The Little Princess

Aether kept following the arrows and eventually arrived at an open space. Clearly, this space was the inner courtyard the teacher had mentioned.

Looking around, Aether noticed two rather strange altars, an arena and a male teacher who was half asleep on a nearby chair. Without asking, Aether had already realized what the two altars were needed for. As for the arena, well what else but combat prowess could it be used for?

Just when Aether wanted to call out to the teacher to start his assessment, he noticed slight sounds coming from behind him. Turning around, he saw a graceful girl walking his way. She had fern green hair, a streamlined face, a healthy pale skin and somehow long and slender legs despite being only around 1m 65cm high. She wore a pretty light green battle robe that perfectly accentuated her slim body with a thin rapier hanging on her left side.

But the most mesmerizing about her were without a doubt her eyes. Sharp jade green eyes that seemed capable of piercing anything she looked at. If she looked at a normal person with those eyes, they would suffer from a headache without a doubt.

Aether didn't have a problem with that however, as his soul, thanks to his blessing, had been reborn.

As he was, unknowingly, staring right into her eyes, the girl before him slightly lifted her eyebrows. It didn't seem to be from disdain nor dissatisfaction, though.

"You can look straight into my eyes without recoiling?" The girl asked in surprise. There was a slight hint of interest in her voice.

Aether seemed to wake up from his daze upon hearing her words and his cheeks blushed just a little. He might have a lot of knowledge about the early stages of cultivation and even a powerful technique, when it came to girls, he was still that same ten years old inexperienced village boy.

Yes, he had met Violet and even spoken to her for a short time, but that doesn't really count as experience. Violet is a beautiful girl, or whatever she is, without a doubt. But the feelings he had for her at the moment are not romantic. What he felt towards her was gratitude, a gratitude he wanted to repay no matter what. But how do you repay someone who saved your life?

"Nice to meet you, my name is Aether. What is your name?" Aether decided to hide his shame of getting caught staring by introducing himself.

The girl chuckled slightly, having understood what Aether wanted to do, but she didn't call him out on it.

"Hello Aether, my name is Antaura Aurora." The girl introduced herself before asking a question.

"Your name doesn't really sound like the name a girl would have?"

Aether really wanted to curse out loud, but he succeeded in keeping it to himself. Normally, he would ignore such comments and not even bother to respond. However, Antaura had spoken to him like he was a normal human being without even a trace of pity or disdain in her voice, unlike almost everybody else.

"Well. I am a boy so…"

Antaura looked at Aether for a few seconds until she open her eyes a little bit wider, before panicking a little bit.

"Oh, I am so sorry! I shouldn't have drawn any conclusions like that!"

To say Aether was surprised by her reaction would be an understatement.

'This girl is… loud. And powerful.'

Not only was Antaura's shout ridiculously loud, it was also backed by something more than her voice.

Aether narrowed his eye and muttered, "first layer wind nature."

Wind nature, or any nature for that matter, is something very important for any energy cultivator. Aether had read in the knowledge gotten from Old Herb how it more or less worked. The first three energy cultivation realms are called the mortal foundation realms. They can be cultivated without comprehending a nature, but every major realm after that needs the comprehension from a nature to break through and become a stronger being.

But even then it's not as simple as just comprehending a nature. No, in order to ascend to the fourth major realm, you need to understand a third layer nature. Your current realm needs to be complete in order to go to the next. Because of this, the third layer is one a lot of people got stuck in, the first real challenge on the road called cultivation.

As a nature is required for energy cultivation, it is obviously important to comprehend compatible ones for yourself. If you have fire elemental energy but comprehend a water nature, you'll actually make your fire energy weaker because they aren't compatible.

On the other hand, if you comprehend a wind nature while having fire elemental energy, your fire will start acting like an inferno and thus be more powerful.

This makes comprehending a nature necessary, but also dangerous. You need to make the correct choices because once you comprehend a nature, it latches onto your energy and you can't erase it anymore.

So when he realized the girl in front of him, who by his estimation should be a year younger than him, had already comprehended a first layer nature, he wasn't anything but shocked. On top of this, it seemed she didn't have any cultivation at all!

Normally, it should be impossible to comprehend a nature without cultivation. The reason for this is pretty simple. If you haven't cultivated yet, you don't possess energy. And if you don't possess energy, it is impossible to make your energy interact with the environment.

'Unless she has an innate element, wind in this case.'

Aether immediately realized why Antaura could comprehend a first layer wind nature without cultivating any energy. But even this shouldn't be enough to comprehend it so fast. The only way it would be possible is if she doesn't have an innate element, but an innate constitution that has an element tied to it.

