24 The Arcana University

It was a wonderful morning today folks

The sky was clear, the birds were chirping the loveliest of melodies, and I am feeling better than ever. My mood was also all the more uplifted as I read the news while riding in my carriage

Do you want to know why? Well, there are actually two reasons for that. First is that my little organization has been gaining popularity over the past few months...

In fact, I'd say that we're all the rage nowadays

It only took a week for the news of Carisville being destroyed to spread at every inch and corner of the continents. And needless to say, many couldn't believe it. After all, it was the city that was built by the gods, and many know that you don't mess with something like that. But we did it anyway...

Not to mention, the Holy scepter was now 'technically' under our hands, which sent the world into even more of a panic. While it is a fake, considering the little speech that I did, everyone now believes otherwise. And why wouldn't they?

It's been established throughout centuries that the scepter was a device that was rooted under the Vatican palace by the gods. The pope coming out and saying otherwise would basically be society interpreting it as-

'We were lying to you all these years, tehe~'

And the pope, lying? Why that's unthinkable! Why would a religion lie for its own benefit?! Someone as holy as him should never do something like that! Does that mean they were keeping other things behind our backs?

Is what everyone will probably think

Basically, the trust of the public would plummet. They think the order is supposed to be 'holy' just because there's 'holy' before the 'order' which I absolutely do not get considering the pantheon that they're worshiping has people like Micheal, who literally destroyed countries for badmouthing his masters

Medieval times are really weird...Nah, I think it's the people...Eh, whatever. Best not to dwell too much on it

The point is, the holy order has no choice but to go along with the assumption of the people that the scepter is gone. Which was basically adding fuel to the raging fire. The once peaceful atmosphere of the continent was now plunged into one of panic and fear...

Fear of the mighty forces that have destroyed an entire bastion of a city on their own, lurking in the darkness, with no idea when and where they're gonna strike...

And I'm totally digging it. This is exactly the kind of atmosphere that I want to descend upon in this realm!

I'd like the thank the thousands of kind souls who sacrificed themselves to make this happen. You're all awesome. I'll give you all a kiss once I finally finish this life, or maybe not since I'm bound for hell, but we'll see what happens

Oh, and here comes the other news...I'm finally eighteen!

There's a good side and a bad side to this. The bad side was that I'm finally considered an adult in this world, and therefore, am no longer able to leach off from my parents. Maybe it's like a family thing, but once the boys in our bloodline turn into an adult, they'll basically act like a mother bird

And by that, I mean they'll toss us out of the tree so that we could learn how to fly

That's what my parents basically did. They gave me a huge sack of gold coins, told me to apply for the Arcana University, kissed me on the cheeks, and urged me to kindly piss off. Believe me, I'm not really bothered by it one bit...

But like, why doesn't my sis get the same treatment? My old man was literally crying about how he'll run to the school and appoint her back to the house as soon as she graduates. Like, hello? And I thought the eldest was always supposed to get the tough love!...

Maybe this whole black-sheep thingy is backfiring on me?...Should I finally get a bit more serious when I go to the academy? I could pull the whole 'Woah, isn't he supposed to suck?! Why is he this good?!' type of trope into play but...Errrr...

If I get too much attention then I might be pulled into a bunch of extracurricular bollocks that would cut down my time to do villain things. So in the end, I just decided to stay with pulling the strings at the sidelines for now

Oh, and I didn't even realize I'd been thinking about it...The good side of this is, you guessed it...I'm finally going to school!

Which is something that no sane person would ever be enthusiastic about

But I am not sane

And the university that I'm trying to get into isn't one where they'd charge you a ridiculous amount for a useless degree that will never get you any good jobs, and drown you with student loans. But a wonderful place of friendship and comradery that's perfect for learning the beautiful art of magic!

Wow!...

That's...Kinda useless for me considering they probably won't teach me something new...

H-However, even if it does seem like a waste of money, there's a chance that I'll finally meet my hero there! The chances of this are...well, not really that high. B-But I'm sure that there will be something there to amuse me

"...Maybe I should back out from this..."

