| Xyrus Academy (2) |
POV: Ráel
"Woah..." Elijah, who I had stopped paying attention to, firmly gripped my arm and Arthurs arm with his hands as if he needed us to support him from fainting.
"Woah," he repeated. For how smart he looked, he sure acted like an idiot at times like these.
"You okay there, Elijah?" Arthur lightly nudged his head but it just bounced like a bobblehead toy.
"...Art...Ráel, I think I'm in love." He suddenly released the hands that had firmly gripped my arm to link arms with Arthur, as if to imagine He was Tessia.
Okay, this is getting out of hand as I put my hand on the top of Elijah's head, squeezing it hard causing him to start screaming more from surprise than pain.
"Ouch ouch, Okay I am sorry"Elijah said after finally, calming down and focusing on the stage again.
She spoke about the principles of this academy, how this was a holy ground where students should feel safe to walk freely around. Tessia emphasized the discipline one would face if anyone hurt another student outside of a consented duel.
"While I may be a first year as all of you are, having given the privilege to be inside the academy a year longer made it all too apparent to me that there is deeply embedded discrimination against the scholar mage students by the battle mage students. I, for one, will not tolerate any sort of aggression or bullying based on the trivial fact that one is a scholar mage student." Tessia's ' voice never wavered as she stood behind the podium
After this there were a few other announcements made wich I ignored most of them.
I even senses the director trying to sense my mana core before disappearing, she must have been curios, as to what people would Arthur recommend going with him at school.
Maybe she will get suspicious of me she could not sense anything from me.
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Outside, the trees arched over the marble walkways producing small showers of fall-colored leaves. The students were all excitedly chatting amongst their peers, getting to know new people.
Walking deeper within the campus to where the dorms were, I saw a few female students pass by Elijah, Arthur and I, doing a double-take back at us and giggling with their friends.
Elijah sighed. "I feel like I become significantly less better-looking when I'm next to you two." Elijah's shoulders hunched as we walked along side-by-side, Sylvie pitifully patting Elijah's head from on top of Arthur's head.
"Well, even if most come after us, some of the girls will have to eventually settle for you, right buddy?" Arthur teased, giving him a playful wink.
"Screw you." He hit him on the stomach as the both of us laugh.
Suddenly, a loud explosion was heard as we decided to go there and see what happened.
"I don't see how a short-ass dwarf like you can even hope to be a proper Augmenter. Why don't you stick to forging some weapons for real warriors like me?"
"What da hell didja say? Who do ya think ya are, anyway?"
I stopped walking a good distance away and shook my head when I realized what was going on. It was just stupid posturing between two students. The explosion had been made by the human, hitting his fist on a nearby tree with mana.
But those two will not stop for sure looking at Arthur and Elijah going even more closer.
"Lets just go you don't want to fight on the first day of school."I said trying to convince them to go back at the dorms.
"Come on, we have nothing to do besides unpack anyway! Let's just see how good they are. Look, the human looks to be a second level augmenter." Elijah pointed at the brawny human.
My name is Nicolas Dreyl! Declare the duel, short-ass, so we can start! Or are you all bark and no bite?" the human smirked, placing his right hand on the badge pinned to his left breast.
"Tch! Yer gonna be sorry." The dwarf that was a head shorter than his opponent with a bulky build looked awkward wearing the blazer uniform but the way he carried his giant battle-axe with ease told me he was more than what the single stripe on his tie told us.
The metal badge on both the human and dwarf glowed brightly as the dwarf placed a hand on his badge and started chanting. "I declare a duel between me, Broznean Boor, and Nicolas Dreyl!"
"I accept the duel!" The two badges glowed different colors until they synced together, producing a loud 'ping' sound and creating a barrier that could withstand some force so that means when the barrier breaks, the duel is over and the winner is decided.
It should take about 24 hours for the artefact to recharge during that time duels were forbidden.
Mages of a higher level weren't allowed to issue a duel with lower levels to keep it fair, which was why the human had to taunt the dwarf to start the duel.
The human mage took out dual swords from his dimension ring and got into a stance as the people around start backing up to avoid getting caught up in the fight.
"Go dwarf!" Elijah started cheering in favor of Broznean, getting dirty looks in the process.
I studied the two augmenters and saw that the level two human was a red core stage mage while the dwarf was still at black stage. This should be interesting.
The fight was interesting both being Earth augmenters and even being able to use the elemental power at that stage in that way they were sure talented.
"Earth Pillar!" Nick exclaimed. Following the upward swipe, he stomped hard with his leading foot directly in front of the dwarf, creating a pretty fragile column of rock from the ground that hit the dwarf squarely in the stomach.
