Right now, Ray was staring with a deadpan expression as Astra adjusted the tie of his academy uniform. As it turned out, he was not exactly a fan of modern clothing, especially the formal type like a uniform.
It felt really restrictive and made him feel uncomfortable. The Uclaria Academy's uniform was pretty simple as uniforms go. The students were required to wear a white shirt under a blue jacket with several buttons. First years were required to use bronze buttons, second years used silver buttons, and third years used golden buttons.
They were also required to wear pants of the same color as the jacket. Both the jacket and the pants were provided by the academy, the rest was up to the students. Besides this, students were also required to use a belt and formal shoes, all in the color black.
And lastly, a tie would be given on the first day that would represent each class one belonged to.
For now, Astra was adjusting a stand-in tie that was blue.
Naturally, the reason why he was wearing the academy's uniform was because he had successfully enrolled there. Not that there was ever doubt.
Each exam was scored to a maximum of 200 points. And the last evaluation would then be calculated, with the intended course in mind of course, to give a score from 0 to 20.0.
Ray had scored a total of 190 points in the Practical Test. Considering that he had a total of 35 bonus points, it meant the instructors evaluated him with a 155-point performance, which was not bad, but it was lower than he was expecting.
As for the Combat Test, he ended up with a 194-point evaluation, if he had to guess he was deducted points due to almost being cornered by Stelle and giving her a chance to power up, perhaps.
As for the Theory Test, he scored a 120 out of 200, and according to the e-mail sent to his phone, he had been evaluated with a 95 in behavior/discipline.
In total, that scored him 172.9 out of 200, or 17.3 out of 20. (Author: These numbers are abbreviated.)
And this got him a seat in the Special class, only those with a score above 17 could enter. Of course, he was also already expecting a certain level of distaste from the teachers, after all, his scores in Theory and Behavior were extremely low, for a Special class student at least.
Not that bothered him in the slightest.
"Are you ready?"
Astra asked him, looking at him. She was slightly shorter than him, therefore she was looking at him from below.
"I am. I already have some ideas on who it could be. One of them is already someone that I can talk to pretty easily, and the other, the most probable one, is already slightly interested in fighting me again."
"You mean ... Mara, the girl that you have been texting lately, and Stelle, the one you fought in the Combat test, if I'm not wrong, both of them should also be in the Special Class."
"Yes, Mara's talent in magic is phenomenal, in the future she might reach a level close to yours."
"I suppose we are both Allgemeins, and she was able to figure out elemental fusion from simply being convinced that it was possible. I wished there had been someone like that when I was young. Do you know how many years I spent trying to figure that out?"
"Two?"
"It was actually three."
"Not that much then."
Astra rolled her eyes before diverting the topic.
"Stelle, Gideon's descendant, you think she is the most probable of being the New Hero?"
"It might just be a feeling, she gives off the same vibe as Gideon and his brother, more of the former than the latter, but still."
"I suppose..."
"Regardless, for now, my interest in her is simply in how far she can go and how fast as well."
"You seem to pretty hyped by that."
"Yeah! She has potential, and I'm very interested in pitting her against myself to compare our growth."
"You mean like a rival?"
"..."
Ray stopped for a while, thinking about something.
"Yeah, kinda."
Astra smiled. She was happy that Ray's purpose in this era was not simply directed at his role in the prophecy. In such a little time he had also found a goal, to find his true self, and a rival to keep himself from becoming stagnant.
The future seemed bright. Was what she wanted to say.
One of her worries were confirmed when she had visited Joan in the day of the entrance exams. The royal family of Uclaria was already searching for Ray's draconic body, not knowing that most of it had been transfigured into a human body with draconic descent.
They're current theory was that he had somehow escaped by himself, meaning that they were aware of the fact that he had never been dead, unlike how Gideon and herself had told the world three hundred years ago.
Her identity as the Sage was no longer worthy of trust. Proof of that was the fact that Joan didn't seem to be distrustfull of Astra, most likely, Joan was left ignorant of such conclusion because she was her disciple and instead was being used to set up bait for herself and fish out information.
To see if the Sage was responsible for the liberation of her past enemy, the King of Dragons.
Worse off, the royal family could make a conection between herself and the academy. Due to that incident where she stopped an investigation team from peeking into Ray's identity.
