Prescine snapped the book in her hands shut, “good job,” she complimented while handing me the test paper I had been working on, “you did pretty well,”

I gave the paper a once over and internally cringed, what the hell does she mean “I did pretty well?”

And at which part?! Almost everything was wrong and I only had like, 13 correct answers out of 50! It’s basically worse than Nickos’ own result two days ago!

Prescine must have seen something on my face because her next words were her attempts at trying to console me-

“Neophyte, I know that you scored low-”

- and she was failing! And I am now very stressed, heh, now I’m the one who was judging her, “- but remember what I said earlier? That this mock test came from my leadership class?”

“Yeah, and?” I quirked an eyebrow, “I’m pretty sure I could have answered this thing randomly-” and I did, for like, 15 different questions, “- and would have gotten a higher score than this,”

And maybe I should have answered it randomly instead of thinking things through? But that wouldn’t be me learning, would it?.. But learning is so hard though?.. Tsk- Now I’m starting to reconsider if it’s even worth it to fight against the whole Everlast court or not…

“Saintess, you’re doing decent,” I glanced at Karsten, who was smiling kindly, “sure, you were low here but remember our own mock test two days back?” I slowly nodded, how is that test connected to this one? “You managed to score highly even when you said you weren’t confident about it,”

I perked up, “I did- didn’t I?” Hiding the happiness seeping into my voice would have been hard so I didn’t even try to, “the test did feel kind of easy back then,”

“I did hear you did pretty great back then,” Prescine said, a bit of red dusting her cheeks, “good job!” She clapped once and I beamed at her praise while eyeing Karsten and her own encouraging, if not shaky smile to the side, man, she must really think my head is growing bigger right now huh?

I should probably stop before things get out of hand-

I shot the two girls a serious look, “can I ask you two something?”

Both nodded and I paused to put what I wanted to say together, I didn’t- I knew what I wanted to say and it’s related to Lucille and her training, and well, I wanted to ask them about how I can improve doing that kind of thing since I can’t really say that I’m a prodigy when it comes to it? Per se? Teaching has never really been my strong suit so I can’t say that I’m good at it.

I’d even argue that I suck at it, which I’m well aware of, but that’s why I wanted to ask them about how to improve at it.

Both waited for me to continue and with their consent, I did-

“Well, uh, so you guys have been tutoring me,” they nodded but didn’t say anything, and I thought that maybe they should have so I could bounce words off of them and put my thoughts together more easily, “and well, there’s this- I’m also teaching Lucille, with uh- Fafnir and the rest and I want to know, what’s the point of you guys giving me this kind of test? Isn’t it a bit too advanced for me?”

“We knew you could do it,” Prescine’s answer came easily and quickly and I eyed her in suspicion, was she lying? She wouldn’t, obviously, but I feel that she was because I couldn’t even score all that high and I failed too.

And I think that I only got some of the answers correct because I answered them randomly.

I don’t know, I’ll check but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened here.

“She’s right,” Karsten looked away from the homework she had moved on to answering- it was from Mrs. Halyard’s, and I think I should probably start doing that one as well, - to nod at me, “you did well, and that’s on a topic that you didn’t know about until two days ago and a test that's more advance than our current year,”

“Point on,” Prescine nodded slowly, "we… are- weren’t- we weren’t expecting you to perfect the test, just that we knew you could have done it." Her explanation was followed by her giving me an encouraging smile, “and you did, didn't you?”

“It was probably because I was answering randomly at some point,” I admitted.

And in reply, Prescine moved forward until she was leaning against the table, and going even further until her head was next to mine, she held my hand, "don't say that.” She scolded softly, “you did well, and I'm sure that if we checked, you will still be able to answer these things,”

You know what? Sure, I'll take her up on it, “fine, let's do it then,”

Prescine blinked and I swallowed my smirk- Hah, didn't expect that, didya?

Shaking her head, my peer moved away from me and went back to sitting straight, she opened her book and grabbed the mock test that I finished, “alright, fair enough,” she shrugged, “the first question that you answered correctly-”

I stared at her, “wait, I thought that we were going to do it again?”

“- is a question that asked what's the purpose of a plaza and the choices were- what? Why?” Prescine stopped reading and just stared at me, “why would we make you answer the test again?”

“Isn't that how this goes?” I asked.

