Azura was the last person among his friends to finish the trial, which was no big surprise really. Apparently the teachers had to review the fights before deciding who counted as a winner for this event so they were free to do whatever they wanted in the meantime. “I still can’t believe you didn’t even have to fight.” He laughed as Katy complained to Siara for the 20th time. Apparently Siara’s opponent had been really chatty, and just surrendered for no reason once he was done talking.
“I mean yeah, but I didn’t get much out of it either. I got some generic advice, and a hint for a new spell I should work on. In terms of improvement you guys got the better end of the deal.” That was true, it sounded like everyone else had a fight that taught them a very valuable lesson, he certainly learned a lot in his. He still couldn't believe he had lost control like that though, all of his carefully controlled emotions had burst out without permission. That had never happened like that before.
“What did I learn? I learned about the unique magic of a person that might not even exist anymore. I never even found out her weakness.” Lily’s opponent was no doubt chosen, because she might be able to get Lily to learn to think outside the box. Honestly dealing with someone that became completely intangible was easy, there were any number of ways to deal with it. Still he chose to remain silent on that, if he gave her the answer she wouldn’t learn anything.
“Keep in mind we’ll be fighting an older version next Sunday, and the Sunday after, so they are giving us multiple attempts to learn the lesson.” He was honestly surprised to find that he was looking forward to it. His father hadn’t been what he expected him to be, which left him extremely curious about what changed. Maybe he should do some digging, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to find any major events his father was involved in.
Katy groaned. “Ugh don’t remind me. My opponent was so tanky I couldn’t even scratch him, and now I’m going to have to deal with a stronger version, and then an even stronger version.” He smiled, honestly an opponent with super high defense wasn’t the kind of opponent he would have chosen for Katy, but he couldn’t deny that it would be a good learning experience. Luckily the real world rarely worked like a spar, and if Katy really came against an opponent like that she could simply run away. Still a powerful piercing attack would serve her well.
“At least you could hit your opponent.” Lily grumbled. Honestly not counting his or Cynthia’s opponents the projection that sounded the most difficult was Roran’s. Roran hadn’t been able to figure out the trick before he had finally been overwhelmed by the smoke. Frankly the irony was that Lily was actually perfectly suited to deal with her opponent, but was overthinking it to an extent.
“I’d rather fight yours then mine. Intangibility would hardly be an issue compared to maybe turning into smoke. Honestly even that wouldn’t be too bad, the worst part is how clever she was. I need to figure out her trick, and that’s made harder by how unwilling she is to talk.” He hadn’t expected Roran to complain honestly. He definitely agreed with him, but Roran was usually much more excited about mysteries rather than annoyed. Then again the deceptively old man didn’t much like to lose.
“Oh yeah? So how would you deal with intangibility?” Honestly he had to give some credit to Lily. He had expected her to get angry, and argue, but she immediately jumped to fishing for the answer to her problem. An answer which Roran was happily going to give her before he placed his hand over his friend's mouth. Lily pouted. “Oh come on! Why can’t he tell me?”
“Because that would defeat the whole point and you know it.” He released Roran’s mouth after he was confident his friend wouldn’t say anything. “Besides, it really is something you can come to if you put some thought into it. I have full confidence in your capabilities.” He wethered Lily’s scowl as his friends continued to mess around.
***
Roran had pretended not to notice how little Cynthia and Azura had talked about their fights, and he was hardly the only one. It was obvious enough why, and even Lily had enough restraint not to bring attention to it. He was the only one who actually had a fairly good guess on how they went though. After all, he had met their parents when they were young. Well Lilian mostly, he had maybe 1 or 2 conversations with Titamat, but the man had trouble talking with what looked to be a child, even when Tiamat was only a couple years older than his physical age. Not that he wasn’t used to that by now of course.
Of course he had a much more recent example of Lilian so he could properly compare, but he hadn’t seen Tiamat in decades, so he only knew what Azura had told them, which didn’t paint a very good picture. Still aside from not talking about it, Azura didn’t seem to be in an especially bad mood, not that he’d be able to tell if Azura didn’t want him too. His friend had unfortunately figured out that his ears were reacting to his emotions and had managed to get control of them, so his only way of properly reading his friend had been removed.
