Nisha stretched her hands into the air and behind her shoulders. Staying up late and visiting the [Red Night Palace] meant that the elf only returned late at night to the Dharnas estate.

On her way out of the luxurious establishment, she had to collect the unconscious body of a servant employed by her household.

Apparently, the man behaved suspiciously and tried to sneak into the second, then the third floor and had some conflicts with the guards working for Sera Carmen.

Galan had welcomed them back, deeply perplexed how the man he sent to tail the young mistress somehow ended up knocked out in her hands and was too stumped to stop the girl and ask about the matters that happened.

The elf smiled at the memory and entered the yard where another lesson led by the [Eternal Warrior] would soon take place.

Whether it was looking from afar or taking a close look, the classroom for their special lessons had the same appearance as the last time the four selected seeds gathered here.

Swaying in the wind, the [Iron Heart Bamboo] danced with the wind and the well maintained lawn rustled lightly.

If there was one discrepancy with the elf’s memory from her first training under Tyne Pinewood, it had to be the crate filled with beverages and ice to keep the former cold next to their instructors' lawn chair.

Grace Silverwood and Kian Ravenstone sneered at the relaxed and useless man, at least in their opinion he was making a fool of himself and treated the special cooperation training program between the [Adventurer’s Guild] and the [Royal Academy] as a holiday retreat.

He should sooner or later be removed by someone in charge and replaced with a real talented genius capable of guiding them.

Aaren had no particular opinion and stayed content with acting as a side character, far away from the eyes of the nobles and the elf.

His position as the weakest of the four weighed on his mind, and the drive to improve himself gradually took root in his mind.

Finally, Nisha pondered the weird reading from her [Spirit Sight]. Around the [Eternal Warrior]’s figure, the ambient energy behaved strangely and failed to show up in her vision.

Contrary to what one might have guessed, the target of their intense observation showed no inclination that their attention bothered him at all.

Tyne picked a cold beverage and pried open the cap with practiced ease.

“How delightful, all four of my cute students made it to our second session.

Before we start with the procedures, I wanted to inform everyone of a small incident that took place yesterday.

Perhaps a clerical error occurred, whatever it was, the administration had a sudden order to deprive two students of their qualification to attend the academy and bar them from entering the grounds of the [Royal Academy].

Imagine my surprise when those two actually were part of my special class!”

 

As a famous warrior, the intrigues of nobles and the social elite rarely concerned Tyne Pinewood. That did not mean, however, that he had no clue what scenes took place behind the scenes, or that he was helpless to retaliate.

“I won’t bore you with all the details, it’s sufficient to say that everything was sorted out.

The chief reason why their qualification was set to get suspended was insufficient funding for their scholarships.

As the administrator of the special class, I wanted to divert some funds and cover the costs that way, but there was no need to go that far either.

As it happens, the kingdom sponsors Aaren as a hopeful seed from the countryside, and Nisha enjoys the full support from the [Seven Stars Church] in the form of a stipendium.

Generally, I wouldn’t bother you with the details, yet the officials in charge are quite interested where the money for the sponsorship went and the church started an inquiry as well.

You should all be able to guess what happens if the investigation from a combined force by the state and the church finds a culprit.

Fortunately, I also thought of the possibility that an overzealous unknown person might have thought that there would be open spots in the training program if two students could suddenly no longer attend.

Should the [Royal Academy] receive an anonymous donation for the continued sponsorship of ten commoners every turn, the investigation will be stopped immediately.

Take that as you will.”

The [Eternal Warrior] happily drained half of his bottle at once, his throat somewhat dry after unloading the entire affair on the students at once.

Right after his announcement, the silent yard was only filled with the grinding of teeth.

Two noble students glared at their instructor, angry with the news as well as unable to voice their grievances.

Kian and Grace indeed ignored the warning to not interfere with the others outside of the training and asked their servants to take care of the commoners.

Usually, a single word was enough to banish a commoner from attending the academy and the teachers generally did not care enough to prevent such things from happening.

Unfortunately, the entire affair was turned upside down with the intrusion by the church’s investigation.

The officials in charge of investigations were susceptible to bribery often enough and favored their fellow nobles, but the clergy had sworn their loyalty to their faith and never acted in a dishonest fashion.

 

On top of that, the Silverwood and Ravenstone houses, which meant by extension Blackburn, had no ground to go against the church.

While a house on the level of Duke did not really have to fear anything from clashing with one of the halls from the church, that did not mean they had any advantages either.

Obstructing the investigation or refusing to give up the culprit would arouse the interest of the other halls in the [Seven Stars Church], especially if one of their charges was targeted by the whims of noble offspring.

