David and Syndra finished their study session within 6 hours, they hadn’t completely finish the first book David picked up, but had already gone through the majority together leaving only a bit left to finish, it was only because of Syndra that they were able to progress so quickly as Syndra always solved any problem David had whenever he didn’t understand something making learning faster, and since they had done a lot for the past 6 hours both David and Syndra were starving which ultimately made them decide to stop for now and go out eat something in the cafeteria.

David was planning on finishing the rest of the book once they went back to their dorm, borrowing books from the first level of the library was completely free as those were considered public student property and knowledge that wasn’t actually that valuable for wizards, but even then David could only borrow 3 books at the same time and he had to return them after 2 weeks.

As for the rest of the books Abigail picked for him, they were simply left on the table, Syndra told him a neat rule of this academy where you could leave any book you were reading at any place as long as you placed a magic marker on it, the libraries in this building upon seeing the marker would simply place those books on the counter for you to pick up later, the marker was valid for up to 3 days though this didn’t hinder others from taking those books if they wanted to, you could also use the student card to register the books you wanted to read to find them later which David did just in case while Syndra placed the markers for David as he couldn’t do it himself as he didn’t know how to make a marker with his magic yet.

While waiting for Syndra to finish, David thought a lot about what he learned for the past 6 hours, his temple was slightly throbbing from all the information he had crammed, but overall he felt extremely excited by his newfound knowledge even if it was trivial, he hadn’t learned anything about casting magic, but this didn’t really discourage him as he thought that casting magic wasn’t something like a beginner like him should be worried about.

-Alright, I finished setting the markers, after 3 days we can come back and reset them too.

Syndra said, smiling at David as she came up to him very intimately, she did that after making sure that no one was watching and David didn’t reject her either though he did smile wryly before answering.

-Thanks, but I don’t want to bother you again, I think registering the books to the card is enough, anyways I am starving let’s go eat something.

Saying as much both David and Syndra agreed that they needed something to eat, it was still midday most people were already out and about at this hour, and it showed because as soon as Syndra and David walked out of the library they saw far more people than they had seen in the morning walking around.

And just like that morning, their appearance immediately garnered attention as everyone looked over to them, but it was clear that they weren’t looking at the both of them for the same reason, one side looked at them with dislike and coldness while the other was curious and attracted, it didn’t need to be said as to who was using which look to look at them, but while getting goosebumps from these stares David couldn’t help but get closer to Syndra before whispering something in her ear.

-I didn’t really ask you before, but what is senior’s reason for being inside “the” dorm, from what you said, there at least needs to be a reason for why people are put in that dorm, what is your reason?

-My reason huh…

For some reason Syndra got awfully quite the moment David asked that question, for a moment David thought that maybe he asked something he shouldn’t have.

While studying that book together David got to know a lot of do’s and don’ts in wizarding culture, for example asking the star rating or what kind of affinity a wizard had were one of the things considered rude towards a wizard if not taboo, wizards also couldn’t easily talk to someone who was above their wizard rank, Syndra in fact was a rank 1 wizard someone normally David had to be respectful to, not only because she was his senior but also because she was someone more powerful then him.

Of course Syndra immediately told David that he didn’t have to do any of that for her in any circumstance, but ever since David came to know that, he decided that he would be respectful to her while they were out in public, not only because he didn’t want to look rude by being disrespectful to his senior, but also because he didn’t want to besmear Syndra’s dignity in front of everyone even if Syndra herself didn’t care.

Syndra felt a bit troubled by David’s insistence of having him call her senior in public but since they were already in “that” kind of relationship she didn’t feel too distant from him, she still wanted him to quickly become a rank 1 wizard so he could stop calling her senior, but even with David’s talent Syndra believed that it would at least take half a year for it to happen which is why she could only endure for now.

Back to Syndra, she didn’t take long to answer, but the answer she gave was followed by a troubled smile as she didn’t seem to know on how to answer exactly.

-Let’s just say, I have a bit of an issue with one of the professors in this academy, I have to remind you that it isn’t only the students who treat us this way, but the professors too as most of them are in one way or another connected to the heated political situation at the academy…honestly you shouldn’t think about this too much, nothing good will come out of getting involved in this even we usually don’t directly involve ourselves so should you.

Syndra advised, David had already heard a lot about this political conflict between the headmistress and the board of directors which were the nobles, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious, but he believed in Syndra when she said that this was trouble, and even if he got involved what possibly could he do? David wasn’t even a rank 1 wizard yet, in the eyes of the higher ups he was a mere ant and they were right since he was weak.

