Chapter 11 - Family and Exams

After knocking on the door and hearing a voice telling me to enter, I took a deep breath opened the door. When I did so, I saw Lillian Pendragon sitting down at her desk with her arms crossed, her ocean blue eyes were calming, it felt as if I could stare at them for an enternity.

"Aren't you the junior I saw a few weeks ago? Nice to see you again, do you need something from me?"

She smiled at me, the way she acted really drawd you in. She had this calming aura, I returned the smile she gave me.

"Well, I'm not sure if you'll believe me but, I'm your brother. Well, your father's wife's child, it's a bit confusing, but I can give you some of my blood if you want to test it."

She stared at me, the air around us started vibrating as if it was trembling. It felt as if the Mana was crying, she was exuding her pressure. She was a [C] rank, I could barely stand up straight so I activated [Monarch's Wrath] and released my own pressure. Lillian showed a face of surprise, only momentarily, she released the pressure she was giving off.

"My apologies, I lost my composure for a moment. Now then, what's your name? Giving me your blood is unnecessary, with the resources of the Pendragon family I can find out who you are rather easily. However, should I find out that you are lying."

As she finished her sentence, several white bows and swords appeared out of nowhere along with men who looked like Knights. The men were wearing white armour and helmets, well they weren't really men. But something that Lillian created, the Pendragon family bore the blood of one of humanity's greatest Kings, their bloodline ability 'Kingdom' allows them to create something to protect and strengthen their Kingdom.

The way it manifested was in the form of Knights and weapons, they could effectively create their own army. And they could also equip themselves with whatever armaments they wanted. Honestly I rather liked their ability, I was going to use their fighting style as a base for my strategies since I also created weapons to fight with.

I looked at Lillian right in the eye, "I'm Reinhardt Umbridge, I look forward to seeing you, Big Sister."

She nodded at my words and signalled for me to leave, as I was leaving I saw her making a call.

'So, she's not wasting any time on finding out the truth huh? As expected of 'my' Big Sister.'

As soon as I left the room, I let my smile come out. It was a real smile, after all, I was on my way to getting a new pawn. I'd likely hear something from her by the end of the day. In the meantime, I'd just go through the school day as usual.

Well today was a bit different, we had a test today. Two weeks in to school does seem a bit early, but it's so they can gauge our progress and current level. And to give students an idea of where they stood in terms of power.

Today we'd have half the day filled with written tests and the rest of the day would be against our peers. The written tests were mainly on magical theory, practical application and the rules we'd follow as Heroes. We'd also be questioned on more mainstream subjects like Maths, English, Chemistry etc.

The tests would be held in our Homeroom classes, and we'd also be facing off against people in our home room. That meant that if I were unlucky, I'd have to face off against the protagonist and his team, sure I could lose and save myself the trouble. But if I was overshadowed by him and his soon to be harem, I'd have a hard time getting into the Student Council which would really limit my authority within the school along with the time I could spend with Lillian.

As such, I'd simply have to do my best. Of course I wouldn't do anything dumb like going into Phase two. But if it came down to it, I was willing to use all three of my Unique Skills. I also wanted to test how strong I really was in actual combat, I knew that I would at least reach [S] Rank since that was how strong 'The Reaper' was. And I was also a Human-Fenrir hybrid and that would probably allow me to grow even further.

As I made my way to class I ran into Arden. We were both headed the same way, the atmosphere around us was pretty awkward since we weren't actually acquainted. Once we got to class we sat down in our respective seats, surprisingly enough. The protagonist and his friends didn't sit near each other for whatever reason. It didn't really matter as they were all drawn to each other somehow and still became friends.

Aurora came in with a mountain of test papers, she started handing them out. We were simply told to finish them within the given time, they decided to give the papers for all our subjects at once, I was actually rather studious so I'd probably be able to get a rather high grade.

* * *

After around 3 hours, I managed to finish all of my tests. We were all made to do the same subjects for the first year so we knew what we were good at, and then we could decide on what we wanted to do. As well as that, we'd get a bit of knowledge on a broad spectrum of things which would help us later in life if we ever sustained sustained injury from fighting, and we were debilitated.

