Sister Scramble

Thanks to the simple-minded Garen, Lux was able to temporarily forget her minor troubles and finally get a good night's sleep.

The next day, as Sona visited Crown Guard Manor in return, Karya's illegal little classroom finally began again—with Sona acting as cover, their lessons no longer required a book on etiquette or history, but were conducted in the form of musical exchange.

Lux's lessons proceeded as usual.

Sona's lessons, however, required combining playing music with spellcasting.

Therefore, Karya first had to explain music theory to Sona, guiding her playing like a music teacher, and then instill magic knowledge in her.

In this situation, the two were somewhat mutually disruptive—even if Karya could manage to multitask, the teaching effectiveness would still be significantly reduced.

Fortunately, as an experienced teacher, Karya was quite adept in this area. Although the magic knowledge and skills they each needed to master were not the same, the magic knowledge they needed to grasp to understand others was consistent.

Through this method, Karya divided his teaching content into large group lessons that could be taught together and small individual lessons. The performance parts of the small lessons could be conducted in the garden while Lux was exercising.

Thus, Karya's "shepherd's life" officially began.

After an excited night, Sona, having finally become a student of Master Karya, was surprised to find that he was completely different from what she had imagined.

Karya possessed extremely high musical literacy. Through Aihua, he could easily answer almost all of Sona's questions and even taught her many special fingerings for playing the piano—everything seemed normal.

However, beyond knowledge, wasn't Master Karya's choice of words a bit too tricky?

At first, the kind and gentle Sona tried to rationalize it by saying, "Master Karya is simply too exceptionally talented, so his requirements are just higher."

But as the large group lessons began, and she realized Karya spoke this way about everything, Sona felt his image in her heart begin to crumble.

"There are always some foolish people who mistake magic for mysticism. They think magic should be unfathomable. Their understanding and behavior are as dogmatic and ignorant as mistaking anything yellow for gold. These people would even cradle a pile of dung to their chests and refuse to let go."

The terrible analogy left Sona's eyes vacant.

"Mysticism does have its unique aspects in certain areas, especially for those rats who like to use curses. They often weave curses with all their might to achieve a goal that is beyond their abilities, but due to their lack of power, they inevitably leave a weak loophole in these special cursed magics. In such cases, mysticism can compensate for these laughable loopholes."

The awful example caused Sona to lose her sparkle.

"But honestly, who uses curses? From now on, if you see any secretive, shifty-eyed mages, you can all consider them rats. Yes, I said it. And if you truly become entangled by such a curse due to your own stupidity and carelessness, I can only consider it as being bitten by a rat. Tsk, tsk, tsk, how embarrassing."

For the first time in her life, Sona wanted to roll her eyes.

"Of course, I imagine people who have received formal mage training wouldn't be bitten by rats, right?"

Hearing about rats again, Sona finally sighed helplessly—she suddenly felt a bit regretful.

She had indeed been too naive. Could someone like this truly be called a master?

"..."

"..."

As noon arrived, Sona was invited to the Crown Guard Manor's dining hall to have lunch with Lux. Then, she secretly took Lux's hand and asked a question that almost made Lux burst into laughter on the spot.

"Is Master Karya always this irritable?"

"No, Karya isn't irritable right now," Lux quickly released her sword hilt and replied. "When you can't answer his questions during evening study, you'll understand what irritable truly means."

Hearing this, Sona suddenly felt very fortunate that she had to go home that evening and wouldn't be staying for evening study.

In reality, Karya wasn't as irritable as Sona thought.

When he was still an Ascended, Karya was actually very gentle and refined—though behind that gentleness lay a dark humor that was unbearable, at least to his students, Professor Karya had always been a polite person.

However, after becoming a Darkin, everything changed.

When Karya had a body, it would be eroded by Void energy, which would then affect his mental state. Even without a body, as long as Karya's consciousness was clear, he had to face immense pressure.

