Hierarchy, First face slaping
Liza woke up early to practice for another hour and jia lee was happy to comply, Hazel opened the door for them practiced for another two to three days inside. This time they also taught her a better magic absorption and control technique. Her level went from beginner third level to ninth level in few days she spent in this space. According to Jahaan, it was Soyuz who liked the lady and felt bad for her, so she bestowed a small blessing. Now she could already interact with magical spirits and draw energy from them, it shouldn't have been possible until she reaches the mystic level. Which even the teachers at her school might not have achieved. But rather than her own level it was an advantage given to her by Sayuz.
The last ten hours in space were given to her for sleep and Jia lee couldn't hold his curiosity so he asked Sayuz, he wasn't quite familiar with her personality, she got black dragon's heart so he thought she might have those evil tendencies, oh well, who am i to say that black dragon was evil, since the history was always written by the winner. "Oh, you are here, sorry, I didn't notice you." Said jia lee, looking at Sayuz standing by his side.
"It's all fine my lord you don't need to apologize, how can i help you right now" she said. Jia lee looked at her for a moment, and asked " why would you help someone you just met, I am just curious as to why someone with black dragon's lineage would help others willingly."
Sayuz looked at him and said matter of factly "My lineage isn't evil if you must put it that way, we are deemed evil for capturing humans and keep them like poultry. But if i may ask, humans keep animals with them like chickens, cows, goats and others, they use them for farming their milk and then meat. What's so different between that and us keeping humans. It's just that humans are like chicken to us, so if a chicken shouts that human is evil, will humans stop consuming their meat. I don't think so."
Jia lee looked at her and didn't say anything for a while, since he used to take chicken legs while watching anime where demon kings or monsters are dyeing at human hands and called them evil. 'It seems like hypocrisy is in humans blood.' "You can go and do your work and you don't need to be so uptight around me, since I always consider you guys like a family."
Sayuz still bowed and went her way to wake liza up for school. "Sigh she definitely is a bit of a tough nut to crack." Said jia lee to no one in particular, but he heard T's voice "Demons have strict hierarchy and it's naturally hard for them to leave habits they have been following for who knows how many generations, coupled with their long lives it's etched into their blood to obey the superior, even if it's falling to your own death."
Jia lee looked at Sayuz, who had a straight face, with no expression, and just watched silently.
…
Liza finally got to her school, she saw as everyone was making last ditch efforts trying to remember the contents of practical or reading procedures, or some were revising theory behind it. Actually this practical was special, as it was a kind of qualifiers for get an admission into the first university of magic, University of Urgash, her brother passed this exam with flying colours and got an direct admission after high school which was like one a century achievement. That's also the reason, being his sister puts a lot of pressure on her, this test is particularly hard because school gives you a week to actually get your research done on a topic that's far more advanced than their level and not only test your skill of practical experiment, but also their theoretical view point on the topic and knowledge of things used for the experiment, their patterns in which they are used and also reasoning behind the order of things being added to the potion.
As she got into class with jia lee they saw students in small groups sitting together amd discussing problems, while just one beautiful girl was sitting alone while others were avoiding to her, or just pretended like she's not their. Pets were actually allowed in class as in this world pets are also magic helpers of their owners, with the pact between human and animal they can grow stronger together.
When they entered their were few eyes on them, ignoring the staring students liza sat on the first table instead of with the protagonist, which actually made half the class to look at her and then they looked towards Lily who was also looking at her in a confused manner, she stood up and was about to go talk to liza, but was stopped by a girl, she had sweet baby like features and a bit shorter than Lily, she looked at Lily with a smile and arms folded around the melo.. her breast," Oh my, look who's looking like a stray cat running towards her owner after being abandoned, do you need a box to sit in, i have plenty at home as i just moved to a new house that my mom bought for me" she said blinking innocently, all the while making snarky comment and showing of on the way to humiliating her opponent.
Lily instead of looking at the girl, was stared at liza, as if waiting for her to protect her, but when their was no moment made by her other than the pen's ticking noise due to silence in class from the drama going on, she looked disappointedly at Liza. Just when she was about to call liza teacher entered the class before the bell could ring for first period to inform them to move out to the playground for practical test and examiners from different colleges and universities were actually waiting in tents built for them to sit and watch the practical.
Students gathered in front of the stage in middle of the tents where a teacher was calling out the name of students and putting them in groups. They will be divided into equal groups and they will go through each part of test in a round manner, group one will be tested for potion making and explaining the steps being taken alongside, group two will be assigned material recognition and there uses, and third group will write down their theory behind the potion, along with apparatus used and steps of making the potion.
