Yue and Mai were walking down through the halls on their way to Mr. Anderson’s class when they turned a corner and saw Viktor waiting at the door to the courtyard where Mr. Anderson usually held his classes. Yue sped up a bit as he walked over and Mai just laughed.

“It’s just been a few days but I’ve missed you,” Viktor said and hugged Yue and just smiled at Mai as a greeting as he saw her rolling her eyes.

Yue felt embarrassed that Viktor was just hugging him in the middle of the hall but he just let him do so, they were in a relationship so this much was probably fine. They held hands as they walked into the courtyard.

“It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve been here,” Mai said and looked around as they walked toward the pavilion in the middle of the courtyard. Some other students were already there sitting down but three students were standing with Mr. Anderson.

“Good morning Mr. Anderson. Let’s continue to get along, you three.” Mai said in passing since the three students seemed to be having a conversation with Mr. Anderson.

“Good morning, Mr. Anderson,” Viktor said and smiled as he walked by with Yue who also quietly said good morning.

“Yes yes, good morning.” Mr. Anderson so send waved to them before turning back to Ava, Alejandro, and Anika.

“Just join the class and I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it.” Mr.Anderson said and handed them some papers with everything that they had covered way before expeditions started.

“Do you think he’ll tell us where our next expedition is?” Mai asked and turned to Yue and Viktor who were sitting next to her.

“Maybe. He might leave it until the last moment just because though.” Viktor chuckled and took off his blazer and put it on Yue’s shoulders since he seemed cold because his hanfu didn’t fully cover his neck. Yue silently thanked him and Mai winced at how lovey-dovey they were.

“Well Students, how did London go?” Mr. Anderson asked, standing in the middle of the room. He clearly already knew how it went but he wanted to hear it from them.

“I’ve never used so much mana in my life,” Marianne murmured, thinking of how many times she dealt with mana exhaustion while working on the turrets. A lot of other students agreed.

“I have a lot to work on.” Other students murmured.

“Well, it’s good that you acknowledge that. This whole week before your next expedition is just for training. So think about what you Could do better and work on it. The teachers will just be here for assistance.” Mr. Anderson said and grinned.

“What about the next expedition? Where are we going?” Viktor asked, he knew Mr. Anderson wouldn’t tell him but he asked anyway.

“It’s a surprise~!” Mr.Anderson said with a sing-song tone.

Yue almost clicked his tongue as he heard this and shook his head helplessly.

Mr. Anderson told the students to just use the rest of their class time to plan how they would train and to come to him if they need help on figuring out how to improve. Yue, Viktor, and Mai just stayed in their seats.

“What are you going to work on?” Yue asked, turning to Mai.

“Just magic. And maybe some swordsmanship.” Mai said after thinking about it for a while.

“What about you two?” Mai asked.

“I’m working on a little bit of everything,” Viktor said and smiled.

“Me too but mostly Martial arts,” Yue murmured, he wanted to get physically stronger and he wanted to gain muscle. He figured that having to use more magic to transform wouldn’t be a bad way to train his magic so he didn’t worry about his body becoming more toned anymore.

“Speaking of Martial arts,” Mai murmured as she remembered the conversation she had with Huy about Fei Xiang and Xia Guiren.

“Have you mastered any of the three arts?”

Yue was surprised by the sudden question and paused for a second, "I've mastered Mystic arts and martial arts in the past but I have to remaster them because of my injury."

"Oh wow, before your injury you were that close to being one of the immortal lords?" Mai asked and looked at him with awe.

Yue nodded. Fei Xiang's goal was to get all three of his disciples to either master all three arts and become lords or to get them to master something to the point where they completely surpass him. He had almost succeeded. Liang Bai surpassed him in swordsmanship long before Xia Guiren's death and Guiren was on his way to completely mastering Cultivation. Yue on the other hand had already mastered Cultivation and Martial arts by the time he was 18 and was just starting to learn magic arts.

"I have to get back to that level now though." Yue sighed. Cultivation was easy as long as he was in a good mental state, he had mastered Cultivation quickly when he was still traveling with Fei Xiang because he was mostly within his domain and because he generally more spiritually connected than other people. He was a dragon after all.

"I definitely know different martial arts than you do but we can train together if you'd like," Viktor said and held Yue's hand.

"...Okay..." Yue murmured, he was definitely worried about possibly hurting Viktor while they sparred but he didn't mention it. He knew Viktor would be able to tell if he held back and might be unhappy about it.

"You don't have to worry about hurting me, I have thick skin." Viktor chuckled and kissed Yue's hand. Yue blushed and mumbled, "Alright."

Mai faked a gag as she watched them.

"Woah Mai...That ring..." Marianne asked as she walked over to the three of them with Alexius and Walter.

Mai smiled and blushed a little as she showed off the ring, "Hehe I'm engaged too now."

"W-wow!" Marianne exclaimed, a bit embarrassed that Mai mentioned her own engagement.