Luckily Azura had been going out of his way to be more open with them so he already knew some things about his father, and given what he knew about Tiamat when he was younger he had a fairly decent guess as to what had happened in the match. Back when Tiamat was still Draconis he had actually been nice enough. Not in the same way as Azura since even then the man had clearly had a bias towards nobility, but Draconis had never been malicious. Or at least he had never witnessed or heard about it.
The biggest issue was how at odds that was with the man Azura had described as his father. Azura’s fear of being like his father would only be magnified by the fact a younger version of his father wasn’t near as bad as the man was now. Or maybe the fact his father had been ‘good’ in the past was good for him, because that meant he could succeed in being ‘good.’ He could honestly see it going either way, but his friend didn’t seem to be freaking out about it for now, so no need to drag it to attention for now.
As for Cynthia, her silence was probably just due to embarrassment. Her mother had been a real wild child back in the day. Honestly it was for the best that her and Draconis were in different age groups he wasn’t sure the school could have withstood both of them at the same time. There was still a running betting pool about how much destruction would come from their inevitable fight, and what would finally cause it. His money was on a lot, and because their children actually get along really well.
He chuckled at his own thoughts. He doubted it would happen, but if Cynthia and Azura ever decided to date or heavens forbid get married, well needless to say he would probably make a lot of money. He stopped his train of thought when he realized he was already in his room. He hadn’t realized he had been lost in thought for so long, but he didn’t mind. It was an amusing train of thought to say the least. Maybe he could convince the 2 to fake it at some point. They’d probably agree if he agreed to split the profits. Not like either of them were actually trying to date anyone at the moment. Besides even without their parents freaking out and fighting each other it would be amusing to see.
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***
Azura had been involved in enough plots that he had started to develop a bit of a sense for it, unfortunately the sense was incredibly unreliable, so he was usually better off ignoring it. So when the feeling of unease came he ignored it and continued to do some last minute tasks before going to bed. The results of this task wouldn’t be announced until the next weekend, so he wouldn’t get his reward until then. Assuming he got one. Rodes did say that the teachers were judging on a different metric. The specific implication was that losing did not mean failure, but it also meant that winning didn’t necessarily mean success. He doubted his would be called a failure, but it was of course something to consider.
Regrettably the fight had left him rather tired and his copies had already dispersed to give him the memories of how their tasks had fared, which was unfortunate, because it meant he’d have to make new ones to do stuff while he slept, but tired as he was he doubted his copies would be able to stay awake for more than a few hours. He sighed. Oh well it was better than nothing. It was kind of funny when looked at from the point of view of anyone else. He was complaining because he’d only get 10-15 extra hours of learning and or completing tasks while he slept. His unique magic really was terribly convenient.
With a yawn he created his 5 copies. “You know the drill.” Normally he clearly delegated tasks even though the copies already knew who he was going to assign what, but he was tired, and he knew the copies were all dreading the terrible effort it was going to take to stay awake, so he didn’t feel the need to waste his time. His copies nodded and calmly disappeared to deal with their assigned tasks. It was a shame that he hadn’t gotten to use his copy’s for combat as much as he used to, but there was no doubt in his mind that this was a better use for them right now. Especially because he couldn’t afford to take it easy right now. So fighting with the advantage of having several of him was a no go.
Honestly for the first time in his life he wished time would slow down. It was already almost the end of the year, and he definitely wasn’t looking forward to the 3 month ‘vacation’ before his 2nd year started. He had agreed to being an ideal heir until he could challenge his father after his 4th year, and while that didn’t impact him much at the school, it would when he was back in his father’s castle for the summer. He sighed again. 4 more years of pretending to be someone he wasn’t, and then possibly the rest of his life if he didn’t manage to get strong enough in time.
To think he had ever been so ignorant as to think simply coming to this school would free him, ignoring the fact that it actually might have if not for the friends he had made. He personally was basically untouchable at this point, and his sister was just short of being untouchable herself with the royal family as her shields. If he had thought about his father trying to use any friends made as a way to threaten him he probably would have only become friends with Cynthia and Roran. Even his father wouldn’t threaten them lightly. Even if his father could probably beat Lilian he would be weakened enough after the fight that any of his countless enemies could finish him off.
