Lanchi's First Class of the New School Year

In September, the heat in the Royal Capital Ikelite had gradually faded.

The morning breeze at Ikelite Magic Academy carried a hint of coolness, making even Lanchi, who lived on the first floor, yawn.

It was the first day of the new school year. He couldn't sleep in.

Lanchi rolled out of bed and left the bedroom. With a toothbrush in his mouth and sleep still clouding his eyes, he looked out through the living room's floor-to-ceiling window. Several chirping birds had stopped along the edge of the small private courtyard, which resembled a little garden. That was the balcony of his dormitory.

When Lanchi drew back the curtains and slowly walked over to the birds, they continued hopping around, showing no intention of flying away.

Lanchi stayed in the courtyard for a while, and more and more birds gathered around him.

They seemed very fond of Lanchi, as though they were hoping to snuggle up beside him.

"I'm not a druid, so why do you all like me so much...?"

Lanchi mumbled to himself incoherently while brushing his teeth.

He had actually noticed this before. Back in the border town, merely walking around had attracted plenty of adorable kittens. After he came to Iketerite Academy, even the birds on campus treated him like a friend.

Small animals had absolutely no wariness toward him.

Perhaps his emerald-green eyes were naturally gentle, or perhaps the aura around him was as free and artistic as a poem or painting.

In any case, he didn't dislike being surrounded by these little creatures.

After washing up, Lanchi put on the Sage Institute student uniform delivered by the Student Service Center.

Then he stood before the mirror.

The young man in the mirror had graceful facial features. The hair beside his left ear had been neatly combed behind it, and his soft black hair looked steady and lustrous beneath the sunlight. Under his long, light eyebrows, his emerald-green eyes were gentle and approachable, yet elegant and composed.

A long coat with dark blue as its primary color covered his slender frame. The Sage Institute uniform was designed like the midnight sky—mysterious and profound. Golden stitched decorations wound along the broad cuffs and hem, forming Hutton Style patterns that were also ancient characters from the Southern Continent.

The collar of the shirt beneath his coat had been folded into a vintage white neckpiece. A small golden badge adorned its center, engraved with the School Badge of Iketerite Academy and the Sage Institute's protective spell formula. Under the sunlight, it gleamed like a cluster of brilliant stars.

His trousers and boots were both dark in color. The boots had been carefully polished, shimmering with a black luster.

Lanchi stamped his feet. They were both sturdy and comfortable, perfectly suited to an adventurer's needs.

"Perfect. Time to go."

Lanchi's legendary life began today!

Iketerite Academy, Sage Institute Main Building.

Compared to the other classical buildings in the academy, this one was quite novel and distinctive. The roof consisted of a series of folded light-sensing magical devices that let in various forms of natural light while blocking sunlight from low angles.

The Sage Institute had more than a hundred qualified students this year, randomly divided into three classes.

Elective courses had no fixed classrooms. Students had to go to the corresponding buildings according to their schedules, and sometimes they might need to visit multipurpose classrooms or experimental grounds belonging to other institutes.

Required courses, however, were courses every student had to take regardless of how they chose their classes. During required-course periods, the students in each class gathered in a fixed classroom.

First-year Sage Institute students had almost no opportunity to challenge the real Shadow World during their first semester, so their basic required courses were scheduled quite densely.

For example, today alone, they had four required courses: "Introduction to Magic Control," "Casting Techniques," "Principles of Silent Casting," and "Magic Detection and Shielding."

"Time to attend class in style."

Following the signs on the campus map, Lanchi quickly found the classroom.

By the time he spotted it, quite a few students were already inside.

He should have arrived fairly early, but feeding his animal friends on the balcony had taken him a few extra minutes.

The Lecture Hall, with its wooden floors and stepped rows, was extremely spacious. Every student had plenty of room to move and a broad desk.

Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows along the side was a green lawn. Sunlight streamed through the windows, making the classroom bright and cozy. The lighting combined natural and artificial light and could be adjusted as needed.

