Chapter 246 - Fatima’s Academy Experience

It's been about 2 months since Fatima had enrolled in the Regulus Magic Academy and today was the day that Cecil and his friends had finished the World Tree's Trials.

She was heading off for her practical magic combat classes. During the past two months since coming into contact with magic and mana she was able to quickly grasp many spells and strengthening techniques.

However, just like Cecil, she couldn't actually use them. Fatima would also give a periodic report of her situation to her family and it's also been over half a year since she's last seen them.

"Haahh...there's still no news about Cecil even after for so long...just where is he?"

Fatima had her people from the expeditionary force look around the kingdom for news regarding her brother, but even until now, nothing came up. As the days passed, she only fell deeper and deeper into desolation knowing that her brother couldn't be found.

She uplifted her mood with the magic classes she was taking since they were interesting and her interactions with the cordial and well-mannered Prince Rowan, who now straightforwardly expressed his deep admiration and affection for her.

Fatima was of course flattered, however her thoughts were focused on finding her brother and she didn't dare or want to respond to any of Rowan's advances because she didn't want to implicate herself with the politics of the kingdom.

The Prince could also see that there was something constantly gnawing on the young lady's mind, but he could never muster up the courage to ask her what it was. Rowan also thought that he should let Fatima open up to him and tell him herself.

He wanted to help her, but Fatima's attitude towards him was still just as cold and indifferent as when they had first met, rarely would she display acts of warmth towards him.

Fatima's 'good days' were spent learning and distracting herself from the stressful thoughts of not being able to find her youngest brother through her studies. If she didn't have to deal with the annoying Second Prince, then everyday would be a 'good day'.

*******

Fatima walked into her classroom and sat herself in the front row. The 2nd prince, Armano, only stopped outside of the classroom before heading off to his own class.

She didn't like that prince one bit. After their first interaction where he brazenly asked if she would allow him to bed her, Fatima's first impression of the prince plummeted from neutral to complete hostility and utter disgust, though she did well to hide it.

Only Rowan could see the subtle changes to Fatima's mood and actions whenever his brother, Armano, was hanging and buzzing around her like a fly.

It was too bad that the rodent was part of the royal family because if he wasn't, Fatima wanted to gouge the eyes that stared at her lewdly, sew the mouth that spoke to her indecently, and crush the pitiful third leg of the bastard.

Fatima quickly pushed all the infuriating thoughts about the lecherous prince to the back of her mind and took out her books from the spatial ring that Rowan had gifted her. It was a peculiar object that went against all of the principles of Earth's science.

It was a truly magical object that Fatima found to be quiet convenient and handy. The space inside the ring was around 4 cubic meters or so and she could store plenty of things inside.

The ring's space could also only be accessed by the person who had bound it with their blood, in this case, Fatima. She didn't know this, but the ring that Prince Rowan gave to her was a White Ring, the same as Cecil's and Lucia's spatial ring.

Rowan had basically given her a national grade treasure, but she didn't know it. Fatima was also oblivious to the fact that the ring was in fact a dowry that the royal family had Rowan deliver to her because she was his 'fiancée'.

Fatima also didn't pay it too much mind since it was a gift from her friend. She was able to gain her very own portable storage box and she couldn't help but lament at the thought of being able to own such a thing when she was still back on Earth.

"Carrying all those heavy doc.u.ments from home to the office would have been so easy..."

"Good morning Fatima, how are you today?"

A voice called out from behind her and Fatima smiled lightly at the girl who had now moved to sit beside her.

"Good morning to you as well Clara, I'm fine, how about you?"

"I'm great~ but, are you sure you're fine?" The girl named Clara asked. She had seen the person who escorted her friend to the classroom just earlier. She knew for a fact that this cold friend of hers did not like the 2nd Prince.

"Yeah...of course I am." Fatima replied in her usual tone of voice.

Since enrolling in the academy, Clara was the only person that Fatima could call a 'friend'. The other people in class were either too afraid of her or scorned her because of Fatima's unknown social status.

There were others that were also jealous of her close relationship with the Kingdom's 2 princes. Many were especially jealous of how close she was with the handsome and kind Third Prince Rowan.