Thankfully, there is a reason why the headmaster of the academy, Alden Doux, had left the Royal guard and his duty as a General. He was aware of the ways of the council of counselours and a deep dislike for them.
Uclaria Academy was a place that they would never be capable of stepping into without angering one of the strongest people in the country.
'I will have to rely on that fact until I can find a way to either properly hide Ray or reach a collaboration with the royal family. I should start figuring out exactly how much they know.'
"Well, then. We won't see eachother for a good while Ray, be careful."
Ray raised an eyebrow.
"I get that this "mission" is of great importance to the future of humanity, but you still remember you are talking to, right? I will be fine, no matter what the world throws at me."
"I see. Than, farewell, Ray."
"Farewell, Witch."
He then walked away without looking back in the direction of the bus stop.
"You at least could've called me by name."
With a sight she casted a teleportation magic circle in the blink of an eye. And at the same speed she soon disappeared along with the house they had been just a few seconds ago.
The magic circle still remained in place, before flashing in a new color and launching a magical pulse, meant to alter their neighbours memories of ever being a house there.
Ray was going to stay in the dorms of the academy and Astra had places to be.
In a few hours, a investigation team would arrive to search for the ccause of the magical pulse and find nothing.
*********************************
Uclaria Academy, Central Garden
Uclaria Academy's campus is as enourmous as a small city and had what any city needed. Housing, schooling, administrive buildings, business areas and even green areas to wander around nature.
Central Garden was one such green area. It was right at the center of the academy, as the name implied, and had a round shaped. It was a carefully created environment through the use of magecraft and magic-tech. With small bodies of water, various trees and even some rare magical creatures, of course, completly harmless.
Today, said garden had been chosen to be this year's location for the welcome cceremony for the first years that had enrolled.
Several people were there.
Some of them had appeared on the Hero course entrance exams, however, due to low grades that had been advised to use said grades to apply to other courses.
Talking about other courses. There were several students that had not even tried to enter the Hero course. According to Astra the most famous courses in the Uclaria Academy were, the Hero Course, the Research Course that had direct ties to the Research Department of the academy and the Knight Course, which was basically the Hero course but with lower standards.
A lot of the students that were rejected were redirected towards the Knight Course.
At this moment, Ray was along many of the students, waiting for the welcome ceremony to start.
"Oh! Look who it is!"
An excited voice was soon heard close to him. The owner was, of course, the so cheerful Tiana, and at her side was a very fatigued Cù Sith.
"It's you."
"Yes! It is I, the great Tiana!"
"Hm. So you also qualified for the Hero course, as expected."
"Hehe! It was a piece of cake. But nevermind that, this day is already going great. Not only did I find Cù brooding in the corner, but I also found you, Ray!"
"And that is great because?"
"She feeds on the annoyance that comes out from the people that she talks to."
Those were the first words that came from Cù's mouth, and using his own experience with Tiana, Ray easily believed those words.
"Hey~, that's so rude! I'm just a cheerful girl trying to lift the spirits of her two edgy friends! The duty to make introverts more open falls to their extrovert friend, after all!"
""Ugh...""
They both groaned. None of them say anything about already being considered friends with her. Ray only talked with her when they were walking in that corridor, an embarrassing experience from his point of view, and she literally started firing blood weapons at Cù.
None of those experiences were exactly what described friends in their vocabularies, and yet they couldn't refute it for some reason.
Suddenly, Ray felt a gaze on him, or rather several. He looked rather swiftly towards them.
He saw a red-haired girl looking at him from affar, she seemed to want to approach but was being blocked by a boy of similar red hair.
Furthermore, he also saw a golden haired girl, that quickly averted her gaze towards the the handsome blond boy talking to her.
They were Mara, Stelle, and Jynn.
But there was a gaze that stole almost all of his attention.
It was from an old figure that screamed "Veteran".
He was standing at the podium that had been placed for the ceremony. As soon as their eyes locked into each other, his voice rang through the speakers.
"Greetings, future students of this academy. There is much to say to you at this very moment, but there is a perfect line to start things off..."
He made a slight pause, his focus on Ray intensifying.
"Welcome to the Uclaria Academy!!"
************************************
With this Volume 1: Unsealing his finished and there will be a pause of 1 month regarding updates see you exactly in 21/8/2025.