Sofya was sitting down at the front of the class, like many children of powerful mages, mechanists or warriors, she was a member of The Academy. A simple name for a simple purpose : teach.

  The Academy was here to help the continent’s most talented sons and daughters rise through the realms of magical cultivation. All professions in this world needed a magical core.

  From the barbarian’s blood rage to the mechanist’s robot control or even just the mage’s spells, everything demanded a Core that you had to refine to rise through the realms using materials and potions. .Around two thousands people attended it. It was the size of a small city.

  “Alright! Class, can someone tell me, if -”

  Sofya didn’t raise her hand, her mind not even listening to the teacher’s words. It didn’t concern Protheans, mechas or bots. Ludmilla Eventelle, Princess of the Brightheart Covenant and Claudia, daughter of the Sun Emperor, both raised their hands, locking their eyes, each defying the other.

  Those two were always building their own alliances of students. Sofya preferred to stay out of it. No, instead, Sofya’s eyes were currently glued to a book talking about the current understanding of the Binaric language.

  Binaric was the language of every AI based around Prothean technology. A Gnomish Scrap-Bot would speak Binaric but one of her mom’s Gnomish Protectron wouldn’t. Sofya tried to understand why and her current theory was that the further someone went from Prothean’s technologies, the less those AI would be able to speak Binaric.

  Sofya’s mind wandered to the day her mother came back from the Expedition. An event which happened fifty years ago. Of the 50 gnome Arch-Machinists that went to explore the recently discovered Prothean city of Cygislax, only 20 came back.

  A force that would have been enough to threaten even the likes of the Pyrax Empire or the Brightheart Covenant had been bested and slaughtered. Forced to retreat by the Prothean Construct protecting the city.

  The matter was swiftly hidden, pushed under the rugs and all records of this event were purged from gnomish history. If their ambitious neighbors learned that only 2/5th of the gnome's strongest fighters remained, the Gnomish Coalition would have been swallowed.

  This memory came to her as she had received critical information from her informant (reading through her mom’s reports without being allowed to). The very recent discovery of a signal coming from some Prothean’s ruins.

  A signal very familiar to her mom. Because it was this kind of signal that revealed Cygislax. Right under the city of Kork, a Prothean ruin of equal importance to Cygislax was waking up! And her mother had forbidden her from going there? As if! She had the opportunity to study an actual untouched Prothean ruin! She wasn’t gonna stay here and do what? Listen to classes she already knew?

  As the enchanted bell on the tallest spire in the school started to ring, Sofya bolted out of here. Exiting the massive classroom shaped like an amphitheater, the marble floor and ceiling supported by huge pillars with arcane runes going up and down its length in a swirling pattern.

  Most students went to one of the numerous restaurants around the Academy, but quite a few seemed to slowly but surely arm themselves, wearing armors and weapons, bearing the sigil of the Pyrax Empire or the Covenant.

  Sofya came out of the Academy’s main entrance, the thick wooden doors allow dozens of students of all shapes and sizes to go through between the Academy’s classrooms and the pristine entrance.

  Her steps were light on the polished stone, trying to look for her best friend, despite her small size she wasn’t scared she would miss Gina, the gardens which gave the students a lot of refreshing shade under the trees, each representing a race or culture related to it, Sofya’s target was soon located right under the tallest tree, the only one which her best friend could sit under.

  There was Ginna Thundereater, a giantess from the Thundereater Giant Tribe. The fact that a gnome was best friends with a giantess was often used as an example by the dean to show off how politically neutral and diverse the Academy was to potential investors.

  Many races had sent their young talents to the Academy. Sofya stared at Ginna, who was sitting on a hill, talking with Claudia. No doubt trying to recruit the giantess into her clique. Sofya gave her a wink. A simple signal that told Gina to be ready for the plan.

  She went toward her dorm, the Academy’s simple roof tiles shining under the sun, each hiding dozens of defensive formations. She followed the path leading toward the girl’s dorm. The dormitory was big, even if less impressive than the Academy.

  It had been recently upgraded, and the numerous robotic workers (creations of her mom) were busy expanding the dormitory by a dozen times its original size, at the dean's orders. At the opposite end of the Academy, the same was happening to the boys’ dorms.

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  Being a part of the Academy was reserved for the elite and the children of the elite. Even the teachers here were very strong. Most being at the peak of mortality or Transcendent beings. Every powerful alliance, kingdom, or empire was allowed to send a few teachers.

  Her mother was also one of those teachers so Sofya had until now been under heavy scrutiny by her own mother who was definitely not unaware of her daughter’s wishes to explore the prothean complex under Kork.

  But today, she had a possible opening. Her mother had been called by the dean to take care of some business with the Sun Emperor and Empress for a parent and teachers meeting. So this gave her two or three hours to act.

  She had been preparing herself for a month already, finding out about her mother’s bots' stats, organizing an escape, etc. After all, her mother had put one of her constructs to watch over her. And right as she opened her room, there it was.

  A feminine construct that looked like a robotic maid, the dress was made from slightly shifting robotic parts; the body, while more tightly built than the dress, was still almost uncanny. They were called Auto-Matrons and were one of her mom’s gifts to the Academy.

  She picked up a backpack filled with her travelling gear, gadgets, and weapons, only for the Auto-Matron to step in front of the door.

  “I hope Lady Sofya does not intend to use the Warp Gate?”

  “Execute command 67, go patrol outside the dorm.”

  The Auto-Matron’s robotic eyes stared at Sofya silently.

  “This command has been disabled by Mistress Pipelette. Your mother guessed you had found out about the signal. Your mother took every precaution to make sure you wouldn’t be able to use the Warp Gate; two Auto-Matrons are currently guarding it.”

