“You’re taking the Ascension Trials with Liliya Volkov?!”

  Levi raised an eyebrow as several students in the stairwell turned to look. Andevar’s eyes were wide as he stared at Levi, though he at least had the grace to look a little embarrassed by his outburst.

  The two were once again ascending the tower together. Levi had arrived early this time, which meant he and Andevar were caught in the morning rush hour of students. There was only one stairwell for everyone in the Institute, so it was absolutely packed. Thankfully, the passageways were absolutely massive, so it didn’t feel too claustrophobic – one of the few perks of space-expansion enchantments. The older students navigated the stairwell obstacles with practiced ease while the younger students struggled a bit more.

  On the eighth floor, Levi had watched a group of twelve year olds nearly get taken out by a hail of darts right in front of them. It had been pretty funny, honestly; one of them had instinctively used the others as a shield. Levi had a feeling there would be some words exchanged in the friend group later.

  “I am. The Ascension Trials are scheduled in two days,” Levi said. He’d mentioned offhandedly he was taking the Ascension Trials with Liliya to Andevar, who’d reacted as though Levi had told him he planned to make out with a basilisk. “Why, what’s wrong?”

  All he knew about Liliya Volkov was that Lord Ironwood had convinced House Volkov to force her to take the Ascension Trials with him, despite her original plan to take it by herself.

  “It’s Liliya Volkov,” Andevar stressed. “Her father is the esteemed Marquis Ivan Volkov, her older brother, Dmitri Volkov, became the youngest Royal Sentinel in history and is rapidly moving up the ranks, and Liliya herself is ranked first in our year by, like, a million miles. She’s already level 58, she has the ultra-rare Sword Saint class, and she’s an absolute genius. I’m pretty sure even Professor Heimler stopped bothering to grade her papers and just rubber stamps them with As. I thought she was planning to take the Ascension Trials by herself!”

  Levi nodded. “She was supposed to. My father asked House Volkov to have her partner with me.”

  Which, incidentally, spoke volumes about Liliya’s skills, if even Lord Ironwood had full faith she could not only clear the entire dungeon by herself but also protect Levi while doing so. Ordinarily, a single student soloing the Ascension Trials was already considered a nigh suicidal task, much less having to carry dead weight on top of that.

  Andevar stared at him. “Seriously? Wow. Those are some pretty hefty strings your father pulled there.” He hesitated. “Err, no offense.”

  “None taken,” Levi said. It was true, after all. His reputation was poor enough that it would be blatantly obvious to anyone watching that this arrangement was a purely nepotistic one, designed to push him through a graduation he would’ve failed otherwise.

  Levi was mildly surprised Lord Ironwood hadn’t simply added him to a normal party of students as the fifth member, but then again, it was likely better to owe only one family a favor instead of four. This would likely strengthen House Volkov and House Ironwood’s ties as well.

  “So House Volkov is forcing her to partner up with you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Wow. Liliya probably hates your guts now, you know.” Andevar even sounded a little sympathetic. “She’s been preparing to take the Ascension Trials solo for a while.”

  Levi’s expression stayed neutral. “I’m aware.”

  He couldn’t really blame her. He probably would’ve reacted the same if he were in her shoes. At least she’d tried to be professional about it in the library. He’d give her credit for that.

  “Still, though, I can’t believe House Volkov actually agreed to this,” Andevar said, shaking his head. “I mean, last I heard, she was getting engaged to the House Montague heir, wasn’t she? I don’t think he will take this well.”

  Levi stiffened at that. “She’s getting engaged?”

  “Well, not officially yet, but the grapevine says the two Houses will finalize negotiations any day now.” Andevar grimaced. “Heir Theodore Montague… Oh man. I’m sure you remember when he challenged John Winthrop to a duel last year for daring to ask Liliya out to the winter ball. He’s a bit… possessive.”

  “Possessive,” Levi echoed flatly. “He’s a student here?”

