Ruvian watched as Violet composedly entered the hall. Her steps were strangely quiet for someone drawing so much attention. The scholars seated in the sloping rows above subtly trailed her movement.
She walked straight to the front, settling into a seat beside the tall window that framed the soft, grey light outside. Without a word, she leaned forward, rested her arms on the long, connected desk, and tilted her head toward the glass, eyes drawn to the bare trees beyond.
The last breath of winter still hovered in the air and it swirled the brittle branches on the other side of the glass.
Ruvian studied her expressionless profile.
Her eyes didn’t blink often, just quietly absorbing the world outside as if it offered something better than what was in here.
‘Violet… that wasn’t her real name.’ Ruvian silently said in his thoughts.
He didn’t expect she would be standing against Julian. It took more than just a temper to do that. And it required a reason too. And that was the part that unsettled him most—he didn’t know what that reason was.
Her background had always been a mystery.
The author had barely touched on her in the novel. A former noble, discarded halfway through the draft. No proper arc, or personal story. She had been forgotten even before the world remembered her.
Ruvian’s eyes flicked upward, tracing the few stares still clinging to her. Most didn’t know what to make of her. They only saw a quiet girl who suddenly dared to speak when no one else would.
‘Not a single scholar here knows who she really is. That's for sure, they probably thought of her as the same as them, merely a commoner.’
Ruvian knew just a little, from the scattered author notes and one lazy exposition dump somewhere deep in a discarded chapter.
‘Her real name was Vanessa Eldrienne. If my memory serves, she was the last daughter of a noble house stripped of title and executed under royal decree—treason.’
That’s what they called it when you crossed the crown. Her family was erased, their estates burned, records sealed or rewritten.
‘Only she survived, because she was too young to be considered a threat, so they dumped her in an orphanage and called it mercy.’
Surprisingly, a week later, the orphanage caught fire. And somehow, she survived that too. Now she was here… wearing a new name.
‘Why come back? Why this academy? Why now? No. The right question is what exactly happened to the Eldrienne family?’ Ruvian pondered.
Ruvian didn’t know the full story. He doubted anyone did. But there had to be a reason. No one lived through that much and returned by accident. Maybe she was after something else, like revenge, answers, closure. Or maybe she didn’t even know what she was searching for yet.
It was then, without warning, that the door creaked open again.
A figure stumbled in, an assistant, clearly not used to being the center of attention. He adjusted his glasses twice before reaching the center of the room, clutching a stack of loose pages.
“Uh… good morning, everyone,” he began.
“Today's instructor won’t be joining today’s session. He’s… occupied with faculty matters.”
He paused, as if trying to recall the rest, then looked down at the pages in his grip.
“So, he left these notes for you. They cover the required readings and theory basics for the week. Please review them thoroughly.”
Without waiting for acknowledgment, he began shuffling from row to row, handing out the printed lecture notes.
By the time he left, the room had returned to its earlier silence. A few scholars glanced through the material, but most didn’t bother. It was only the first day, and expectations were already being managed downward.
Eventually, the class thinned out. One by one, they filed out without speaking. Violet didn’t move from her spot.
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And neither did Ruvian.
‘She looked… kind of lonely.’
The thought accidentally slipped out of him.
It wasn’t until the sun had dropped a little lower, that he finally stood with a sigh and left the hall behind. Ruvian replayed the recent match in his mind, not out of sentiment, but out of necessity.
“Yeah, I would’ve lost if Veliana hadn’t stepped in…” he muttered.
'But that mental attack of her... is really insane, especially from that distance.'
Veliana’s sudden interference had saved him from a clean defeat. He also didn't know why she did that.
‘Still, I wasn’t strong enough.’ He thought.
Everything about the fight pointed to that one truth. If this was what Tier 1 Spellcore looked like in real combat, then he needed to move past it. He needed to climb to Tier 2 faster. And there was only one way to cross it quickly.
Plot Points and quests.
Ruvian knew what he had to do.
“I need more of them…”
The next day arrived.
A gray mist hovered over the rooftops of Velthia Academy, softening the sharp lines of the towers and walkways. In the morning, the Academy was already alive.
Ruvian stood among the scattered rows of Class E. The room somehow felt colder than usual due to the man standing at the front.
