All the students were in their dining rooms and having their dinners. The new students were talking about their hideous first day of their lessons. They were really disappointed that they weren’t good enough like the other students due to not being born with powers. But they were happy that they weren’t as bad as the upper class students. But Lithanya’s friends were also interested in why Haoran wanted to see her.

  Rosalina came closer to her. “Why did Mr Xiao want to see you?”

  “For a health check-up.”, Lithanya answered while slicing the roast lamb.

  Rosalina found that strange. “That’s strange because the physician who treated you did state that the illness won’t come back.”

  “That’s what I told him. But he said that he has to check since it might come back. Also, Emperor Huang instructed Mr Xiao to do the regular check-ups.”, she explained with some irritation.

  Yaithra came closer to her. “Not to mention that he’ll need to see him next week. Better take your supplements in order not to take the medicine he’ll prescribe.”, she reminded her with a small mischievous smile.

  Lithanya gave her sister a small death stare. “Don’t be so proud of that.”

  “What? We’ve been telling you for many years to take your supplements. Don’t blame me that you’re forced to take them in order to avoid the strong medicine.”, Yaithra continued laughing softly. “Tell us more about Mr Xiao.”, she was interested.

  “He is the wealthiest merchant in the four worlds. He comes from a family that mines and sells platinum.”, Annebella answered. “He is very well-known across the four worlds.”

  “He is known for being extremely handsome and wonderful towards people. Hence everyone got super excited when Emperor Huang announced that Mr Xiao was part of this academy again. He is also a brilliant physician.”, Rebecca joined the conversation.

  Jullien Blackthorn also joined in. “Mr Xiao was also known for sleeping with many different women each night. Until he got married.”

  The five women looked at him. “He is married?!”, they yelled and some of the students heard them.

  They toned it down and spoke softly. “Was married. His wife died in a shipwreck and she was carrying their child when she died. It happened thirteen years ago. Then he disappeared for twelve years because he couldn’t handle his wife’s death. Only a few months later, he came back to the public.”, Jullien explained.

  The women felt really sympathetic for Haoran, especially Yaithra who was more sympathetic. “That must be hard considering that he lost not only his wife but also his child at the same time.”, Annabella said with some sadness.

  “It is.”, Rosalina said.

  “You should’ve seen the look on Yichen’s face. Yichen doesn’t like Haoran at all despite being almost the same age.”, Jullien whispered.

  “Because Haoran is more famous than him. Yichen doesn’t like when someone else gets more attention than him.”, Rebecca pointed out and rolled her eyes.

  “What’s the age difference between those two men?”, Lithanya asked.

  “Haoran is three years older than Yichen.”, Annabella answered.

  “Yichen really doesn’t like Haoran because of Haoran’s popularity and that Haoran was more successful due to having two very good jobs.”, Jullien mentioned.

  “Well, he got one job quickly because it’s his family platinum business.”, Yaithra pointed out.

  “True. But he became a physician without his parents’ help.”, Rosalina defended Haoran, indirectly.

  “And now he has a third job. This man is a really busy person.”, Yaithra mentioned.

  Lithanya would love to join the conversation but she didn’t like talking while having her meals. But she was listening to the conversation carefully.

  “I can see Lithanya doesn’t like talking while she is eating.”, Annabelle pointed out.

  Lithanya nodded firmly while taking a bite of her bun then continued eating without talking. While her friends were having a conversation about something else.

  After dinner, most of the first year students were in their rooms and going through their work. They didn’t expect everything to be so difficult and hard to understand. Even the beginning spells were difficult to understand and pronounce. Luckily, there was a description under each spell to allow the students to understand.

  Lithanya was in her room, writing some notes to understand the spells that she needed to learn. She had three sets of homework and they were over ten pages of notes. She didn’t expect everything to be so difficult despite herself being really smart. Luckily, Lisa gave the students a book on how to get their spiritual powers before they could start practicing the spells.

  Yaithra came into Lithanya’s room, trying on the new dresses. Lithanya was super jealous because Yaithra didn’t need to learn all of these difficult spells.

  “How do I look?”, she teased Lithanya.

  “You’ve been asking me the same question for twenty-five times.”, she mentioned.

  Yaithra smirked. “I know. I’m just messing with you because I don’t have to learn this difficult stuff.”, she was so happy.

  Lithanya shook out of some irritation. “Lucky you.”, she continued learning.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Come in.”, Yaithra answered.