In such a situation, this irritable way of speaking was a form of special release, allowing Karya to alleviate some of his stress and maintain his composure while thinking.

Fortunately, Lux and Sona were both good-natured young ladies. Lux's talent alone showed how incredibly bright she was. Sona, on the other hand, was gentle and kind, always silently tolerating Karya's irritable remarks and extracting the useful information from them. After adapting to Karya's unique teaching methods, their progress was astonishingly rapid.

To outsiders, Lux and Sona were usually good friends, reading together, practicing piano together, and attending banquets together.

But in reality, they were part of the Mage Front Alliance, absorbing nearly endless knowledge from Karya together, developing multi-dimensionally at an astonishing pace.

Besides spellcasting, Lux also made significant progress in swordsmanship. Sona, although she didn't learn swordsmanship, learned a vast amount of music theory, noble etiquette, and even natural history knowledge from Karya.

With Karya as her personal system, Lux's behavior and demeanor perfectly embodied the model of a Demacian noble.

Although Sona didn't have Karya as an etiquette instructor, she didn't need to speak much, and she had diligently studied Demacian etiquette knowledge. Therefore, she was also an elegant noble lady.

Thus, these two young ladies transformed from initially "praiseworthy for their friendship" into "the children and companions others envied," becoming typical examples that made countless people grit their teeth.

However, besides their excellence, there was another person who would grit her teeth at Lux and Sona, and what displeased her was not their perfect image, but their close relationship.

This person was Sona's sister, another daughter of the Buweier family—Kashina.

In fact, Sona's adoption by the Buweier family was not only due to political reasons and the affection of the Buweier family's matriarch, Lestara Buweier, for Sona, but Kashina also played a very important role.

From a young age, Kashina longed for a sister to accompany her—because her father, Bullet, was a close friend and advisor to Jiawen III, and her mother was a high-ranking manager in the Illuminati, her life had been very lonely since childhood.

Although many people were willing to flatter her and praise her, what Kashina lacked was never these things; what she lacked was genuine companionship and patient listening.

Therefore, Kashina was the first to raise her hand and vote for adopting Sona—she didn't care about her inheritance rights, she just wanted a companion.

As it turned out, Sona was indeed the kind of sister Kashina wanted. She was gentle and kind, preparing hot water for Kashina after her training, massaging her and offering a few suggestions when she grumbled about unsuccessful training, actively covering for her when she got into trouble, and eating with Kashina when their parents were busy with work...

But!

Why was his own sister spending most of her time with Lux of the Crown Guard family?!

Kashina had initially held Lux in high regard.

She herself didn't quite understand etiquette. As the heir of the Buweier family, she needed to train in martial arts and inherit her father's position in the military in the future. Therefore, like most people serving in the military, she wasn't very skilled in etiquette and social interaction.

So, at first, when Sona started communicating with Lux about music and learning etiquette, Kashina was very supportive.

I go train my martial arts, my sister learns etiquette, we all have bright futures.

However, as Karya's surprise quizzes became more frequent, sometimes requiring Sona to join evening study sessions, Kashina finally felt something was wrong.

Upon careful calculation, wasn't her sister spending more time with Lux than with her?!

Was this acceptable?

Clearly, it was not!

So, whenever someone praised the friendship between Lux and Sona and mentioned them together, Kashina would grit her teeth.

Damn it, that's my sister!

Lux, don't you have a brother?!

The sensitive Sona quickly noticed her younger sister's subtle displeasure. She tried to focus more attention on Kashina, to better fulfill her role as an older sister. But unfortunately, after Kashina began to see Lux as an "enemy," this only stimulated the young girl.

It turned out that eight-year-old girls could also get jealous.

Despite her indignation, Kashina wasn't a bratty child who would go cause trouble at Crown Guard Manor. After much thought, she decided to go bother Garen—Your sister stole my sister, so I'm here to deal with you, is that okay?

