Arc 1: Part 18

Saturday.

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On Saturday, most of the time was scheduled as free time for the students to relax, but sometimes they used their time to train, complete their homework, or do field training.

It was currently free time for Kyle to spend relaxing, but he had made a promise with Ozi and the other two to help them with their training early on. He wouldn't do much other than observe them and only help them if they made a mistake.

{'Well, this is also leisure time,'} Kyle grinned while sitting lazily. Feeling bored watching the trio, he took out a book he had prepared from his bag and began to read. Back when there was nothing fun to play with, reading was a simple activity to waste time that he did most of the time.

The book he was reading was about this world's history. Despite having lived numerous times already, it didn't mean that he knew everything that had happened in the past. He didn't spend his life just seeking information and knowledge; that would be too boring. The reason he was reading this book was that he needed to learn whether something bad had, or had not, happened in the past and if that would resurface again.

"Eh?" Kyle found something interesting in the book "Six Nations made from the Six Stones." There was a famous tale of ancient life in it. In the past, there was a Great Mage who had mastered the language of dragons. He rose to become the most powerful and important figure of the time. He also created many artifacts, and one of his famous artifacts was the Six Stones. Six Stones, while plural, was classified as a single item. It comprised of Stone of Fire, Stone of Wind, Stone of Earth, Stone of Water, Stone of Light, and Stone of Darkness. Each Stone had its own history of how it was created.

It was said that only he and his descendants could use the Stones. However, it was only him who could utilize all the Stones alone and used them to their full potential. As a result, there is a widespread belief that his descendants were chosen to be the rulers or emperors. Bloodshed among the descendants occurred as they fought to obtain the Stones for themselves, but in the end, there was no winner.

However, it appeared that the Six Stones had reappeared, and the Great Mage's descendants were still alive and had formed six countries.

"Wow, I missed a lot of history," Kyle reflected, regretting his neglect to read books earlier. The Six Nations were Fima Kingdom, Wiron Empire, Erta Kingdom, Warven Kingdom, Listia Empire, and Darcus Empire. All of those nations were not close to Gollia in terms of the border, which was a fortunate thing because these six nations often had conflicts, and if Gollia was nearby, it would draw them in.

Regarding the Six Stones, despite it being said that only the Great Mage and his descendants could use them, there were many attempts to use the Stones without the bloodline there. And Kyle had seen them a lot, both failure and success. They were the sources of power, and naturally, many people attempted to use them, which was why he understood that the six nations didn't often use them aside from ceremonials.

"However …." Kyle remembered about Mina. The dark feeling inside her was exactly like what he had felt when near the Stone of Darkness. Did that mean the Stone of Darkness had disappeared from Darcus? He needed to investigate it further.

"Ugh, this puts me in a bad mood …." Kyle sighed and looked at the trio. They still trained their mana control without any problems. He looked at the time, and more than ten minutes had passed. It seemed they did well even without him helping them. He should leave and find something else to do.

He put his book into his bag and carried it while getting up. "Hey, I'm leaving. Looks like you guys don't need me. Keep it up!"

"Huh? Really?" Ozi asked. He and the others stopped their meditation.

"Yeah, ten minutes had passed, and nothing bad happened. Just keep doing it like you guys usually do. Anyway, bye!" Kyle merrily left the room.

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While he was walking toward the exit, he saw a familiar person at the receptionist. It was Mina from Class Seven.

"Well …. Isn't this a coincidence?" Kyle thought and went to approach her. She also seemed to notice him, but her looks didn't show any familiarity.

"Who are you?" she asked bluntly.

"Kyle Welton from Class Three, you are Mina from Class Seven, right?"

"…. Yeah, so you are the class we are allied with. What do you want?" It seemed the deal was a success. Still, this girl had no tact at all.

"Sounds obvious, but do you come here to train?"

"What else? Sleeping?" She looked at him as if he was an idiot.

"That's a great idea." Kyle nodded with closed eyes. A place where people were supposed to train became a place to laze around, such a taboo!

"You are weird. If you don't have anything else to say, I'm going," she said, began to walk away.

"Wait!" Kyle stopped her from moving further. She glanced at him questioningly "Can we train together?"

"Huh? Why should I?" She turned her body completely and eyed him.

"Since we are allies, isn't it better to learn from each other?"

At that, she scoffed. "That's my classmates' decision. I don't give a shit about it. Besides, you are not strong."

That irritated Kyle. This girl was truly blunt and arrogant. He made a guess that she was actually not popular in her class due to her attitude. Besides, how did she know whether he was strong or not?

"Is that so? Then why don't we make a bet?"

"Huh? Did I strike your ego?" she taunted with a grin.

"Yeah," Kyle didn't deny it. "Let's fight. If you win, I'll give you my monthly allowance. If you lose, you'll work for me within reason."

"Allowance?" Mina looked as if she wanted to laugh. "So you are a noble rich kid, very well. Let's fight." There was a trace of greed in her eyes.

From their conversation, Kyle realized that Mina was arrogant, blunt, easily baited, greedy, and reckless. She looked down on him, belittled him, easily accepted his challenge, and desired her reward. She had a lot of bad traits, and he felt he needed to fix them for her.

They went into another training room. Kyle didn't bring anything except a bag filled with his wallet, snacks, and books. So he had to borrow the Training Center's equipment. He took two knives for his weapons.

As for Mina, she was wearing gauntlets. He was convinced that they were custom-made. He thought she was a bare-handed fighter like Ninia, but once he looked carefully, the gauntlets had hidden blades.

"You don't mind if I use my personal weapons, right?" Mina asked, but in fact, she actually didn't care about Kyle's opinion.

"Sure, whatever floats your boat," Kyle replied and got his stance ready.

"Don't cry if I win, okay? Anyway, either out of the arena or subdued are the conditions to win. Is that alright?"

"Fine for me," Kyle responded lazily.

"Don't regret this," Mina grinned. Flame in dark color burst out from her gauntlets, and it eventually covered them. Kyle was momentarily shocked at the sudden familiar feeling he got from her; it felt like the Stone of Darkness was inside her.

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Author: Aida Hanabi

Proofreader: Lola

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