Still he wouldn’t trade the friends he had made for the world, even if they unwillingly put him in a precarious situation. Katy would technically always be a risk, but she was also the best suited for avoiding his father, and would likely have had no trouble doing so as long as she was prepared for it. Unless his father swallowed his pride and hired a tracker to track her down, but that was fairly unlikely. Not like it mattered anymore anyway. He had set the challenge, all that was left was to rise to meet it.
***
Azura had been very productive lately, due in large part to the deadline that he himself had set. Part of that was in not taking classes that wouldn’t help him get stronger, and sometimes that meant being a little disrespectful. Or at least he imagined teachers would be a little offended if his copies dispersed themselves partway through the class. Which happened at least once a day. Luckily he wasn’t going to classes anymore, preferring to work on the armory. So as soon as the memories appeared he’d resummon the copy, and assign it a task before sending it to a different class.
He was honestly surprised no teacher had mentioned it. It was just about the most disrespectful thing he’d ever done, he might as well be saying to their faces that their class was worthless to him. Then again he was hardly the only student who would leave a class early if it wasn’t what he thought it was. Granted the other students had the excuse of not having time for every class, or even half of them now that extra courses had started to be added to choose from. He could and had before, but he supposed that from their point of view there wasn’t much difference.
Not like them complaining about it would change anything anyway. He was ok with being rude if it meant he would be even a little better prepared, Not even just for his father. Elismera had implemented the rule that he couldn’t attack during their ‘mock battle’ on Saturday. Her reasoning being that any offense he worked on that would actually affect his father would brutalize them, so they would just be used to prepare him for the multitude of attacks his father would send. Her logic was sound, but he knew the real reason was so she could get some more vengeance for his attack against her last Saturday. Which to be fair had brutalized her. Even the memory was enough to make him wince.
Unfortunately he had no such reasoning for them to be gentle with their attacks, so he had no doubt yggdrasil’s fruit was going to come in very handy over the next 4 years. For more than just their healing properties it would seem. One of the fruits sat in front of him in the middle of a small magic circle, with a few other magic circles floating above it. He had wanted to understand the fruit a bit better, mostly to see if he could use them for anything other than healing, and was pleased to find that the fruits were a wealth of magic and mystery. Scanning them had given him some strange results, that he only even partially understood because of the small time he had basically fused with the tree. It would seem that time of sheer terror of messing up would continue to pay dividends going forward.
Just as he was about to start another experience the rest of his remaining clones dispersed. He sighed and resummoned them all. They quickly disappeared. It had been a while since he had been called to the headmistress’s office, he hoped it wasn’t for anything bad. He left the gleaming white building he had claimed as his lab. Putting the whole building in stasis with his control over the space. Well time to face the music.
***
“No need to be so concerned, you’re not in any trouble.” Azura wished that the headmistress’ words helped calm him down, but if he had learned anything from his childhood it was that not being in trouble did not mean that it wasn’t going to be trouble, and he was definitely getting some troublesome vibes from this meeting.
“Glad to hear it, but if I’m not in trouble then why am I here?” He wasn’t normally one to skip pleasantries and get straight to the point, but he had stuff to do. The headmistress chuckled, clearly not offended. He still couldn’t help feeling like he was about to be involved in something suspicious.
“I have a request for you. Normally I’d leave requests for older students, but you are uniquely qualified for it.” Was it a good thing that him being uniquely qualified for it didn’t narrow it down much? He had a lot of skills that no one else did. He was a rather unorthodox mage after all. Granted the flipside to that was that he was worse than most mages at a lot of standard practice spells, with enhancement being the only real exception there. He raised an eyebrow at her in question without saying a word. “Simply put it’s extremely dangerous, so I couldn’t really send anyone on it before, but with your copies there should be no issue. If they fail the next copy will simply know a little more than the last.”
Well that was a relief at least. She was merely asking for him to send his copies on a dangerous mission for her, and not having the real him do anything. That would slow down his training and studying a little, but field experience wasn’t something he could get whenever he wanted so he figured that alone would be a fair trade. “What’s in it for me?” That being said the request itself shouldn’t be the payment, so he figured it was appropriate to go for a little extra.
The headmistress laughed for a few seconds. “You are a bold one. Alright, what do you want?” He smiled.