And so the next day began. While there were a variety of events planned throughout the week, the only real significant one was taking place today. 

Arc rushed out of his dorms after taking care of Elaine. She had a bunch of envelopes in her hand when he left. 

“Arc, more requests for duels have arrived.”

“Arc, more people want to beat you up.”

“Arc, didn't I warn you about being a womanizer.”

Apparently a womanizer was popular with all kinds of people, but that was a problem for future Arc. He had ignored Elaine snickers and rushed off to the building that housed the offices for the faculty members. 

Arc had a meeting scheduled with his homeroom teacher. The man was a commoner without an official title or surname, thus he possessed only a simple name—Lucas. 

The meeting was to evaluate Arc’s academic plans for the upcoming semester. Basically, a homeroom teacher also acted like a counselor. 

However, Arc didn’t know what to expect from Lucas because he was a new hire, one meant to replace a teacher that was caught up in the purge that happened months prior. 

Arc tried to do some research into the man, but he hit a roadblock and wasn’t able to discover much. Either Lucas was a clean sheet or his identity was purposely tidied up.  

The only thing Arc could dig up was that Lucas was from Mene. It was the largest human city in Hyperion, the capital of the human domain and the location of the Jade Palace. If Aoi Torii was classified as a kingdom then Hyperion was the empire that stood above it.

In total there were ten human kingdoms. The term Hyperion Kingdom referred to one of those ten kingdoms, the most powerful one. The term Hyperion Empire referred to the collective entity of those ten kingdoms. However, the latter term was not popular. Typically, Jade and Obsidian Empire were used when referring to the collective human and demon realms respectively. 

Historically, the capitals of the human and demonic realms could move. Although it was only in the Obsidian Empire that the seat of power actually transferred to a different kingdom. Simply, the Seat of Jade was always in Hyperion, while the Seat of Obsidian had moved between a few of the demonic kingdoms. Because of this, the imperial line of succession in the human realm was more robust than the imperial line of succession in the demon realm. 

The current Obsidian Emperor was so powerful that he seemingly appeared out of nowhere and turned the demonic realm upside down, usurping the throne for himself. The man’s name was Lepus, but by obtaining the crown he earned the surname Ignis, and thus he became Lepus Ignis.

When he adopted Umikai, she became Umikai Ignis. 

Arc knocked on the door, unsure of what to expect. 

“Come in.” 

Arc pushed the door open to the man’s office. It was abnormally immaculate. There wasn’t even a semblance of dust and no documents were left out. 

The man wore an outfit tailored in a style that was becoming of an official that came from the imperial capital. At least, the attire was less ostentatious than the current fashion that was popular in the Aoi Torii Kingdom. 

Lucas was sitting in a chair with some papers in his hands. As if he had just finished with them, he tucked them away into a filing cabinet. 

“You’re early.” 

Arc was five minutes early. He didn’t expect to be called out on that so he debated on how to reply when the man continued speaking.

“Well sit down. You don’t need to come up with some excuse. Showing up early is regarded as a good character trait as long as one isn’t too early.”

Arc gave an unsure nod, but pulled out the chair that was across from the man’s desk and sat down.

 “I heard you came from Hyperion.”

“The capital, yes.” Lucas tilted his head to get a better look at Arc, “I’ve also heard a bit about you… Youth is a wonderful thing but try to focus on your studies.”

Arc’s brain raced as he tried to analyze the intent behind his homeroom teacher’s simple words. The gesture of changing the topic could have been intentional or unintentional. Was the man uninterested in such topics, was he warning Arc not to pry, was he trying to give Arc advice out of concern, or was he simply deflecting the conversation away from himself? 

Whatever the case, Arc’s smile twitched slightly. He realized that being called out by a teacher was quite awkward. He had succeeded in creating a poor reputation for himself and had proved Yue wrong, but he would be lying if he said he felt good about the details. 

Arc looked slightly down as he spoke. “Will do.” 

“You ranked top in the written exam, but your other scores are less stellar.” 

Lucas’s words brought Arc’s wandering mind back to focus. Arc scratched his neck as he debated on how to respond to the man’s bluntness. 

“The physical examinations were unfortunately unable to test my abilities properly.”

“Is that so?” Despite asking for the affirmative, the man didn’t seem all that interested. 

“Yup.” Arc leaned back in his chair. He had already been pretty relaxed, but now his posture could be considered rude if the other person was a stickler for such things.

