Talk with the headmistress

Aether woke up when the sun started to shine through the split between his curtains. He looked a little confused when he slowly opened his eye, but this confusion soon dissipated.

"Right, I am at the academy now.", Aether spoke to himself.

He lifted himself from his bed in order to go wash up and change into his academy robe, since he was still wearing his white one.

After donning his red academy robe, Aether picked up his schedule for the week and let out a soft sigh.

'I have Essentials of Body Cultivation today in the morning, and I need to go to the research department in the afternoon. But when I grabbed the schedule yesterday evening, it first said Body Preparation and changed while I was holding it. So that was what that teacher meant with 'updated right away'.'

Aether concluded that even the schedule was connected to the array in the academy and could receive updates remotely.

'Well, that doesn't matter right now.'

He picked up the badge, which strangely flashed with a small light, and attached it to the left side of his robe.

Pausing when he reached the door in order to leave, he took a deep breath and heavily exhaled to calm himself down. His eye shining with a determined light, he opened the door and walked into the corridor, ready for his new life.

...…

Above a lush forest, a young looking woman was flying at a fast speed. Had Aether witnessed this, he would've been shocked. Cultivators can't fly until they passed the Mortal Foundation realm after all.

The woman had long and shiny black hair, clear eyes and pale skin. She was rather big for a woman with a height of 1m 75cm. She was also very athletically build, which was necessary with the great sword that was diagonally strapped to her back. The great sword was grey and had no cross-guard.

She was wearing a violet robe from the academy, showing her status as the headmistress.

Her heroic face donned a heavy frown and her eyes held a sharp light, almost as if she was ready for war. The trail of light behind her held the same sharpness as her eyes.

Soon, she saw a city in front of her, Victoria. It was much more imposing than Aurora City. There were enormous walls around the city, and in front of the gate stood two powerful guards. From their aura the headmistress could conclude they were both in the Energy Veins Clearing Realm, which was primarily considered to be the second realm in Energy Cultivation. Their bodies were only in the Body Cleansing realm, the first realm of Body Cultivation.

She didn't sense any Soul or Blood Cultivation in the guards.

The two guards looked up when they sensed the headmistress coming, but didn't dare block her and simply allowed her access to the city.

Victoria was the capital city of the Kingdom of Selma, a war driven nation filled with fierce warriors. Their king was much more powerful than King Aurora, the king from Aurora Kingdom and Antaura's father.

But she wasn't here to visit the king, no, she was requested to come to the branch of the Royal Academy for Cultivation situated in this city.

Since the academy was founded and funded by the Carrion Empire, the empire ruling both Aurora Kingdom and the Kingdom of Selma, they both had a branch situated in their capital city. The same was true for every kingdom the Carrion Empire had conquered in its five hundred years existence.

She flew over the city and directly entered the academy, completely disregarding the correct procedures. She was too angry to care about them at the moment.

"Little Tyra, there is no need to be like this, right?", asked an old man with a long white beard when he appeared seemingly out of nothing.

Even though he had an amicable smile on his face, the headmistress, Tyra, knew he was anything but friendly. You wouldn't even know how you died if you got on his bad side. Just like Tyra, he wore a violet robe, signaling his status of headmaster.

Of course, he was the headmaster of the Kingdom of Selma branch.

Tyra looked at the headmaster with cold eyes, before answering, "There was no reason to force me to come all this way, you could've just as easily contacted me with the array. Oh no wait, you did, but ordered me to travel all this distance anyway."

The headmasters face frowned in displeasure when he heard Tyra speak.

"I am still your direct superior, Tyra, so tone down the disrespect. Besides, I thought it would be better to talk face to face about the, … complaints of your management."

"Yeah sure, say what you need to say so I can go back to my academy and reprimand the person who doesn't have the balls to talk to me personally."

"It seems you're still as blunt as ever, little Tyra.", said the old headmaster with twitching lips.

"Very well. It has come to my attention that you allowed someone who failed the entrance exam to attend the academy, is that correct?"

"Yes, that is true. What of it?"

"The entrance examen is called such for a reason. Allowing someone who failed to attend will put a stain on our great name. Especially …"

"Especially what? Just say he is crippled, there is no need to try to be mysterious."

"Yes, he failed the entrance exam and is crippled. Why would you allow trash like that to attend the academy?!"

"I have my own reasons, there is no need for you to worry about it."

"You're right. Since you're the headmistress of the Aurora Kingdom branch, you have certain liberties and can change some things here and there. But the entrance exam is a standard used in every branch, even the main branch. Naturally, the score you need in order to pass is not the same everywhere, but that exactly is the problem. The score you need in the Aurora Kingdom is the lowest from every branch in the empire."