When the students in the classroom saw Lanchi enter, they all revealed the expression of someone who had discovered a rare specimen.

The black-haired, green-eyed nobleman was undoubtedly the "Dark High Judge," the top-ranked student in this year's Sage Institute Entrance Examination.

That was a title some students at the academy had given Lanchi, representing a new category among the Sage Institute's magic-related professions.

Although Lanchi had become famous for his performance in the second round of the examination, no one knew anything about his actual combat ability.

The rumor that had spread most widely was: "That guy had unbelievably good luck. During the third round, the examiner happened to suffer a congenital cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, so he passed with ease."

As a result, quite a few students were envious, jealous, resentful, and skeptical of Lanchi.

"Huh."

As soon as he entered the classroom, Lanchi looked over the scattered seats and quickly noticed an isolated figure in the back—

Duke Miss Hughberlian.

She was the good teammate he had encountered in Infinite Phantom Canyon during the third round of the practical combat assessment.

She seemed to have deliberately chosen a seat toward the back.

But that wasn't all. No one had taken any of the seats in the entire circle around her, as though everyone were deliberately avoiding her.

It made Hughberlian look somewhat ostracized.

Lanchi felt that this wasn't right.

So he followed the steps toward the back of the classroom. When he reached the row where Hughberlian sat, he took a seat nearby.

"Good morning, Hughberlian."

Lanchi smiled and greeted her.

"Mm."

Hughberlian glanced at him in surprise, then turned her head away and ignored him.

Her conflicted gaze clearly showed that she wasn't deliberately trying to snub Lanchi. She was merely keeping a little distance from him for his own good.

Seeing this, Lanchi didn't make further conversation with Hughberlian.

To him, it made no difference where he sat to attend class, and Hughberlian was the only person he knew.

So he opened the copy of "Hutton Kingdom Law Exam—Collection of Real Cases" in his hands and began studying seriously.

Having this morning reading to keep him company while he waited for class to begin was simply perfect.

As expected, the first three of the day's dull and flavorless required classes finally ended.

Four in the afternoon.

The sky had already turned orange-red, and the sun would soon begin its slow descent. The shadows of the trees outside the classroom windows stretched across the lawn, while the wind rustled the leaves.

Hughberlian was still sitting in the back row, and Lanchi was still seated near her.

However, the state of the two was now completely different from the morning.

Hughberlian found these courses extremely easy, and could even be said to be handling them with ease.

As for Lanchi—

He was now lying facedown on his desk, fast asleep.

The first three classes seemed to have placed too great a burden on him. The half-hour before the final class began was a rare period of recovery for him.

The classroom was located in one of the Sage Institute's historic renovated buildings. The wooden frames of its doors and windows were almost seamlessly integrated with the red brick walls outside.

The high ceiling that gave the space its distinctive character was made of plaster, with details retaining the classical style of the Hutton Kingdom. Several automatically adjustable magical lamps in the dome cast soft light, making all the students in the classroom feel particularly comfortable.

Although the classroom was empty during a period without lessons, it was much livelier than in the morning.

Besides the students who had arrived early and were sitting in their seats, studying their textbooks while waiting for the next class, upperclassmen and students from other institutes would occasionally come to the Sage Institute's corridor or classrooms to chat with acquaintances who had just started the new school year about all kinds of anecdotes.

By contrast, the back of the classroom appeared exceptionally empty, as though a barrier had separated the two spaces.

Hughberlian sat there quietly, her amber eyes gazing through the window at the distant sky. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes held many thoughts.

Some of the upperclassmen who came to "visit" had been friends or acquaintances of the new students before they entered the academy. There were also "star students" like Princess Vivian from another class, whose teams had already reserved her before she even enrolled and who were surrounded by admirers.

However, none of that excitement had anything to do with Hughberlian.

Even though she was the second-ranked new student in the Sage Institute this year, no team would come to recruit her.

