Academy's healer Office.
(Lia's Pov)
After fainting during the date with Rio, when Lia woke up, she found herself on a bed in healer's office. Her personal maid who have been taking care of Lia since childhood was sitting there, beside her bed.
"Are you awake, Milady?" (Maid)
"Yeah… why am I here?" (Lia)
Maid's eyes narrowed a bit and she said with an expressionless face, without any emotion:
"You fainted…..On your boyfriend's Lap….so, he brought you here" (Maid)
"wha-wha, what are you saying!? H-how did you know!?" (Lia)
Hearing that the maid knew about Rio, Lia panicked a bit. If the maid knew then it is possible for her father to know this too.
To Lia's question, the maid still replied expressionlessly:
"I am your personal maid, it's obvious that I will know about you." (Maid)
"Ye-yeah" (Lia)
"I even know that you two kis-" (Maid)
"wha-what are you saying!? I never kissed him! who will even talk to a bastard like him!?….i-I am going to sleep! ye-yeah I feel tired!" (Lia)
"You can't sleep, Milady" (Maid)
"Eh, why?" (Lia)
"because you may start dreaming about something more lewd stuff-" (Maid)
"stop fooling around with me already! Who will even think about something like that! Not to mention with that idiot!" (Lia)
"Ye-yeah, so I wanted to say that you can't sleep because Master had asked for your presence during today's dinner in the family mansion." (Maid)
"Wh-what father is home!? And he wants me to be present during the dinner today!?" (Lia)
"Yes, Milady" (Maid)
"Can't you just say that I have to attend class tomorrow?" (Lia)
"Well, due to an incident during the new year, your academy has declared a holiday for a week, so you don't have any class for now, Milady" (Maid)
"Sigh~ do I really have to meet him? Sigh~" (Lia)
"Your face look like someone has told you about your execution date, you shouldn't make a face like that Milady, you can do it" (Maid)
"Are you trying to motivate me? Thank you, Mel" (Lia)
.
.
The Capital City Astra is divided in several areas, the areas are divided on the basis of how powerful the individuals living in that area are:
Outer Area: Ordinary Humans (Un-awakened) (Most of the population Lives here in ordinary and low-quality houses)
Inner Area: Individuals from Rank-G to Rank-B all live in this area.
Core Area: Individuals from Rank-A to S live in this area, most of the high ranked guild and building are also in this area, like the academy.
Central Area: Currently only three Families live here along with their subordinates and the highest quality guilds. These three families are backed by an SS-ranker each. They are the Rex family, Croft family and the Aldif family.
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Central Area, Rex Mansion
Link was heading towards his father's office. While he walked towards the office, an extremely beautiful scenery can be seen passing by, all of this is an artificial garden made by the top human engineers. You can experience anything you want in this huge garden.
The garden around can be turned into a grassland spread for hundreds of miles, even though this garden is just a few miles long. This is the extent of spatial technology humans have acquired after hundreds of year's hard work.
But Link wasn't interested in these high-tech stuffs, he has grown up in this mansion and he has long been bored from all these things. He just can't wait for the day when the academy to open and go back there. That place looks more better to him.
'I wonder what father wants to talk now, I hope he is in good mood today, sigh~' (Link)
Link's father has always been very strict on him, he always wanted that Link work hard and live up to his name as the son of a SS-ranker. Due to which Link have been trained since the very day he was born.
Yeah, you heard it right, he has trained from the very day he born. You see there exists a secret method to increase your talent and only SS-ranked individuals know about this method, they have strictly restricted the spreading of this method.
Afterall, if it was possible to increase one's talent was possible then it could cause a huge sensation in the humans and several individuals will also go to any extent to do so. Which will instead be more dangerous for the humanity itself.
The method is that, when and individual is still in un-awakened state, if he baths in water containing, atleast one or more Perfect rank Mana potion every day they can increase their chance of awakening with a high rank talent to a very high percentage.
But the twist in this method is that, a single Perfect rank Mana potion is so expensive that even A-ranked individuals can't afford it, only some Rich S rankers can afford it after saving money for several years.
And if this knowledge about the talent improvement method goes public, people will try to acquire the potion at any cost which will make the already expensive potion to increase further in price and the materials needed for it will also become expensive.
The SS-ranked individuals frequently use these perfect potions and they can't accept this thing and the other reason is human greed. Afterall no one want to see others become more stronger than you, right?
.
After a while Link finally arrived at the office, before he could knock at the door, he heard a rough and stern voice:
"Come in, my son" (Ashtel Rex)
Link didn't say anything and directly entered the office.
After he entered the office, he felt himself in a totally different area. Even though the office looked extremely small from outside. It was actually very huge inside. This is also due to advance spatial magic and high-tech engineering.
Link walked towards the table and sat directly opposite to Ashtel. Sitting here he can feel the oppressing aura of his father. If Raji's aura is like a cold and freezing like Ice then, you can consider Ashtel's aura is like, a domineering and cruel king.
His aura is extremely restrained at the moment if he does not restrain it, Ashtel might kill Link in a matter of second with his aura alone. This is the difference between a C-rank and SS-rank.
"I heard you saved that girl, Riya" (Ashtel)
"Nope, it wasn't me, it was a classmate of mine, I was affected by mana overload when fighting with that A-rank person" (Link)
Hearing this Ashtel wasn't surprised at all because he long knew it. SS-rank is no joke. Children like Link and Rio are still too young for this old monster. He has a well develop intelligence network and Link also knew this.
That's why he said the truth and didn't hide the fact that he failed to protect Riya. Although he knew that this can make Ashtel angry to some extent, but if Link said a lie that would be more terrible.
"At the end of the day, everything was okay. If you didn't kill that A-ranker Riya wouldn't survive, I doubt that kid Rio would have been able to do the same right?" (Ashtel)
"Not really, he was able to hold his ground against me for several minutes even when I was in the state of mana overload, I think he have the talent to be a peak S ranker." (Link)
"Hmm, that's surprising, well, peak S rank talent is very rare too, anyway it's a good thing that we found him early, you should make him your ally when he is still a hidden gem." (Ashtel)
"Yes, father" (Link)
"And since you didn't cause a major incident this time, I will ignore that little mistake of yours. But you should take your guards with you, don't be careless like you were at that time. Now you may go" (Ashtel)
"Yes, father" (Link)
After that Link left the office and the previous silence returned:
"A peak S rank talent, as expected of Kevin's son, maybe we will be able to see 'that sword' once again…" (Ashtel)
.
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Core area, Silver family's mansion
In the dinning room, Lia sat on the seat farthest from her father's seat. Although her face was normal, her mind was in a great mess, she was thinking about running away from this depressing place already.
After a while, a burly man waked in and sat directly at the head seat. This man is James Silver, an S-rank warrior (tank type). He looked at Lia who was sitting so far and frowned a bit, but decided to ignore this.
James has straightforward personality; he doesn't like to talk nonsense and hates the people who talks too much. The only problem is that he is too straightforward:
"So, who's Rio?" (James)
"H-he…" (Lia)
"are you okay with him?" (James)
"I-i…" (Lia)
"does he treat you in the right way?" (James)
"H-he…." (Lia)
"Should I give him a good beating, so that he listens to you?" (James)
"N-No! what are you even saying!?" (Lia)