Study Session

"Damnit!" In frustration, Ray shouted, "Why must we take the exams? Didn't we just help the literal prince get his crown?"

"Because, if the supposedly strongest teenagers of the nation fail their high school tests, it gives a bad impression." His father walked in through the window. "Having good grades at school isn't going to tarnish your image."

"Please Dad, use the door." Ray leaned his chair back a little, "so what happens now? what happens to the team after Lucian takes the position?"

"it gets disbanded in most cases. but all of you have a guaranteed job in government associations when you graduate. all of you should be getting offers for internships soon enough. make sure to balance them with your studies properly." Norman patted Ray's shoulder lightly.

"how do you know I am going to accept any of the offers?"

"Why don't we wait and see the offers that you might get" Norman stopped at the door, "By the way, answers to questions 4, 8, and 43 are wrong."

"What?" Ray looked at the notebook lying before him, turning pages in the book to confirm the answers. "How do you do that?"

"You'll learn." The door was shut, but there was no sound of walking away. "By the way, what are you getting for Rita's birthday?"

That question threw Ray out of the loop. He had forgotten about that. His sister's birthday was coming next week, right after the exams, and he wasn't prepared. In his defense, he had a lot on his mind with the competition and the exams. He decided to leave the topic for the time being after setting up a reminder on the day of the last exam.

"Now then." he started focusing on the syllabus. His low score was not going to help him with picking the gift anyway. Ray was good with the Magic Application and, and was able to handle Maths and Science quite well, but was stumped when it came to Historic Rune Translations.

He wondered if he should ask someone for help from his classmates. his phone was lying on his bed, and there was a contact he could ask. A long sigh later, Ray picked up the phone and called the number, and the other side picked up immediately.

"Hey, Rose." Ray said, "How are you?"

"I am doing fine." she answered, "What happened to you? Is it Historic Runes again?"

Ray chuckled a little, "You know it. Can you help me get over the translations? and the dates of discovery too."

"Sure, but you have to come here. bring all your books and notebooks, and make sure to be here in twenty minutes."

"coming." Ray ended the call and packed the bag. He turned to the gate and stuck a note outside that had what he was about to shout, "I am going to study with Rose, will try to be back before dinner. Don't wait for me."

he got ready, closed the window, and started blasting through the air. Maybe Rose underestimated him, or maybe she gave him extra time to prepare. He didn't care. halfway across the district within twenty minutes was nothing for him anymore, especially when his lovely girlfriend called him.

Within ten minutes, Ray was knocking at the door of her house. The door opened and her father greeted Ray. there was a little look of 'I think I know this boy' before it changed into a caring face.

"Here is my son-in-law." he exclaimed, "Rose, your fiance is here!"

There was a muffled scream from Rose's room, followed by a rush of things moving. Rose opened her door and leaned out, "Let him in."

Rose's mother shoved Ray into her room and slammed the door so hard that both people inside flinched. Ray then looked over to Rose awkwardly, who did the same in return. she decided to break the silence, "Get your books out, we are wasting time."

and just like that, the class began. Rose was trying to drill the lessons into Ray's head, who was not getting it at all. This went on for about an hour before both gave up. Frustrated, Rose sat on her bed holding her head in her hands. "either you are really bad at learning, or I am just a terrible teacher. I am starting to feel like it is the latter."

"It's not your fault." Ray tried to comfort her.

(It is.)

"Shut up!" Ray screamed.

"What?" Rose looked angry. I had clearly led to a misunderstanding, let me clear that up. (Ray, listen to me. tell her you have been hearing voices)

"Wait, I have been hearing voices." Ray did as instructed, "He has been annoying me the entire time, and I couldn't focus on the study material." (HEY!)

"What?" Rose was confused. "repeat that one more time."

"I have been hearing voices in my head for some time, and he has not allowed me to focus on what you have been teaching. it's not your fault," he said in one breath.

"And you want me to believe that?" Rose said. (Do you want me to mess up her room?)

"NO!" Ray yelled. Now I am enjoying this exchange. It is a classic troupe, an entity that only one person can hear and see, making them look silly or insane.

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Rose grabbed his collar and looked into his eyes. "you are not lying, at least not entirely."

(she's good. I'll let you off with this. just handle it carefully. See ya.)

"How did you figure that out?" Ray asked.

"Your eyes." she answered, "they were not focused on me, but on something in your head. I don't know how to explain, I might be a bad teacher after all."

