Cal was standing in his room while Lenny helped him put on his dress clothes. The party was supposed to have started by now, but cal was told to show up late because the king was going to give a speech before introducing him to the nobles.

“Alright my lord, that should do it,” Lenny said as he took a step away from cal.

After hearing that Lenny had finished cal turned to look into his mirror. He had to admit that the queen had chosen a good set of clothing for him. His white undershirt and pants matched his hair, and the overshirt and cape matched his eyes. When put all together it gave off a wintery vibe that cal rather enjoyed.

As cal was checking himself out there was a knock at the door. “Please Hurry, my lord they will call for you any second now,” called arisu.

Lenny sent a disapproving look towards the door but cal just walked over and opened the door. There stood Arisu who had had to wait outside while cal changed. Arisu had offered to help but cal had been a bit embarrassed at the offer. “Alright let’s go,” Cal said as he walked out of the room.

Before he closed the door cal thought to kaze, who had been napping on the bed, I’ll leave you if you don’t come now. Kaze hurriedly jumped off the bed and ran to cal’s side. Then with all the preparations made the group walked down towards the ballroom. As they got close to the ballroom they ran into mark who bowed to cal and led them to where cal was going to enter.

“my lord,” Mark started, “only you and your familiar will be allowed to enter.” Cal nodded in agreement. He had been told earlier that his bondservants couldn’t come, though he was glad that he was allowed to have kaze come with him.

As they got close to the door cal heard the king talking, “... and his lands are currently being held by the royal family.” it seems like he was in the middle of giving his speech to the assembled nobles, “but, this is not the main reason that I have called you all here. Threynar was my closest friend and a hero of the last war with arbolin, because I was so close to him, when I was told that he had died I decided to take in his grandson as my ward. I now present to you Calaeris windlab, heir to the duchy of the forest of kaar, and my personal ward.” With those words mark pushed open the door and cal walked in. as he started walking kaze ran up by his side and walked with him.

This was the first time that cal had been in the ballroom and it was a sight to see. The roof was at least a hundred feet in the air and several glass chandeliers were hanging from it. The ground was covered in white marble and the walls had several statues lined up along them. On the floor were over a dozen circular tables with at least one family sitting at each of them.

As cal walked towards the royal family, who were sitting at a long rectangular table that was placed on a stage, he noticed that the closer to the king that the nobles were seated the nicer they were dressed and the higher their levels were. At first glance, it wasn’t obvious, but as he looked he saw small things like a movement that was faster than he could follow or a subtle use of magic that hinted towards them being stronger.

When cal finally reached the royal table he walked up next to the king like he had been told to do and bowed to the assembled nobility. When he stood back up the king put a hand on his shoulder and pronounced, “I present to you calaeris windlab, a prince of kilayen.”

With those words, some of the nobles who hadn’t known what becoming the king’s ward meant were suddenly shocked, though most of those who had known had already recovered and were now staring at cal with calculating looks. The most notable exception was one of the tables that were sitting the closest to the king. The entire table seemed to have known what was coming and after a second cal recognized one of them as the boy who had tried to hurt kaze.

“He must have told the rest of his family about what the king had said,” cal thought to himself.

After the announcement and cal’s introduction to the nobility, he was seated at the far end of the boy’s side of the king’s table. After he sat servants started walking out with the food and everyone began to eat. There were several courses of food, that were all much finer than what the royal family normally ate. There was a whole roasted boar that the king claimed had been over level 100, a wine that had been aging for over a thousand years, and several other fantastical dishes. after a while, the food stopped coming and the nobles began to walk around and socialize with each other.

As soon as a certain amount of people began walking around the queen got up and walked over to cal. “Come on cal, let’s go talk to the headmaster of the academy.” She then led cal to an old man who was sitting by an elderly gnome that cal recognized as one of the instructors that he had met in the forest of kaar.

Once they reached their table cal and the queen sat down. “Hello, Octavius and Elina how have you guys been.”

“We have been doing fine, the months when the students are on break are always relaxing,” answered Octavius, the headmaster. “And how have you been.”