  Andevar gave him a funny look. “No, Theodore graduated over a decade ago. He’s a high-ranking Royal Sentinel. I hear he’s Dmitri’s commanding officer.”

  “Right…” Levi said, an increasingly wooden quality to his expression. “And, remind me, who’s the head of House Montague again?”

  “Duke Alan Montague, of course…”

  Levi exhaled slowly, trying to maintain his composure as he absorbed this new information.

  So he had to take the Ascension Trials together with Liliya. Just the two of them together in an enclosed dungeon for an undetermined amount of time.

  Surely, the absurdly possessive son of a duke would be understanding of the situation?

  … Yeah, okay, Theodore Montague was totally going to think Levi was trying to cuckold him.

  Fucking Lord Ironwood.

  Levi wasn’t particularly worried for himself, but he had the distinct feeling that this would invariably spiral into a political incident of some kind. Levi didn’t handle political incidents very well. They tended to inspire a uniquely homicidal irritation within him that nothing else ever did.

  Oh well. He’d deal with that when he got there.

  Levi entered Heimler’s classroom with a deliberate casualness to his step. His fight with the professor yesterday still weighed heavily in his mind. Levi was pretty sure he’d covered his tracks, but while he didn’t think there was any way for Heimler to identify him, he was still operating on an information deficit. There might be some sort of magical tracking method in this world he was unaware of.

  Fuck. Did Heimler have access to divination techniques? That was one way that could definitely compromise him.

  Thankfully, it appeared Heimler didn’t possess clairvoyance of any kind because he didn’t even spare a second glance as Levi walked past his desk. The professor was busy grading papers, his brow creased into a slight frown as he marked a student’s essay.

  Levi made his way to the back row, Andevar sitting down next to him. Levi cast a glance around the classroom, but like yesterday, he didn’t see Liliya anywhere.

  “Does Liliya not attend this class?” he asked Andevar.

  Andevar snorted. “Definitely not. She takes mostly post-graduate classes.”

  “Huh,” Levi said. “Why hasn’t she graduated early, then? It sounds like she was ready to become an adventurer a long time ago.”

  Andevar shrugged. “Who knows? Probably her family. They’re the… traditional sort.”

  Traditional? What did that mean?

  They quieted as Heimler stood and began his lecture, the class immediately falling silent.

  Levi had missed it the previous day, but Professor Heimler taught Advanced Magical Application 475, an upper division course for mostly senior students. The class seemed to be focused on effective adventuring tactics and strategies, with the occasional anecdote from Heimler thrown in here and there.

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  Levi had to admit, Heimler was a good teacher. He had a certain presence to him that commanded attention; something about the way he spoke, where each word was layered with the seasoned experience of a veteran adventurer.

  He found himself listening along as Heimler recounted the one time he'd been forced to eat raw meat for an entire week. The professor had been trapped in the wildlands with no supplies or backup, a group of elite vampires hunting him. While it would’ve been elementary to cook the meat with a minor spell, any scent of cooked meat would’ve immediately alerted the vampires to his presence.

  Ultimately, Heimler had managed to escape the vampires unscathed. The intestinal parasites, however, had been another matter.

  Levi chuckled lightly to himself as he turned his attention back to the homework problem on the blackboard. Unable to sleep, he had spent most of the previous night trying to solve it, and while he’d made good progress, he’d passed out around dawn before he could finish. Fortunately, it didn’t seem like the homework was due just yet.

  After Heimler’s class, Levi went to eat lunch once more. Nobody bothered him this time, though the students around him did erupt in hushed whispers whenever he walked by. Listening in on a couple of conversations, it appeared most of them thought Winthrop had taken it easy on him in the fight on purpose, though each reason proved more outlandish than the last.

  Some thought Winthrop had fixed the fight for betting purposes, others thought Levi had paid Winthrop off to not beat his ass, a couple believed Levi had acquired some top-tier magical items, and one disturbing rumor had Levi and Winthrop allegedly engaged in a forbidden romance.

