Chapter 223 : Chapter 223
Chapter 223. First Meeting
The scene suddenly accelerated, like strips of film swept away frame by frame by a violent gale.
Half a year later.
When that magnificent white gate appeared on the horizon, Logaris almost thought he was looking at heaven.
Saint Arcadia Academy.
It was the cleanest thing he had ever seen in his life. The ivory-white marble shone with a sacred radiance beneath the sun, and the soaring spires pierced straight into the clouds as though they were declaring war upon the heavens themselves.
The students passing in and out wore splendid mage robes. Some rode docile unicorns, while others stood upon glittering flying carpets. Between laughter and easy conversation, they discussed profound spellwork that ordinary people could never hope to understand.
They were like another species entirely.
And he, in contrast, was dressed in rags, his hair matted into knots, his shoes worn so badly that his toes were exposed, and his whole body carried a sour stench that no washing could remove.
Standing at the school gates, he looked like a drop of ink fallen into milk, utterly out of place.
“Stop right there. Beggars collect relief grain over there.” The guard at the gate frowned and raised a hand to block him.
“I came here to study,” Logaris said, lifting his head. Though thin and frail, his gaze was strangely calm.
“To study?” The guard sounded as though he had just heard the greatest joke in the world. He pointed at the figures on the notice board nearby. “Take a good look. Miscellaneous fees for a single term are five hundred Golden Lion Coins. Do you have that?”
Five hundred Golden Lion Coins.
That was a vast sum that an ordinary family could never earn in a lifetime. Logaris touched the few silver coins in his pocket, nearly worn smooth by now, and his heart sank bit by bit. The wall called class was even taller and thicker than he had imagined.
Just as he was about to turn around and leave, he saw a small sign beside the gate:
【Talent Testing Chamber — Open to every soul with a dream.】
That was a rule left behind by the academy’s founder. So long as one’s talent was strong enough, all fees would be waived.
Logaris walked up to the teacher in charge of the test.
He was a plump middle-aged man lazily flipping through a newspaper. When he saw Logaris approach, he did not even bother to raise his head. “Testing fee: one silver coin. Put your hand on the crystal ball.”
Logaris handed over the last silver coin he had on him.
He stretched out that hand, covered in calluses and scars, and gently pressed it against the clear, translucent crystal ball.
One second. Two seconds.
The fat teacher was just about to chase him away when, all of a sudden, a heart-stirring wave of energy erupted from the center of the crystal ball.
There was no warning whatsoever.
Boom!
One dazzling stream of seven-colored light after another shot into the sky, punching straight through the ceiling of the testing room. Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet—seven colors of mana ran wild through the room like something gone mad.
A series of cracking noises came from inside the crystal ball, as though it could no longer bear the strain. Then, under the horrified gaze of the fat teacher, it exploded directly into a cloud of powder.
All affinities.
Supergrade.
The entire admissions office fell instantly into dead silence. Those noble youths who had been waiting in line all stood there with their mouths hanging open, not even noticing when the canes in their hands slipped to the ground.
The fat teacher rose to his feet trembling, his spectacles sliding down to the tip of his nose. He stared at the filthy child before him, and even his voice shook. “Y-you... what is your name?”
“Logaris.”
And yet, that was only the beginning.
The illusion did not stop there. Instead, as though some invisible hand had violently twisted it, the scene was rapidly torn apart and reassembled in a dizzying blur.
It was the entrance combat test that came immediately afterward.
In the scene was a muddy magic forest. Twelve-year-old Logaris, wearing coarse clothes that did not fit him properly, looked down at the lot number he had drawn with a face full of impatience.
Then he lifted his head and looked toward the teammate who had been assigned to him.
She was a girl with long silver-white hair. She wore a neat court hunting outfit and held a greatsword taller than she was, standing all alone beneath the shade of a tree. The other noble candidates all avoided her as though she carried some contagious plague.
Twelve-year-old Sylvia Van Astrelia.
This was not some random act of fate. Rather, one of the academy’s higher-ups had fancied himself clever. He had forcibly paired Logaris—who possessed “supergrade talent” yet had no magical foundation at all—with the strongest new student of the year, intending to carry him through by this method of the strong leading the weak.
Their first meeting was a complete disaster.
Sylvia shot him a cold glance, and her silver-gray eyes were filled with rejection, like a little wolf cub with its fur bristling.
“Stay away from me.”
That was the first sentence she ever spoke to Logaris.
“If you want to pass the test, go apply for a change of group right now. I do not need dead weight, much less a performing clown whose only skill is blowing up crystal balls.”
Logaris could not be bothered to deal with this arrogant little creature.
Squatting on the ground, he pulled several simple explosive packets out of that tattered cloth bundle—things he had rolled together from discarded alchemical materials and cafeteria flour. Without even looking up, he tossed back a single reply.
“That is none of your concern.”
Sylvia was so angry she laughed.
And yet, in the end, the two of them still pinched their noses and formed a team, passing that entrance test—which Logaris only later learned had been deliberately arranged to target Sylvia.
Time flowed on little by little.
The person called Sylvia was like a tenacious vine, gradually spreading itself across the wasteland of Logaris’s life.
Neither of them understood what it meant to yield to the other, and arguments accompanied most of the time they spent together.
In the library—
“Logaris! What did you put in my sword oil this time?! Why has it turned pink and started smelling like strawberries?!”
“That is an improved version. It increases anti-magic effects by thirty percent. The color is merely a side effect. You are a shallow woman.”
In the alchemy lab—
“Sylvia! Who told you to touch my workbench? That was a highly unstable alchemical potion!”
“I was only trying to help you tidy it up... How was I supposed to know it was that delicate? Besides, your laboratory is a bigger pigsty than a pigsty. No one but me would even bother coming in here.”
Whether in class, around the academy, or even at the inter-academy tournament across the entire continent, others were always able to witness their strange way of getting along.
Whether they were beating up troublesome noble brats, exploring new kinds of magitech weapons, or accepting all manner of dangerous underground commissions—
At such times, they displayed an extraordinarily powerful, almost chilling level of tacit understanding.
More often than not, one glance from Logaris was enough for Sylvia to know whom she ought to cut down. One opening stance from Sylvia was enough for Logaris to know exactly where to throw the fireball.
Until the eve of graduation, when they were eighteen years old.
The scene froze on a summer night glittering with stars.
The two of them sat atop the academy’s highest clock tower, with two bottles of sweet wine at their feet—wine they had swiped from the old dean’s private cellar, older than they were themselves.
The night wind sent Sylvia’s long hair dancing wildly. Propping up her chin with one hand, she gazed down at the brightly lit academy below. There was not the slightest trace of sorrow for the coming parting in her eyes. Instead, what burned there was a sharpness on the verge of leaving its sheath.