Stopping the conversation at that, Syndra and David continued their way to the cafeteria, all the while people continued to stare and whisper about them, previously David could about bear it because there weren’t too many people as it was still morning and classes hadn’t started yet, but now that it was midday and people were more active, obviously the pressure was now starting to get to David.

Syndra on the other hand wasn’t perturbed one bit by the people whispering of them, even though she was uncomfortable before when they first went to the library, how she suddenly became so undisturbed was beyond David considering it was him who helped her put her mind out of their surroundings.

Of course there was a reason why Syndra didn’t really care about the others anymore, in fact this was very normal to Syndra the only difference here was that there were a few more pairs of eyes because of David, but overall it wasn’t different to her usual life here in the academy, the only reason she became uncomfortable previously was because it was the first time she was with David out in the open exposed to their stares, she didn’t care about them as much as she cared about what David thought upon hearing them, but seeing that David also didn’t care about them or their whispers made Syndra also stop caring bringing her back to normal.

The entire time she thought that David would be fine, but upon noticing how he was a bit disturbed by the people Syndra realized that she miscalculated, it was true that David didn’t care about them whispering, but that didn’t mean he was immune to their stares, anyone would be a bit hard pressed mentally when over 50 people started to stare at you, Syndra who was used to this was one thing while David who was new was another, Syndra started to think that maybe going to the cafeteria for lunch was a bad idea considering that there would be more people, she was about to suggest going back to their dorm and have the golem make them something to eat, but just as she was about to speak.

-Hey! Syndra! David! Over here!

A familiar voice suddenly came over them, looking at the direction of the voice both Syndra and David discovered two more familiar figures, the one in particular who just shouted out to them was waving her hand at them while smiling as her golden hair swayed left and right, her red eyes too were unmistakable as they reminded him of rubies, it was Valentia their dormmate.

And next to her stood another one of their dormmates, standing at least a head taller she looked far more subdued then the girl next to her who didn’t care about how loud she was or where she was, holding a few stacks of books against her chest but still not being able to hide their size her thick rimmed glasses hid her eyes remarkably as her tied, silver hair swayed in the wind, she was Olga a person he had only met today.

Seeing two familiar and friendly faces gave David the urge to immediately go over to them and seek a bit of security from the stares, he didn’t really think that just them alone would be enough but he went to them anyways, Syndra too followed suit it seemed as if the sudden appearance of her rival put a spike in her emotions but overall even Syndra was glad to see them.

-Hey! You guys finished? Where are you going?

Valentia asked, looking energetic as she seemed to have done some physical work before coming here most likely training of some sort which was proven through some residual sweat she head on her skin, Olga on the other hand didn’t look much different, but the stacks of books she held did look intimidating for a beginner like David as even the title of the books were some technical gibber shish that David couldn’t make heads from tails.

It looked as if these two were hard at work and most likely they also came out for the same reason.

-Syndra and I were thinking of going to the cafeteria since we finished our library tour, what are you guys doing?

-Oh! Actually we are also going to the cafeteria, Olga and I encountered each other on the way, how about we all go together?

-Yeah let’s go!

David agreed, while Olga and Syndra didn’t seem to have a particular opinion regarding this though it seemed like they did prefer going together as 4.

The stares did get a bit more congregated though after they became a group of 4, but this time at least people started to move on again, surprisingly Valentia also seemed to help a lot as her savage aura did a wonder on their surroundings as people didn’t easily look at Valentia without being stared back from her causing a lot of people to stop as they finally got a bit more peace.

-phew…

-Don’t worry about them, they’re only like this because most of them are freshmen, and since they are mostly nobles who are prone to gossiping they likely just heard a few preposterous rumors about us, once the classes begin they won’t even have time to care, and as for the cafeteria we can just sit in one of those cubicles so no one disturbs us.

Valentia reassured David, quickly noticing how tense he was, her words did indeed reassure David and once he knew that there were separate cubicles where they could be in private he felt much better allowing his hunger to return as he looked forward to the meal.

Syndra, seeing how perfectly Valentia took care of the situation felt as if her role was taking from her all of a sudden, originally it was Syndra who wanted to comfort David but Valentia suddenly appeared and done a much better job than her.

In the end Syndra couldn’t really do much about this, Valentia was simply far better with taking care of others, when Hyura and Olga first came a year ago there was no one there to guide them as they weren’t actually supposed to be in the academy until they were of age but arrived anyways because of the circumstances, at the time it was Valentia who took the role of the guide leading them along and generally acting like a proper senior to them.