I began to genuinely think about this as the carriage heads toward the capital. I still have to pass the admissions test, so maybe I could just pretend to fail and do something else. I heard being an adventurer seems fun nowadays...

"...Nah, my sis won't let me see the end of the day If she hears I chickened out.."

After weighing the pros and cons for a bit, I just decided to stick with it and see how it goes. I just let out a sigh as I glanced through the beautiful mountains that are surrounding the capital from a distance...

I began to think about what they'd look like once set on fire, and I immediately shook my head so as to remove such thoughts. Destroying and killing things are fine, but they have to be done in moderation. Otherwise, I'd just be seen as a crazy lunatic...

"Haaaaa...I hope the people there would be able to entertain me at least..."

I let out a sigh as I lie down on the soft cushions of my chair

With the hellish regimen I'm about to have with my sister returning once more, my expectations were a bit low already...

But little did I realize back then, that I was just being too pessimistic. Because this school?...It turned out to be far from disappointing...

It's a wild circus, and I am loving every second of it...

[---]

After a few more hours of traveling, we finally arrived at the gates of the Imperial Capital...

Upon paying the toll, the guards allowed us to pass through and I could see the sight of the city and all its glory. Honestly speaking, apart from the giant silver statue of our first Emperor hanging around at the entrance, there isn't really anything special about it

Sure, the buildings and attractions were all beautiful. But compared to Carisville, it isn't really anything to be impressed at. The one thing that did surprise me however, was the realization that this entire metropolis was technically part of Arcana University...

Scattered around the city were tons of magecraft labs and educational institutions that specialize in a variety of things. Ranging from simple things like classic spell or weapon combat to magical engineering, and even niche things like medical magicology

And all of them bore the sigil of the university

In other words, this entire place is one big academy city

Which already gave me a good enough reason as to why this was considered the most prosperous school in the entire continent. And as I look around at the wonderful and peaceful scenery of the city, my mind suddenly dozed off again and began to wonder about the ways I could ruin this for everyone living in it

Thankfully for them though, my thoughts were interrupted by the carriage suddenly stopping

"Alright, milord. We're already here"

My coachman shouted as he opened the door and placed down my luggage...

"Woah...So this is the place, huh?"

Compared to the other buildings that I saw, this one doesn't even compare. It was absolutely massive. And it was jam-packed with hundreds...No wait, thousands of people. Each of them seemed to have their stories written on how they presented themselves

Some looked like they belonged to nobility, while others looked like they came from a humble family. Their races were also quite diverse. From humans to elves, dwarfs, vampires, and even orcs. I already expected that the admissions would be a bit crowded because registration is only last for a single day...

But I'd never expected it to be like this...

The line would take hours and at this rate. And my patience wouldn't even allow me to last half of that, so I knew I had to do something. I moved to an isolated spot within the trees, and after confirming that no one was nearby me...

"[Bane of Chronos]"

Once my spell was activated, time began to slow down until it came to a complete halt

I walked around within the stopped world and headed at front of the line. Apparently, you need to fill out some sort of form and they'll give you a crystal orb with a number on it. So I just quickly filled that out before including it on the stack of papers, grabbed one of those crystal things from their still bodies, and walked inside the building

Apparently stopping time was the best bet, as there were a lot of magic detection devices and guards to spot anyone who was trying to sneak in using something like invisibility and be as slick as me.

Too bad for them though, none of them were probably trained on how to counter ancient level-9 spells that were lost throughout history...

Don't call this cheating, by the way. This school values magical talent and potential above all, so you could say this is just me using my gifts to make life easier. I mean theoretically speaking, no magic spell is exclusive to someone, so they could just also learn how to stop time if they go through deadly ancient ruins to get the Grimoire for the spell and work hard enough to master it

Come on sheeple, It's that simple...

Anyway, time finally resumed after I entered the testing chambers...

And I was greeted by just as many people from the outside. But even so, there were a few among them that caught my eye for some reason...