"A rival should at least beat me in something."
"Shut up! Did you come here to mock me?"
Noah laughed a little, he had to admit that he had fun conversing with her.
However, in the next moment, his eyes became cold.
"Let's say that you manage to beat me, what will you do? Kill me?"
The atmosphere changed immediately in the room, June understood that Noah was being serious.
"Why do you ask?"
"I have my own reasons."
Silence fell between them.
It took a while for June to finally speak.
"No, I will probably look for someone stronger. I don't have any reasons to kill you."
"What if you had them?"
Silence again but that time it took less for Noah to receive an answer.
"I don't know, ok? What could you ever do to make me want to kill you? Why are you even so serious about this?"
She was visibly irritated by Noah's questions so he decided to relax.
His gaze returned to an indifferent one and he sighed loudly.
'What could I even expect as an answer? I was a bit too pushy.'
He scratched his head looking at June and then sighed again.
"I'm sorry, that was too sudden."
He then went to the lower floor to find Ivor and took one of his jars from his stash.
As he returned to June's room, he lightly knocked on the door and showed the wine to her.
"Do you want a drink? Ivor's wine should be quite good."
She nodded slightly and Noah entered in the room and sat on the floor right in front of her.
Then, he took two simple glasses from his space-ring and poured the contents of the jar in them.
The aroma of the wine spread in the air, it was clearly a strong wine.
June didn't waste time in ceremonies and began drinking from her glass, Noah wasn't slow in imitating her.
They stayed in silence for a while, slowly appreciating the taste of Ivor's beverage.
It was strong but it had an immediate numbing effect on their mental sphere, even Noah's headache diminished greatly.
"Why did you ask those things? Do you expect me to hunt you down in the future?"
June broke the silence without raising her gaze from the glass.
"It's good to be prepared for every situation, I have trust issues."
Noah gave a vague answer.
"Do you ever tell the truth?"
Her words caused a small smirk to appear on his face.
"Do you want another lie?"
June shook her head and stared at the student in front of her.
They had fought so much against each other but she could never understand anything of his true nature, his image seemed to be constantly enveloped by fog.
Such a genius appearing out of nowhere and taking the spot of the strongest student.
His aptitude was of the darkness element, something that could create a wave of shock through the whole academy, yet no one seemed to know about it.
He had no noble ties either, all his resources and results came from his hard work.
"Are you running away?"
She couldn't help but ask.
It was the guess that made more sense in her mind.
Noah didn't answer, he limited himself to drink from his glass.
"Are you a criminal looking for freedom?"
Noah shook his head.
"What freedom could you possibly have with our power. You know of the Royal inheritance, it's safe to assume that the Royals will try to tighten their leash on us."
"So, is it about that? Do you just want more power?"
Noah raised his head too and returned the stare.
"Aren't you the same? I know that your childhood mustn't have been easy but that alone isn't enough to give birth to your addiction to battles."
June lowered her eyes as she reviewed the memories from his life in her family mansion.
"You saw me trapped in the illusion, right. Well, it was hard but not in the way that you think of."
She took a long sip before continuing in her story.
"As you know, the Ballor family is a small-size noble one, a declining one to be precise. My grandfather once told me that our ancestors traded all their wealth to obtain access to an inheritance ground. Their luck though wasn't good: the inheritance only had spells and techniques related to the thunder element and none of them had that aptitude."
"The contents of the inheritance were good but they were useless in their hands. However, they could not sell that legacy since their losses would surpass their gains, those that could buy it were medium-size noble families or above so my family could not set the selling price."
"In the end, they decided to wait, wait for an heir of the thunder element to appear. Little did they know that the waiting had to last one hundred years. They were really unlucky."
"Once my element was confirmed, I became the last hope of my family and they resorted to all kinds of harsh training to improve my strength as much as they could. I stopped being lashed every night only after I managed to become a mage."
"You know, my father used to be gentle when I was little. After the discovery of my element, he began to throw me in the middle of magical beasts' packs to increase the speed of my growth."
"In the beginning, I thought it was a punishment for something that I did but then I understood. I don't blame them though, they had to wait so much, their expectations had to be met."
'No wonder she is like that.'
Noah thought, filling June's glass that had been emptied during her story.
"What would have you done if you were in my place?"
June honestly asked looking at him.
"Take what they gave me, leave, and then never return. My life can't be about fulfilling other people's dreams."
Hearing those words, June laughed.
"Yes! I wanted that too for a while. But then I was accepted in the academy and found out so many strong people coming from many powerful families, in comparison I'm just a lone weakling. So I decided to use my family to become even stronger, I will be the heir that they waited so much for and they will be the means to realize my dreams!"