“No? That's a stupid way to learn,” she shook her head, “okay, so, the choices were-”

I stayed silent and waited for Prescine to give me all of the choices and after listening to all of them, I knew what the answer was and it’s what I picked, which turned out correct. And then we repeated it over and over again until we finished and surprisingly enough, I knew- okay, this is a keyword- most of the questions, which is a pleasant surprise to me!

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Welp, this is useless now,” Prescine said as she grabbed both ends of the test and started ripping it in half, her smile widened once she finished tearing the test paper apart, “see? You did a pretty good job, like I said,”

“I guess…” I was still in shock, I turned to her, feeling a bit mischievous, “you're cleaning that up by the way,”

“I'll do it, mistress,” Zath, to our right, stopped reading her cookbook and bowed, I sighed, a gesture that got her to start looking confused, “I do remember you saying that in here, I can do my job whenever I want no? Or do you want me to file a formal complaint?”

“Does that even count? I mean, it's not like this place is an office right?” I wanted to pinch myself for spouting something related to HR at some point during this particular study session because the girls asked about it and I had to explain to them what it was.

And they thought it was interesting enough to start doing whatever it was that Zath did.

Well, it wasn’t all bad since Prescine said that putting in some kind of force that will help servants and workers within an internalized system is a good idea and she'll see if she can “implement it” to the student council.

I don't know if she will actually do it or if she was joking…

“If you're asking if I can put forward that sort of thing, I can,” I shot Zath a curious look, “House Phagea has a similar system to your Human Resources-” I winced, “- in place which gets our maids and servants educated on sending letters to appropriate authority figures for protection, we also don’t just ignore such filed complaints,”

“Huh, I never knew that,” I replied.

“You never had the opportunity to, as I never really felt the need for a transfer,” I appreciated Zath’s smile as she said that, “and I never will, I like being in your service mistress,”

“Awww, thank you Zath,” I wanted to hug her.

Someone cleared their throat and all of us faced the door to the kitchen, “Sleet said that snacks are ready by the way,” Korbinian scanned the room with a smirk, “or maybe you guys already have some here?”

“Yeah I don't get it,” I played dumb and willfully ignored the way she called everyone snacks.

“Don't you now?..” Korbinian’s were focused on me and me alone.

I felt color rise to my cheeks at her continued stare but played dumb again, “nope.”

“Fair enough, I believe you,” she shrugged and turned back, adding, “putting chocolate on your maid's chest and licking it never crossed your mind?”

“Excuse me what?!” That caught me off guard, thus my voice was higher than it usually was and there was no other reason for it, “Korbinian what the hell?!”

She turned back and faced me, face placid and calm, “what? I didn't say anything?”

“You did!-” I pointed at her and turned to my friends, “right?! She did say something just now right?!”

Prescine cleared her throat, “maybe you're hearing things Neophyte?”

I frowned when everyone nodded in agreement. Even Karsten!

I narrowed my eyes.

You know what? Fine, but I'll get them back for this.

…

“Okay, hold it steady,” I made a gesture of raising both my hands in support of Lucille, who wouldn't stop shaking as she filled her Technique- Greater Speed, - with as much Light as she could, “remember, push it as far as you can go,” she nodded shakily in reply.

“I don't get it,” behind us, Yhaine tilted her head, “isn't her reservoir getting drained because of this?”

“No, not really,” I shook my head and as an example, raised a fist, “think of it as like my fist, Lucille’s Technique is like that, the potential is there, but little to no energy is being spent, but if she moves while under this state-” I punched the air, “- then she’s going to spend energy.”

“And I'm guessing that the difference between that and what Lucille is doing is that Lucille is feeling strained right now while clenching your fist isn’t tiring?” as always, Zyra's guess was spot on, I smiled and nodded, she asked another question, “interesting I never knew you can exercise your reservoir, and what's the point of this exercise?”

“It increases your reservoir by a little bit- but don’t worry, it gets bigger over time, you just need to keep doing this every day,” I answered to her nod, “and it also improves the category of Techniques that belongs to the one you’re doing during the exercise, generally speaking.”

“Wait- wait- it isn't just Lucille's greater speed that's getting stronger but her other enhancement Techniques as well?” I answered Yhaine with a nod and she stood up from her seat, I watched as she made her way next to Lucille, who shot her a shaky smile, “alright, I'm joining in,”

She heaved out a deep sigh before glowing yellow.

I turned to their last member, who still looked skeptical, “Zyra?”

