First day at Xyrus Academy

**POV Julián Kingscrown**

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," I said while casting ice water magic on Arthur's face.

"Haaaa, who was that?" I heard him complain and then saw him jump out of bed, ready to defend himself.

"I see you still can't wake up on your own. How have you managed to get to your classes on time?" I teased in a cynical tone, rolling my eyes.

"When you're a genius like me, those things don't matter much to the professors," I saw him respond mockingly.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," I replied, not paying much attention to his jokes.

"What's your first class?" the redhead asked, stretching.

"Practical Fundamentals for Mana Control," I said while looking at him; after all, it's the class where Arthur is now a professor.

"Oh, I remember now. I saw your name in the student records for that class," he replied.

"Anyway, see you in class," I said, leaving the shared room.

"Hey, wait," Arthur said.

Unfortunately for him, I wasn't paying much attention, as I wanted to find the classroom quickly.

As I walked, I began to notice the stares and whispers of the students around me. Somehow, I wanted to complain to Cynthia about this, but deep down, I knew this wasn't going to be entirely bad.

"Hey, who is that?" an unknown boy said.

"I don't know, but his uniform is different. Does he have something to do with the director?" I heard another stranger respond.

"His white hair and eyes are cute," another girl whispered.

"Yes, he's quite handsome. I wonder which noble house he belongs to. Does anyone know?" another girl responded.

The whispers increased more and more, so I quickened my pace towards the designated classroom, as I felt uncomfortable being the center of attention.

I was generally used to working in the shadows, not drawing too much attention, and my habit of using masks probably made it worse; that's why I couldn't get used to being the main attraction of a group of people.

"Haahhhh," I sighed as I almost bumped into someone while being distracted.

"Oh, I'm so sorry..." I was going to apologize to the person in front of me until I recognized her, and apparently, she did too.

"Princess Kathyln," I responded with a soft smile that had formed on my face at some point after seeing her.

"Julián," she replied with a radiant complexion while looking at me.

"May I have the honor of accompanying you to the classroom?" I said in a courteous tone.

After all, the issue of lineage is very annoying at the academy, and if I don't want to create unnecessary problems, it's better this way.

Princess Kathyln understood my actions, began to walk beside me, and said, "It would be a pleasure."

As we walked, she was the first to speak: "You said you would arrive in time for the academy's entrance ceremony, but you arrived a week later. Did something happen?" she asked in an inquisitive tone.

For some strange reason, I felt like I was on trial, being interrogated for a crime I didn't commit; I deliberately erased those thoughts and replied, "It took me a little longer to finish what I was doing."

I wasn't lying; I still have some internal injuries from the fight with the Leviathan and Cylrit, so the recovery time was a bit longer.

"May I ask what you were doing?" she asked.

"I was investigating something related to some dungeons in the clearings; unfortunately, I ran into a mana beast that was too strong, and because of that, it took me much longer to return," I replied.

"Are you okay?" she asked with a frown and a visible trace of concern in her eyes.

"Don't worry, I only have some minor injuries," I replied in a relaxed tone to prevent Kathyln from worrying too much.

"By the way, I heard you kicked a professor's butt," I said in an interested tone, wanting to know the details of this event.

"Hmmm, the professor wanted to bother the disciplinary committee, so I had to stop him," she responded firmly.

"Tell me how you beat him. I understand the professor was someone at the yellow core stage and also had quite a bit of experience," I said, shamelessly using the information provided by Cynthia.

A few moments ago, I had tried to assess her core stage, but I encountered a device that was protecting her from prying eyes.

Even with that, I could feel she was at the solid yellow stage, which is a great progress considering the average capability of people on the continent.

"Well, initially, Professor Geis had a fight with Feyrith; unfortunately, he wasn't that strong, so he lost somewhat disgracefully, and I had to intervene to maintain a certain level of authority for the disciplinary committee," the princess began to talk about what happened on the second day of classes.

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**POV Kathyln Glayder**

This professor is quite arrogant; moreover, he seems to enjoy showing off by intimidating and humiliating others, I thought as I watched the man on the other side of the practical duel space.

While it's true that his position as a professor is much higher than ours as members of the disciplinary committee, there's a limit to how rude he can be towards its members.

Besides, it was also a good opportunity to test some things I learned from Master Varay.

"Princess, I apologize in advance if I'm a bit rough," I heard the professor's voice, pulling me out of my thoughts.

Without intending to respond, I simply nodded and got into a combat stance, raising my wand while concentrating the mana around, causing the ambient temperature to drop a few degrees.

The professor seemed somewhat surprised by this, and his complexion turned a bit pale. Is he feeling unwell? I thought, seeing his reaction.

He launched several blue flame spheres, which were easily stopped by a veil of frost I formed around me in a two-meter radius.

Thanks to Julián, I learned to control the density of cold and temperature within a certain area to some extent. Although it consumes some mana and has a limit to how much can be controlled with my current core level, manipulating the cold around is a very useful technique to strengthen my spells.

Professor Geis opened his mouth wide, intending to speak, but no words came out; on the contrary, my classmates seemed to be whispering things I couldn't distinguish.

The man in front of me snapped out of his daze and lifted his sword from the ground to approach me.

