Boris saw his nice knowledge excited expression and he didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry, he was happy that since she started teaching to Daimon and the others, Aliya seemed to have regained a lot of her old self, it was as if a weak flame suddenly exploded burning with life again.
Reaching the peak mage lord realm, being just a bit far away from becoming the glory of the Arch rank, just to lose most of her powers, was a strong blow for Aliya, while most of people wouldn’t have been able to recover from that, after she recovered the capacity to move.
She dedicated all her time to create a medicine that could allow her to use magic while avoiding mana poisoning, with ruined mana circuits and a cracked magic core, and after years of trial and error she developed a prototype.
But after that she couldn’t improve it and no mater where she tried to get knowledge, nothing helped her, it was as if something was deliberately blocking her path, it was then when she asked Boris to get her a spot as a teacher in the academy.
And after some troubles, pressure from Richard and the support of Aura, since Boris is one of her trusted henchmen, she ended up being assigned to the elite class, from that point onwards Boris has seen her getting minor episodes of inspiration, and more importantly she has even smiled from time to time.
‘Whatever if it works it works’, thought Boris as he gave the green light.
“Fine, since your teacher agrees, you can leave one hour earlier to the lunch break, now you better put attention to the lesson brats”, said Boris as he left the classroom to attend to his other tasks.
While he would normally stay near the 1-S classroom for security reasons, the champion and the clan head of the Revy family were both here, so unless something really extreme happened everything would be okay.
Aliya saw her normally strict uncle being quite flexible and she inwardly smiled before she focused on her students.
“Today’s class will be the last for the week, since tomorrow your matches will start and Friday will be free for everyone to do their preparations”, she said as she took some books from her storage ring.
“The academy has handed us these books which will be helpful for the exploration, Daimon please help me distribute them”.
Daimon stood up from his seat and handed a copy of the book to each one of his classmates, while keeping one for himself.
“Valuable materials and objectives, special edition Wild Claw academy”, all the students had the same reaction after reading the title on the cover of the book, everyone here comes from a noble family or had a decent backer, even Loren whose family is declining is the daughter of a peak Archmage.
And previous to their entrance to the academy, they had home tutors which taught them the basics, at the very least they should be able to discern valuable materials, it was done like that so they would not miss a fortunate chance.
For example, it would be a disgrace for the son of an Arch ranked to not recognize a piece of mithril or orichalcum.
The problem here was that besides the images of the materials and their descriptions as well as the method to collect them, there was some extra information.
“Orichalcum: 10,000 contribution points per gram”.
“Mithril: 10,000 contribution points per gram”.
“Bone Orchid: 30,000 contribution points, negotiable with vice principal Diana”.
“Blood Lily: 30,000 contribution points, if not attainable must be destroyed at first sight (A reward will be given if a proof is brought back)”.
“Eliminate a member of the abomination or eternal classes and bring back its head as proof, the reward will be calculated based on the rank and importance of the target for their respective galaxies”.
Since Daimon has never liked to beat around the bush, he directly said.
“So, we aren’t going to be able to keep what we find”.
Calvin and the others gazed at Aliya which quickly explained.
“Yes and no, every one of the participants will have their storage rings confiscated and then given one crated by the magic blacksmiths of the academy, as soon as you put something inside, the item will be recorded”.
“Once you come out, you’ll have to return the ring and the contents will be registered in front of your respective family or force as well as the treasurer of the academy, then you’ll be given the chance to keep ten of those items for yourself, the rest must be sold to the academy of those affiliated to it”.
“Don’t worry the prices are very fair and you can use the points to get other things from the treasury of the academy, besides the transaction will be held in secret so that no one would know the origin of the resource”.
‘I guess it’s not that bad, they protect the student, leave them chose their rewards and if they got things that aren’t useful for them, they can use the points to exchange them’, thought Daimon.
“And what happens if we use some of those things, like what if we need to use them in order to survive or something like that?”, asked Calvin.
“No problem, if used then it won’t count, of course you’ll be scanned to make sure there aren’t any “accidents”, make sure to read the book in your free time, the class of today is a little exam to see how many of those materials you recognize”.
After saying that, Aliya told them to keep the books in their rings and handed everyone a written test with several images, the idea was for them to write the name of the material and a description of it.
The rest of the class consisted in Aliya checking their answers and explaining them their mistakes, surprisingly the average of correct answers was about eighty percent, even Calvin had a decent number of good answers.
She already expected Daimon to have full score and her expectations were answered, but to her surprise Leslie was the same.
´Well, she is a second generation of an alchemist, but then why did she didn’t have experience refining potions´, wondered Aliya.
This test wasn’t done on a whim, she wanted to find potential alchemists among her students, Daimon was already on the top of the list, but there was a second spot, last time Yvonne outstood in the results of the potion they needed to refine as homework, but now Leslie outshined her.
‘Whatever there is still some time, we’ll se how it goes after they return from the exploration’.
Without noticing the time for the class ended and Boris returned, with a somewhat annoyed expression as he gazed at Calvin.
Something the latter expected.
‘Leaving Aleah without supervision for a couple of hours is a really bad idea’, thought Calvin.
He took out his sigil lector and sent a message which was immediately answered with just a few words.
“Public arena”.
Boris immediately frowned at Calvin’s words, the public arena is exclusive for the second- and third-year students, but since the elite class of the second year is participating in the tournament, then only third years should be using it in the meanwhile.
And the condition to be a third year and stay in the main campus is… to be a seventh star ranked mage or knight and be able to beat a “normal” eight ranked being.
“Well, if she is as troublesome as you claim, she should have no problems unless the top of the elite class from the third years fights with her, since the year is still starting there aren’t eight star ranked students yet”.
With Boris leading Daimon and the others entered the area designated for the second and third years, which earned them some weird gazes from the students that were in their breaks, but no one came to cause them problems, they had a tutor guiding them after all.
Soon they reached the public arena where as Calvin expected there was a crowd gathered, student from different classes and even some from the three guest academies where filling the stands.
When Daimon’s gaze fell on the platform of the arena a glint of surprise flashed through his eyes, the size of the platform was the same as the one currently being used for the tournament, and that large area was filled with beaten up students laying all over the ground, surrounded by churned up pieces of broken armors and other equipment.
In the middle of all those swollen faces and bruised bodies, the proud and tall figure of Aleah stood out like a sore thumb, she casually grabbed some of the many weapons laying around and played with it before her claws cut them apart.
The ones watching from the stands had terrified expressions, most of them were from the C and D classes, while those laying on the ground were all from the B and some of the A classes, in other words a single five-star knight wiped the floor with about fifty seventh star mages and knights, it was ridiculous.
“A walking disaster as always”, mumbled Calvin.
Aleah noticed Daimon and the others and her bored expression changed to an expecting one.
“Daimon, I was starting to get bored, those herbivores didn’t even serve as a warm up, I can’t believe that even in groups of ten they can’t even push me back one step”.
Daimon bitterly smiled, if numbers could make up for battle prowess, then Half Emperors wouldn’t be so respected.
As Daimon was about to jump to the platform feeling expectant of the little spar, he was going to take part in, a voice coming from the entrance of the arena drew everyone’s attention.
“I was told there was a massacrer ongoing in the arena, and of course it had to be someone related to your monster’s class, old Boris”.