Syndra too helped these two whenever she could and so did the two professors, but still she didn’t think she could compare to someone as natural as Valentia in taking care of others, even Syndra was helped by Valentia a few times and knew how to was to be taken care of by her, even though they were rivals it didn’t mean they disliked each other even if they would never admit as such.

While Syndra was thinking that, Olga was also quietly thinking about something, her nose in fact twitch a little as she seemed to have discovered something before sneakily walking beside Syndra who didn’t notice her before whispering to her in a questioning manner.

-ztrange I zmell seminal fluids on you, your skin Is also glozzier then it was in the morning and your eyez are brighter too…David doesn’t look too different but he haz the same smell and I can even smell zome lavender on him which I didn’t smell before this morning as he smelled like nightqueen, how is it that his scent changed so quickly within the past 6 hours? Thinking about it the only person in our house who uses lavender is you senior Zyndra az you alwayz wash yourself with lavender soap everyday…

She left her words a bit hanging at the end obviously observing her dormmates reaction to that, Syndra was shocked the moment she heard what Olga just said to her, but kept her face stone cold trying not to betray any emotion, on hindsight Syndra should have guessed that Olga out of all people would notice something, even though David and Syndra had gone to great lengths on cleaning themselves so they wouldn’t be noticed, they should have been more thorough considering that they had a literal bloodhound living with them who was a genius potioneer, again desire had clouded Syndra’s thinking, even though Olga wasn’t outright saying that Syndra and David had something going on, she may as well already know with her intellect.

Syndra at that moment tried to think about anything to give Olga the slip, but no matter what she thought of Syndra couldn’t think of anything and time was ticking as well, eventually Syndra could only grit her teeth before whispering back to Olga.

-What do you want…

Olga in turn didn’t say anything at first, her expression also didn’t show anything, but Syndra could see her face turn red as a tomato, slightly steaming even before quickly turning back to normal as she made a display of coughing before whispering back.

-Zee me tonight in my room, I want to talk.

-Hahh..alright.

Syndra agreed having not much of a choice really, she already started to dread about what they would talk about this night, even though she knew that Olga would never do anything nefarious or blackmail her in any manner, she also knew that Olga out of all of them was the most resourceful, most of the time Olga was fairly harmless and even meek, but that is only in front of people she didn’t know or cared for, in terms of planning and intellect Olga was by far the most adept, there had yet to be a time when Syndra beat Olga in a game of chess, even though Syndra came from a military family that had for generations produced skilled tacticians and strategists, even with her education and background she couldn’t beat Olga who was a commoner who didn’t have any of that, when it came to natural talent Olga simply overwhelmed Syndra in that aspect, but then again god was fair as Olga wasn’t the best when it came to combat even though she was very tall.

The back and forth whispering between Syndra and Olga wasn’t noticed by Valentia nor David as they were actually absorbed in their own conversation.

-Valentia can I ask you something?

-Sure, ask away!

-Thanks, do you know where I can go through a magic test?

-A magic test?

Valentia exclaimed not sure why David would ask her something like that as anyone admitted into the academy would have their affinity and soul star rating checked before being admitted.

Normally if you had any talent for magic at all you would be immediately recruited by one of the wizarding schools to be taught to become a wizard as people with magical talent were still rare.

But Ravenwing academy is a extremely high ranking academy compared to the other schools of wizarding, the minimum requirement of eligibility was that you needed to at least have a average affinity for any element and a 3 star soul rating, if you didn’t have both of them then entering the school is impossible, every year the school gets massive amount of students trying to get inside and become a student of the academy, the reason for that is because Ravenwing academy is one of the oldest schools of wizarding, which automatically makes it the one that has gathered the most amount of magical knowledge over the course of the past few era’s meaning it is the perfect place for a wizard to grow as fast as possible.

Because of this Ravenwing academy never has a problem of getting its maximum amount of students each year who are all above average when it comes to talent.

But then Valentia remembered again the unique circumstance’s for how David got into the academy, the headmistress had given David his scholarship when he was just 4 years old, doing a magic test at that age was simply murder and seeing that David was immediately brought to the academy the moment he came of age, there was no window of opportunity for David to do any kind of magic test meaning he himself didn’t even know what kind of affinity he had or what soul star rating he possessed.

Valentia was curious about how talented David was after witnessing his control over mana, she didn’t doubt for a second that he was anywhere bellow a soul star rating of 3 as this amount of control simply wasn’t possible without at least that much soul strength.

For retrospect the soul star rating doesn’t indicate the strength of the soul itself but rather its growth rate.

