As soon as Professor Sellae left the podium, Ardea instantly got up from her chair as well, and stiffly exited the room—Elise following closely behind. The rest of the student body followed their example.

Arthur and his friends, on the other hand, remained in their seats, in deep thought from the looks on their faces. Well, Arthur and Gawain looked to be in deep thought, Lancelot simply looked like he was waiting patiently for Arthur.

However, right now, Cadmus couldn’t care less about any of them.

“Oliver, do you know where the library is?” He asked, unable to wait any longer.

“Er—yeah?” Oliver said.

“Can you guide me there?” Cadmus asked.

A troubled look came across Oliver’s face, but...

“Sure… I guess.”

They both got up from their chairs, and exited the main hall as well. As they walked through the campus, Oliver spoke slowly.

“So… you’re the Necromancer…”

“You don’t seem too pleased with that,” Cadmus noticed.

Oliver shook his head, “It’s not that, I’m just really surprised. You didn’t seem like anyone important when I first saw you sitting by yourself.”

“How flattering,” Alice piped up dryly. She shot Oliver a glare from Cadmus’ pocket.

Oliver flinched at the sound of Alice’s voice, “Ugh—I’m still having a little trouble adjusting to a living, talking homunculus…” He stretched a bit and some of the rigid tension in his movements melted away, “Was it hard to create her?”

“The hard part was the soul,” Cadmus explained, “I could create a human-like golem and even fill it with voice lines right now if I wanted to, but creating the actual soul was what took the most effort. It cost me massive amounts of laurite, and getting the formula down just right took me years.”

Oliver made a sound of interest, “So does that mean she has a golem’s body?”

“That was actually my first choice,” Cadmus said, “But in the end, I decided to create a human’s body for her to decrease the chances of failure. However, creating her human body did involve some of the steps it takes to create a golem, so you’re about one-fourth right.”

“Sounds complicated and difficult. I still don’t even know how to make a normal golem,” Oliver said with an impressed whistle.

Cadmus nodded, “It was,” he smiled warmly down at Alice, “But it was worth it.”

Alice smiled back at his words.

They exited the main campus building and trekked through Academy grounds before coming to a stop in front of one of the four towers of the school that loomed far above the rest of the city.

“And here we are,” Oliver said, “This is the library.”

Cadmus looked up, feeling like an ant under the giant structure.

“The entire tower?” He asked disbelievingly.

Oliver nodded, “Yep, the whole tower’s the library. And as your rank increases, you gain access to the higher floors, which contain the rarer books, journals, and other… scholarly things.”

“I see…”

Cadmus entered the tower, and barely just managed to stop himself from salivating. The towers’ diameter was large enough to fit the spacious main hall inside of it, and the entire place was occupied by bookshelves filled with books, and comfy looking chairs to read them in. Oh, and there was a reasonably-sized area near the door for the librarian to sit and do their work in—but honestly, Cadmus barely cared about or noticed that.

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The windows were large and clear, letting the bright sunlight stream right in, and just like the main hall, the ceiling held many bright chandeliers. There was also a curved flight of stairs at the back that led to the floor above.

He walked closer to one of the bookshelves and examined what they had to offer. From the basic works of Circe to the obscure theories of Abe no Seimei—there were even large sections dedicated to subjects that had nothing to do with magic, from economics to etiquette! Cadmus couldn’t help but feel a bit impressed at the wide range of knowledge stored here. And this was just the first floor!

Before he ran up the stairs like a kid let loose in a candy store though, he took a deep breath and reminded himself that he still needed to get some important questions answered.

“Oliver, what are these ‘duels’ that Professor Sellae mentioned?”

Oliver raised an eyebrow, “You don’t know? It’s one of the Academy’s main selling points, so most people know before they even set foot in here.”

Cadmus shook his head, his lips curving into a frown “Unfortunately, the professor who recruited me refused to divulge any details.”

Oliver snickered as he took a seat, “How unlucky.”

A flicker of annoyance flared inside of Cadmus as he took a seat opposite of him.