Instructor Edvoss entered precisely on time. His coat, a muted gray with worn cuffs, looked nearly as tired as some of the students, but the eyes beneath his brow held none of that fatigue.
They were cold, focused, and unforgiving.
“Alright, listen carefully,” he said, voice flat but clear.
“At Velthia Academy, education is a foundation. That’s all. It is not glory, it is not safety, and obviously it is not power that you're chasing. It is the floor below your feet. And if you think that’s enough to keep you alive out there—” he gestured vaguely toward the window, toward the world waiting beyond these walls.
“—then I suggest you start digging your own grave now.”
At Velthia, education was a foundation, but mastery remained a personal decision.
“You will study five mandatory subjects this semester, that is what it was supposed to be,” he continued, walking slowly between the aisles of desks.
“Basic Magic Theory. Magicule Beast Studies. History. Basic Runes. Dungeon Layouts. These are the minimum for you first year scholars.”
Every first-year scholar, regardless of status or background, was bound to study five mandatory subjects.
Edvoss’s eyes scanned the room.
These were the pillars, unchanging and universal, assigned with the belief that no one could stand in this world without knowing them.
“But the minimum is never enough.” He said with a harsh tone.
Ruvian leaned forward in his seat, arms crossed, eyes focused on the instructor up front, but his thoughts were already ahead of the lecture.
The fundamentals were essential, but survival demanded more than foundation. Flexibility, specialization, creativity... those were the things that filled the gaps when a textbook failed to prepare you for.
‘Which is why electives exist. And Velthia offered a staggering array of them, far more than any scholar could ever feasibly take.’ he surmised.
From specialized spellcasting techniques to alchemical theory, from monster dissection labs to field reconnaissance, each elective carved out a specific path that diverged from the standard mold.
‘Yeah, unlike the mandatory subjects, which follow a fixed weekly schedule and are repeated with rigid regularity, electives are more, and more chaotic.’
‘They're scattered throughout the week, sometimes overlapping, sometimes vanishing for days at a time, they move with the availability and whim of the instructors who teach them. Some teachers are consistent. And… pff others simply are not.’
He returned his focus back to Instructor Edvoss.
“—Some classes clash against each other in timing, laid out in overlapping slots that make it impossible to attend everything. So, it forces you to think ahead, to prioritize the value of one path against another. At Velthia Academy, there are no limits on how many electives you can take. The freedom is generous—too generous, but it is not without its cost.”
Edvoss’s voice carried evenly across the rows without the need to raise it.
“You could enroll in as many electives as you wish. The Academy wouldn’t stop you. But every choice takes a piece of your time and energy. More electives mean more exams. More lectures to attend. More reports to turn in. More risk of collisions in the schedule.”
His expression remained austere.
“Listen well, you unpolished gems. This part is very important. The structure was simple enough on paper. Each of the five mandatory subjects carried a maximum of 100 points. A perfect score across the 5 subjects granted 500 points.”
“That is the baseline. The foundation of the ranking system that every scholar is measured against. With electives, it will add another layer. 30 points each. And while they offer less than the core subjects, they made up for it with flexibility.”
He said with a stern voice.
“It's pretty simple. A scholar who took three electives and mastered all of them could push their total score to 590 points. That extra 90 points is no small thing in a meritocracy where even a single rank could change everything.”
“However, the more subjects you take, the heavier the burden becomes. It isn’t uncommon for bright scholars to fall behind, because they misjudged the weight of what they carried. So, beware, Velthia Academy rewarded excellence, but it did not forgive overreach.”
‘Yeah. That is why most scholars play it safe. Two electives, maybe three. Enough to widen their margins without burning out. I also need to consider my electives thoroughly.’
However, he did not have the luxury of moderation.
Ruvian couldn’t afford to pace himself. Not when time was already moving against him. If he was going to stand a chance at shifting the fate that had already begun to tighten around him, he needed to learn more, absorb faster, push harder.
Rest would have to wait.
The lecture ended with murmurs spreading through the hall. Instructor Edvoss had passed through the rows moments before, leaving behind a single sheet of parchment for each scholar.
It was a parchment to decide what elective they should go for.