Liza was in first group and they went into the first tent in a group of fives, first they picked the materials needed on their own and when she picked one particular grass that's used as an catalyst for all kinds of potions, the instructor, who was still impressed was a bit confused when she picked it up, but did not say anything and kept supervising. There's an crystal fly that's buzzing around, but is actually like a camera in this world, it's recording all actions of students and the teacher, so that no cheating could happen. Next step was get their apparatus ready and most of them did it right, as they started making their potion first they added the extract of limus a kind of fruit, that is normally used by kids due to more stable base of the potion and helps in dissolving and mixing the materials in potion easier, liza did the same but added a bit of sap of jalam tree, it's called as such because it's leaves produces huge amounts of sap which flows down like a waterfall, the mix when enter the hot pot didn't made a single sound and settle down like mercury and the magic fire she was using was blue in colour at first like other kids but changed to a emerald green afterwards, she started her explanation and kept adding stuff at a fast and stable pace, unlike any oc those students who were slow and sometimes confused about next step, half way through she added the catalyst grass from before, the instructor was so scared as he was about cast a barrier around everyone when he saw the violent waves in pot, liza added another crystallized granules, they looked like sugar but were actually another kind of catalyst but the moment it entered the pot every thing stabilized and liza explained," in this potion there are a lot of components that actually react with morning dew grass and form combustible solution, but with summer grass extract in crystallized form actually reacts way more faster and even break the bonds between combustible compounds that already formed and make even more potent catalyst and fasten's the process of potion integration that generally makes this simple potion take atleast half an hour even if you take all necessary steps accordingly." She didn't stop and kept going adding stuff and sometimes taking out form or hard granules forming in potion and mixing them separately with some other herb and adding them back to potion. The supervising teacher was stunned from the moment she did her earlier stunt and another person standing at the entrance was listening carefully to what the little girl was saying.
He was actually one of the teachers representative of the University of Urgash, 'as expected both brother and sister are equally…. No, no, actually sister is even more amazing then her brother Cronwell family produced demons in this generation. Others might not now but he could see those elementals helping the young lady with stabilizing the potion, when she's explaining and her whole concentration is not on potion.' He was actually the head of the university and strongest mage known, he was here to check out the girl named lily by Liam, his apprentice, and she's not bad with her theory, but it doesn't seem genuinely worked out by her alone and some terms gave her away as signature lines of his apprentice. He thinks they make your presentation look good, but main point still remains about the results.
He was just going to pass the girl for remembering and still theorizing it so well in front of professor's, but who would have thought that he just gave away the spot to someone completely unworthy and missing this hidden gem because of Liam's interest in that young lady. This girl, liza is the only person other than his grandson, who's affinity with spirits is so high and with so many at that, while his grandson only have a favor of just two spirits, this lady have atleast a hundred of them around her.
I need to teach that b*stard Liam a lesson, he ignored the extreme potential of his sister, but wanted to pave way for his crush his break will be over tomorrow and i will break his legs when he returns to the university.
While he was in his own world. Students were coming out of tents and Liza was out just after 15 mins with five stars on her report. She was sitting under a tree shade waiting for the next round to start. After like half an hour or so Lily came out as well and saw Liza sitting alone with dazed look, she went to her directly and said "It's fine if you didn't pass this time, it's harder than last year, even teachers agree to that, you should still study for next part and not give up completely you know. If you had come earlier and sat with me, I would have helped you with your preparation a bit…"
"What nonsense are you spouting, can't you see i am just resting here. Who said that I failed, and I came well prepared and was just double checking this morning and didn't really needed to revise." Liza said while cutting the chattering of Lily in between, although she was showing concern, she could clearly see the dissatisfaction on her face as well since she didn't speak for her this morning.
She was about to stand up and leave when Lily said her true motive this time "that's good and sorry to assume, but can i ask why are you distancing yourself from me, out of nowhere at that. You didn't even spoke up when Agnes was shouting at me."
"Oh that's simple, didn't you always say that I need to be more independent and have guts to stand against those bullies, and hardly ever said anything for me, when they targeted me. I thought it made sense girls need to be tough and learn to stand for themselves, so I thought 'YOU' who teaches me to take a stand would definitely be able to do the same for yourself, right." Said Liza, completely stunning Lily.
"Yo, look at this b*tch, how shameless to ask for others to help while hiding when others need it under the disguise of helping them out. Such a white lotus act worthy of the young miss of slums" came the snarky voice from their right.
When Liza saw how Agnes was ready to go few rounds with Lily, she moved back and left before the commotion grew bigger.
The next few test similarly were very easy for Liza and she every time cleared the test very fast with five stars in all three sections. This time Lily and Agnes didn't showed up in front of her as they were not allowed outside examination halls until they were done with their test, because of the commotion they caused.
Jia lee heard T's voice at this point 'it was supposed to be her and rather she was going to be disqualified, as she fought real hard with Agnes and her friends out of anger and they were all disqualified from test. We can say she's already out of FL's influence a bit. Jia lee was happy to hear the last part.
After the test was done, it took them an hours time to give results out and students could check the list after school. When the school bell rang, unlike any other day, no one moved they were all very nervous to check their results. But Liza stood up right away and went out the door under the watch of whole class and slowly one by one others started moving out as well and the simple walk changed into a sprinting while teachers shouted to slow down in corridors.
They got to the results board outside, close to main door of school, everyone first checked their own results and actually started from bottom, but suddenly a shout of "what, how's that possible" came. It was lily. She was second and the first place was actually Liza with five gold stars in all, while Lily got two silver stars.
Everyone started looking for Liza, but she was no where to be found, as she left right away after checking the results. 'This will be the first hard slap to the face, for that FL' thought Jia Lee on his way back home with Lily in their car. These cars actually run on magic and the driver need to just put their hand on crystal ball which was in place of steering wheel and just pass commands through mana.
They got home and saw everyone in Liza's family gathered wait for her and a middle aged man, Liza's father, stood up and asked "So…, what's the result."