I saw that a large number of people were still working, it was to be expected, they probably didn't study much. I however, knew of this exam beforehand and studied. And I was studious in my pervious world, well when I was in school.

I double checked my answers, and handed my test papers to Aurora. There were still some people finishing up their test, the protagonist included. He was probably going to rank rather low in the exams, but he'd more than make up for it in the practical exam.

I headed off to the training area, we were going to use VR to simulate a situation. The VR was designed so we could use our skills and our full strength, of course the data was deleted immediately after use so as to keep our trump cards a secret.

The VR rigs looked like pods, the instructor told us that we were going to spawn in with randomly selected team mates and it would be a battle royale in a destroyed city scenario. We were simply to take down as many opponents as possible and survive for as long as we could, my goal for this exam was to rank within the top three. And I was hoping to rank first within the written exams, that would help me join the student council.

I needed power, and not the kind which I already had, but political power. And being a member of the Pendragon academy student council made it difficult for most families to pressure you, and since I didn't have any real backing I desperately needed to join them.

Normally Elijah would join, but his friends are all God Bloods so he's untouchable in his own way. Once I was given permission, I entered the pod and felt myself drift away to a seemingly new world.

* * *

I found myself standing a beautiful golden haired and golden eyed woman, Angelica. And another woman who was just as beautiful, she had black hair and silver eyes that seemed to peer through everything.

"I believe we've all met, so no use in introductions. Angelica, you seem to be a bare handed fighter whilst Elizabeth seems to be a dagger user since that's what you spawned with. As you can see, I'm a Swordsman."

We were spawned with the same quality weaponry to make the exam fair, we were asked to send this data before joining the school.

Elizabeth looked at me with a rather sharp glare, and said, "Yes, I do use a dagger, as you've probably heard I have affinities with Fire magic and I can also use Soul Fire magic."

Angelica was the next to speak up, "I prefer medium to close range combat, I can use Light and Healing magic."

"I can only use Frost magic, and like I said earlier. I'm a Swordsman."

Twang!

A bow string was pulled and an arrow came from one of the buildings, I used the first form of the [Dragon King Style] It was called Tyrants Flash. I used it to quickly draw my sword and I cut through the arrow. I released my 'Wrath' and it had a visible effect as the dust around me started shaking.

My mind was figuring out where the arrow came from, then a wave of crimson red fire shot past me. It seemed Elizabeth had found the location of the archer, but then an arrow came in from behind. I bobbed my head to side and felt the arrow scratch my cheek.

[Monarch's Wrath] immediately started making the Mana around me regenerate the cut, the fibres of skin started healing at a visible rate. It seemed that whoever was firing off these arrows could control them, we couldn't stay in the open any longer.

"Follow me! We can't be out in the open any longer!"

I looked around and ran to one of the nearby buildings, closely followed by Elizabeth and Angelica. Once we ran into the tatered building I took a breath of relief. We now had time, our first priority was getting away from the archer.

"The archer is probably Alicia, no one else is that proficient with the bow, well as far as I'm aware."

I nodded at Angelica's words, there was really no one within the year who could use the bow to that extent without me noticing. Even though I was in Phase 1, I should've been able to sence normal bow users and their arrows.

"We need to get far away from here, we can't waste too much time on Alicia, as long as we don't know where she is. We'll be killed, but, if we stay put we won't rank high which I assume none of us want."

Elizabeth looked at me said, "Thanks for stopping that first arrow, I'd have taken some damage if you didn't slice it In half."

I looked at her with a rather blank expression and nodded my thanks to her compliment. I closed my eyes, and focused everything I could on searching for mana pulsations. My body was far better a sensing Mana than most due to my Unique Skill and physiology.

I felt around 6 different Mana pulsations coming from a nearby building. I smiled, and looked at the two young girls who seemed to be confused at what I was doing.

"I've found our prey."