of the class, ignoring his fallen opponent. Rylon wasn’t a bad fighter, it was quite the opposite. In their first spar, Kai had been taken aback by the young man’s aggression and nearly lost. In his old world, he was used to fighting using real swords. A cultivator’s most valued thing was their own life, and he’d never seen someone stupid enough to trade hits like Rylon tried to.
In the end, though, experience still won out. Rylon had been beating up rookie sword trainees and tier 1 beasts for a handful of years, while Kai had been fighting for his life since before he was a teenager.
“Hell yeah! Come drinking with us after class today!”
Of the twelve students in the first-year knight class, eight of them were members of the Mint faction. Kai had been equally surprised by their skills. All of them were individually weaker than Rylon, but when they started group sparring, Rylon and his three goons were crushed by the four strongest Mint members.
Rylon’s strategy of leaving an opening in order to land heavy strikes worked great in duels, but the moment he did it in a group fight, the enemy trainees converged on him and eliminated him from the fight right from the beginning.
They all instantly took a liking to Kai when he defeated Rylon for the first time, and he’d even received offers to join their faction.
“Sorry, I’ve got some stuff to do at the library. Maybe next time.”
Getting caught up in volatile academy politics wasn’t in Kai’s itinerary at Hillhold. He definitely favored the Mint faction a bit- Angela was still insufferable every time he saw her, and while her brother was much quieter, his personality wasn’t much better.
Still, Kai didn’t like how often he was being pushed to join the Mint faction. He’d already made it clear that he wasn’t interested, but the students in the knight class didn’t seem to care. Even Sydney had made multiple attempts to get him to join, but at least he’d backed off a bit after Kai showed his disinterest. Even Soren was more agreeable to hang out with the couple times Kai ran into him in town.
It’s still much nicer hanging out with my group.
Immediately after class, Kai headed for the kids’ section of the library. It’d become the unofficial hangout spot of the Illiterate Quartet. Angela had unfortunately overheard Leo theorycrafting a name for their group and bullied the rest of the mage class into calling them by the unfortunate title.
When he arrived, the other three were already gathered around a table.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Yo, Kai. Entil stopped by earlier, he said he was heading back to his hometown for a bit. You asked about a formation book before, he helped me pick out a good one for you before he left.
Brewan held up a thick blue tome, and Kai let out a sigh.
[Finally! I hope it has what I need!]
After a few days of helping Kai learn from picture books, Halia grew bored and started reading more advanced materials. Given her physical state, though, she couldn’t actually turn pages. Aside from her mana sense, she could only borrow Kai’s senses.
After opening up the tome, Kai laid a picture book next to it. Trying to learn a language was already difficult, and having to look up at a high-level theory book on formations every dozen seconds certainly didn’t make it any easier. Halia’s habit of muttering to herself-now to Kai’s brain- didn’t help either.
Okay. The character for corn looks pretty similar to the one for grass… and every other plant. They all have an upstroke on the right side, so I just need to memorize the rest of them to know which plant it’s talking about…
[I see, so the mana gathering function works like that, I wonder if storage…]
Kai did his best to tune out Halia as he studied. Between reading his own book, turning pages for Halia, and getting quizzed by Kiin and Leo, he also regularly asked Brewan for help.
“The upstrokes on the right side for plants? For animals, there’s a downstroke on the left side instead.”
Having someone who could read and write was extremely useful to the illiterate trio’s learning.
“Even if you don’t recognize the rest of the character, there’s still a lot you can learn just from the upstroke. See how short the one for grass is compared to corn, and then to a tree? The longer the upstroke is, the taller the plant. If you are down in town and want to buy a plant, you can even tell roughly how old the plant is from it. A tree sapling is the same character as the grown one, but with a shorter upstroke. It’s the same for animals with the downstroke on the left side.”
Luckily, the language was fairly intuitive to understand, and Kai was picking it up quickly. He was still working with kids' picture books, but he was almost ready to move past them after only a week of studying.
Just as Kai was starting to get into studying, he was interrupted once more, this time not by Halia.
“Kai and Brewan are here, right?”
An unfamiliar student poked his head around one of the bookshelves, looking over their small study group. His robes were the same color as Soren’s.
“Sydney and a few other third years wanted to talk to the two of you.”
Eh? I wonder what it’s for. I’ve already told him multiple times that I don’t have any plans of joining a faction, and I don’t think he would try to push me any further.
Kai shut both of the books in front of him and stood up, ignoring Halia’s complaints. After straightening his robes, Kai followed the student, with Brewan close behind. After leaving the library, the duo was led toward a small training building near the academy’s walls.
A few beaten up straw dummies stood a few meters outside of the building, looking like they’d been slashed endlessly with training swords. One even wore a battered set of leather armor. Before they reached the building, Sydney stuck his head out from within it, grinning when he saw the incoming students.
“Hey guys, how’s it going?”
Sydney seemed a lot more casual than he had before, but Kai figured it made sense, given that their lives weren’t constantly in danger on academy grounds. He beckoned for Kai and Brewan to join him inside, and when they entered, the room was already largely filled with students. They wore a mix of 1st and 2nd tier clothing, and the majority of them were knight students.
Kai hadn’t attended any classes with any of them, but he recognized quite a few of them as 2nd year students.
And I’m pretty sure they’re all from the Mint faction.
“I’ll get right down to it. Kai, have you heard about the academy tournament taking place in a month?”
Kai’s expression sank a bit further. It was impossible for him not to have overheard the 1st year knight students talking about it. On the surface, it seemed like a friendly tournament of sparring that encompassed all three grades of regular students, and sometimes even battles between assistant professors as learning displays.
In reality, it was a pissing contest between the two factions. One of Kai’s main goals of staying at Hillhold was to form connections, and while many of the Heritage faction kids were annoying, Soren had potential, and Entil had stopped by multiple times over the past week to help Kai out.
“Sorry, but I only just arrived at the academy, and I don’t know how long I’ll end up staying. It would be inappropriate for me to participate.”
Sydney shook his head. “No, you can participate, I already confirmed it with Professor Golal.”
Kai opened his mouth to object, but Sydney held up a hand to silence him. “I’m not trying to pressure you into joining my faction. There are rewards for winning, stuff that would probably be useful to you. You can join the tournament without representing any faction.”
Kai started to open his mouth again, but caught himself.
Well, if I can join the competition without burning any bridges, is there really a reason not to? I already know that I can stomp Rylon in a fight, and I’m pretty sure Brewan can take Angela in a fight, too.
A small smirk started to grow on Kai’s face.
Leo has been improving rapidly over this last week too, and Kiin is making progress as well. With another month of practice, the two of them might be able to compete too. What would Angela’s face look like if not only her brother lost, but she and her goons also got wrecked by the ‘Illiterate Quartet’? Whatever prizes we win would only serve to make it even sweeter.
Kai didn’t need to think any further.
“I’m in.”