If a conflict arose on the basis of this conflict, only the King himself had enough clout to go against a decision made by all seven head priests, and he would certainly not risk relations between the clergy and state for two unknown descendants of a large and small noble house.

Once Kian Ravenstone and Grace Silverwood were charged as the culprits, the church had all legal rights to decide their punishment, which usually ranged from public corporal punishment such as whipping or confinement in the meditation chambers beneath their church for several turns.

Either way, their social standing or position inside their own houses would be gone like scattered ash.

What really angered them was the condition to drop the case. Ten spots to attend the academy might not sound a lot and it was only money as compensation, but a single student generally studied for four turns, which quadrupled the amount from ten portions of money to forty portions.

Furthermore, as the origin laid with their impulse to go against the arrangements of the [Eternal Warrior], the two noble scions had no face to ask their family for money either.

The total amount of compensation barely remained inside their budget, which meant that they had to shoulder the cost on their own.

It was the same as cutting away at their flesh, as all the money would miss when purchasing resources to continue their cultivation.

 

“Regardless of the minor incidents outside of training, I promised to prove the ranking of your relative strength in the last session.

Ah, Nisha, I think you might have already been gone at that point, I can give you a quick recount.

From my point of view, it’s clear which way the ranking should be as well as your cultivation and approximate battle strength.

Nevertheless, there have been … voices … that do not agree with me and I agreed to hold a series of duels to settle the matter with conclusive evidence.

You are currently the strongest on the list and the right to challenge you falls to Grace, who has the second highest cultivation.

Are you ready to fight it out?”

True to his promise, the special instructor intended to throw them into a brawl and let them figure out a hierarchy among them.

From his point of view, these children had at most the ability to scratch each other lightly, no permanent harm possible.

“Wait!”

Before the man had the chance to explain the rules for their little disagreement, Kian Ravenwood yelled out.

“I can accept being weaker than my cousin, but never lower than a random peasant!

As a true noble, I will face her first and show you that the dignity of my house will prevail over your biased judgment.”

The young noble scion left no room for refusal and stamped towards the rack with wooden training weapons angrily and picked up a traditional set of shortsword and shield.

Returning to the middle of the field, he arrogantly raised his blade and pointed at the elf, challenge evident from his derisive sneer.

Nisha had passively allowed the entire charade to play out the entire time.

She had no real interest to clash with children over pointless matters and prove a rather nebulous and intangible thing like rank in a challenge.

Still, the arrogant manner in which the dragon got challenged irked her, barely.

As for all the talk about honor, face and so on, Nisha did not buy it.

With her [Spirit Sight] it was easy to discern that the boy paled in comparison to Grace Silverwood and he deliberately stepped forward to serve as a vanguard for his cousin.

Nevertheless, even if the elf had to fight twice in a row, it did not diminish her confidence in any manner.

Therefore, she picked a sword reminiscent of a bastard sword, albeit of wooden nature.

Sighing loudly, she faced Tyne Pinewood who tilted his head at her decision to fall for the provocation, yet ultimately said nothing to prevent the farce from going forward.

 

“If you wish to go first and Nisha has no objections, we can start the duel right now.

For those among you who have not yet attended an official duel, the rules are rather straightforward.

According to the kingdom’s law, at least one witness with noble or official rank has to be present and make sure that the agreements regarding the duel are kept.

I will take up that role for now. You two have to come to an agreement regarding the length, additional clauses and victory conditions, then you can go at it.

As the challenger, Kian, you are allowed to make the first motion.

Do you want a time limit or a victory condition to mark the end of the duel?”

“Time limits are unnecessary! I will beat down this commoner and show her the real strength of nobles.”

“Alright, no need to give explanations. Nisha, it’s your turn now. Do you have any additional stipulations, such as the range of the battlefield or similar things?”

“None. Whatever is fine.”

“Great, then the last motion. This is mostly my personal preference rather than a free suggestion by the challenger, you can make a choice between the intensity of my [Wind God’s Bracelet] that I will cast on both of you.

You select between an absolute weight for both of you, or a restriction to the same degree.

Nisha, you can make a choice between half the usual intensity and up to twice that.”

“As if my strength would lose out to that of a woman. Make it an absolute weight, I can cope with that easily.”

Kian threw his head back and adopted an arrogant sneer, which sounded strong but was quite dishonest in the end.

Generally, males had a higher muscle mass and bone density at the same cultivation level, making them more suited to strength based tasks, compared to females with higher agility and finesse.

Not that the dragon cared about the negligible burden, she nodded and agreed.

“Then make it twice the intensity as usual, otherwise the restriction has no meaning.”

“And that marks the end of the preparations for an official duel. If you have no questions, you can start bashing each other on the head now.”