  The door opened and it was Marie-Anne. “Your majesty, Mr Xiao sent me here to make sure that you’re taking your supplements.”

  Lithanya placed her royal blue quill on the royal blue and golden patterned table with some frustrations. “Are you serious?”, she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Yaithra laughed again which made Lithanya give her a slight death stare. “Stop laughing.”

  “So, where’s your supplements?”, Marie-Anne.

  “I’ll get it.”, Yaithra said before Lithanya could speak.

  Lithanya sighed with full irritation then looked at herself in front of the mirror. Yaithra pulled out three small dark green glass bottles then walked towards Lithanya with a bright smile.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  “Take your supplements.”, she instructed and placed the bottles in front of her.

  Marie-Anne was also pouring water for Lithanya. Lithanya took the bottles, picked up one pill each then looked at them for a moment. Her mouth was struggling to open because she couldn’t stand the smell of strong herbs. Marie-Anne and Yaithra had their eyes on her, making sure that she was going to take her supplements. After one and half minutes of struggling with the smell, she threw all of them in her mouth then immediately drank all the water in one go.

  Yaithra was impressed. “See, that wasn’t so bad.”, her tiny palm rubbed Lithanya’s palm.

  “Oh yes, Mr Xiao wants to see your supplements to see if he can supply for you instead of waiting for weeks to get the supplements from Vacanta.”, Marie-Anne explained.

  “Please take them and try to hide them.”, Lithanya instructed.

  “Hahahaaaaa, not going to happen.”, she spat and took the three bottles. “See you just now.”, she walked to the doors.

  Yaithra continued laughing while Lithanya was trying to get rid of the awful bitter taste of her touch. Then she gave her younger sister a death stare to make her stop laughing but it didn’t work at all.

  _____________

  Yichen was in the same tavern again to have a couple of drinks and possibly have another round of a fighting competition. The tavern was busier than yesterday due to the amount of stress on the first year students with the amount of work they had to learn before the end of the week. Yichen caught his friends sitting in a corner, having a drinking competition.

  “Gentlemen, I’m surprised to see you here at this time.”, he sat next to his friends.

  Keith drank all of his strong ale. “The notes are more difficult than I thought. Despite us being born with powers, we haven’t mastered the basic powers yet.”

  Lorenzo joined in. “In fact, Miss Crystal was impressed that the lower class students stood longer in the harsh freezing hall compared to us. I thought they were living in the harsh hot weather.”

  “Now that they’re allowed to participate in the academy, they’re determined to get the education and the powers.”, Yichen mentioned. “You can tell that they’re dedicated to their work.”

  The men fully agreed with him. “The lower class people are known for being very weak people. I’m surprised that none of us bullied them yet.”, Sebastian mentioned.

  “Because Lithanya is a scary person due to her strong fighting techniques and her scary personality. If we do dare to mess with her or her people, she won’t leave you alone. That’s how scary she is.”, Lorenzo mentioned.

  Emillio looked at the entrance. “Guys, look.”

  They looked at the entrance just like everyone else. A group of women walked into the room and stood by the entrance. Everyone froze when their eyes went to the woman who was standing in front of the large group.

  Christina Amelia Theodore was a well-known princess in Nymphaedra and Eldoria. She was known for her different types of dressing style, her beauty and wealth. The reason everyone was frozen was because they were interested in her beautiful face and perfect slim body. Every man in Nymphaedra and Eldoria would want her to be their wife but she was really hard to please due to her high standards. Many women would love to be as beautiful as her and have the same perfect dressing style as her.

  Yichen immediately got up with a bright smile. “Amelia.”, he called her.

  Everyone called her by her second name because it was shorter. Amelia walked to him with a bright smile. Everyone else finished looking at Amelia and continued what they were doing. Amelia appeared by the table where Yichen was.

  “Prince Huang Yichen Zhiyuan, I never thought for once that you’ll attend here.”, she had a sweet voice.

  Yichen raised a brow. “Unfortunately, I’ve to attend since I’m the eldest heir to the throne.”, he answered.

  “Fair enough.”

  He looked at her expensive white and red dress. “Your dressing style never fails to impress. You’re still living up to your reputation.”

  “I must because I don’t want to lose my popularity. Fame is always important when it comes to living in the upper class.”, she answered with pride. “So, are you going to have another fight tonight?”, she asked.

  Yichen gave her a small wicked smile. “Are you going to challenge me again?”

