The Necron Empire Academy

Kulum told us that the emperor announced that he would name his successor in 5 years. Which explained everything that was happening. Over the months, I hadn't been Idle. I had extracted as much information as I could squeeze out of Kulum regarding the situation of the noble houses and the Imperial Family.

Kulum told me a lot about the political stage. He had told me about the 5 major threats among the nobles. Starting with the Skullfall family, who recently revealed a second Behemoth Class Mage.

Normally, something like this only happened when the old behemoth class Mage is about to die. Which clearly wasn't the case.

He told me about the Lightforge family that was trying to marry into the Imperial family. Their goal was to marry their eldest Young Master to princess Hatari Persan Necron.

He told me about the Firethrone family and their dangerously close relationship with the Skullfall family. The wedding of the Skullfall family, Young Lady, and the Firethrone family eldest Young Master was imminent.

He told me about the Stoneheart family and that they had stopped exporting their goods. Lastly, he had told me about the Darkwell family that had started a recruitment drive for their military, and upgrading their training to an unhuman degree.

Now, with the information that a succession war was around the corner, it all made sense. Now the question was which family was supporting who.

60% of the Imperial family elders supported the princess after her affinity was revealed. 30% were in favour of the 1st prince, who is the pro-former crown prince. The last 10%, which equals to 20 elders, are split among the other princes, Kulum himself had been in favour of the 3rd Prince. Every Elder was at least an A-Class Mage with decades of experience in Magic.

The Skullfall family and the Firethrone family are both indecisive of who to support, they formed the neutral faction among the nobles, which makes them so dangerous.

The Lightforge family is in support of the princess, should she marry their Young Master. Should she refuse, all their support would flow to the 1st Prince who already had the support of the Darkwell Family.

The Stoneheart family is supporting the 2nd prince.

The 3rd and the 4th prince are left on their own, with only a few less important noble families supporting them. It was looking relatively bleak for them.

In my personal book, all the princes except the 1st had already earned my hostility towards them. There was a 5th prince, but he was too young. The competition had already started before he was born.

Summarizing everything, I was pissed at the Necron family. Kulum made more and more the impression that he is an incompetent, spoiled, and overly arrogant child despite being a diplomat for decades.

It took us 4 days and 7 teleportation formations until we reached the Academy. It was a horrible experience.

At the Academy, we were greeted by the principal and a crowd of people. The principal led everyone to a separate testing room to check everyone's aptitude for magic. He tested everyone, no matter if they were Knight or Mage. After that, everyone got tested by an S-Class Knight, who was the physical training instructor at the academy.

I held myself back and was with Esy, the last one to get tested.

The magic affinity test was the same one that we had in the Hesmaton Kingdom academy. There was only 1 thing that was different, Esy's silver woman was floating in a meditative position.

The scene for me didn't change. The only thing that could be described as different was that the Shadowy creature had a more defined body now, but it could have been my imagination.

As we walked on the exercise field, we saw that James was currently fighting the S-Class knight. James was one of the strongest fighters I have trained. James, Niklas, and Hebert were in a constant competition for 2nd place. I could count Zulu into the mix as well, but he graciously accepted 5th place to focus on his magic studies. The strongest knight I trained was Bjorn, the undisputed number 1.

The fight James vs. the instructor was interesting to watch. The Knight was forced to take James seriously. That resulted in an evolution of the fight from a sparring match to a deadly dance.

It is important to know that James was a brawler. He fought with nothing but his bare hands while the knight had a sword and shield. It wasn't that he was unable to wield a weapon properly. It just wasn't his cup of tea. He preferred to smash everyone with his fists. I have to admit that it worked wonders.

Kulum and Gesat were watching the fights from some distance. I wasn't able to see what Kulum thought his poker face was holding tight, but Gesat had a really ugly expression on his face.

After a few minutes of intense fighting, the instructor managed to bait James into a trap and threw him on the ground. He stood above him, panting, holding his sword against James' throat.

James wasn't the last one because the Magic affinity test was a lot faster than the physical test. The knight still had to fight the strongest. After James' fight, Niklas and Hebert stepped up at the same time to fight the S-Class knight.

But instead of fighting the S-Class knight together, they started to argue who was allowed to go first. This gave the knight a much needed breathing room that he used to chuck down several alchemical potions.

Having an alchemist as a mother gave me an unintentional intense education in alchemical potions. I saw that he didn't just drink replenishing potions but also booster.

I wasn't the only one who saw this, but before anyone could start a discussion, Bjorn stepped forward. Niklas and Hebert, who were nowhere near any understanding, began to fight each other over the right to fight next.

Bjorn's favourite weapon was an axe, but not the normal one. His axe was gigantic. Bjorn had giant blood. At least, that is how we explained his strength and the fact that he was able to grow in size for a moderate amount of time. That was the reason his axe was this massive. but even without transforming, he swung the axe with one hand.

The fight between Bjorn and the S-Class knight was so intense that it disrupted the quarrel between Niklas and Hebert. James, who was resting by the side, was seriously pissed off by the fight because he saw at first glance that the knight had cheated.

After the fight he just had, he knew that the Knight hadn't held back against him. Yet against Bjorn he was suddenly able to hold his ground. James called bullshit. He voiced all his displeasure by yelling these facts over the whole exercise field.

Only to get a lame "I Know" from Bjorn, who was bashing the knight with everything he got. This was the first time the huge strength disparity between the Nature Guard and normal people became evident. Yet it also made their lack of skill evident. What these guys bridged with raw talent was decades of skill and experience. We were still 14 Year old kids for those who forgot this fact until now.

Bjorn won his fight against a boosted S-Class knight by relying on his pure physical strength and the little bit of skill he had.

It took the knight a few minutes before he could continue the assessment, but Niklas and Hebert were already at each other again, wanting to fight the next match. Niklas' Naginata and Hebert's Halbert clashed against each other in a lengthy and intense fight. The knight could only watch from the side.

Just as I was about to step up and fight with the knight, Gerak stepped up and challenged the knight. Despite still being boosted, the knight got heavily trashed and humiliated. It was painful to watch.

After disarming the knight with ease and smashing him to the ground, Gerak turned around and walked away with the words, "You are not worthy to fight the Master."

In the end, after everyone was evaluated, we had 6 S-Class evaluations. Namely Zulu, Niklas, Hebert, James, Bjorn, and Gerak. 365 A-Class evaluations and 630 B-Class evaluations. From 1000 Knights 298 had a magic affinity, 100 among them decided to become mages. 10 had absolute affinities, 30 had high-level affinities, and the last 60 had mid-level affinities. Additionally, there was Gerak, who was already an S-Class Mage and had a unique affinity.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, this test was held in private, so no one except the participants and the Imperial family witnessed any of that. If the results had been common knowledge, the Academy would have been so much less trouble.

No, to be completely honest, the academy would have been boring if the results had been common knowledge. Well, it wasn't particularly exciting anyway.