So I carefully raised a stream of water; my intention was to use it both offensively and defensively as needed.

I remember that in lessons with Tessia and Clare, I faced the harsh reality of being attacked at close range.

That's why I asked Clare and Master Varay for sword training to close the gap. Unfortunately, I wasn't that good at it yet, so I had to learn some measures to counter this type of person.

The professor hesitated for a second and then began to launch slashes with his blue flame sword, but his flames were blocked by the malleable wall of water I had condensed around me.

"Do you only plan to block and dodge? Is it too difficult for the genius princess to make attacks?" Professor Geis asked in a bad tone, annoyed by my actions of dodging and measuring his approximate strength.

I felt his words generate some annoyance in me, so I froze part of the water into needles, creating a hundred of them, and then launched them at the professor.

"Hahaha, attacks like those won't even tickle me. It seems my expectations were too high for the so-called genius of the Glayders," Professor Geis said mockingly.

A few moments later, he increased the concentration of blue flames covering him and prepared to receive my attack. Unfortunately for him, he was very foolish to believe that the blue flames would be enough to stop my attack.

"Graahh," a groan was heard coming from the professor.

It's not the first time I've practiced with someone who uses blue flames, and my teacher Varay also taught me several techniques for these cases.

Those needles, although they look small, have a high concentration of mana and are condensed at very low temperatures.

Unless my opponent is above me in terms of magical control or core stage, it's almost impossible to come out unscathed from that attack if received head-on.

Professor Geis is simply a big fool and arrogant for taking the attack head-on without measuring the true capabilities of my spell.

As I watched him pitifully clenching his teeth and with blood coming from the places where the needles had embedded, he prepared a spell to completely melt the ice on his body and activated it.

The temperature increased, becoming suffocating for the people in the classroom, except for a few like that boy Arthur Leywin, who seemed completely unperturbed.

Wanting to finish everything quickly, I created several ice spheres and launched them in quick succession, not giving Professor Geis time to dodge.

He had a panicked expression, and his face turned pale when he saw the number of spheres heading towards him, so he quickly decided to dodge.

Unfortunately for him, I had already planned an escape route and waited for the right moment to keep hitting him with ice spheres.

The professor, after receiving several impacts, flew against one of the walls of the duel ring and finally fell unconscious.

Pathetic, was the only thing I could think of the man who called himself a professor; he was quite abusive, wanting to take advantage of younger children.

But when he had to fight someone a bit more skilled, he fell flat unconscious, without even landing a hit.

"Can someone call the infirmary?" I asked the people in the room, who had their eyes wide open.

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**POV Julián Kingscrown**

"That's what happened," Kathyln responded in a monotonous tone without any change in her expression.

She is much stronger compared to her original self in the novel; the same applies to Tessia and Clare.

I don't know how much it will be with Arthur, but everyone has grown much more than they originally should have; this forces me to be careful, as I don't want to attract Agrona's attention.

Pulling me out of my thoughts, I noticed Kathyln's gaze on me, so I cleared my thoughts and asked, "Is something wrong?"

She simply shook her head, and we both continued walking in a pleasant silence towards the classroom.

When we arrived, I saw Arthur's self-proclaimed rival, although it wasn't his intention. Feyrith looked somewhat arrogant or rather too pompous.

"Feyrith, good morning," Kathyln said in a flat tone.

"Princess, good morning to you too," the blond elf replied.

Then his gaze turned towards me, and he was startled before saying, "You're the boy Mrs. Rinia took care of."

"Hello," I said, extending my hand to greet him.

He returned my greeting, and then both Kathyln and I sat at the same table as Feyrith.

"Why is your uniform different?" the elf asked curiously.

Kathyln also had the same question, so she focused her gaze on me, waiting for the answer.

"The director Cynthia will clarify this, I don't know if today or maybe tomorrow. The fact is that even I don't know exactly what the different uniform means," I replied, mixing lies and truths.

While I roughly knew what tasks Cynthia was asking of me as her representative, I didn't know exactly why the uniform change.

Seeing Feyrith and the princess, I could see they were somewhat confused and unconvinced by my words; unfortunately for them, I can't satisfy all their doubts.

They'll have to wait for Cynthia to clarify everything, and I also have to find a way to help them train in secret.

I could ask Cynthia to help me with a plausible excuse, but it will definitely still be suspicious to that damn spy, so I have to be prepared to prevent any information leaks regarding what I'm doing.

While those thoughts were running through my mind, the class professor entered the room. It was clearly an Arthur with sleep problems; next time, I should consider leaving an ice block on his face.

"Today we will continue with what we were doing in the previous class, manipulating mana as an augmenter and conjurer according to your innate abilities," the red-haired boy said to the whole class.

Although I knew what he was referring to, I decided to first observe what the others were going to do; after all, many things were changing, and the class theme might not be an exception.

After a few minutes of observation, I began to do the same, which was very simple, since, although I was an augmenter, with the help of the legacy powers, I could handle mana as a conjurer.

Thinking about it, I don't think many people know about this; maybe Grandma Rinia and Cynthia, not even Virion should know anything.

That's how the class continued until lunchtime, where I reunited with other people I hadn't seen during my stay in Hearth.