"I totally expected those two to get engaged before you." Walter laughed and looked at Mai's ring.

Yue winced a little, It seemed like everyone had been waiting for them to be in a relationship. Viktor just chuckled and stuck close to Yue.

"They're finally officially together so I'm sure it's coming soon," Mai said and laughed at Yue's reddening face.

"Perhaps," Viktor said and kissed Yue's cheek.

"Wait Wait Wait! You two just got together?!" Walter exclaimed, getting the attention of the whole class.

"Yeah, earlier this month," Viktor said with no shame as he watched Yue's ears turn red.

"T-Then what have you been for the past 6 months???" Marianne asked, she didn't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times she had seen Yue and Viktor kissing or being Lovey-Dovey.

"Uh... C-Close f-friends..." Yue stuttered, using his fan to hide his face as he came to the realization that he and Viktor had already done many things that only lovers do even before starting their relationship.

"I guess we're just acquaintances then," Mai laughed, "Since we have yet to kiss."

Yue quickly shushed her as he sunk into his seat, embarrassed. Viktor just chuckled, he felt no shame.

Ava and Alejandro who were overhearing the conversation couldn't help but wallow in bitterness. 'I seriously gave up when they weren't even together!?' Was the main thought going through their heads as they processed the situation. They gave each other knowing looks and just sulked together.

---

Yue was still embarrassed as he walked with Viktor into his manor. He had come to spar but he was still stuck thinking about the whole situation. He sighed and nudged Viktor a bit, "I'm blaming all of our indecent actions on you from now on." He murmured.

"Hm? They probably will be my fault anyway." Viktor said under his breath and smirked.

"Do you want to get straight to sparring or do you want to just read through magic theory books together?" Viktor said and smiled sweetly, seeing that Yue didn't seem to hear him properly.

"We can read magic theory books first, I don't want to read while sweaty later on," Yue mumbled and let Viktor lead him to the library.

Viktor pointed to a section of around 10 floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, "These are in English." He explained and then pointed to 5 more bookshelves, "Those are in German so you should be able to read them pretty easily but I can help if you don't understand."

"Everything else is in Russian so just ask me if you want to read them so I can translate for you," Viktor said and smiled.

"You really added a lot of new English books..." Yue murmured, he remembered the English books only filling around half a bookcase the last time he came over.

"Well, I know you like reading so I went out and found books you might be interested in that were in English. I thought of just buying some translated versions of books I already had but I don't like having doubles of books, it takes up space that I could use for new ones." Viktor explained.

"I'll actually start teaching you Russian at some point soon, so you can read the Russian books."

Yue smiled and thanked him as he looked through the bookcases. The books all did seem pretty interesting, He picked out a few he thought might be of use for getting better at magic and waited for Viktor to choose what he would be reading too. He looked at Viktor's grimoires as he waited. He was excited to learn Russian, he was curious about the spells Viktor had already learned and what he chose to be entered into his grimoire.

"Oh, this one might interest you too," Viktor said and handed Yue a book on nature spells.

"Huh? How did you know I wanted to work on this?" Yue asked.

"You never use wind or nature magic so I figured that you haven't worked on those skills," Viktor said and led Yue to a little lounge in the room next door to the library.

They just read for a while, occasionally talking or trying out spells.

"I could probably make it seem like I'm casting wind cutter while I use my wind powers. I'm not so sure about nature spells though." Yue murmured. Nature spells usually required complex magic circles because they involved creation and growth, unlike Wind spells which just sped up the mana and molecules in the air.

"Well, there might be a Russian book on simple nature spells but I think it's in Belarus," Viktor murmured, trying to remember exactly where the book is.

"I'll have someone get it for you at some point," Viktor said and looked over at Yue's books.

"You already finished?" Viktor asked.

"Yeah, the parts that interested me were pretty short. So I went through them quickly." Yue murmured, "have you read these books?"

"Not yet, Most of them came in while I was in Russia." Viktor answered, "Why?"

"Oh, I just think you'd be interested in this one. It mentions the spell you used in London." Yue said and stood from where he was sitting.

"I'm going to go get more books, are you done with these?" Yue asked and pointed to the books beside Viktor. Viktor nodded and watched as Yue picked them up and left the room.

Yue gave the books to the servant who worked in the library, he didn't know where Viktor's books came from so he just let them sort out where the books went. He went back to the English section of Books and looked around for a while, a few books caught his eye but he kept looking even after he picked them out.

"...Just one more." He found himself saying after picking around 5 books.

He found one pretty high up on the bookshelves that really interested him. The title was a bit confusing and it didn't have a description so he was intrigued and just picked it out.

"I'll read this first."

When Yue returned to the lounge Viktor immediately recognized the book that Yue had started reading.

'Whoops...Forgot to tell him that fiction books were near the top of the shelves...that's an explicit one too.' Viktor thought to himself and just watched as Yue started reading. He didn't try to stop Yue from reading the book though.