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An Otherworldly Scholar - 192
🕑 Added 2025-01-08 01:42:50 +0000 UTCThe letter slipped through Ilya’s fingers. Her hands trembled, and she had to take a deep breath to remain in control. I could almost hear her heart hammering against her chest.
“There must be a mistake. I’m not Imperial Cadet material,” she muttered.
I grabbed the letter from the kitchen floor.
By the command of His Imperial Heir, Prince Andrew, Duke of Abria.
To Ilya of Farcrest.
With the Imperial Council's approval and recognition of your remarkable performance during the Stephaniss Cup, it is our privilege to extend an official invitation to join the preliminary Cadets selection course at the Imperial Knights Academy.
Beware. The preliminary Cadets selection course is intentionally designed to test each recruit's limits. Failing to meet the Academy’s standards will result in immediate termination. No lenience will be granted regardless of the candidate's background. Only half of the recruits are expected to complete the first semester, but those who approve the preliminary evaluations will be accepted into the three-year Cadet course.
Your admission comes with the following provisions:
Accommodations at the cadet’s barracks. Lodging outside the Imperial Academy is strictly forbidden for cadets in the first and second years.
Access to the Academy’s training facilities, including the Academy’s armory, Imperial Library, and Combat Arenas.
Sanctioned uniform and amenities. Servants and retinues are forbidden from the Academy’s grounds.
You are to report to the Imperial Academy gates no later than the third month of the third quarter, bearing this letter as proof of invitation. Failure to appear will forfeit your place in the course.
May the light of the System guide your decision.
Yours in service,
Sir Gwan Astur.
Grandmaster of the Imperial Academy.
Elincia caught Ilya in her arms and lifted her off the ground. The girl tried to fight off, but twenty levels on her Hunter Class weren’t enough to counter Elincia’s love.
“What do you mean you aren’t Imperial Cadet material? You beat Vigdis Herran fair and square!” Elincia snuggled her with tears of happiness in her eyes.
“Okay! I was wrong! Now let me go, Elincia. Put me down!” Ilya grunted, pushing back with her hands.
Becoming an Imperial Cadet was something regular orphans wouldn’t even dare dream about, yet the letter in my hands said the opposite. I let the girls have their minute and focus on the letter.
The emphasis on the program's failure rate didn’t go unnoticed. If half of the cadets don’t pass the first semester, only a fraction will graduate by the end of the three-year program. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines. They were looking for a very specific profile of a person, which wasn’t strange for military high positions, but I knew the secret of the Imperial Academy. They were looking for a warrior who could win in any situation, regardless of the Class, levels, or skills, through wits and preparation alone.
Zaon stopped at the doorway, confused by the scene.
“Why is Miss Elincia hugging Ilya?” He asked.
I handed him his letter, doing my best to hide my smile.
“Congratulations, Zaon.”
The boy opened the letter, and his eyes darted through the lines.
“This has to be a mistake,” he muttered.
The same reaction as Ilya. I grinned and squeezed his shoulder. I noticed he had gained muscle since we left Farcrest a month ago.
“It is no mistake. Your name is up there,” I said, pointing to the letter’s opening.
The commotion naturally attracted the little ones, and a moment later, everyone at the orphanage knew about the good news. Firana spun around the kitchen, almost putting out the fire on the stove. Wolf’s reaction was more sober, but still, he couldn’t stop smiling.
I felt like I was walking in a dream.
Astrid was crying in the corner while Zaon tried to calm her down. Risha lifted Ilya over his head as the girl accepted her fate. The little ones didn’t seem to understand what was happening but still cheered while Firana used [Aerokinesis] to throw them one by one near the ceiling.
After a while, things calmed down, and everyone looked at me as if they were expecting me to give a speech. My tongue got stuck, and I couldn’t find the right words. I just asked a question nobody had thought of asking yet.
“So… do you want to take the challenge?”
The kids looked at me and nodded in unison.
“Damn right,” Firana said. “We are taking the Imperial Academy by storm.”
Elincia’s expression suddenly changed. There were three weeks until the start of the Cadet’s selection course. We were already in the second month of the third quarter, and the trip to the royal capital took two weeks, which left us a bit more than a week to get everything ready.
“We need to go shopping,” Elincia said.
“For the party?” Shu asked.
Nobody had said anything about a party.
“A party sounds very good,” I replied.
______
As we walked through the market, my mind wandered.
A week had passed since the fight against the Lich and my encounter with the talkative Fountain, but the System Avatar still hadn’t contacted me. I had tried to contact him by touching the Shrine Fragment at Abei’s chambers to no avail. Whether the System Avatar couldn’t appear or he was avoiding me to not answering my questions, I couldn’t tell.
After killing the Lich and destroying the local source of Corruption, I thought the System Avatar would recover part of his authority over the System. Maybe he did, and he was just avoiding me. I decided to believe the latter.