“This isn't just you being weird right?” Even with her rather suspicious words- and I know she has a valid reason to suspect me, - she still stood up while letting out a sigh, she gave me a once over, “right?”

“I promise this is a valid way to train,” I turned my smile into a confident grin, hoping it'll convince her.

It didn't and she shrugged, “fine, I'll believe you for now, so, what do you want me to do?”

“Use the Technique that you want to improve, push as much Light into it as you can, and then don't do anything and just wait for your reservoir to run dry while fueling it,” I repeated my explanation.

Zyra nodded and slowly made her way to where her friends were, when she was about to start, I decided to warn her about how hard it was going to be at the start, “it's going to be really painful at the beginning but you'll get used to it eventually,”

She won't, technically speaking, because Light is not physical so she'll always feel the strain on her soul but hey, the silver lining to all of this is that her body would start getting used to the stress and would just numb it down every time it comes.

I gave her a thumbs up, “good luck!”

"Thanks,” Zyra's smile turned strained after she called her Pledge and used Grow Weapon to its fullest, which huh, had an added difficulty to it thanks to the fact that her whip started growing out of control.

She was struggling now and I knew I needed to help, “try to control the flow of Light that's going into the Technique,”

I scratched the back of my head at the confused glare she gave me, uh…

How do I explain this..? “Techniques can still operate at their max capacity even when they're uhm, being fed not that much Light?”

Fuck. She looked even more confused after I said that.

“Uhhhhh-”

"What Neophyte is trying to say is that you need to try to find the middle ground Zyra,” I looked behind me and flashed Fafnir a smile as a gesture of thanks, “and that goes for the rest of you as well, consider this as part of my own training to all of you,”

Lucille, Yhaine, and Zyra shot her pleading looks, but she only smirked, “find the middle ground that will keep your Techniques operating as best as they can while also putting in the least amount of Light that you can,”

“That-” Lucille sucked in a lungful of air, “- is very confusing!” She said hastily, “please explain better!”

“It's simple,” Fafnir raised a finger, “your Technique will continue to be that way because you’re not spending its energy, so what you need to do is lower your Light output while staying the way you are,”

“That,” I said in agreement, “was what I was trying to tell you guys earlier, that you don't have to put as much Light into your Techniques right now since it’ll stay that way anyway,”

Lucille closed her eyes and Zyra did the same while Yhaine just gave me a slow, wincing, and disapproving shake of her head, then she followed after them and closed her eyes.

Fafnir and I watched them work things out for a while.

I felt genuinely happy when I saw that the spikes, flowers- which I think are poisonous, - and fruits- also poisonous, - slowly disappeared from Zyra’s whip.

By then Fafnir and I knew that they were controlling their output and we both moved away from them.

We found ourselves sitting on the benches bolted to the walls of the dojo, “I never knew that you can get that serious,” I told my Dragon with a smirk and a playful tone, I started animatedly talking, gesturing around while grinning happily, “you were all like, ‘you all should find the middle ground!’ and stuff like that earlier, it was kinda neat to see,”

“Neo, I am always serious,” she replied without turning away from Zyra and the rest, “and I don't think that what I did was any different from how I usually do things,”

“Yeah but I never saw you in your teacher mode before,” she snorted and my grin went back.

She gave me a side glance, “teacher mode?”

I nodded excitedly, “yep~!” I replied, popping the ‘p’ at the end, I giggled, “I think it suits you,”

“Does it?” She went back to observing Lucille and the rest, “I don't feel that way,”

“It does,” I reinforced, nodding to emphasize my point, “I feel like you'd be a great teacher one day, or maybe a mother hm?” I elbowed her playfully while ignoring the gnawing at my chest when my train of thought went to imagining her bearing some random guy's kid, I'm sure Fafnir would want that than… whatever it is that I'm feeling right now.

Or whatever.

“Maybe I will,” she hummed and went on to create an impromptu music performance by tapping her gauntleted fingers against the scales of her thigh, the sound was rhythmic and soothing and I couldn't help but listen in as it played.

She faced me, “I want you to help me with it,”

“Help you with what?” I swallowed down the surge of hope that rose from my chest.

“Teaching,”

I giggled, so that's what she meant, “I'm already doing that aren't I?”

“I… suppose, yes, you’re right.” she nodded.

“Lucille is going to be a powerhouse under our guidance,” I smiled softly.

“Mhmm…”