  Levi didn’t even want to know how the last one had come about.

  Notably, he also overheard several students talking about the Ascension Trials and his partnership with Liliya Volkov; it appeared news of that was also spreading. He received more than a couple dirty looks for that from not only the students but also several passing professors. It appeared Liliya was universally respected across the Institute – and inversely, Levi was only becoming more and more universally despised.

  After lunch, Levi went to the classes he’d ditched before. Advanced Self-Preservation 405 was taught by Professor Merriweather, a portly old professor with a big laugh and a bigger belly. It seemed like a useful class, but Levi wagered he probably knew more about self-preservation than the professor himself, so he tuned out the lecture easily enough. Advanced System Theory 425 was taught by Professor Ashford, a reedy professor who talked so fast his words blurred into each other. The class was focused on the different System classes and skills.

  Levi had noticed that the students of the Institute seemed to belong to all sorts of different classes (at least, the ones above level 25 who had access to the class selection). Andevar was a Warrior, Winthrop was a Knight, and Liliya was a Sword Saint. Looking around the classroom, he saw a wide variety of mages, rangers, lancers, scouts, and so on as well, at least judging by their weapons and appearances.

  At first, Levi didn’t understand why the Institute grouped all the students together instead of separating them by their specific class, but he quickly grasped the reason. He’d forgotten that most adventurers operated in parties, and thus they’d need a shared common body of knowledge. This way, a knight would have an understanding of a mage’s capabilities instead of fumbling around in the dark, and vice versa. Levi really had been working solo for too long.

  Apparently, Professor Heimler was a Sword Sage, the evolved class of Sword Saint. That had seemed a little odd, since Sage and Saint didn’t exactly seem like natural evolutions of one another, but Levi figured there was probably a reason for that. That explained Heimler’s peerless swordsmanship. Combined with his [Stillpoint] – an area-of-effect field that froze all motion within a certain range – and he made for a nightmarishly devastating close-range specialist.

  After classes ended, Levi returned to the library to continue gathering intel.

  In this world, a ‘dungeon’ referred to any location that held a sufficient concentration of monsters. They typically formed along the natural ley lines and magical hotspots of the world where the ambient magic was strongest. Once enough monsters had gathered, the area would then become classified as a ‘dungeon.’

  Dungeons occurred naturally all across Koxus, though concerted efforts had been made by the Luminarche government to cull monster populations near large city centers to prevent dungeons from spawning. Luxanne was famed for having had zero dungeons spawn within a three mile radius of its borders in decades; it was by far one of the safest cities in Luminarche.

  However, as one moved away from the cities and into the wilderness, or the wildlands as it was also called, it became much more difficult to locate and eliminate these dungeons. If not immediately cleared, then the monsters within were left to grow, evolve, breed, and mutate. The deeper into the wildlands, the older and more dangerous these monsters became.

  The Grove of Embers lay east of Luxanne in Luminarche’s eastern wildlands. The relatively safe area was known for its striking orange-red trees, whose bark and sap held coveted medicinal properties. The nearby town of Farband made their living harvesting and trading this resource.

  A dungeon must’ve popped up near the Grove of Embers recently, which the Adventurer Guild’s surveyors had promptly identified as silver-tier and passed onto the Institute for use in its Ascension Trials.

  Levi hummed. It was pretty interesting seeing how organized this world was. In his previous world, areas had just been separated into the categories of ‘safe,’ ‘might kill you,’ ‘definitely could kill you,’ and ‘will absolutely kill you.’

  Incidentally, after his final task, the immediate area around Levi had become classified as the fourth category.

  He still didn’t know how to feel about that.

