Ellaria didn’t say a word; her emerald eyes simply watched the anxious Kefi calmly.
Then, she took a step forward and walked toward Kefi, one step at a time.
Kefi watched as Her Highness the Princess approached, her heart tightening and her panic rising.
Her Highness isn’t thinking… that I was too rude, and now she’s going to teach me a lesson herself, is she?!
Her legs started trembling slightly on their own; she almost wanted to apologize immediately.
However, when Ellaria stopped in front of her, Keffi only heard two clear, calm words—
“Let’s go.”
Kefi was a little stunned. She looked up, hardly able to believe it as she gazed at Ellaria. Did Her Highness… agree to her invitation?
Ellaria herself hadn’t expected to be invited to eat together.
Back in the palace, she mostly dined alone. Since coming to Oselenka, she’d long grown used to being on her own.
Eating with classmates… Although she’d never experienced it before, seeing the nervous yet expectant look in Kefi’s eyes, and the other girl beside her—Mia, who looked like she was about to “starve to death”—she thought maybe this wasn’t so bad after all…
The three of them found a quiet four-person table in the cafeteria. Ellaria sat beside Kefi, maintaining her usual grace.
Mia slumped into the seat across from Kefi, her whole body sprawled across the table like a pile of soft mud, letting out meaningless hums, looking half-dead.
Kefi couldn’t help but tease, “No matter how hard the exam is, it’s not to the point you look this miserable, is it? Pull yourself together, Mia.”
Mia weakly lifted her head, face scrunched up in despair, and said, “The moment I saw those new question types, half my soul left my body… The worst part… the worst part is there’s still the Combat Exam this afternoon! It’s going to be even harder, wuu wuu wuu…”
Kefi comforted her, “Relax, your combat skills have always been good. You’ll be fine.”
Ellaria quietly sat beside them, taking small bites of the food on her plate, listening to Kefi and Mia’s natural and easy conversation.
She felt she didn’t have much to add, so she simply kept her habitual silence.
After chatting for a while, Mia seemed to recover a bit, revived by the food and her friends’ company, and her chatterbox tendencies returned.
She curiously leaned over the table and asked Ellaria, “Your Highness, how did you do on the written exam?” Her tone was casual and natural, paying no mind at all to the gap in status between them.
Ellaria was a little startled by the sudden question from this gray-haired girl. Her hand holding the fork paused.
But she quickly regained her composure, dabbed her mouth with a napkin, and replied. Her voice remained cool, but not displeased:
“It was all right. Except for that Material Analysis Question, which was a bit challenging and required strategic thinking. The rest weren’t a problem.”
Hearing the words “Material Analysis Question,” Keffi became interested and joined the discussion:
“So Your Highness also thought that Material Analysis Question was tough? I thought so too… The problem had so many restrictions—you had to defeat the golem, but you couldn’t damage any civilian houses.”
Ellaria nodded.
“Yes. The key was in how to use the environment and your understanding of the golem’s traits. Shield Defense is extremely strong head-on, but it’s slow to move and its defenses are weak against attacks from above or the sides and rear.”
Kefi followed her lead. “Right, that’s what I thought too. Maybe you could use fire magic to create smoke and block its ‘vision,’ or use continuous burning magic to attack the joints where the parts connect? Although, the efficiency might not be great…”
Ellaria added, “Or, you could use Fireball to blast the alley walls, letting flying debris or the sonic boom in a narrow space shake and disrupt the golem’s core mana flow. The direct damage is low, but it could buy time to escape or try something else.”
With that exam question as a starting point, the two of them began discussing various strategies and shared their own insights.
Their analyses each had different focuses: Kefi paid more attention to practicality and the flexible use of magic itself, while Ellaria leaned toward tactical thinking and exploiting environmental rules.
Mia, meanwhile, looked on in confusion as they chatted back and forth. She… really didn’t understand anything they were talking about.
After all, she’d barely even glanced at that question before skipping it. All she could do was bury her head in her food, trying to fill the gaps in her knowledge with more to eat.
A focused yet relaxed atmosphere filled the table as the girls discussed the problem, and the tension and unfamiliarity from before seemed to have melted away.
Before they realized it, lunchtime had passed.
***
In the afternoon, the Elemental stream’s Combat Exam took place in a dedicated Magic Training Classroom.
The classroom was spacious and empty, the walls and floor etched with arrays for reinforcement and protection.
Sefina sat in a chair by the wall, her petite body sunken into the seat—a strange contrast with the air of severity she radiated.
She held a Class Roster clipped to a wooden board in her hand, her wine-red eyes calm and unreadable.
The content of the exam was simple: Teacher Sefina would call names in turn, and whoever was called would step forward and unleash their best attack spell at the sturdy magical mannequin in the center of the arena.
Sefina would grade them based on magical power, control accuracy, casting speed, and the actual damage done to the mannequin.
In the midterms, the Elemental Written Exam counted for 40%, and Combat counted for 60%. With the Combat score weighted higher, the students waiting in the back rows were even more tense—like lambs waiting for slaughter, the air thick with unease.
Sefina wasted no words and began calling names in her clear, even voice, echoing through the classroom:
“First, Ressi.”
The boy named Ressi stiffened noticeably. He took a deep breath and, a little awkwardly, walked to stand before the magical mannequin.
He took out his wand, fingers trembling from nerves, and tried his best to gather his magic.
After several seconds, a fireball just slightly larger than a fist—its light flickering unsteadily—finally wobbled out.
The Tier 1 spell [Fireball] drifted over and landed on the mannequin’s chest with a “pop,” leaving only a faint scorch mark, not even making the mannequin shake.
Sefina, legs crossed, her feet in white calf socks dangling in the air, glanced at the mannequin and then back at the Class Roster. Her tone was utterly flat:
“Mana gathering efficiency is low. Spell structure is unstable. Slow casting. Insufficient power. D.”
She swiftly wrote the low grade in the roster.
Ressi blushed, lowered his head, and hurried back.
“Next,” Sefina’s eyes swept down the list, “Kyle.”
At that name, several students in the back row drew sharp breaths.
The infamous troublemaker Kyle—who’d once been thrown out a window—looked nervous too, sensing that Teacher Sefina’s grading was pretty strict.
Ressi’s ability was among the lower ones in the class, but most of the first-year students weren’t much stronger. No one dared be sure they’d get a high score, and the tension in the air only deepened.