An Awkward First Day

'Nii-san! Stay safe at school! Always remember to eat 3 meals a day and don't get into trouble! If you do your sister will come to beat you up personally!' Maya was seeing me off to school. She patted my clothes and placed her hands on my shoulders. <i>Is this what having a mother is supposed to feel like? </i>

'I'll visit on holidays alright!'

'You won't be visiting me for long!' I made a puzzled face.

'What do you mean by that?' She grinned.

'I'll be joining you next year, remember?' That was right, she would be joining next year because she was only a year younger than me.

'I'll look forward to that then Maya! But for now goodbye!' she nodded and I left.

On my way out I saw Raymond leaning on a wall. He looked my way. And merely nodded his head. I looked at him, but almost immediately Caria came out. I may have been wrong. But I saw the two sides of Raymond's mouth go up slightly. But immediately go back down when Caria came, it must've been my imagination.

I got into the carriage, Caria was long gone by now. It must've been my imagination. The man called the Devil of Xander lifted his hand and waved. <i>Wait what? Why is he waving? He must have some ulterior motive! Shit is this carriage going to explode?!</i>

Raymond Xander was an alumnus of the Royal Academy. He graduated last year with top honours. He was one of the most powerful swordsmen among the rising stars. Rumours went around that he would be the next Sword Saint, a title only bestowed to those who have completely mastered the sword.

I clutched Clarent's handle in my hand. But surprisingly nothing happened. <i>Well, I guess that's that.</i> I took a sigh of relief and focused on what I wanted to do.

Mordred excelled in everything except durability. So my main focus should be learning how to dodge well, my dodging ability as of now was subpar, Cleansing Light can offset getting hit and cut but Cleansing Light can't be a solution forever.

I arrived at the academy and the first thing I saw was Oscar talking to some people,

'Wow, you are top of the Heroic class? You must really be the strongest Prince Oscar!'

'No no you're exaggerating, I'm really not that string, I just got lucky.' He was scratching the side of his head in embarrassment.

I walked past him and he looked at me, the others turned my way and started whispering to each other. <i>What the hell do they want? </i>

Oscar walked towards me until he stood right in front of me. I only noticed now, he was tall, very tall. He was at least a few inches taller than me, it slightly intimidated me.

'Mordred Xander.' I gulped, and I felt a drop of sweat form on my forehead.

'Hello, Oscar.' Instead of addressing him as a prince, I called him by his first name, it was a bold move. He stared at me for a couple of seconds, then nodded.

' I hope we get along Mordred! Congratulations on your position!' He then went back to the group he was talking with and I kept walking along. There were still 5 minutes until my first classes started so I sat down at my desk. Akari was also sitting by herself.

Renji was talking to our classmates. They seemed excited, especially the otaku of the class.

'I'm gonna be the strongest! I'm gonna get all the abilities and be the most powerful swordsman!' One said as he lifted up his glasses, I snorted when he said that, it was just too funny. He kept going,

'I'm going to find the overpowered sword, defeat the demon king and marry a beautiful princess!' What the actual fuck? I saw Lari's disgusted expression from across the room and I couldn't hold it in anymore and started laughing really loudly.

The otaku looked at me again, adjusted his glasses and started walking towards me. 'Do you have anything to say? If you have something to say, say it to my face!' All eyes were on us, what I said here could impact my entire school life. I made a stone-cold expression on my face.

'If that's the expectation you have of our world, then I feel sorry for you. There are no beautiful princesses here to marry and there is no overpowered sword to obtain. The only thing that will make you stronger is training and effort so let go of your stupid fantasies and face the reality of your situation.

Renji looked disappointed in the otaku and the otaku shrunk back into the background of the classroom and conversation flowed again as usual. I sat down in my seat, whew that was a close one. After about 5 minutes the entire class sat down quietly. The door opened, and tension was very high. Then.

'Hi everyone! My name is Ewin Altaca, I'll be your homeroom teacher for the next 3 years, I hope we can all get along!' A tall man who was quite well-built walked into the room. He had a cheerful smile on his face and looked like a very easy-going and joyful person.