  Finished with his research, Levi returned to the Ironwood Manor. He’d missed dinner again, but thankfully it seemed like Lord Ironwood had already left the manor. As a marquis, it was his responsibility to defend the southern border region he presided over. He must’ve only temporarily returned to the capital to handle the negotiations with House Volkov over Levi. There was no sign of Ayla, either. She probably had work to do or something.

  Scarfing down dinner, he ran through another set of physical conditioning drills and went to sleep.

  Or rather, he tried to sleep. He ended up working on the blackboard problem throughout the night.

  At around five in the morning, he finally solved it. The answer was deceptively simple in its complexity, and the second Levi got it, he’d immediately gotten mad at himself for not realizing it sooner. He quickly scribbled out the solution onto a piece of parchment and promptly passed out.

  The following day passed by without much fanfare. Before Heimler’s class, Levi had turned the finished homework assignment into the wooden submission bin outside the classroom. Levi had identified both a locking enchantment and an unknown enchantment on the bin; it was clearly booby-trapped against unscrupulous students.

  Andevar had given him another one of those weird looks when Levi mentioned that he’d finished the assignment. The previous Levi must’ve been a serious academic bum if this was the reaction Levi received for submitting his homework early.

  Levi had kept an eye out for increased security measures or hushed conversations, but it honestly didn’t seem like Heimler had alerted anyone of the fight. Levi didn’t understand the source of this laissez-faire attitude, but he wasn’t complaining.

  In his experience, the stronger someone grew, the more… eccentric they became.

  During his afterhours research in the library, Liliya had tracked him down again and handed him an envelope containing the details of their Ascension Trials. She’d left immediately afterward, the two of them exchanging only the barest minimum of courtesies. The contents of the envelope instructed Levi that they were to leave the Institute courtyards at dawn the next day.

  Levi returned to the manor and once again ran through some physical conditioning exercises. It was fortunate he could use his magic to heal his muscle soreness and prevent injury; otherwise, his gains would’ve suffered from such continuous strenuous training.

  Finishing his last set, Levi collapsed onto the marble floor in a puddle of his own sweat. His muscles quivered and his lungs had a satisfying burn to them. For several seconds he just lay there, basking in the pleasant euphoric sensation that always came with a good workout.

  A knock on his bedroom door shook him out of his reverie. With a silent groan, Levi rose to his feet and hobbled over to the door. He opened it to see Ayla standing there with an unreadable expression on her face.

  Levi blinked. “Hey,” he greeted, hiding his surprise. He didn’t expect to see her. “What’s up?”

  “Here,” Ayla said, thrusting something into his hands. Levi looked down to see several potions in tiny ornate vials. “I made them myself,” she said. “In case you need them.”

  Levi raised an eyebrow, uncorking one of the potions and giving it an experimental sniff. The magic within smelled potent.

  “That one’s a stamina potion,” Ayla said quickly. “The blue one is a mana potion, and the green one is a general antidote. I brewed them with the help of my potions professor, so they should be better than anything you can buy from the apothecary. If you want them, of course.”

  “I see,” Levi said slowly. Was she… worried for him? He didn’t remember the last time another human had actually cared for his wellbeing. It felt… nice, in a way. He smiled. “Thank you, Ayla.”

  “I-It’s no problem,” Ayla said stiffly. “This is just me paying you back for healing me the other night. Don’t think anything of it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Just…” Ayla hesitated. “Good luck with the Ascension Trials. Don’t die.”

  Levi laughed. Without even thinking, he reached out and ruffled her hair, much like how his mentor had often done to him as a child. “I’ll try my best.”

  “Hey!” Ayla squawked in protest, jerking away and swatting off his hand. She cleared her throat, composing herself, before glaring at him. “You better not treat Lady Volkov like this during the Trials.”

  “Right, right,” Levi said. “I’ll conduct myself in an appropriate manner.”

  “Ensure that you do,” Ayla shot one last warning glare at him before her gaze softened slightly. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  “... also, you reek. When was the last time you showered?”

  Levi sighed.