Aether quickly realizes that this should be correct. Not only had Antaura comprehended a wind nature before starting to cultivate, she was also on the short side but had rather long legs for her height. It seemed as if she was born for speed and swiftness, the two most important characteristics of the wind element.

It is obviously impossible for Aether to see which innate constitution Antaura has at this moment as she hadn't cultivated anything yet. What he didn't know was that she had tried a few times to cultivate already, but it just didn't seem possible for her.

"Sorry Aether, I apologize. I have only comprehended my wind nature a few days ago so I don't have full control over it yet." Antaura said with a small apologetic smile on her face.

"Don't worry, it's not a big deal. I was just caught a bit off guard."

Aether was acting like it didn't really matter, but the truth is that he was rather lucky. The wind nature Antaura accidentally used wasn't even at five percent of its full strength. It only leaked slightly into her voice because, like she said, she doesn't have full control yet. This way, Aether didn't suffer much. But, had he been hit by her wind nature at full power… he would have been severely injured at the very least.

Aether knew this, but he didn't get mad at her. It truly wasn't simple to get a newly comprehended nature under control, let alone the first one you ever comprehend. She has no experience whatsoever, so it was only to be expected.

Still, Aether was very impressed. For someone to understand a nature at such a young age, even with an innate constitution, was no easy task.

'To think that someone could comprehend a nature so early in such a backwater kingdom like this Auro… ra…'

Aether realized something while having that thought.

"Antaura, you said your last name is Aurora, right? Are you a princess?"

Antaura's expression became a little complicated at Aether's question. There was a sadness and even loathing hidden within.

"Yeah, unfortunately I am."

'It seems like there is a story here, but it's none of my business. I better not stick my nose in it.'

If Antaura ever wanted to tell him, he would naturally listen. But it would be a bit invasive if he asked about it on their first meeting.

"Enough of that, shouldn't it be about time you took your physical tests already." Antaura said with a small smile on her face, almost as if the previous expression was nothing but an illusion.

"Is there even a point in me taking them?" Aether answered with a wry smile.

"Of course there is. Even if a bad result is unavoidable, you shouldn't give up before even trying, right?"

"A bad result? More like a none existing one you mean. Also, I haven't given up on anything, it's just that I perfectly know what my result will be so I see no point in putting any energy in it."

Antaura looked into Aether's eye but didn't see the sadness she expected to see. No, what she saw was conviction and confidence that even started to border on arrogance.

'He is completely serious, he hasn't given up at all. Besides, who am I even to talk about not giving up. Isn't that exactly what I did.'

"I still think you should take the tests, maybe you can learn more about yourself that way. It could be helpful in the future to look for a solution."

Aether looked at Antaura upon hearing these words. After thinking a bit he nodded his head and decided to take the physical tests, even thought he already knew it wouldn't really matter. With his powerful soul, he could already look at and understand everything that is wrong with him. He doesn't need those tests to know just how crippled he truly is.

Aether walked towards the teacher and when he was about three meters from him softly called out, "teacher, I am here to take the physical tests."

The male teacher, who was close to sleeping, opened his eyes to look at Aether and couldn't help but frown a bit. A cripple came to take the entrance tests of the academy? Was this supposed to be some sort of joke?

He ultimately didn't say anything about it. The reason he was here meant that he had both paid the entrance fee and succeeded in escaping from the illusion array. Even more importantly, he had escaped first.

The teacher looked a bit behind Aether and realized Antaura was here as well. He gave her a small nod to greet her, upon which Antaura responded in kind. Normal people may find this strange. Shouldn't Antaura get more respect as she is a princess? Unfortunately, it didn't work this way.

The only reason she got any form of acknowledgement from the teacher is because her father, King Aurora, is so powerful. Yes, that's right, everything in the world of cultivation is based on power. More specifically, personal power.

If one person grows powerful enough, they can even take down an entire kingdom on their own. Why then would people respect the princess of a kingdom that could one day be destroy easily. Only when Antaura reaches power rivaling her father would she gain the same respect.

The teacher returned his gaze back to Aether and started to explain how the physical tests work.

"The arena is self-explanatory I believe, so I won't say anything about it."

Aether nodded his head.

"Good, then I'll tell you what the two altars do. The left altar tests your talent for energy cultivation, while the right one tests for blood cultivation."

"As for your talent for body cultivation, that gets decided by me personally."

Aether slightly nodded his head. This was exactly like he had expected it to be. All the more reason he already knew he wouldn't get any good scores.

"Teacher, I'll skip the arena."

"And why do you want to skip the arena?" The teacher believed he already knew the answer, but asked anyway.

"I've never had any combat training so I don't know how to fight."

"I see. Well, that's a bit unfortunate. You're already failed for both combat prowess and body cultivation talent then."