"Oof!" The dwarf's body lifted into the air from the force of the blow and his shield broke with loud shattering sound, signaling that the duel was over.
Cheers went off from the humans that gathered but the dwarves amongst the audience groaned in embarrassment.
I saw a slight smirk on the human's face as he once again imbued mana into his two blades.
That fool wasn't planning on finishing it with that. He was going for the final blow.
I could stop this if I wanted to but that would put me on the spotlight and I don't want that just now.
"Is that the student council president I see coming over?" Arthur deliberately yelled louder so that the human boy that won the duel would be startled.
The crowd started to look around for the president but could not see her because obviously Arthur lied.
Oops! I must've been mistaken!" Arthur just shrugged his shoulders and turned to walk past when a hand firmly grasped his shoulder.
And just like in the story that idiot tried to attack Arthur with the swords after Sylvie spit in his neck.
"Do you dare?" The president appeared with her gang. I just watched everything unfold from the side.
"What is going on, Arthur?" Jarrod is the one that spoke up, making everyone in the crowd raise an eyebrow in surprise.
"No, nothing much happened, although you should go take a look at that dwarf student lying over there—Boznean, I think that was his name." I pointed over to the tree where the dwarf was still groaning while clutching his stomach.
While Lilia, Jarrod, and Elijah were talking about what exactly happened Arthur and Tessia locked eyes expecting something from Arthur but the idiot is to dumb to realise the situation.
Elijah walked towards me, hoping to distill the situation. "Hi, Lilia. Sorry, we ended up getting caught up in this little scuffle after the duel between them ended. No harm done!" He gave a slight wave at her as he started talking while directing his words at Tessia, her face still shrouded in a mask of apathy.
"You. I believed I asked you a question. Do you dare?" She took a step forward, her eyes looking directly at the second year student.
"N-No. Of course I would never dare break the rules like that. I simply wanted to scare the boy—I had planned to stop before my weapon would hit him. But seeing that I was still acting rashly, I apologize," he said, shooting me a threatening glare as he bowed to Tessia.
"Leave now" she said coldly to the student as she turned around to face Arthur.
"And you fought a senior on the first day of school You should know your place! No matter how rowdy he may have been, he is still your senior and he didn't break the rules when dueling with the other student. Furthermore, he is a battle mage student while you are a scholar mage student.
Did you not pay attention to my speech about discrimination between the two sects of students here? Yet, you still chose to interfere, making these types of problems apparent on the first day!" She knit her arms tightly as her stern gaze bore down on him
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me like you're lecturing me based on a presumption you drew from the last five seconds of stumbling upon this situation. Are you really lecturing me, right now?" he took another step forward and I could see Tessia's once haughty face beginning to crumble.
"He was about to seriously injure or even kill that dwarf lying there right now, after the duel system broke. If I hadn't stopped that arrogant brat, you would've had to deal with a murder case, not an unregulated fight between two students," Arthur continued, his voice coming out louder than he had wanted to.
"I apologize for the trouble I've caused, Student Council President," he said icily, stunning everyone, including Tessia
"Man, you are getting to much worked up over nothing " I said to Arthur as I shook my head at his immaturity.
Patting his shoulder I moved forward .
"Maybe you are right" he said as he took a deep breath and slowly started to walk with me Elijah following closely with hurried steps.
I could see Arthur looking back a few times in the direction of Tessia.
Finally we made our way to the dorms
"Room 394" Elijah unlocked the door by placing his palm on the round stone above the handle as they got inside, I looked at my dorm number it was "395" It seems I will have a room completely to my self isn't that nice.
After placing everything out of my ring that I might need I decided to visit their room.
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"Knock, knock!" I gently knocked on their door as Elijah was the one to open it.
After sitting on the couch and doing idle chatting
It's not like you to explode like that all of a sudden though, Art. It would've made more sense for you to just ignore her and walk off, right?" Elijah was lying down in his bed, his hand propping his head up as he faced Arthur
"Yeah, you said girls our age seem like baby's to you so why were you so irritated, by her maybe you have feelings for her?" I asked him knowing full well the answer.
He blushed a bit as he tried to defend his actions "Well, I admit I shouldn't have exploded but I couldn't help—"
We turned our heads to the door when two brisk knocks interrupted our conversation.
"That's strange, who would want to see us on the first day? Maybe our neighbors are just saying hello?" Elijah got up to answer the door.
So she is here I thought to my self as Elijah froze after seeing the director standing before him.
"Good evening, Arthur. Elijah. Ráel, May I come in?" She asked as she smiled at Arthur.