"It's alright. I will get it now. try again." Ray sat down and tapped the books.

Rose went back to teaching mode, now explaining everything slowly and in simpler terms. Ray didn't understand all of it, but he did get a few important points. He repeated what he understood to Rose, "The runes are lost text from older civilizations. they are what they used as spells."

"So far, going correct."

"And then," Ray tried to remember, "we used the symbols which the runes contained to create magic circles?"

"That is not entirely correct. The runes had certain symbols associated with them. even when the runes were translated, we couldn't decipher the meanings behind these symbols." Rose explained.

"And then, we applied the symbols onto stuff and poured mana into them, they showed effects similar to the runes. That is what helped with the development of castable circles."

"Correct."

Ray sighed with relief but remembered that he hadn't even started on the subject yet. He looked up at Rose again, "So, how do the translations happen?"

"Alright, so we trace the language through different periods of history and compare them with literature." Rose started explaining thoroughly. "Just like how we learn a foreign language by comparing words, we slowly decode the Runes by comparing them with the sentences from other languages at the time."

"Got it."

"Good." Rose pulled out a sheet from her shelf, "Here are the most repeated questions with their translations. try to memorize them properly."

after taking a good look at the sheet, Ray was confident that he would at least get a passing grade even if he didn't remember all the answers. he carefully put the sheet in his bag along with all his books. he then grabbed Rose by the shoulders and picked her up, then gave her a deep, long hug. At the end of the hug, he said, "No words can translate how glad I am to have you in my life."

He then separated himself from her and stood at the door, "I will leave now, you should study as well. I don't want to get your scores down because of me, call me if you need to talk, or study."

As Ray proceeded to go downstairs, he bumped into Rose's mother. She was a little surprised to see him, "Leaving so soon? why won't you stay over for the night?"

"I am sorry…" Ray didn't know how to address her, "Mrs. Ashford, but I don't want to distract Rose when exams are so close."

"I see." she seemed a little disappointed, "I was hoping for you two to have some alone time together, it has been a while."

Ray got hit with the realization that he had not spent time alone with his girlfriend in a while. He ran back to her room, bursting the door open. there she was, still sitting in her bed. Ray went for a kiss immediately, it was a weird thing to do at times like this, but that's how his head works. After what seemed like an eternity to both of them, their lips separated. "I missed you," Ray said.

"took you long enough." Rose giggled a little, "I thought you forgot about me."

"I am really sorry about that. It's just that it didn't seem that long to me, but now I talked with your mother and it hit me." Ray said, "Let's go on a date after the exams are over, wherever you want."

"I will pack you both a lunch then." Rose's mother spoke from the door, "And Ray, you can call me Auntie if calling me Mother is hard for you."

"I will get going now," Ray stood at the window, "See you later auntie, love you, babe."

He said and took off. his mood was good, as it should have been. Rose was also in a good mood now, they almost forgot about their upcoming exams, or the anxiety at least. Ray flew at his best speed, zooming through the forest and the roads, as he looked at the empty roads below him. These roads were made to have cars and vehicles, but the majority decided to just ignore that instead. Only people who use the roads are the ones who prefer to have a view of the forest or the people who don't like heights. Even the hospitals stopped using roads in emergency cases after spatial circles were proven safe for transportation.

The transportation businesses were quite shaken when this style of transport became commercialized. However, it was very hard to set up travel for long distances, and thus the cost of a single travel through the circles was skyrocketing.

Humans are lazy creatures, as we tend to find the process which saves our energy to do the tasks. and thus, even though there was an easier way to move available in this world, humans still developed Vehicles. They used solar power as the primary source of energy, which helped with keeping nature safe.

"Nate, you there?" Ray asked.

(Don't say that name, it causes problems.)

"whatever. why did you interrupt when she was teaching me?"

(Mainly because it was boring to me. and I thought it would be funny.)

"It was not funny. Don't do that ever again."

(As you wish, my liege. by the way, I wanted to say that I already can translate all the runes that you were studying, so you can ask for my help.)

"I don't want to. Besides, when did you get so friendly with me? I thought you hated me."

(i didn't hate you. just disliked the poor choices you were making. it was excruciating to see you get hurt when you can dodge the attacks easily. in other words, I hate when you act dumb.)

"I see." ray stopped for a second. "do you think I am capable of more than what I am doing right now?"

(yes. but don't dwell on it for too long, you have exams to care about.)