While it might seem Arc was responding arrogantly because his performance had been relatively average, he also wasn’t lying. Arc's main goal was not to overshadow Yue, yet he didn’t particularly desire to hide his abilities. Of course, he would have hid them to a certain extent, but the reality was that Arc’s power was conditional. 

When Arc entered a dungeon, which was an important thing for heroes and adventurers to do, his power dropped dramatically. In response to this, whenever Arc acted as a normal student, he tended to lower his ability to match the state that he was in when he entered a dungeon. 

As for Arc’s most important ability, being invisible and undetectable, while it was something he could inherently use at most times, it would be detrimental to reveal that ability. 

“So you believe there will be no problems with the workload you have requested.”

“I understand what you are saying,” Arc said with a smile, “But I’ll be fine.”

“It is pretty common to take two majors at once, but it is also a lot of work. Given your performance on the written exams, you are most likely correct, but it is also my responsibility to make sure your education is smooth. So, I’ll only ask once: Are you sure you want to stick with majoring in both the magic and administration departments?” 

“Yes.”

“Alright you can leave.” 

Arc felt like he would be shooed out if he lingered so he just nodded and got up from the chair. When he was about to leave, Lucas’ stiff voice sounded out again.

“Please tell the next student to come in.” For the first time the man’s eyes showed some emotion. It was like they were smiling as if he found something funny, “You will be seeing her a lot.”

Arc frowned but responded in the affirmative.

Arc understood what the man meant when he went outside the room. In the hallway Sera was there waiting. Before coming to the academy, Sera specialized in two fields: marital combat and administration. 

It seemed she had decided to switch out her combat major for one in magic. Given that her magic stat rose, this was most likely a decision she considered for a while. 

She was sitting on a bench next to the office. Arc walked up to her and started waving his hand in front of her face. She still didn’t notice him.

Arc clicked his tongue. He placed his head directly in front of hers. “You alone?”

Sera blinked and jumped forward. Her forehead smacked into Arc’s. Arc was completely fine because he coated his forehead with his mana.

Sera, on the other hand, groaned and rubbed her forehead. “Arc…” Her deadpan voice finally came out.

“You don’t have to say my name with such hostility.” He chided her. 

“I did no such thing.” Her gaze lingered away from Arc’s face. 

“Are you mad?”

“I don’t get mad.” She held her hands together, her fingers squirming ever so slightly. “I should have known you weren’t serious though…”

At first she seemed nervous, but now she just seemed tired. 

Arc sat next to her, causing her to frown and scoot to the other side of the bench. “You know I’ve seen you cry before.”

The sudden words caused Sera to frown. She finally met his gaze though.

“What is this bullshit about?”

“When you first lost to Yue.”

Sera’s frown deepened but she couldn’t come up with anything to say so she just sat there and looked at Arc.

“You are surprisingly honest… and cute.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Now that Arc knew Sera’s other side he couldn’t help but the way Sera struggled to keep a straight expression cute. 

Rather than answer her though, Arc threw out another question, “Do you want to get stronger?”

She nodded. 

“Turn around.”

Arc thought she might refuse, but she listened to him. He moved her hair to the side. He didn’t touch any more than was needed. 

“What are you doing—”

“Stay still, please.” Arc clipped a necklace around her neck. “This will help you in your magic studies. It is quite valuable.”

Sera gripped the end of the necklace with her hand. There was a beautiful blue gem that radiated out a slight magical pulse. 

“I don’t think—”

“It is way more valuable than you think. Even with your connections, I doubt you could easily come across one of these.”

“What is it?” She shook her head, “Why?”

Arc stood up and took multiple steps away from the bench. “Because you will make Yue stronger.”

Sera’s face was frozen stiff as usual. “I see.”

“Disappointed?” Arc laughed, “Well, I suppose there is another reason.” Arc placed his hand on his lips.

“...”

“I should prepare an adequate gift if I want to court the Young Miss of the Black Swan group, no?” Arc had no plans to stop flirting with Sera just because he found out she was potentially a romantic. Rather, Arc would put more effort into his actions. 

“...”

‘Did she overheat?’ Arc stared at Sera, who no longer moved or spoke. Arc pointed to the room. “It’s your turn by the way.”

Sera gave a light nod, stood up, and left Arc. 

Arc thought Sera deserved a good school life. He might not be serious about her, but the situation had mutual benefits. At the very least, he could take the heat off her so her overprotective father wouldn’t interfere with her love life as much. The rival of the hero should be happy, Arc thought. It was the least they deserved for their hardships.

As for the problems with the various duel requests, Arc continued to push it back for later, and so like that a week had passed by.