"Huhu~ it's tough being 'popular', huh?"

Fatima only shrugged and remained silent. Clara was already used to how cold Fatima was, but she found it interesting to interact with her. That's why she stuck around Fatima and befriended her.

Clara was a part of the Kingdom's Velentia Marquis House so she had a pretty high social status. While others fawned over her, only Fatima was the person who remained indifferent and uncaring. Fatima treated her like any other person and this fresh treatment, coupled by the unknown charm that the young lady possessed, was what attracted Clara to her.

Despite not having many friends and receiving the jealousy of the other classmates, Fatima found it beneath her to even respond to the jealousy and lament on her 'friendless' state.

She had more important things to do and worry about, like her youngest brother's current whereabouts. Fatima only decided to stay in the academy for a couple of months or for as long as she needed before she got a good grasp on what magic was before she would drop out.

For 2 months, she focused all her attention on studying and was able to attain many substantial gains which she would then compile into a long doc.u.ment and have her people send back to her family.

When the academy first evaluated her mana stage and elemental affinity, they were surprised to find that she was a non-elemental user and that she had an abundant amount of mana already present inside her body.

This was unprecedented, but even though the researchers wanted to interrogate her as to why this was possible, her status as the 3rd Prince's 'fiancée' deterred them from being too forceful and disrespectful.

Fatima naturally saw the fervor in their eyes and chose not to answer even a single question. She already knew that she was special, but the eyes of the researchers looked like they wanted to dissect her and this caused Fatima to have a low impression on them.

Give them an inch and these people will want a mile. That's the impression she got from the researcher, so she decided to stay mum and indifferent to all their inquiries.

Also, the mana that Fatima possessed rivaled that of people in the Mana Sea Stage. She hadn't trained as hard as Cecil had so it was understandable that she had less mana than him, but nevertheless, a person who has Mana Sea Stage cultivation while only being in their twenties was considered a person of immense talent.

Rowan was curious about her elemental affinity, but he didn't dare ask when he saw how coldly the girl rejected all inquiries from the researchers. When one of them tried to be a little too touchy-feely things naturally went bad for the researcher.

Rowan could only withhold his curiosity and instead be happy for her since she now also had the prestige of being a young prodigy, but Fatima at the time was still clueless on what it meant to have Mana Sea Stage cultivation at her age.

She even thought that it was a shame and a disadvantage that her non-elemental affinity was the cause of her inability to use normal elemental spells. If she had the choice, she'd rather have an elemental affinity instead so she could at least try using a magic spell.

Fatima tried to use a simple Fireball spell one time, but she couldn't invoke it no matter how much she chanted and circulated her mana. It was infuriating, but there was also some gains that she was able to discover for herself through trial and error.

By rotating the mana inside her body using her family's martial arts 'inner force' method, Fatima was able to physically enhance her body by a great deal. And just like Cecil, before he acquired that unique written casting method, Fatima still couldn't use a single elemental spell to this day. She didn't have any knowledge on how to cultivate Mana Eyes like Cecil did so she was grasping around in the dark for a way forward.

She did however somehow manage to conjure a Mana Bolt by herself. The Mana Bolt resembled the Fireball spell so she continued practicing to use that and it soon enough became her main spell. Fatima called it the Lightball spell, since the thing that she conjured from her hand was a literal ball of golden light.

If Cecil knew that the Mana Bolt spell that he patented had been turned into the 'Lightball' spell by his sister, he would lament at how uncool the name sounded.

During Fatima's early days in the academy when she didn't know how to properly manipulate and control her mana, she had difficulty keeping up with the classes. This was also another reason why her classmates had alienated her from the rest. No matter how high her Mana Stage was, if she couldn't even use the simplest of spells, then she was garbage.

Gradually however, she was able to gain a better control over her mana and she no longer struggled in practical classes like she did before. Comprehensive classes were her forte so she didn't even struggle one bit with these kinds of classes after she had a firm grasp of the basics.

When the instructor came in, he notified the class of a change in schedule. Their class, R3, would be holding a joint practical magic combat class with classes R1 and R2.