As the queen and headmaster started talking Elina looked at cal and seemed mildly surprised. “I didn’t think that I would see you again after the failed teleportation,” she said to cal.

“Yes well I am in fact alive and well,” cal answered.

“You two know each other,” the queen asked.

“Yes, she is one of the people who kidnapped me a while back,” cal answered.

Elina shot him a slightly offended look and muttered, “kidnapped is a bit of a strong word.”

“I guess your right, imprisoned seems to fit better.” cal said thoughtfully. There was a moment of silence Elina started laughing while the queen shot confused looks between the two of them.

Once she was done laughing the queen coughed and then said, “well anyways the reason we came to talk to you is we were wondering if we would be able to admit cal to the academy preliminary years.”

With those words, Elina frowned slightly and asked, “he is already an awakened right. You know that we can’t allow an awakened to enroll as a preliminary student.”

“Well yes, but couldn’t you make an exception for the royal family.” the queen asked pleadingly.

The headmaster was frowning now and started shaking his head, “I am sorry your majesty but our school caters to several other countries, some that you are currently in conflict with, allowing you to place an awakened amongst their nobilities children… even if you have pure intentions you must understand that we can’t allow you to do that.”

The queen seemed upset by their words but didn’t try to argue. She just stood up and gave them her farewells. She then grabbed cal’s arm and led him back to the table. As cal sat back down he could sense that the queen was in a bad mood but he didn’t say anything to her.

After he had been sitting there for a while one of the groups who were sitting at one of the tables that were closest to the royal table stood and walked up to the king. There were six of them, two adult men and one adult woman there were also three younger kids that’s ages ranged from 12-18.

As they arrived the lady bowed to the queen and said, “I greet his majesty the king.”

The king nodded to the bowing lady and replied, “thank you, Harley. How have your kids been?”

As the two of them exchanged pleasantries cal noticed that the oldest kid was looking at something behind her. As cal followed her line of sight he noticed the boy that he had met in the barber’s shop. He was sitting towards the back of the room at one of the tables farthest from the king. He was also looking at the archduke’s daughter and cal remembered what the queen had said about the two of them.

Cal smiled to himself. That boy had seemed to hate him and seeing who cal actually was must have been a shock to him. Cal didn’t hold much against the boy. At first, he had thought that he was a terrible person but from the queen’s reaction to him he realized that his actions weren’t very out of the ordinary for the younger nobles.

Later in the night a few musicians came out and started playing. Cal was absolutely captivated by their performance. It wasn’t that he had never heard any music before, but what he had heard was mostly his grandpa singing which sounded like a cow getting branded, compared to this. Cal was absolutely amazed by the music and he felt as if he could have listened to it forever. A few younger nobles came to ask cal to dance but the queen who realized that cal was having a special moment chased them away.

Eventually, the music stopped and cal was saddened, but then a couple walked up to the musicians. They were both human and both had brown hair. After a moment the musicians started again and this time the singers joined in. they sang a song in a language that wasn’t common, but because of his babels tongue skill he was able to understand it.

The songs tone would be best described as hopeful. It was a story of soldiers returning from war. As cal listened to it he started to want to learn to make music and he was reminded of the samellans betrayal quest.

As the music finished cal decided that he would have to ask the queen if she could have someone teach him to sing eventually. The rest of that night nothing interesting happened at the party. Cal didn’t have to talk to anyone and the queen seemed to look nervous when he tried to leave the table so he just sat there feeling bored most of the night.

As the party began to wind down the queen told cal that it was late and that he should head off to bed. As he left the hall he noticed that almost all of the nobility were showing him some form of deference. When he finally made it back to his room all three of his bondservants were sitting there waiting. “Belinda your back,” cal exclaimed upon seeing her.

Ever since cal had told her to go and gather information about the nobility he hadn’t seen her and he was a bit surprised that she had finally shown up. “Yes my lord,” she answered with a smile. “Would you like to hear what I’ve learned?”