And so, after a training session one day, Garen, on his way home, encountered an unexpected challenge.

"Garen of the Crown Guard family!" Kashina, armed with a small round shield and a short sword, and clad in full armor, used picking up her sister as an excuse to arrive at Crown Guard Manor early. She then successfully intercepted Garen as he returned to the manor. "I challenge you!"

"Oh?" Garen's eyes lit up at the words. "Who are you? Have you heard my title of [Future Power of Demacia]?"

"[Future Power of Demacia]?" Kashina, who had been full of fierce spirit, was taken aback by the title. "What's that?"

"I've already decided, I will become the Power of Demacia recognized by everyone!" Garen raised his greatsword high. "However, I haven't completed my training yet, so until then, I am the [Future Power of Demacia]—Wait, you haven't heard of me? Then why are you challenging me?"

"I..."

Kashina blinked. Realizing she didn't have a better reason to challenge him, she simply went along with Garen's words. "Hmph, I'm not convinced, so what?"

"Ah-ha, then I shall take the first step towards becoming the Power of Demacia!" Garen struck a pose to show off his biceps. "Come on, my first challenger, state your name!"

"The person who will defeat you is Kashina!" The little girl tapped her round shield with the short sword in her left hand. "Got it?"

"Got it!"

Garen excitedly threw away his scabbard and strode forward.

Although Kashina was a full four years younger than Garen, due to girls developing earlier, she was only half a head shorter than him. Furthermore, Garen was completely unaware of which members belonged to the Buweier family and didn't notice the subtle pronunciation difference between Kashina and Kashino—so he had no idea that his challenger was actually a girl.

The surrounding guards from the Crown Guard and Buweier families never expected Garen to actually attack. By the time they realized Garen was charging and tried to intervene, it was already too late.

The next moment, with a roar of "Deceitful villain, justice will prevail," Garen's greatsword was raised high and brought down with force.

A teeth-grinding metallic screech directly assaulted their eardrums. Kashina, in a sword-and-shield defensive stance, was knocked down by a single blow. Under the astonishing difference in strength, she couldn't even hold onto her shield, let alone maintain her balance.

Fortunately, twelve-year-old Garen couldn't truly cleave through armor.

So, when Kashina was helped up, she was actually fine—having trained since she was six, a frontal blow exceeding her limits was at most a minor bruise on her arm, which was nothing to Kashina.

However, Kashina, who had never experienced such treatment, had no technique for taking a beating. After being knocked down, she was as disheveled as could be. Her shield flew out of her grasp and hit the ground, and she tumbled away like a rolling gourd.

In the end, not only did she lose her shield and helmet, but a boot also came off as she got up, getting stuck in a sewer grate.

Frustrated and angry, embarrassed and furious, Kashina couldn't hold back any longer and finally burst into tears.

It wasn't until he heard the piercing cry and saw her scattered long hair that Garen finally realized that the person he had been "dueling" with was actually a little girl.

In this incredibly awkward moment, Lux walked out of the gate with Sona and encountered the scene.

"Well, isn't this my dear brother?" Seeing Sona trying to comfort her crying sister, and Kashina unable to stop sobbing, Lux finally gritted her teeth. "What, is pushing your bedwetting onto your sister no longer enough to satisfy your peculiar hobby of bullying girls? Now you're dueling with a girl four years younger than you to appease your restless fighting spirit?"

As Lux spoke, the previously noisy intersection outside the gates of Crown Guard Manor fell silent.

The guards lowered their heads, Sona almost dropped her guqin, Aihua, and even Kashina, whom Sona couldn't console, stopped crying. She blinked her tear-filled eyes and looked Garen up and down as if seeing him for the first time.

And Garen...

Well, Garen was preparing to leave the Demacian Imperial Capital overnight.

No, that's not enough—it would be best to leave Demacia altogether!

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Two chapters again today—Wishing all esteemed readers a Happy Valentine's Day!