Preparations For The Academy II
Five days later...
— Clank!
— Thud!
"Haah...!"
— Crack!
"Finally!" Azariah breathed heavily as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
He looked at the puppet that was currently lying on the ground, and couldn't help but smile for a few moments.
[E- Rank]
After five days of arduous training, he actually beat a magic puppet that was a whole rank higher than him.
Normally, after looking at hundreds of novels, one must think that it doesn't take much to beat someone with a rank higher than him.
However, this game is quite different. The difference between every rank is quite huge.
E.g. if an F- Rank person has an average of 10 stats per attribute.
A E- Rank person will have an average of 100 stats per attribute, meaning that they strengthened themselves by 10 times.
"Hah... Thankfully this puppet cannot use mana, if he did, I was going to be beaten quite easily." Azariah muttered to himself.
[Clean]
Using auxiliary magic to clean the dirt on his body, Azariah got out of the training room.
He passed before many maids and directed himself back to his room.
"Jarvis?" Azariah called out as he closed the door of his room.
And just like a shadow, Jarvis appeared directly inside his room without making any sound.
"Have you completed the task that I assigned you?"
"Everything for your trip is ready, Young Master. This includes your luggage, food, and the rapier your mother gave you." Jarvis hesitated slightly as he mentioned the weapon.
"I see... You can go now." He replied as he laid his back on the comfy bed.
Hearing Azariah's words, the butler bent down 90 degrees and disappeared from the room.
'Hah... Why does the academy need to be so fucking further away from our dukedom?' Azariah sighed inwardly.
"Status." He muttered as a panel appeared in front of him.
"Nothing changed, huh..." Azariah stated casually as he closed his status, and then checked a new tab that had appeared recently.
⋘ ― Techniques ―⋙
⤬ Rapier's Swordsmanship
⟶ Rank: Basic
⟶ Progress: 99% (Blocked - Requirements: See the swordplay of a high-rank sword user.)
⤬ Mana Control
⟶ Rank: Basic
⟶ Progress: 15%
——+——+——
"Of course..." Azariah furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance.
Thanks to his previous experience with his mother teaching him, when Azariah unlocked the skill [Rapier's Swordsmanship], he had already had 90% of the progress done.
However, the [Nelsith's Eroge Academy] game had a special factor to rank up the "basic skills", in other words, skills like [Swordsmanship], [Mana Control], [Aura], etc.
The player needed to encounter someone with a "basic skill" two ranks higher than him and see their movements.
With that, he would be able to rank up their "basic skills".
However, when you reach the higher ranks, especially when you don't have anyone with a "basic skill" two ranks higher than you, there's a special event to increase their rank.
But that same event is completely random.
It can be a dungeon, a dumb mind game, or even a "love mission" where you need to do something to a heroine.
It can be either a kiss, hug, or even sex.
You just need to complete it, and that will work as some kind of "epiphany".
Complete bullshit.
As for Azariah, when he played the game, he completely ignored those "basic skills".
He just made all of them reach the intermediate rank and left them aside which is what he planning to do.
Except [Mana Control] of course. [Mana] is the most important energy in this entire game.
Obviously, there's also something called [Aura] that is used by knights, but Azariah himself knows by experience that [Mana] is much better.
Especially when one of the strongest mages is his own mother...
"Anyways... I need to somehow get my Mana to F Rank at least to make sure that I can be put in the S Class." Azariah started racking his brain out.
After all, he was pretty confident about both the writing and combat evaluation exams.
The only thing he was worried about was the mana evaluation.
This exam is divided into two factors, your own mana potential which holds at least 75% of the grade, and your current mana rank.
If Azariah has an F Rank mana, he would at least get 15% of the total grade, however, he would need to raise a big rank and a small rank to be able to get an F Rank mana.
"Tsk... I wonder if any spirits will be able to sense my physique from the exam area...?" He wondered.
As he was lost in thought, a polite voice interrupted him with a knock on the door.
"Young Master, the carriage is ready."
"Ah..."
'I can already tell that this trip is going to be a pain in the ass...' He sighed inwardly as he stood up from his bed.
.
.
.
.
.
— THRRRR!
As the carriage stopped, Jarvis stood up from the driver's seat and opened the door.
"Ah... it looks mesmerizing." Stepping out of the carriage, Azariah muttered with a faint smile that quickly disappeared.
Even if he wanted to smile, he could only do it for a few seconds, if not, memories would come to haunt him.
In front of him, stood a massive-sized building that stretched for at least a few hundred of meters on both sides.
"Should I accompany you, Young Master?" Jarvis spoke as he looked at Azariah.
"No, there's no need for that." Azariah shook his head.
"As you wish."
"I'll see you in a few months, Jarvis." Azariah waved his hand as he walked towards the gate.
"I shall await your return." Jarvis bent down his head as he looked at Azariah's retracting back.
As he approached the gate, two guards that had a strong flow of mana over their bodies stepped forward to block his path.
"Academy Letter?"
Hearing them, Azariah simply took a letter from the pocket of his jacket and showed the guard.
The guards scrutinized the letter, checking its authenticity, before returning it to Azariah.
"C. A-A-Alastair!?" Suddenly, one of the guards recognized Azariah's surname and stuttered in surprise.
His eyes widened in fear as he realized Azariah's identity.
"S-sorry, Lord Azariah, please enter!"
— Sigh...
'Anyways... let's see if there's an actual protagonist in this world.' Azariah looked around and wondered if there was an actual protagonist in this world.
He saw many familiar faces, mostly third-rate villains and villainesses, none of which were of much interest to him.
However, the people he really didn't want to meet were the three [Main Heroines].
Although they were childhood friends, with this fact being the reason why the [Main Heroines] were so difficult to conquer.
They all had mixed feelings towards Azariah; they both loved and hated him at the same time.
In other words...
They loved the "past" Azariah but hated the "current" Azariah.
Long story short, after taking control of Alastair's Dukedom, Althea changed a lot.
Azariah as a child, knew that she didn't love his father, however, he was already happy with how she was treating him.
But, that treatment changed as Althea suddenly started treating him... as an experimental subject.
Before, with Azariah's father being alive, she couldn't do any experiments on him, but after he was dead... she went all out.
And the reason for those experiments?
To create a "way" to absorb more and more mana.
She was thinking about a form for the human body to absorb mana through another organ that wasn't the heart.
Normally, to absorb mana, everyone uses the heart as a catalyst to absorb mana and then to transfer the mana into their mana core, but Althea thought that other organs could also do that...
And because Azariah had her genes, she thought that he was the perfect subject...
Subject Zero.
Because of those experiments... Azariah's personality completely changed.
He became broken, and during those experiments, he even lost his Mana Core.
His body was almost unable to absorb mana.
And... as the years passed by, Azariah started indulging in... alcohol.
He had lost his feelings, and only by drinking alcohol he could feel something.
He started mistreating the three [Main Heroines], however, the moment they all cut relations with Azariah...
Was also the moment, he recovered himself.
That was a few years ago.
"......"
— Huff!
— Ahh....!
'Take deep breaths, Azariah... Don't let your past swallow you whole.' Azariah thought to himself as he silently grasped his chest, feeling his heart rate that had sped up.
"Az...Azariah?"
'No... please, not now...!'