Noelle eyed the headmaster through the crystal ball with annoyance. “How much.”

Noah looked away and crossed his arms.

The glass flowers and crystals on the coffee table shook as Professor Angharad rose to his feet and slammed his hands down on the table. His face was red with anger as he pointed at the crystal ball and snarled, “If you think we can be bought–”

“How much are you offering?” The headmaster asked calmly, shooting the professor a look. Angharad clenched his fists, huffed and sat back down with his arms and legs crossed. He glared at Noah who smiled brightly in return.

“Name the price and it’s yours,” Noelle said.

“My, I did not think I would be summoned by someone from such an affluent family,” the demon whispered in his mind.

“Yes, yes. Lucky you,” Noah thought darkly. “You’re stuck being my spirit guide for the next few years, isn’t that wonderful?”

“It is, indeed. I cannot wait to get a taste of you, my lovely little Noah.”

“Don’t call me that. And you’re not going to eat a single piece of my soul, we have a deal.”

“Ah yes, the soul, the deal. For you to graduate and for me to get a taste of humanity,” the demon practically purred in his ears.

“Yes, at least we have a time limit. I can’t wait to get rid of you.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Noah,” the voice of his mother brought him out of his thoughts. The negotiation between his mother and the headmaster was complete, the family lawyer will be contacted later on to finalise the deal.

Headmaster Adams asked for several gold and jewels to keep him and Professor Angharad quiet. Despite the professor’s earlier protest, he didn’t say much during the negotiations. There was also a promise for Orion to sponsor several events as long as he’s the Headmaster.

“Make sure to keep your grades up. I expect you to finally control that mana of yours,” Noelle told Noah before the crystal ball became clear of the dark smoke.

“Mr. von Vinter, please ensure the demon is under tight control,” the headmaster said. “We are going to keep the type of spirit you summoned a secret. When asked, just say that it’s a powerful fae instead.”

“A fae?!” The affronted voice at the back of his mind made him want to smile.

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re dismissed.”

Angharad ushered Noah back to the elevator. The ride down was silent, Noah knew the professor was close to bursting, and he was right. Once they were at the ground floor, the man sneered. “How amazing it must be to be wealthy and be exempt from law.”

“It’s not my fault I was born rich,” Noah said and walked in the direction of the Poppy dormitory.

The discussion between his mother and the headmaster took longer than expected. The sun had long set and barely any students walked around the hallway or lingered in the lobby with its giant pink crystals. He could hear the faint sounds of a church bell from a distance and counted each toll with a tilt of his head. Through it, he confirmed that yes, it was dinner time. Everyone was most likely at their preferred dining area.

Noah felt too nauseous to eat anything and walked straight to his dormitory.

He breathed in the fresh mountain air and walked past the deep lake filled with giant koi fishes and floating water lilies.

Nymphaea the Academy of Magic was a prestigious and well-known private boarding school. It was situated on the tallest mountain of Ashedia, a country that swore neutrality in the pursuit of knowledge.

Despite Nymphaea being a private school on paper, they do admit a certain number of commoners through their scholarship programs.

“It’s part of our noblesse oblige,” Noah remembered a woman saying when he was young. It was the winter solstice ball hosted by some minor noble and he had snuck out of his mothers’ sight to wander around the buffet table.

Out of the thousands of noble and wealthy children from all around the world, there were less than a hundred scholarship students in Nymphaea and Noah enjoyed chatting with most of them more than the aristocratic children he grew up with. The scholarship students treated him more like a human and not a walking money bag.

Of course, there were those who tried to suck up to him because they wanted a job at Orion, but he always told them that if they wanted to work there, they’d have to prove themselves through their talent and competence.

His mother did not hire fools.

Wealthy children of merchants tend to be more vitriolic towards him because their parents often forced them to befriend him to get a connection with his mother. Noble children, on the other hand, viewed him with cold contempt. He is considered nouveau riche after all.