With the Lich’s Corruption out of the way, we returned to the original schedule: I had a decade to master runeweaving. After my Class promotion, the amount of magic I could control also increased, so I had a hunch I was on the right track to master the System’s superior runes.
There was still an issue I had to deal with before devoting myself to runeweaving.
“Do you think this is enough?” Elincia said, vaguely pointing at our shopping cart.
“They are going to the Imperial Academy, Eli, not war. The Imperial Academy will provide everything they need to survive,” I reminded her.
Behind us, Virdian and Ash pulled a small handcart stacked with our shopping bags. Nokti and Shu happily rode on top of the cart. For years, going shopping was a rarity at the orphanage, so leaving the little ones behind was impossible. At least they were behaving extra well.
“We should buy them better clothes. I don’t want nobles to harass them,” Elincia said.
We had spent good gold on well-crafted tunics, breeches, and traveling cloaks so the kids would be presentable on their arrival. Additionally, we had bought kilos of alchemy ingredients so the kids would travel with a stacked pouch of potions. Just in case.
“The Academy will provide them with uniforms. They will be dressed just as well as their noble counterparts, and they will have each other,” I pointed out.
Elincia bit her nails.
“What if they are invited to a ball?”
“They are Imperial Cadets. They will be dressed as such,” I replied. “Izabeka told me.”
Elincia sighed.
Across the market, white smoke came out of the forge’s chimney. We approached. A short and burly man with a long brown beard manned the smithy. The swords we acquired during the tournament were serviceable but weren’t at the level of the Imperial Academy. The kids needed something special.
“Master Clarke,” the man greeted me as I entered the shop and instantly dropped what he was doing. He seemed as glad as he was frightened by my presence. The mere fact that I commissioned his work gave his shop a lot of prestige, yet my powers were no different than a walking bomb. People outside the orphanage treated me as such.
The blacksmith pulled a set of four longswords with an ornate basket hilt that resembled a vine. At first, I wasn’t sure about the design. All my life, I have used longswords with simple straight crossguards, but after testing it, I realized it was just as comfortable. I examined the result. The work was marvelous—practical and beautiful in equal parts. I pulled out my coin pouch to pay, but the blacksmith stopped me.
“I can’t accept payment, sir,” the man said.
Since my promotion, vendors have been refusing to accept payment. Elincia explained that keeping a Prestige Class around during a Monster Surge was priceless, so merchants and nobles tried to ‘convince them’ in unofficial ways. Still, I didn’t want to be indebted to anyone, so we devised a plan to deal with merchants: only one freebie per store.
“We accept your gift,” I said, grabbing one of the swords. Then, I put the rest of the payment over the counter and picked the remaining three.
The blacksmith bowed and collected the money.
A moment later, we were back in the streets.
“What else?” Elincia asked, examining our haul and preventing the little ones from playing with the swords.
“I’d say we are done here,” I replied, placing a kiss on top of her head.
The kids protested our expression of affection with their usual ‘eww’s and ‘yuck’s. Elincia ignored them and kissed me. We took a roundabout for the old market north of the main street, and I spent a few bronze coins on sweet pumpkin bread for the kids. Elincia munched her treat with a worried expression.
“The kids fought a Monster Surge not ten days ago,” I reminded her.
“Yes, but you were there. Now they will be on their own,” Elincia replied.
“Out of all fifteen-year-olds I’ve met, these had to be the most trustworthy. And I have met a lot of fifteen-year-olds.”
Elincia grumbled but accepted my words.
We returned to the orphanage for lunch. Everyone was busy. Zaon and Ilya were sparring with Izabeka in the backyard while Corin watched. Astrid and Wolf were looking after the orphans near the farm plot. Risha was preparing the food. Ginz, Firana, and Lyra were nowhere to be found.
We had just finished unloading the cart when Firana suddenly landed in the front yard with a glider strapped to her back. A moment later, Lyra and Ginz appeared through the door. I exchanged a confused expression with Elincia. I wasn’t aware of any prototypes regarding flying machines.
“What did I say about kids jumping from the roof?” Elincia said.
Lyra Jorn froze.
“Firana isn’t technically a kid anymore?”
Elincia looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I got the memo. Showing Lyra flying machines might have been a mistake. Firana, however, seemed to have the time of her life. She ran across the backyard before Elincia could stop her and took off with a push from [Aerokinesis].
Lyra cleared her throat.
“Such a machine should fix our connectivity problems in the Jorn Dukedom. We could cut the messenger’s travel time up to ninety percent with a few of those. I swear, this experiment is instrumental to my land’s safety.”
Elincia massaged her temples and entered the manor carrying the alchemical ingredients we had just bought.
I followed her.
“I told you it was fine,” Ginz said as I passed by their side.