Thankfully, Oliver didn’t continue wasting time, “Alright, so duels are basically Academy-sanctioned battles between two parties. However, both parties have to accept to the duel for it to be made official.”

“And what’s the point of having a duel?” Cadmus asked, “What separates it from a spar?”

“The stakes.” Oliver said, “A duel only occurs when both parties gamble items of what they agree to be of equal value, and the winner of the duel takes all. For example, I can challenge you to a duel by betting five gold and asking you to bet five gold as well. If you accept and win, then you’ll be five gold richer.”

Cadmus put a hand on his chin in thought, “And how can I be sure that you’ll give me the five gold?”

“The Academy makes sure that the victor isn’t cheated out of their due,” Oliver explained, “In any case, most students use the dueling system to only gamble points, and it’s the Academy that controls all the movement of points anyway.”

“Points?” Cadmus asked, “You can do that?”

Oliver nodded, “Of course. You can bet anything of yours, and points are yours as well.”

“It’s certainly an interesting system…” Cadmus mused, “And what about guilds? What are they? I saw on the board that the second and third place were both taken by guilds.”

Oliver sighed, “I guess it makes sense that you don’t know about guilds if you didn’t even know about the dueling system. Guilds are—”

A hand landed on Cadmus’ shoulder, “Guilds are essentially official student organizations. In terms of rankings, they count as one person.”

Cadmus turned to look. It was an older student—probably in the second or third year—who had clean-cut short black hair, sharp features, and glasses over his eyes. There was an easy smirk spread across his face.

“Speaking of which, I’d like to extend an invitation to the both of you to join my guild,” he said almost lazily, “We’re ranked among the top fifty, so I’m sure you won’t have too many complaints.”

Oliver’s eyes widened into dinner plates as he jumped to his feet, “T-top fifty—! And you want me as well…?”

The older student raised an eyebrow, “You’re surprised that I want you, but not that I want your friend? Is he someone special or something?”

Oliver’s face scrunched up in suspicion, “Wait, so you’re just inviting two random students…?” Then he seemed to come across a realization, “Is your name Randall Crawford?”

The older student’s smirk widened, “Well aren’t you the well-informed one? Yeah, I’m Randall Crawford. The leader of the guild: Pride. What do you say? Want to join?”

Cadmus was tempted. While he knew he could go out and find other, better guilds to join, there was one offering him a place right here—and it was among the top fifty as well. Joining them would make reaching first place much faster.

Oliver suddenly took him aside and leaned in close, “What’re you looking so tempted for? Pride is a guild infamous for taking in anyone and everyone they can! It’s a guild that fights quality with quantity!”

Cadmus was confused, “And?”

Oliver made a face, “Okay, listen up. For a guild to gain points, its members have to give up their own points. For example, if I joined the guild Victory, and had 100 points. I would have to give up my 100 points to give it to the guild!”

Cadmus raised an eyebrow, “And why would that be a problem?”

“Because only the guild leader gets to decide how to use the guild’s points! So Crawford can just blow away your hard-earned points by challenging another guild to a duel and losing or something!”

Cadmus nodded, “I see. There are indeed issues of trust involved…”

“And that’s not all,” Oliver hurriedly whispered, most likely noticing that Randall Crawford was looking less patient by the second, “Since a guild only counts as one person on the rankings, they also only receive one person’s worth of resources for their ranks. In other words, an individual in second place and a guild in second place will both receive the same amount of resources. And only the guild leader gets to decide how those resources are distributed among the guild!”

“And with so many people in his guild, I will receive only a minuscule amount of resources...” Cadmus concluded.

“All right, that’s enough.” Randall said as he walked up to them and forcefully pushed them apart, “I want your answers. Now.”

Oliver looked increasingly nervous underneath Randall’s gaze, so Cadmus answered for them both, “We decline. Thank you for the offer.”

Randall didn’t seem too happy with their answer, “You decline, huh…? Let’s see how long you’ll be able to say that.”

And with those words, he left the library. Somehow, Cadmus got the impression that this wasn’t the last they would see of him.