Once Fatima heard the instructor's words, she couldn't help but click her tongue in displeasure. Clara who was next to her naturally heard it and she couldn't help but giggle.

"It's the Prince's doing again~"

"..."

Fatima's countenance became even more impassive and colder than usual. She only nodded light in acknowledgement to her friend's words.

It was most likely the 2nd prince, who was in class R1 that arranged for this joint class. As for why class R2 was joining, it was probably because Rowan had caught wind of his brother's antics again and was coming to protect his damsel in distress...

Well, maybe not in distress, but more like a damsel who was close to shoving a foot long dagger up his brother's ass. So in a sense, he was there to protect his stupid brother from his very dangerous 'fiancée'.

"That stupid prince is so willful; he's disgusting and annoying. Oh, I wish I could just shove a..." Fatima said under her breath, but she didn't finish her sentence.

"What's that Fatima?"

"Nothing...let's go get changed for the class..."

The class went down to the academy's combat fields to get changed inside the locker rooms. Fatima changed out of her uniform and wore a tight-fitting combat uniform that pretty much accentuated her busty figure.

'That lecherous bastard...I'll gouge his eyes out one day...' Fatima frowned in thought as she looked in distaste at her own reflection.

The stupid prince probably just wanted to ogle at her body. Since she trained, her body was naturally fit and athletic. Her body's proportions were the most ideal for her stature and she had curves in just the right places.

When she first enrolled in the school and had to wear the combat uniform on her first practical combat class, many of the boys ogled at her body and she could feel their disgusting, lecherous gazes. This was also one of the reasons that invoked the other female classmates' ire and jealousy.

Once everyone was done changing, they moved to the field. Classes R1 and R2 were already present. As per usual, Fatima found a quiet place to stand in and wait for the instructor. Naturally, Clara was next to her and she was chatting with some of her friends from class.

Fatima didn't join in on their conversation and stayed mum. Some of them didn't like her anyway, so she didn't bother trying to befriend them either.

It wasn't long that another character walked over to where she was and this elicited the excited squeals from the girls next to her. Clara leaned in and whispered, "It's THAT prince again."

Fatima only responded with a subtle nod. She had her eyes closed and was busy circulating her mana. It was Fatima's form of warm up whenever she needed to use her mana or 'spells'.

"Ladies, please let me through. Haha~ I'll get to you all later, please do forgive me, my beauties~"

"Prince Armano, why go to such lengths for that ice cube? She doesn't even respond to anyone when she's like that!"

"Yeah, Prince, come stay with us~"

"Why would you ever say such harsh things, my flowers? This beautiful lotus just needs time to open up to all of us that's all~"

When Fatima heard this, the temperature around her immediately fell. Clara couldn't help but feel the chill emitting from her silently annoyed friend and while every other girl was able to perceive this abrupt drop in temperature, only the prince was stupidly oblivious.

Just as he was going to continue approaching her, a large hand landed on his shoulder and the voice of his brother sounded from behind him.

"Brother, the instructor is here. As class R1's representative, shouldn't you go and organize your fellow students?"

"Oh, Rowan...you're here." Armano looked around and saw that the instructor had indeed arrived. He turned to look at Fatima who still had her eyes closed and was completely ignoring him. Armano called out to her lightly before turning around to head back to his class.

"My lady, I will be back later~"

Rowan couldn't help but frown when he heard his frivolous brother's words.

"Brother, please don't forget that she's MY fiancée," Rowan said coldly in a lowered tone.

Armano glanced at him lightly before humming and drifting away, acting as if he was completely oblivious to his brother's words. Rowan walked past Fatima and quietly said, "Do forgive me..."

Fatima only responded with a light nod and continued to focus on circulating her mana.

When the instructor called everyone to gather around, he began explaining to them what they were going to be doing.

"We're going to be conducting a mock battle today so please separate into 4-man cells! After that, we'll be moving into the forest combat field to conduct the mock battle!"

Clara immediately grabbed onto Fatima's arm and said, "Fatima, team up with me~"

"...Mhm."