A New Star Chapter 88 (Patreon)

Derek Woodman

Everything seemed to go wrong from that moment on, which all came as a big shock, especially considering that the dean was there and overseeing the meeting. Right from the very start, and by that I mean the captain and the young lady walking in, things started slipping, with the young woman not even acknowledging the dean at the start. She spoke to her parents as if we weren’t there, which did give her the air of a spoiled noble, though the dean would only be slightly irked by that; she had dealt with spoiled noble brats for years and was more than used to their attitudes.

“Is this really necessary?” Alex asked her mother.

“Just listen to their pitch,” was the duchess’ response, which surprised me a bit.

“Very well,” Alex said, sitting in a chair to our right and her parents’ left. “Let’s get this over with.”

“We are here,” the dean began, in a soft voice, “to make you an offer of enrollment in the Veridium Royal Academy. We are not only the premier academy in the entire country, we are one of the top three academies in all of the Settled Lands. You will find little better training available, and none of that is easy to access or find. Our graduates go on to attain, essentially, any position that they desire. The head of knight orders? Simple. Leading the Royal Guard? The current commander is an academy graduate. Even attaining their own titles of nobility and lands are not out of the question.”

“Interesting,” was all Alex said. I was surprised that she had so little reaction. It was hard to read her, as she had come off as more than a bit arrogant when she first entered, but those types were usually wowed, to a certain degree, by the dean’s speech and offers. Her total lack of interest, expressed in both her tone and body language, was something I had yet to see on this whole circuit.

“Beyond all of that,” the dean continued calmly, “is the fact that our graduates often enter without having even attained rank-C. By the time they leave our halls, after just under four years, they are certified at least at G-rank at the very lowest, and those are the poorest performers. Take young Derek here, for example,” the dean gestured to me, though she kept her gaze locked on Alex. “He entered the academy four years ago, almost to the day, and hadn’t yet achieved C-rank. He’s now graduating, with honors, I might add, at I-rank.”

I could feel the swell of pride at the deans little explanation, even though I knew I still had a long way to go. I had worked hard over the last four years, putting in an immense amount of blood, sweat, and tears to stand where I was now, one of the best graduates in recent memory. Out of all the recent graduates, the near-mythical Adelaine Beaufort, a young woman of no standing but enormous potential that had entered the academy with only two affinities at A-rank, was the only one who really, truly outshone me. She had graduated at K-rank, a singularly unprecedented feat that had shocked the capital, and the nation, and had her receiving offers from everyone, including the leading houses and governments of others nations, even before her graduation ceremony was complete. I wasn’t standing on the same level as her, but she was considered something of an anomaly in the grand scheme of things, and I was proud to be only a step, or technically two, behind such a renowned figure.

That little moment of pride was chopped apart and brutally crushed in the next instant. Alex had listened to the dean’s pitch, or the first part of it, rather calmly, but when Dean Blitz paused to take a breath, and for emphasis (there was a certain dramatic flair to these inducements of enrollment that the dean was long practiced in), Alex did the unexpected. She laughed.

I was rather surprised, though shocked might have been overstating it a bit. After all, we had experienced both the best and the worst that the noble houses had to offer in their young scions on this trip, and such an attitude shouldn’t have been all that surprising. It also made a bit of sense that she might have a slightly inflated opinion of herself if a man as powerful and skilled as the Count had been advising her, though such tutoring often paled in comparison to what the academy offered. Not to disparage Count Emmanuel, of course, but I had seen what happened when the particularly rich or influential nobles brought in tutors, including the after math that we had to suffer through. Such noble heirs usually came to the academy thinking they were far better than everyone else, which wasn’t a rare attitude among the higher nobility, but they had a particular bent that lent them an air of smug superiority that was a pain for the rest of us. It wasn’t just the attitude, but that attitude meeting reality; I had two such people in my classes early on, and they learned some hard truths in some painful ways at the academy. No one was coddled, and the pampered heirs of counts and dukes found that their much vaunted early educations hadn’t prepared them for the harsh realities of the world so well as they had thought.

That was what I had expected to happen here, and I thought the dean might cut into Alex’s mirth and start to set her straight, though I had also seen her be understanding with such spoiled heirs. That was all the juicier, as she would allow them to keep much of that haughty pride and superior attitude intact, an attitude that lasted right up until the first day at the academy, which was a brutal wake-up call. Now, I should note that it wasn’t some terrible hazing or awful torture, but the difference between the strictness, the expected behavior, and the difficulty of the schedule, coursework, and training compared to what they were used to often overwhelmed them. It was another reason why I was internally rolling my eyes, thinking back on what I had gone through, and how those from more privileged backgrounds had suffered worse, as I listened to Alex laugh.

The internal smirking was put to an end, as were all the other thoughts of rich, spoiled heirs being knocked down a peg or two, when a wave of power exploded out of Alex. In that first instant, I was able to get a decent guess of her rank based on the last four years of training and experience I had accrued, but it was enough to deal me a great and terrible mental blow. There was no way anyone below my rank could let out this kind of power, and she was exerting barely any effort; unless I was far off in my estimate, she was at J-rank, which would make even the recent shining star of the academy, Adelaine, look like a weak, untalented simpleton.