The old headmaster waited a few seconds in order to let his words sink in before he continued, "If you do not expel him the moment you return to your academy, I will take this issue further. Let's see if you'll be headmistress much longer after that."

"There is no need for that. I'll exercise my discretion in this case."

The old headmaster narrowed his eyes at that comment and couldn't help but think, 'What is so special about that cripple that she would resort to that?'

"Are you sure about that? You know you can only use this once every five years, right?"

"Yes, I am sure. Anything else?"

"No, just a question I have. Why go so far for a crippled boy that is never going to amount to anything?"

"There is no need for you to worry about that. Goodbye."

Before the old headmaster could respond, Tyra had already jumped into the air and started flying back to the Aurora Kingdom. There was no way she would stay there a second longer than she needed to be.

The old headmaster's eyes turned cold and gained a murderous glint, before dissipating and an amiable smile was returned to his visage.

Unbeknownst to him, Tyra had perfectly sensed his change in mood, causing her lips to curl into a smile.

'I really want to cut that old coot in half.'

...…

Aether was using a map in order to walk to the research department.

In the morning, he had followed his Essentials of Body Cultivation lesson. Unexpectedly, there was nothing new for him to learn there. But he would have to waste his time there a lot, since it was an attendance required lesson.

Unfortunately, Antaura is in another class together with the other top ten scorers of the entrance exam. So all that happened was him sitting there thinking about his issues and getting stared at by other students.

After walking for about ten minutes, Aether finally reached his destination. It was a simple building made from some white stone with the name tag 'Research Department' on top.

In front of the entrance stood a man, clearly waiting for Aether to arrive.

"Hello young man, are you Aether?", asked the man clad in a blue robe which had a badge with magnifying glass pictured on it.

"Yes sir, I am."

The researcher had a friendly smile when saying, "welcome to the research department, Aether. Allow me to explain what you can expect here and what your tasks …"

The man suddenly stopped talking and bowed to someone who had appeared behind Aether before speaking, "greetings, headmistress Tyra."

"I will take it from here, lead researcher Anura."

Anura gave a nod as acknowledgement and then turned around to enter the building.

"Good afternoon, headmistress Tyra.", Aether said while bowing.

"Hello Aether. You're giving me quite some troubles, you know?"

Aether didn't really know how to answer that question except by giving a wry smile.

"You're smart, very smart, if I may say so. But you're also really stupid, you know that?"

"What exactly do you mean, headmistress?"

"While I do admit it is also the reason I can allow you to study in my academy, it doesn't change the fact that you gave away too much of your knowledge and power."

"This is an academy for learning everything about cultivation, but you need to understand that certain people are dangerous and will take advantage of you when the opportunity presents itself. So allow me to be the first."

A dangerous smile appeared on headmistress Tyra's face.

"You have probably noticed that you're the only student here at the Research Department. The reason for that is rather simple. Since you can't cultivate anything except for your soul, you'll spend the time the other students have their practical lessons here, doing research."

"if I may, what makes you think I can accomplish anything here with my limited knowledge, headmistress?"

"Limited knowledge? You may have fooled the teachers successfully, but do you really think someone like me, who has reached the fifth realm in three different cultivation methods, can't see through the things you left out of your answers?"

Aether paled when he heard this. It seemed like he truly had gone a bit overboard. But what shocked him the most was that she was already so powerful while she was clearly very young. Also, he was pretty sure that she is more powerful than King Aurora.

"You also showed too much by the Blood Cultivation talent test and your fight in the arena. While you don't seem to have a lot of Blood Essence, the quality is so high that others might covet it. Not to speak of the little stunt you did with the sword intent."

Ice cold sweat running over his back was all that Aether could feel at this moment. He was contemplating to run away the first chance he got. He didn't feel safe here at all.

"There is no need to run away, I am headmistress here and I will protect my students, every last one of them, which includes you. All I ask is that you try to be a bit more careful. Also, as your soul talent seems to be pretty high, learn how to guard your thoughts from others as soon as you can, I can hear everything you think."

Just how powerful was this woman! Aether was completely dumbstruck. But the more he heard and understood, the more he wanted to become powerful. Reading minds could be a very powerful tool in order to do more research.

"That's enough of that. Let's enter the Research Department and I'll explain everything you need to know when we go through the different laboratories."

Aether became exited when he heard this. He couldn't wait to see what they were experimenting with. But most of all, what he could learn in this place.

There was just no way the solutions to his problems couldn't be found in this place of wonder!