When her father had still been present, no one had dared bully her because she possessed demon-kin blood. It had seemed as though everyone around her was kind. Now that she was alone and powerless, she finally experienced just how much hostility and suspicion demon-kin faced in this country.

Making it safely through the afternoon was already fortunate enough.

Unlike most people, she didn't want anyone to come looking for her.

If an upperclassman from the capital came to seek her out, it would certainly be one of those troublesome figures. It would bring disaster, not fortune.

Another thing that could be called fortunate was perhaps that she still had a gentle person beside her. He had never despised her for being a jinx, and since the day they met, he had never held even the slightest malice toward her.

Hughberlian couldn't help looking at the talented, slightly self-destructive sleeping youth beside her.

Several students from other classes had already come to the classroom to sound Lanchi out. But after seeing him sitting beside her, their expressions changed, and they had found excuses to leave.

Hughberlian had also finally discovered something.

Lanchi looked extremely intelligent, but in reality, he was hopeless at spells.

Apart from using Magic Cards, he had never learned how to use spells at all. He was completely unlike a normal magic-related combat professional.

Yet he was extraordinarily earnest. Even though he was suffering terribly, he refused to skip class or study carelessly.

Hughberlian sighed helplessly. She hadn't expected that the seemingly omnipotent Lanchi would have something he was bad at, too.

Although students were chatting in the classroom and noisy sounds came from the corridor outside,

Hughberlian continued turning the pages quietly, doing her best not to wake Lanchi beside her.

One kindness deserved another. She had always remembered grudges, but she also remembered the good others had done for her.

Moreover, for some reason, Lanchi's presence seemed to carry a natural gift that unconsciously calmed the hearts of living beings around him—even when he was merely lying there asleep.

Before she realized it, her thoughts had also become immersed in the book.

The sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows changed quietly as the seconds passed. It seemed that thick clouds had drifted over, briefly blocking the brilliant warmth of the afternoon sun. The natural light in the classroom dimmed from time to time, and even the light and shadows on the floor seemed covered by a layer of gauze.

However, this did not affect Hughberlian's reading. She simply felt an inexplicable sense of security—a feeling she had not experienced in a very long time.

"Hughberlian, I didn't expect you to actually enroll successfully."

A gentle yet abrupt voice sent a chill up Hughberlian's spine, and she quickly turned her head.

At some point, a fair-skinned young man had appeared in the aisle beside her seat. His hands were clasped behind his back, and his expression was calm and composed, with an air of arrogance and self-assurance.

"..."

Although Hughberlian's expression did not change, her aura had already turned extremely hostile.

"Mo Dan... What do you want?"

Clearly, he was someone she was extremely unwilling to see.

Mo Dan Gasigas was the second son of House of Marquis Gasigas. He was also a talented Third Year Student of the Sage Institute, with formidable strength as a challenger of the Shadow World.

Compared with the nobles from factions hostile to Hughberlian's father, Duke of Aransal, House of Marquis Gasigas, which had originally been friendly with Duke of Aransal, was even more hateful to her.

Ever since Duke of Aransal disappeared, Marquis Gasigas had not only refused to help her but had also watched her like a predator, hoping to force her to marry into the marquis's house and thereby gain control over her.

"Hughberlian, if you want to challenge the Shadow World in your first year, you can consider joining my team. Or rather, you can only join my team, because I'm the only one willing to take you through the Shadow World."

Mo Dan's words sounded polite, as though an elder brother were speaking to his younger sister. But his eyes made no attempt to conceal his naked desire to possess and exploit Hughberlian.

"I don't need it."

Hughberlian merely replied coldly.

She knew that, although she had already been exempted from the examination and become an Iron-ranked adventurer because of her high evaluation in the Entrance Examination, just like Lanchi,

the rule forbidding first-year students from challenging the Shadow World alone meant that she was destined to waste many opportunities to grow stronger during her first year.

Because—

Just as Mo Dan had said—

there would not be a single team at this school willing to accept a demon-kin like her.