Bullying

It was the morning of the next day. A girl wearing the uniform of a junior apprentice was shuttling between two trees in a scheduled corner of academy compounds. She would some times look towards the towering arches of the castle and sometimes look at her wrist, pulling her sleeves.

Looking at the wristwatch, which was showing 5:13 am, she mumbled.

"Still not here yet, what is that guy doing?"

It seemed that she was anxiously waiting for someone as after a while, another apprentice came in that place. Judging by the badge in his uniform, he was a senior apprentice.

But even he was cautiously moving until he reach that place. He didn't want anyone to know about this meeting.

"What took you so long, didn't we agree to meet at 5?" the girl softly said, her tone implying that she was displeased.

Hearing the girls words, although the young man was angry, he just frowned and explained. "My teacher is keeping tabs on me, you know senior apprentices like me are kept under surveillance."

"Humph"

"Alright, lets not wait anymore time. There is another mission for you." saying this, that senior apprentice took out a stack of paper, neatly arranged like a file book.

The girl gave a quick look at the eyes of the young man and promptly took the file from his hands. However, as she turned the pages, a frown appeared on her forehead.

"Why stephen? You know he that he has been regarded as heir of the Edwards family due to his talent, right?" She said, handing the file to the senior apprentice.

She felt that this was an unresonable mission placed on her by their superior. If she was found out by the Edwards family after or when doing this mission, then even death might be blissful for her.

"Its the orders from the alliance. Even Sir Jiang cannot do anything about this." The young man calmly said. But as he got the suspicious gaze from the girl before him, he added.

"Although the mission is for both of us, you as a junior apprentice can get close to him during the senior evaluation test. So I'll be only supporting you from the shadows. Fortunately, you are from the same batch as him. The alliance has high hopes for you, kim."

Although the girl didnot want to take the mission, she had no choice but to take the file from his hands and prepare. Then holding the file in her left hand she made made a fist of her right palm and brought it near her left chest.

"Long live Earth!"

"Long live Earth!" the man also did the same thing, repeating the same words

.....

Aren made it to master Claude's laboratory exactly at 5 in the morning as usual. Over the days, it had become an habit for him to wake up early. So he was not sleepy as he was during first 10 days of his apprenticeship.

Getting inside after Claude's permission, he caught a rare sight of Claude having tea, sitting on a chair instead of him always working. Though the matter surprised him, he didn't show any signs of amazement.

"You performed a divination?" Claude said, as soon as he saw Aren. He could sense some lingering aura of the river of destiny in Aren.

"Yes." Aren answered, finding it not suprising that his master found out about it.

"Hmm...Now that you've learned your first spell, I guess its time for you to give the rune advancement formula." Claude said as he conjured slip of paper out of nowhere. He then threw the slip into air and it flew into Aren's hands like a seintent being.

"Rune advancement formula?" While looking at the numbers, complicated characters and various circular diagrams on the slip, Aren had a pondering look on his face.

"Yes." Claude provided an explanation while sipping the hot tea in his cup.

"A mage's growth not only related to learning and experimenting with spells but increasing in spiritual powers too. This rune advancement formula with let you knowthe right way to add further engravings in your already existing rune."

"Listen, a mage's rune is always incomplete and while engraving further, a mage can only hope to make it near complete form. The bigger and more complicated your rune, the more spiritual power you'll have. But this formula can only be useful until you are a lesser mage. There is another formula for greater mages."

After that...well, master Claude finished his tea and again came the hellish tutoring session. Except for drinking water and a slight rest for a quarter of an hour, Aren and other two apprentices kept learning until it was ten.

When they finally heard "thats it for today's lessons.", they felt as though they got some form of salvation.

As they got outside of the lab, the quick-minded Aren was first to realize.

'He said for today instead of this morning which means we won't have to come here in the afternoon.'

Although Aren didn't mind, a slight smile had already formed on Rahil's face while Shahil was stoic as ever.

As all three of them were hungry they first went to dining hall. After having a satisfying lunch, they went to their own rooms.

That was another one of rare moments where all three of them would eat together. Especially Shahil, who would always immediately disappear after each lesson to who-knows-where.

It was a three minute walk from the dining hall to his room. While Walking through the corridors, there were various thoughts running in Aren's mind.

'This formula...I believe is mostly useless to me. There rune I engraved in my spiritual space is not only the circle but the hexagram star too. It would have been great if the two were separately engraved but mine is a combination. I don't know what formula my rune needs for me to add other runes in it.'

Just then an idea came into his mind, what if he derived a unique formula from the other formulas?

However, there was another big problem in this plan. He didn't have the formula for other magical studies. As each subject had a unique rune advancement formulas, there was no need to give him formulas for other rune. So only divination rune advancement formula was given to him.

'I'm short of formulas for a summoning rune, elemental runes, mind rune, illusory rune and forbidden runes. Sigh, Even if I get these, I will need at least four months to derive the required rune, according to the complexity of these formulas...' Thinking about large number of calculations and deductions he would have to make, Aren remembered his days as a programmer.

But even then, there were supercomputers which could finish these calculations in a flash. Doing the calculations manually might make him go crazy if he didn't have the super memory and thinking capability he had now.

Aren reached the corridors where his room was only to see that several senior apprentices had surrounded another apprentice. As he heard the insults and taunting directed at the apprentice in center, Aren suspected that they might be bullying someone.

He was not valiant though. It was a different story if he was also a senior, but as he was a junior, he didn't have any confidence going against a bunch of seniors who might have mastered various combat spells.

However, When he was about open his door, he heard one of the seniors say someone's name which made him stop what he was about to do.

"Heh, Terry, do what he says already or the end result might not be pleasant."

'Senior Terry? Is she the one being bullied?'

Aren turned around and went closer to see. It was indeed Terry, he uniform was torn apart now. The senior who just said Terry's name was a slim girl having blond hair. Although she was the one talking, she seemed to be very obedient to another apprentice beside her.

He was boy in his late teens having handsome facial features. As he was holding a luxurious wand in his hand, it seemed that he was from a well-off family. Aren looked closely at the boy and recognised who he was.

Lucifier, one of the direct descendents of the Edwards family. Although his talent was not as good as Stephen's, he was was highly regarded member of the family due to his grandfather being the only brother of the Family head. The Edwards family head was infact the branch Association leader of the Mages' Association.

As Lucifier was from a major family, Aren automatically understood that Lucifier might be bullying Terry with his lackeys.

"Huh, Who's this kid?" one of the apprentices seemed to have noticed Aren standing there and asked, pointing towards him.