Understandably, Elincia was stressed. She entered her room, sat on her desk, and kindled the alcohol burner. I snuck to her back and hugged her from behind.
“Don't lecture me,” she said.
“I wasn't going to do it,” I replied, kissing her neck.
“Stop it! The kids can see us through the window,” Elincia giggled.
After messing with her for another minute, her mood seemed to improve. The best thing we could do was prepare everything and enjoy the last days with the older kids around.
I let Elincia go and carried the longswords to my half of the desk.
Quality Longsword. [Identify] Enchantment threshold: 1800.
“What should I enchant here?” I asked.
I wanted to make something special for the kids as a ‘graduation present’.
Elincia stopped cutting Dire Cress roots.
“Nothing flashy. Nothing elemental. Even with the royal money we got, enchanted weapons aren’t technically affordable for us. People will ask questions, the word will spread, and I don’t want criminal bands targeting the kids,” she replied.
I nodded. Secrecy was still one of our best resources regarding my runeweaving skills. After inquiring with Izabeka, I learned that Enchanters weren’t just a rare Class but essential members of a noble’s retinue. There were less than a hundred Enchanters in the kingdom, and only a few could create something remotely similar to a Leechflame Sword. The news of an Enchanter providing orphans with flaming swords would undoubtedly spread like wildfire on the courts.
“It’s a shame. The sword’s threshold is enough to put a full-power Vampiric-Fire-Reinforcement enchantment,” I said.
Elincia threw the Dire Cress into a boiling glass vase and gave me a tired look.
“I can’t believe you got the Runeweaver Class, and you still manage to complain. Just be grateful you don’t have to spend weeks enchanting a simple reinforced sock like the rest of the Enchanters.”
I grinned.
The people from my world didn’t just settle for anything. We always wanted more. Maybe that was the reason behind our success as a species. But I had no time for useless philosophical ramblings.
“I guess reliable things don’t have to be complex,” I sighed in defeat.
Elincia stopped smashing petals on the mortar and extended her hand across the desk. I grabbed it, and she let her mana flow through me. With any other person in the world, it would’ve felt strange. Intrusive, even. I playfully tugged her mana, carefully not to give her Mana Exhaustion. Despite her forty levels in Alchemist, my mana pool was orders of magnitude bigger.
“You are so silly sometimes.”
“I know.”
“I like it,” Elincia said.
“You better,” I replied with my best offended tone.
I was probably the only person on the continent troubled because I couldn’t enchant an ‘even more powerful’ flaming sword. Elincia was right. Maybe the swords didn’t need a flaming spell. The power wasn’t in the blade but in the kid’s hands.
Suddenly, someone knocked on the door. That was Izabeka’s knocking.
“Come in!”
Just as I suspected, Izabeka entered the room with a sack on her shoulder. Without the stress of overseeing the City Guard, Izabeka had rejuvenated for a decade.
“Good to find you two with your pants on. I got the things you asked for, Robbie,” she said, making Elincia blush like a beet.
Izabeka drew an ornate dagger with an enormous ruby embedded in the gilded guard. The piece was more decorative than practical, but the edge was as good as new. Then, she pulled her sword and hit the dagger’s edge. An explosion of white sparks blinded me for an instant. The dagger's edge was still perfectly sharp, unlike the sword, which had a small dent.
After our incursion in the Farlands, I knew how fast swords became dull.
Elincia gave me a quizzical look, but I was too focused on the new enchanted items.
“This is perfect,” I said.
“Wait, I have two more,” Izabeka grinned.
Elincia kicked my foot under the desk.
“Did you ask Izabeka to show you Farcrest’s enchanted treasures?”
“Of course I did! I need to learn more runes,” I replied. Then, I turned to Izabeka. “Did you ask the Marquis for permission? Nevermind. Don’t answer. I don’t want to know.”
Elincia groaned to the sky and mumbled something about responsibility.
Izabeka then pulled a sword. It wasn’t as ornate as the dagger, but it was still a solid piece of craftsmanship. “Ink it, baby.”
I didn’t think about it twice and smeared the blade with bright red [Magical Ink]. Then, swiftly, Izabeka cut the air, and the ink splattered on the floor. I examined the blade. Not a single speck of ink was left behind.
I made the ink disappear before Elincia raised her arms due to the stained plank.
“That was smooth,” I said.
“Smooth? That was sexy as hell,” Izabeka replied, pulling a shield from the sack. “You are going to love this one.”
Without further explanation, Izabeka threw the shield through the open window.
Elincia stood up to watch but had to duck as the shield returned to Izabeka’s hand at full speed. Elincia clung to her chair like a startled cat. A lock of hair fell over her face.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Izabeka said, leaving the shield on the table. “I’m going to pour myself a cup. You have an hour before I return those to the Great Hall. Happy working you two!”
