‘If I remember correctly, the secondary assessment should be over there.’

Roa made his way through a deserted corridor—a path not many applicants nor students took as it would take them on a longer route towards where the secondary assessment was supposed to take place. This was the path he’d always taken as a student to avoid the numerous gazes showing him scorn or pity.

Cracks on the floor tiles; overgrowth climbing through the windows; dilapidated walls; this corridor was just like the person he was back then—broken and untended. Apart from him, nobody ever used it. Of course, since he had only started using this pathway well into the semester, crossing paths with someone here was a somewhat unexpected event.

“You! Out of the way!” A voice coldly shouted from behind.

Roa was reminiscing about tripping over a broken tile; it made sense that if there was someone else walking behind him, they’d think he was too slow. He stepped aside courteously before realizing that the voice sounded incredibly familiar.

Taking a gander at the person other than him that thought to pass the corridor, Roa paused and inadvertently muttered, “Ariene?”

The figure of the person who had walked past him halted in her tracks.

Long, pointed ears peeked through soft, vermillion hair—the shade of billowing embers tinted her locks as she spun around to meet Roa, a vicious luster in her emerald eyes.

“What?!” The young lady exclaimed, annoyed at the audacity of the person that called her name.

“Ariene! Hahah! This is great!” Ecstatic, Roa suddenly embraced the girl who at this moment should’ve been someone he had met for the first time. This left the young lady stunned and flabbergasted—only for a moment. Blood soon rushed to her cheeks, ferociously hot.

Roa’s skin prickled in alarm. Sensing the mana hastily gathering around them, he quickly stepped back. 

Inwardly, he rejoiced, ‘She’s alive! Of course, she’d be alive! Everyone else should be too!’ 

One foot in front of the other, posthaste—although Roa knew that he’d committed quite the transgression, it couldn’t be helped! Someone whose death he’d greatly mourned appeared in front of him, not as a ghost but as a vivacious young lady. Granted, she seemed to have reverted to her aggressive, irritable, and younger self.

“Hah! See you later, Ariene!” Roa gleefully waved, fleeing teary-eyed and sporting a dumb smile on his face—though any later, and his backside would’ve been licked by the fiery tongue of the young lady’s wrath.

As he fled, he brushed a passing academy faculty member and warned them to take another route. The faculty member only scolded him for running in the halls and paid no heed to the boy’s warning.

“Hmph. That rude boy seemed like an applicant, he’s not even a student yet!” the faculty member grumbled, before pushing open the door towards the deserted corridor.

It wasn’t long before he turned around and followed Roa’s retreat.

“To think! Who in the right mind would mess with the Seed of Fire!? Folly! That boy’s life in the academy won’t be a peaceful one!” The faculty member did not care for Roa’s supposed misfortune, and simply took another route to where he had to go.

Meanwhile, the young lady who was left behind stomped furiously on the ground and shattered what was left of the intact tiles in the corridor. “Why does that guy know my name!?” she shouted. “A human? —Is he someone the elders sent to watch me!? How dare they!? Why would they even send such a dumb-looking boy!?”

Roa couldn’t hear Ariene cursing him out, but he had assumed something similar was happening. He arrived at the secondary assessment, registered, and sat on the bleachers to spectate the ongoing trials while awaiting his turn.

Chuckling to himself, he thought, ‘Sparring huh. It’s the same as last time. Was I too nervous back then? To fumble the sword in a mere spar… how embarrassing.’

Luveris Academy was an academy renowned for gathering talents from all over the continent, grooming them for combat in the ways of the sword and magic.

In the academy, sparring was widely encouraged. Competing in a match would allow oneself to review their strengths as well as shortcomings, and to know which points one would have to work on to improve.

The academy’s secondary assessment was also set up as a spar, as it was a practical way of determining one’s aptitude in battle; the preliminary assessment with the mana crystal was set up to determine the student’s initial aptitude for mana.

After the secondary assessment, there was one more trial. A trial by fire that all students had to pass through. 

‘Before my regression, I was one of the few students that managed to pass without having to do the final assessment,’ Roa recalled. ‘The reason… would be because of the opponent I had to face in the upcoming spar.’

There were numerous battles occurring in the sparring area with mana and steel clashing around every turn. Not every fight was a fair match as the participants were chosen at random. An experienced fighter could go up against a frail mage; a volatile princess could go up against a simple pickpocket.

‘If nothing had changed, the one I’m up against would be…’

Roa fidgeted around his seat as his stomach started to churn. He tried to contain his trembling in pretty much the same way he did when he first took the secondary assessment. 

Back then, the kid from the slums was just a tad nervous about getting into the prestigious academy. This time, however, things would be different. Suddenly thrust back in time, to this day—it was a chance to skew destiny’s plans for him.

His opponent for the upcoming spar would be the one primarily responsible for laying the fate of the One-Armed King. Winning this fight unscathed would be the first milestone he had to achieve in order to open up a better path for the future.

‘Maybe I was too rash earlier… Haha…’ Roa began to lament his unwitting behavior. Seeing as that person had yet to come up, the match was inevitable. A match that was supposed to be a formality but could turn into tragedy very quickly. 

“It might even turn into a fight to the death… My death.”