  “Yes.”, her fingers walked on his right shoulder. “I want you to challenge someone that you hate the most, who imitates you and is stronger than you.”, she suggested softly with her lips almost touching his lips.

  The right side of his lips turned into a smirk. “Challeng accepted.”, he said and walked into the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen!”, he tried to grab everyone’s attention and all his eyes were on him. “On Monday, there’ll be a fighting competition. Who’s willing to fight with me on Monday? Any suggestions?”, he asked.

  No one answered in a hurry because none of them wanted to challenge him since he was known for winning all the fighting competitions. Lithanya walked into the tavern to get a drink for the first time in many years but she stopped when she noticed everyone was staring in the same direction.

  “What’s going on?”, she asked a man in front of her.

  “Prince Yichen is going to have another fight but no one wants to come forward because he is always winning.”, he whispered.

  Yichen was looking at everyone with his hands on his hips. “Anyone?”, he asked firmly.

  Still no one answered. “Challenge accepted!”, a man said by the door.

  All eyes went to the entrance and their jaws slightly dropped with shock. Lithanya moved out of the way for this group. Haoran and his friends walked into the building with full confidence. Anger slowly appeared in Yichen’s body when Haoran’s face appeared. Everyone moved to give a way to their senior investigator. Haoran walked through the gap and went straight to Yichen.

  Haoran stopped in front of him with no emotions. “What’s wrong? You suggested that anyone can fight with you.”, he could feel the disappointment in Yichen.

  “I don’t want to fight with my senior investigator.”, he answered.

  “Shocking for you to say that because yesterday you wanted to fight with at least one senior investigator. I’m volunteering to make your wish come true.”, he explained.

  Lithanya had a bad feeling about this. Yichen looked at everyone and they agreed with Haoran’s comment. Yichen felt really defeated that his own statement was used against him.

  “Fine, challenge accepted.”, Yichen said firmly.

  Haoran showed a wicked smile. “I’ll be seeing you on Monday.”, he said then walked to the stairs.

  Everyone was very excited but also nervous for this fight because two men who were brilliant in fighting were fighting against each other. It was going to be interesting to see how the fight was going to be and everyone was looking forward to it.

  On the other hand, Lithanya was having a bad feeling about this. She watched Amelia walking to him with a proud smile. She wrapped her arms around his gigantic arm with a bright smile. Yichen pretended to smile to make Amelia happy but inside, he was terrified about this competition. Lithanya walked out of the building and was heading back to her dorm.

  Lithanya arrived back in her room, still thinking about what just happened earlier. Yaithra came into the room, dressed in a nightgown.

  “I’m getting bored trying on the new clothes. I’ll try the rest of less than a thousand dresses soon. I’m interested in your textbooks so I’m going to start learning to see if I can get some powers as well.”, she explained and walked to the desk.

  “You won’t believe what just happened in the tavern.”, she said with disbelief.

  “What happened?”, she sat on the desk.

  Lithanya closed the door so no one would hear their conversation. At this rate, people would find out very soon because it was big news so there was no point at all.

  “Yichen and Haoran are going to be fighting on Monday. They are having a competition at the tavern.”, she answered.

  Yaithra turned to Lithanya with a stun. “What? Are you serious?”, she felt flustered.

  “Yes.”

  Yaithra couldn’t believe it at all. “I’m having a bad feeling about this.”

  “Me too.”, Lithanya walked further into the room. “Even though we haven’t seen Haoran fighting before, many people were stating that Haoran was just as good as Yichen. Everyone was going to be interested in this fight.”

  “But won’t that cause conflict because Haoran is a senior investigator? Wouldn’t that get him fired if he is fighting with a student? What happens if he kills a student on the spot?”

  “I doubt Mr Xiao will kill a student on the spot. And I doubt there’ll be conflict because I did see some seniors and junior investigators in the tavern the other night, watching the fight.”, she mentioned.

  Despite all of that, Yaithra was still concerned about all of this. “I’m still concerned about that right now.”

  “Same here.”, Lithanya sat on the edge of the bed.

  Yaithra tried to read Lithanya’s books because she was too distracted by the news. “Let me get some sleep then I’ll come down by tomorrow.”, she said and walked to her room.

  Lithanya watched her sister walking to her room. Yaithra closed the door behind her, leaving Lithanya alone in her bedroom. Lithanya was thinking really hard about this whole situation for a long while.