People with a 1 to 2 soul star rating usually don’t get any higher then rank 1 wizard.

While people with a 3 soul star rating can at least get to rank 2 wizard and maybe even rank 3 wizard while also giving an extremely slim possibility for rank 4.

Next people between 4 to 5 soul star rating have a extremely high chance of becoming rank 4 wizards.

Which finally puts the people who have a soul star rating of 6 which was the limit guaranteed to become rank 4 wizards and even beyond, nowadays people who have a soul star rating of 6 are called chosen ones as it is believed they are individuals who are loved by god, but since wizards were people who were semi-scientific in their ways they don’t actually believe in gods who they rather see as extremely powerful beings then divine entities.

These chosen ones were extremely rare though it is speculated that only 1 in every hundred thousand years is born, but currently in their era there are actually 3 known chosen ones who attend 3 different academies on the same level as Ravenwing in different countries.

Valentia momentarily thought about this, also thinking about David’s display of skill, she couldn’t help but get slightly unnerved about discovering what soul star rating David could possibly be even though she never saw a chosen one before, she imagined them to be something like David who revealed the impossible with his mana control, she didn’t fear exactly David’s talent itself but more exactly what would happen after it was known.

What if David really was a chosen one? What would the academy do? Obviously they would first make sure that David wouldn’t leave their academy no matter what, even though they were one of the best academies in the known continent compared to the other 3 who had chosen ones respectively they sort of lacked short in their image, if they found out that David was a chosen one they could immediately fix that problem and raise an extremely powerful wizard for themselves, this would actually be for David best interest, but it would also bring David into all sorts of future conflicts as Chosen ones proven through the records of history either never lived too long or lived for so long that they became gods themselves who weathered through every event imaginable be it tragedy or bloodshed.

To be honest Valentia’s impression of David didn’t strike as someone who like something like that, and she was right by thinking that as David was one who considered a quiet stable life to be a perfect life, if he was suddenly thrown into the life of a chosen one like that he wouldn’t like it at all and most likely have chosen to go into hiding and become a perfumer instead.

But David was still unaware, while he did know what an chosen one was through reading the book, he didn’t consider himself to be one because he was still inexperienced plus he didn’t know what it entailed to be a chosen one.

Valentia considered what to really say to David because of this as she had a suspicion that David was extraordinary.

But while she was thinking that trying to think of what to say to David, David couldn’t help but notice a small crowd having gathered on the side of a path as they walked.

In the middle of that crowd he could briefly spot a pleasant adult male sitting behind a table on top of which was a big crystal ball sitting on top of a red pillow.

The crystal ball shone a bright yellow almost electric light as a student held it with both of her hands before letting go the crowd made oohhs and ahhhs stroking the ego of the individuals as she looked proud for some reason.

-Valentia…what is that?

David pointed at the small crowd with the crystal ball, as soon as Valentia saw the crystal ball she couldn’t help but go pale for a second.

-This timing couldn’t get any worse…

-What?

David didn’t understand what Valentia meant, the other two girls behind them also quickly noticed the little crowd as soon as Valentia and David stopped walking, they in turn didn’t look too concerned about what was going on, Syndra in fact seemed to gain a sudden bright idea as she abruptly grabbed David’s hand and pulled him towards the crowd.

-David let’s go! We can finally use that device to conduct a magic test for you!

-Really?! Let’s do it!

Hearing what Syndra said put David into an excited mood as he really wanted to know in what element he was talented in and what soul star rating he possessed.

He was so excited that he ran with Syndra with all his might, quickly leaving the other two behind as they watched with sort of dumbfounded expressions on their faces.

Olga at these two holding hands that easily finding it a bit inappropriate for some reason before focusing back on the crowd and seeing the crystal ball, she only needed to think for a few seconds before she realized something looking back at Valentia who had a perplexed look on her face.

-Zenior Valentia…if David usez that crystal ball maybe…

-I know, lets run after them I think we need to stop them and explain David the situation first before this gets out of control.

Hearing her senior’s reliable words, Olga nodded before following after Valentia who ran after them telling them to stop.

But by the time they could even hear what Valentia was saying both Syndra and David were already by the crowd, the people immediately noticed the newcomers as they were quite attention grabbing, people made way for them as well, not because they wanted to be polite but rather because no one wanted to be near Syndra as they found her to be an eyesore.

The male professor on the other hand didn’t share the student’s dislike, he even smiled at Syndra before saying.

-Ahh, if it isn’t Lady Syndra are you well?