  “Damn it! Old tricks…BEST TRICKS!”

  Throwing a few bombs at her feet, the Auto-Matron’s programming was instantly put in action. The bombs threatened Lady Sofya and the other students’ lives, forcing the Auto-Matron to summon an electrical field around them and the bombs.

  Sofya ran toward the window, making sure she saw her best friend, who was waiting for her as expected. Ginna’s massive hand slammed through the wall, gripping Sofya’s body. The giantess turned around and started to run toward the Warp Gate.

  It was at the center of the Academy’s student district. And to get there, Sofya would have to run a huge set of spiraling stairs down from her dorm directly to the plaza where the Wrap Gate lay. Unless you were on top of the giantess, who just needed to jump down to land in the plaza.

  As Ginna jumped down toward the gate, her shoe slammed into the ground, cracking under her weight and power. Just as she landed, the bomb in the empty dormitory exploded, no damage being done to the building because of the Auto-Matron protecting it.

  But it allowed the now free bot to fly out the window with its dress propulsor, its legs gone, rushing toward Ginna alongside the two Auto-Matrons guarding the gate. Sofya pulled out a small copper sphere, pressed the button at the center, and threw it in the sky, a bright red flash brightening the sky.

  A loud battle cry spread through the Academy as hundreds of students, each group led by Claudia and Ludmilla, charged out from the buildings they had been in a few seconds ago. Now almost two hundred of the most talented young people on this continent were fighting three Auto-Matrons, each around level 55 if Sofya remembered right.

  It was true chaos; the Auto-Matrons, while very powerful, were being pressured by their inability to use lethal force and the fact that each of those two hundred students was very talented.

  Spells, arrows, gadgets, and all kinds of weapons were being thrown and used against the three bots. While the bots might be losing ground, they were still a force to be reckoned with, sending students flying with every hit. This was the scene that awaited the dean and the Sun Emperor as they went to investigate the chaos.

  The dean and the Sun Emperor's arrival made everyone stand down. No one even realised they had arrived until one of the students spotted the two legendary figures watching the fight quite casually, even commenting on a few talented students.

  “SCATTER!!!”

  Everyone started to run away, only to faceplant in a powerful magical barrier summoned by the dean. No one had really hoped to escape two immensely powerful Transcendent beings. But they would still try.

  Claudia stared at her father, knowing what was coming, she looked around, no Sofya in sight. She had accomplished her part of the deal. And so did Ludmilla and her people. The Emperor, a massive man wearing bright golden armor with hairs shining like the sun, approached her.

  “I’m terribly disappointed, Claudia. Your tactical planning or lack thereof, was clearly showcased in your inability to take down a single lvl55 robot despite having one hundred and thirty two talented students under your direct command. And the help of another faction of equal strength. You shall be given two more weeks of strategy training and – ”

  A cough interrupted the Sun Emperor, no one was shocked as it came from the dean, he was amongst the few on the continents who had the possibility to interrupt the Sun Emperor.

  “You shall deal with your daughter’s strategy later, friend. For now…Can someone explain what happened?”

  While this was happening, on the other side of the continent, Sofya had disguised herself and sneaked into Kork. After that, joining the expedition into the Prothean ruins was a piece of cake with her knowledge of Prothean ruins.

  But everything went to shit. At first all was well. They went through Kork’s Scrapyard making sure to go at night when it wasn’t flesh meltingly hot and the Augmented Ravagers were mostly asleep.

  The fact the expedition decided to enter by exploding the door should have warned her about their recklessness. And with the expedition team revealing themselves as simple researchers without a fighting class, all of them trying to find something to loot and bring back for studies, Sofya realised she had fucked up.

  Those guys were closer to looters than explorers and when one started to argue with Sofya on why it was actually fine to take just one of the floating spheres, both gnomes ended up trying to hold on to it.

  Sofya to make sure it wouldn’t leave its current place and the other gnome to bring it back for studies. Sofya had been right about this being a bad idea. The moment the sphere was taken, all the doors in the hallways opened. It resulted in the massacre David would observe a few hours after they triggered the defensive mechanism.

  Sofya had completely panicked, she was a long range fighter and those Ambushers specialized in sneak attack and massive close range damages. A perfect counter for a teamless Mechanist.

  After that everything was blurry, she tried to put back the sphere but it didn’t help, she was chased as she ran back to the main camp, two Ambushers dropped on her, forcing her to use her spells and self -built weapons to kill them.

  Seeing the dead gnomes in the camp, she ran back toward the hallway she had ran out of, only for an even more dangerous silvery prothean to stab at her thigh, slicing one of her arteries.

  And if not for the fact she saw a blue magnetic shield get summoned in front of her face, courtesy of her hand crafted apron enchanted by her Magical and Runic Language Teacher, she’d be dead, from the dozens of other stabs and slashes from the silver construct.

  The biggest joke being it wasn’t even one of the Ambushers or that boss construct who was gonna kill her but the blood loss from the injury she received by her cut artery.

  Of course she had potions and more to heal herself but trying to take out something of your Dimensional Ring while five mechanical bladed scorpions charged at you and your shield had finally turned off, was quite suicidal.

  It’s only because of the shield, Bob and being relatively lucky that she survived this long. David found her an hour or two after she fell unconscious. Now was David’s presence caused by Sofya’s Cheat or by his own actions, who could guess?

  I hope everyone is enjoying this chapter. If you spot any mistake do not hesitate to tell me in the comments. My main language isn't english so I'm more than eager to increase my level and better myself. Same for the System's current "appearance" do not hesitate if you dislike it and want something more simple and maybe easier to read!

  Have a great day!