'Looks like we're going to have an easy time here. Two of my former classmates were whispering to each other right next to me.

He looked down at his desk. 'Is that what you thought I was gonna say?' His expression immediately darkened. 'You thought I was going to be an easy teacher just from that first impression, didn't you? Well, you're wrong, I will be very strict on you and I expect good work from all of you!' My expression hardened, it wouldn't be a cakewalk. 'Now I'll need all of you to fill out this form I give you about which classes you would like to take this year.' He went around and handed out the forms.

On the form were 6 empty squares. These squares represented time allocation. The options were.

Swordsmanship classes.

Magic Theory classes.

Magic Application classes.

Blacksmith classes.

Magic engineering classes.

Spearsmanship classes.

And finally Bowsmanship classes.

You could fill up to two squares with a class. My choices would be two squares of swordsmanship, two squares of magic theory and two squares of magic application classes. I went up to the teacher's desk and kept my form there. He looked around the room.

'Alright everyone, that's all for today classes start tomorrow, please make your way to your dorm rooms. Heroic class A dorms are right outside this building, the dorms for the otherworlders are different so keep that in mind, that is all you are dismissed. I walked out of the classroom and decided to go to the training room.

I took a wooden sword from the rack and started hitting the dummy. Dengen walked in and also started hitting the dummy. I was using one hand so my strikes were quite fast and accurate. I was able to hit it so hard that I broke the dummy which is pretty difficult to do.

Dengen looked at me and kept trying to break the dummy but couldn't. I put the sword back and was about to walk out when.

'Mordred Xander.' He said in a low voice. I turned around. 'How dare you taint this place with your presence? He looked angry. 'You're such a failure, you must've used a trick to get in!'

'Believe what you want. I got in by my skills alone, if you want to doubt that then why don't you test my skills yourself? At this point, many people were crowded around us. He smirked, 'Very well then Mordred Xander, tomorrow at break time after third period.' He threw his glove at the floor, signifying a duel. I picked it up in acceptance of his challenge.

'I see we have reached an agreement.' I threw the glove straight into his chest and walked away.

I went into my dorm lounge. Edwina was sitting down there reading a book. I set my bag down which had a ton of healing potions in it, they were expensive. So one thing I needed to do was learn alchemy so I could make the potions myself. I propped myself onto a couch with my bag next to me.

I also took out a book and started reading it. It was about magic circles and cores. Cores would smash together and disperse your mana across your whole body and the weapon you're holding, it was meant for swordsmen. Mana would circulate your mana and strengthen your magic attacks. I currently had 2 cores and 1 circle. I could interchange cores and circles.

At that moment I tried making my 3rd core. I got into a cultivation pose and started absorbing the mana from around me. Breathe in, breathe out. I felt a powerful shockwave being emitted from my body. I felt the mana in my veins, and I tried to force it near my heart.

It hurts! It fucking hurts! It hurt like hell, it overpowered all my other senses. I need to control it! In the game, there was a little minigame where you can circulate the mana in any form. But there was a slight cheat, the infinity circulation was easily the best type of circulation.

I controlled the mana that was running rampant in my body, I circulated it into an infinity symbol around my heart. I felt the mana being amplified further and being absorbed. Almost there!

'Heuk!' it finally settled down. I took a deep breath and checked my status. What?!

I checked my heart, and there were 3 cores but what surprised me was that there were 2 circles. In the game you could turn cores into circles and vice-versa so I could be either a 5-star magician or a 5-star swordsman. Hmm, since I'm not very good at swordsmanship I think I'll be a magician. Until I learned better swordsmanship techniques I would use magic, it would make me stronger faster and it was simple to use. The only caveat was that I needed to memorise spell names, but I do remember some so I'll write them down quickly on a piece of paper.

'What just happened?' Edwina was standing on the opposite side of the room. She had seen everything that transpired. Oh shit!. I had fucked up.