The petals had dried in the mortar, so Elincia discarded them and started all over again.
“I don’t want to get caught with half of Farcrest’s armory in my bedroom, so you better hurry up,” Elincia sighed.
I used [Rune Identification]. Most of the runes were already in my [Rune Encyclopedia]. All the usual suspects were there. User. Direction. Activation. I grinned when the new ones popped as System prompts.
Attract. Effect Rune. Rank I. Affinities: Lodestone, Iron, Wax. Mana Threshold: 300.
Repel. Effect Rune. Rank I. Affinities: Lodestone, Copper, Silver. Mana Threshold: 300.
Edge. Effect Rune. Rank I. Affinities: Steel, Glass, Diamond. Mana Threshold: 500.
“Nothing flashy,” I reminded myself.
I grabbed a bunch of my trusty pebbles, summoned the [Rune Debugger], and started enchanting. Everything around me faded to the background, safe for the occasional tug on my mana pool from Elincia. It was barely a distraction, considering our feet touched under the desk.
After a few attempts, I discovered that Attract required Activation, User, and a Direction rune to work like in the enchanted shield. With pebbles, the direction it flew wasn’t critical, but the direction of a flying sword was important. I didn’t want the point flying to the kids’ hands at full speed.
Repel required a similar string for activation. Otherwise, it passively repelled anything that came near. The strength of the enchantment was minimal compared to Force or any of the elemental runes. I wondered if the Repel rune could be used to create a mechanical detection system. I made a mental note to check that idea with Lyra when she eventually discovered I was a Runeweaver.
The Edge rune baffled me for a while. In practice, it had a similar effect to a strong Reinforce enchantment, but it only seemed to affect items designed to cut things. Compared to other runes, Edge was strangely specific. I had to remind myself that runes were a creation of the System Avatar. It was expected that some of them were general and others very particular.
After an hour or two, I designed the final enchantment: A reinforced, edge-reinforced, self-cleaning, recall longsword. I would’ve loved to have one during my combat with Janus when I lost my sword in the muddied water.
I leaned back and stretched my back.
“Aren’t you gonna enchant them?” Elincia asked through the fumes of her potions.
It smelled spicy.
“I want to use the Bind rune, so I need their blood to enchant them. You know the saying. Even better than a sharp sword is a sword that can’t be used against you,” I replied.
Elincia rolled her eyes.
“I’m sure you just made that up.”
A significant part of being a teacher was making stuff up as lessons occurred.
Suddenly, I had an idea.
Summoning my mana, I channeled a small scalpel and engraved Firana’s name on the blade. It was a small detail, almost invisible if one didn’t focus, yet it seemed the right thing to do for a ‘graduation’ present. This wasn’t just a graduation sword but Firana’s graduation sword.
“What does that say?” Elincia asked.
“Firana, in cursive. Your man is just that old,” I replied, handing her the sword.
Elincia smiled as she examined the inscription. Then, she moved her potions to the side and leaned on the table as long as she was. Our faces were very close.
“I don’t know why, but all these little things you do make me like you even more,” she whispered.
“I’m a very detail-oriented person,” I whispered back.
A happy tune reached the bedroom. I recognized Zaon’s fiddle, although the movement of the bow sounded more confident than before.
“Would you like to come with me to the party, my lady?”
“That would be delightful,” Elincia replied, planting a kiss on my nose.
Comments
I Dare Korval
Sorry but I think you will need to re-write this piece: Izabeka drew an ornate dagger with an enormous ruby embedded in the gilded guard. The piece was more decorative than practical, but the edge was as good as new. Then, she pulled her sword and hit the dagger’s edge. An explosion of white sparks blinded me for an instant. The dagger's edge was still perfectly sharp, unlike the sword, which had a small dent. It makes it seem like Izabeka held the dagger in one hand and the sword in her other (which is missing currently). I don't see how you could do what she did any other way.
Arturo Death
Estoy seguro de que el siguiente paso para la runa repeler es crear un mecanismo para cajas fuertes o habitaciones ocultas utilizando repeler y ligamento
I Dare Korval
His shield should also get the Repel on the front side to help deflect attacks.
Ben Bass
TYFTC! I love how Izabeka had no compunction borrowing the treasures of Farcrest. So Zaon will get a Capt. America shield, and they all will get unbreakable non-dulling swords that will return to them and only them? Talk about a sweet graduation gifts!
Matthew
Probably not as long as it will take for them to make Firana and Lyra a magically powered biplane. But I think that's mostly because Rob is terrified of what Firana would do with it.
Crimson wolf
Anyone else feel like Elincia has went from tomboyish responsible older sister to more motherish after getting laid?
Dayne
So push and pull runes? I wonder how long it'll take Rob and Ginz to craft a mana-controlled prosthetic arm for Izabeka; and if equipping it will remove the system debuff on her mana pool?