I had only a few moments to try to overcome the shock, awe, and slight dread that had crashed into me before her power redoubled. My vision started going dark and I heard a whining noise, realizing that I was on my hands and knees and that Tasha, who was not much weaker than I at all, was slumped on the ground and producing that strange noise. The pressure didn’t let up but redoubled and I felt myself, faintly, as if I was experiencing somebody else’s body, hit the wood flooring, my vision going fully dark as I struggled to remain conscious. I could very vaguely feel my body shuddering and convulsing, a combination of both the immense amount of power crushing down on me combined with the overwhelming will that was present all around us. It was something we covered at the academy, how one’s very will could be manifest in their powers, how great experts would use that to influence others or change the world around them. This was only the second time I had experienced someone with a will so strong that it manifested through their affinities, the first time being with the headmaster of the academy himself.

I snapped back to awareness a moment later, realizing that the pressure had stopped some time before. Gasping, I tried to sit up and failed the first time, hearing and then seeing that Tasha was in an even worse state than I was. I was still struggling to understand what had happened, thinking that perhaps I had been mistaken. The duke or duchess, or Emmanuel, for that matter, could have easily done what had just happened. I was doubting my senses now, thinking that they had just exerted some power, perhaps at some perceived slight, though I couldn’t imagine what, when Alex spoke. I heard her voice slightly distorted, just now realizing my ears had been ringing and that it was only starting to abate now.

“You offer me the promise of becoming an I-rank warrior?” she asked, and I could hear the clear notes of scorn even through the buzzing sound in my ears. “What say you, then, if I had already surpassed such lofty and impossible goals?”

“I think…I think maybe a reassessment is in order,” the dean said as I finally staggered back to my feet, wiping at my face with a cloth from my inner jacket pocket. I had managed to avoid puking, but I had still slightly drooled on myself, a prospect that would have been mortifying in other circumstances, but was more than understandable here. Maybe that’s why it took a second to register the dean’s shocked tone or just how much she was giving ground without any kind of fight, a great rarity for her, in my experience so far.

“A reassessment, is it?” Alex asked, and I focused on her again. She was seated in the same way, in the same chair, looking like she hadn’t moved a millimeter, which was even scarier. To be able to produce that much energy, to control it so finely that it smashed the occupants of a room in such a way that they felt crushed beneath a mountain, but not disturb the tea in the cups on the table? And to not look like one had even twitched while doing it? It was frightening. Immensely frightening.

It had been a long time since I had felt so small.

“We would, of course, love for someone of your caliber to join the academy,” the dean said, fumbling a bit as she tried to regain her equilibrium. “You clearly have achieved a great level of power and even control, but there are many opportunities for learning at our academy, and there are resources. We have the best staff in the world, and books-“

Alex interrupted as the dean continued to flounder a bit, saying, “The best staff in the world? Do you believe your staff is more competent than a Y-ranker, more powerful and skilled than a Z-ranker? I have had the instruction of both, and, while I would hesitate to besmirch the good name of the academy, I highly doubt you have instructors that match up to that. Based on these two students, and yourself, I am somewhat doubtful that most of your instructors could even match up to me.”

“Well, you do have a point there, but rank isn’t everything,” the dean replied. “Without offering any disrespect to the Count, of course, a single person cannot know everything. I am sure he has provided you with a fine education, and you yourself appear to have excelled greatly under his tutelage, but our knowledge and resources are immense.”

“Before you continue,” Alex interjected when the dean paused to take a breath, “let me ask you this. Or rather, I should say let me pose you this small scenario, if that is acceptable?”

“Of course,” the dean nodded. I almost did a double-take, thinking I was still recovering from the physical and mental blow Alex had struck me earlier. I had never seen the dean so passive, even with the headmaster, let alone a prospective student.

“My scenarios is this: say I join the academy. Say I study very hard and do all the drills, exercises, coursework, and extracurricular activities that I can do for the next four years. This falls in line, I assume, with what you are expecting, though maybe you thought I might not dedicate myself fully to the work. I understand how the children of higher nobility can be. Anyway, we have this scenario where I spend four full years dedicating myself to training and studying. What is the goal, at the end of that?” she asked. “Now, let me add, I understand the value of education, and the value of a skilled set of instructors. I am, in point of fact, asking for the concrete benefits I will attain after four years.”

“As you have already stated, we have a highly skilled staff, as well as an enormous library and training history that you could benefit from,” the dean said. Alex, meanwhile, looked thoroughly unimpressed. “If I am going to cut to the chase, as they say, and be perfectly honest with you, I’m really not sure exactly what we can offer that would impress you.”

“Let me frame it this way,” Alex said as the dean struggled for a moment. “If I, instead of attending the academy for four years, continued doing as I have been doing, training under the Count and exploring the Untamed Wilds, do you think that I would get less benefit over those four years? What can you offer me, what promise can you make, that would see my station improve even more? You are, in essence, asking me to suborn myself to the academy’s structure and will for a full four years of time, and I am someone that greatly values my freedom. What does my giving up my autonomy and control over my own life get me, as compared to what I have now and in the future?”

“I don’t…I don’t rightly know,” said the dean, shocking me. Dean Blitz was not one to give up or to admit defeat; she wasn’t insane, pursuing a lost cause beyond reason or anything like that, but she was tough, resourceful, incredibly knowledgeable, and firm in her belief in the value of not just education, but education at the academy.

“Then, why are we still having this conversation?” Alex asked, glancing between everyone in the room. Well, she didn’t even look at myself or Tasha, which made me feel particularly small, but that was also more than expected.

“I think we can wrap this up without any other input from you, if that is what you’re really hinting at,” said the duchess with a slight sigh.

“As long as it is clear that I will not be spending four years of time for no benefit,” Alex said firmly before standing and sweeping out of the room. The minotaur captain looked torn for a moment, but at a gesture from the duchess, followed the young woman out of the reception room.

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