While his mother encouraged him to mingle with nobility, she urged him to find talented friends amongst the common folks too. After all, his mother was once one of those scholarship students and look how she turned out.

Nymphaea was often described as a walled archipelago and a garden of scholars. Inside the tall white marble walls was a large lake littered with small flowers floating gently in the deep water. There were several eyots inside the gated academy campus, all connected by covered bridges with dark blue rooftops and crawling purple ivy.

There were five major buildings on the eyots. Two of them were for students to take their classes in called the Lily and Holly buildings. The three remaining ones were student dorms called Daisy, Poppy and Peony buildings. They were for the commoners, nobility and royalty to stay at.

The buildings were all of differing designs, some with various towers, others with large flower gardens and more gold than the eye could see. However, what connected them all were the white walls, the blue domed roof tiles and so many plants weaving intricately among the walls.

Aside from the five largest eyots that housed the largest buildings of Nymphaea Academy, there were also various smaller ones that were connected to a main landmass. These smaller eyots had gazebos for students to rest at and greenhouses protecting plants and herbs they used for their potions and spell castings.

Nymphaea taught the best of the best and had specialised buildings scattered around the mountain too.

If records were to be believed, the academy was stated to be more than three thousand years old. It’s been renovated several times, hence why sometimes, the architecture inside looks mismatched.

However the most impressive part in Nymphaea were not the extravagant buildings or the outstanding graduates, it was the large looming willow tree in the middle of the academy.

The Tree was larger than any of the buildings combined, with white branches reaching all the way to the walls of the campus. Thick roots twined up and down the water and pearlescent leaves fell on the ground like snow. It covered the sky with its millions of white branches and hid the academy from the world. Sunlight barely penetrated through the thick foliage, but thanks to a spell that mimicked the sky, the students could know night from day.

Noah passed by the tree in silence, used to its white gentle leaves swaying in the wind as he rushed back to his dormitory.

“Is that what I think it is?” The astounded voice made Noah halt in surprise. “How could it be…”

He thought his guide had gone back to Hell. After all, maintaining a connection requires a lot of mana and usually it’s the summoner’s mana being used as fuel to maintain the link.

How is it that Noah barely felt any stirrings in his mana reserves? He’s sure it’s not because of his Imperfekta. Any slight trigger of mana in his body would be hard to miss. After all, the feeling of ants crawling through his blood stream was quite unforgettable. Is it possible the demon was using his own mana to stay by Noah’s side?

If that were the case, it should never be found out by anyone unless Noah wanted his mana pathways ripped out.

“You mean the tree?” Noah asked, eyeing the Goddess knows how old willow tree.

“Yes,” Azrael said. “What is the Tree of Knowledge doing here?”

Noah rolled his eyes and with an exasperated huff, he said, “What do you think it’s doing at an academy? A school? A place of learning? We use the branches for firewood in the winter, obviously.”

Annoyance passed through him, a feeling he was sure did not belong to him. He continued walking as the demon stewed in contemplation.

The Poppy building was a large three storied building with Nymphaea’s signature blue tiled roof. Its oriel windows were carved with different motifs of a flower.

Small white trees with purple leaves had benches underneath them for students to rest at. Because of the Tree of Knowledge, any plant within its vicinity changed into a different colour, with the only exceptions being the lilies on the lake.

The garden of the Poppy building was not large compared to the Peony building or the Lily and Holly buildings, but it was enough for the noble ladies to have weekly tea parties at noon.

Noah arrived at his dorm room in record time. He slid down his closed door with a tired sigh. He was grateful he wouldn't be kicked out of Nymphaea, but he wished his mother didn’t have to get involved in the process. He was sure he could have figured out a way to get himself out of trouble.

History dictates that every time a demon was summoned, catastrophe followed. But there were billions of people in the world, surely there were some demon summonings that did not end up in pain and suffering?

Right?

He heaved another sigh as he went to his bathroom to get changed for bed.

Who was he kidding, anyone who tried was beheaded as a warning. Noah was most likely the only one in history who survived with his head intact thanks to the power of money.