Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Endra was almost sure he'd hooked the boy's interest with his skills, but the latter shook his head and finished gathering his things.

"Not interested." 

Endra shrugged, "Your name, at least?"

The boy gave a sideway glance, before turning away. "Wen."

"Wayne?"

"No, just Wen. W, e, n."

Endra tilted his head, hearing the three-letter name. If he learned he was a slave when he was ten, then why keep his slave name? 

"You got bought or something?"

Wen just shook his head and walked out of the balcony.

Arza came close to Endra and asked. "How strong is he?"

Endra remembered the brief exchange of spells. "Guess he's… his defense is three times as powerful as Dagan?"

The bald chanter's head turned at that. "That's bullshit."

"Alright, you create something out of mana and I'll try to smack it away with World energies."

It took Endra only a casual swat to destroy a floating body of water. 

"Maybe four times as skillful?" Endra reassessed his judgement. "My first swat off his Hard Air only bounced off, the second time I was serious so it did some damage, but I only managed to completely destroy it after the third one."

"Huh… Who is that guy anyway?" Dagan asked.

"Someone from the Arcvallen class, probably," added Phel.

Endra nodded. "He was taking notes on the fight below and also on us. Probably writing an essay about me," he added smilingly. "Ah, he's over there," he pointed at Wen, who found a seat among the audience and started furiously writing stuff down. "See? An essay."

"What did he write about us?"

"Nothing substantial. Descriptions, personalities… some other quirks you guys have."

"Anything else?"

"Hmm… He described Dec as impulsive and easy to exploit? So probably, we can expect some taunting words from our Arcvallen enemies. If we ever get to meet them," Endra shrugged.

The rest of the class buzzed on about Wen for a while, before their attention went towards another mediocre fight that occurred below. 

Endra, feeling he wouldn't see anything worth seeing below, decided to search for info on the Arcvallen Helm Class. Since they were considered the best of the best, surely, the city-folk would know something about them. 

Endra's journey to find info on the Arcvallen 2nd year class, unfortunately, did not bear much fruit. Contrary to his expectations, the 2nd year Helm Class of the Arcvallen Academy wasn't really the child celebrity group he expected them to be. 

There were a few enthusiasts who 

Though, he did come upon a very interesting fact about that class. They had a Child of the Empress among them. A girl, or should he say, a woman named Eliseline Leland. She was born as a 3rd grade Elise, but she soon became orphaned. At the time, she revealed that she was a Child of the Empress and wanted the protection of someone powerful. 

The Duke of the East, Alt Leland adopted her, and now she was learning the ropes as an Academy student. She wasn't a mage in her previous life, but in her current life, she realized she had talent for it, so she became the brightest star in the 2nd year Arcvallen Helm Class. In fact, she shone so bright that her name completely blotted out any mention of the other students. 

'Oh, the other students? Guess they're alright,' was the most Endra could get.

"Hmm…" Endra thought as he looked at the gathered information. 

He was categorically against paparazzi, but he did find it useful when literally everything about Eliseline was laid bare before him. 

Tall body; curly, blonde hair; bulging eyes; small lips and nose; love for jewelry, but otherwise modest clothing. As for her personality: she disliked strangers; had an introverted disposition; spends most of her time reading; takes things seriously; polite to the point of eeriness; struggles to hide her annoyance.

The last one got a chuckle from Endra, and he read on.

Favorite magic to use: Illusions, Manipulative magic, Shadow and Light, Wind and Fire. 

Seeing the line-up, Endra hummed, seeing similarities with himself. The biggest difference was her mastery of Ferlour, which Endra just wasn't that interested in. He liked illusions, but he wasn't the type to enjoy toying with other's emotions. He wasn't a monster like that. He was more of a make them weightless and then send them to the sky type of guy.

But he was interested to see what she could do with her illusions. Endra always wondered how it felt for the other students to face him, so maybe against her, he could taste his own medicine. 

Endra then tried to find more information on the Leland family of the East, but surprisingly, his search bore almost no fruits. Only that it was a powerful family who controlled the kingdom's trade with the rest of the world. 

The problem was, that title was so powerful that it was impossible for others to simply not know about this Leland family. Endra wondered if they purposefully decided to hide details about them, but if that was the case, he was treading dangerous waters, trying to unearth their information. 

He promptly gave up, and decided to enjoy his time in the capital.

Finished with his investigation, Endra spent the two days mostly doing nothing and just enjoying the surprise holidays he had just received. Just before the prelims ended, he went to check out the final match between the two strongest teams aside from his class and Arcvallen's. It was a match between the biggest city of the South, Crownshield, and the biggest city of the East, Torgaza. 

Witnessing the fight, Endra couldn't help but wonder how shit the West of the kingdom was. That first fight he saw looked like toddlers fighting with mud compared to the spectacle he saw in the final fight of the prelims. 

Huge spells, tight teamwork from both sides, and tactics that really showed the potential of magic. Endra almost found himself excited to meet these opponents. It really was a good thing he stuck with the Helm Class and decided to participate in these tournaments. It did feel like he wasn't challenging himself hard enough.

Endra thought he wouldn't care much for the whole event, being fine with either losing or winning. But as the two days passed, he was more and more excited. 

The experience made Endra realize that lately, he was constantly finding new things about himself. 

He wondered why he didn't feel the same when he was a spirit, but back then, his thoughts had no one else to bounce off of. Even if he spent countless hours pondering on a subject (which rarely ever happened, or only happened if he was pretending to be crazy), he could only tunnel on one thought, not really thinking about the other possibilities. 

But now, even the smallest conversations helped him think from a different perspective. Or maybe Arza's battle-maniac persona was just rubbing off on him. 

"It's starting," Phel's voice disrupted his thoughts. 

Endra looked up the stage to see the Mage King and the King of the West himself standing regally above the gathered masses.