Cal said that he did and he sat down as Belinda started her report. First, she told him that most of the capital seemed to love the royal family, the main reasons for that was that the royal family had relatively light taxes and were always polite when they were in the city. However, most of the people did not like the nobility because the younger sons and daughters of noble families were often extremely arrogant and treated the commoners like less than people.

After that, she went into specifics of each member of the royal family. The king was more respected than liked, he would personally participate in any wars that the country was in and had little to no tolerance for any criminal behavior. The queen was loved by all of the citizens on a almost personal level, though from what belinda had heard the queen was known to have a dark side and has killed several people in public.

Next were the two oldest princes, frederick and jacob. They were the two with long red hair. They were also known to participate in battle and were almost thought of as folk heroes. The older princess kaitlyn was known to be kind but was rarely seen by the public. The two youngest were still attending the academy and so the public didn’t have much of an opinion about them.

“Have you heard any rumors of a fourth prince,” cal asked after she had finished.

Belinda thought for a moment then hesitantly nodded, “I know that there was once a fourth prince and that he was assassinated, but not much more than that. Though I do believe that most of the rumors about the queen having a dark side came from the stories of the fourth prince.”

At first, cal wanted to deny that the queen would have a bad side but hadn’t she told him that she had killed and tortured several people in public. Cal decided to shelf the matter for the moment and asked Belinda to continue her report. Belinda didn’t have much more important information and soon enough she finished telling him everything she had learned.

“So how was the party,” Lenny asked after he was sure Belinda was finished.

“It was rather boring. The food was good, but I didn't really talk to anyone and I wasn’t able to play with kaze because it wouldn’t look good for the royal family.” cal answered. The four of them continued talking for a while until cal finally got tired and went to bed.

The next day after breakfast the queen asked cal to meet with her and the king. He had a good idea what they were going to talk to him about so he wasn’t surprised when the queen said, “cal we were thinking about having you wait a few years before going to the academy.”

After she said that cal had to take a moment to think. He wanted to attend the academy as soon as possible but he didn’t feel comfortable just directly going against the queen. After a moment he said, “I would personally prefer to not wait a few years and just attend with students who are older than me.”

The queen didn’t seem too surprised by this and tried again, “cal it would be easier to make new friends and to fit in if the kids were closer to your age.”

Cal once again tried to deny her, “I have already awakened and it’s not like I can unawaken so I will need the teachers and training that the academy can provide.”

“We can give you basic training so that you can be extra prepared for when you go to the academy,” the queen answered, she seemed to be growing impatient.

Cal who was also started to get angry forced out through a polite smile, “I already have basic training. My grandfather has trained me most of my life. I am ready to go to the academy.”

The queen was about to continue the argument when the king stepped in, “dear, why not have him attend the tournament. If he does well enough to enter then we will have to let him, and if he does not then we will have him go when he’s old enough.”

The queen took a second to think before reluctantly saying, “if he meets all the prerequisites then there’s no harm in not letting him try.”

The king and queen fell into deep thought for a moment before cal asked, “what tournament.”

“Every year the academy hosts a tournament. Everyone in our peninsula who qualifies is allowed to attend it. There are various prizes that you can get based on how well you do and the top fifty participants are allowed to attend the academy” the king answered

After that cal started asking more questions about it and the king answered all of them. From what cal had learned kilayen was actually an island kingdom that was part of a peninsula off of the coast of one of the four continents. The peninsula had three major kingdoms as well as a few tribes. The academy allowed people from anywhere in the peninsula to attend as long as they could either afford to pay the entrance fee or did well enough in the tournament.

The tournament itself was actually a big deal. They allowed anyone who was under level ten and less than twenty years old to attempt to qualify to be a part of the tournament. When the actual tournament started they would use a bracket system to eliminate unfit contestants until there were fifty people left. All fifty of those people would be allowed to go to the academy and anyone who won a match after that would receive rather amazing rewards.

After it was explained to him, cal decided that he would’ve wanted to be a part of the tournament anyway and wasn’t too displeased at being forced to fight in it, and after a bit more conversation it was decided that in three months when the tournament was held cal would be allowed to fight in it.