It was dark out, and Lucy and Gary were on an outing. Lucy had recently joined the astronomy club. No one on Calassaria had yet been able to travel into space, and it was becoming a very popular topic of discussion. There were rumors that Emperor Eeelwater would be making the first trip off world. He apparently had access to a manual that allowed an individual to travel through space unharmed. As such, the students had formed an astronomy club to learn more about the stars, and hopefully catch sight of the emperor in flight. The trip was scheduled to happen some time within the next few hours. Lucy, Gary, and the students stared up at the sky in anticipation.

Emperor Eelwater was flying through the sky en route to explore an Immortal garden that was passing by Calasssaria. He had the strangest feeling that he was being watched by a familiar, and extremely uncomfortable force. He chose to ignore it, as there was no way that that thing was still alive. He was certain that he'd seen it happen before his very eyes. Well, Eelwater's eyes considering that this was not his body. Yes, Emperor Eelwater was the dot, who had taken over Wilhelm Eelwater's body after helping conquer all of Calassaria. His actual name was irrelevant. Only ever referring to himself as a heavenly prince.

Gobbledygook. That was all Gary could understand from most of the material Lucy had to study. The little he did come to understand did prove useful in helping him manage his many a little better, but he felt all that nonsense about thaumaturges, and electromagnetic fields was a little beyond him. Also unnecessary for the actual practice of magic. He had been doing just fine just running away from his problem, and doing mostly random things. Sure he'd died a few times, but still he was doing just fine without all this advanced learning. Lucy on the other hand adored absorbing all of this information. She'd learned how to properly cast, shorten her chants, and even go without weird gestures. She was well on her way to becoming quite an exceptional wizard. That method of hers seems to have been tailor made to turn an ice affinity adept into a learning monster.

Lucy, and Gary were spending time at the beach with her friends. She found that she enjoyed these recreational activities a lot less than she once had. The behavior of her friends had changed as well. Joseph was beginning to curse less, and was getting all preachy about justice, and equality. Ellen was beginning to live up to her tiefling reputation, and was apparently smuggling illicit items onto school grounds. Kristie was meditating. It seems that was the only thing she did nowadays. She didn't even seem to sleep. There was definitely a lot more to these techniques than they were made aware of. Moxie had recently come to apologize to all of them stating that "It is no longer in my current or future interests to engage in conflict with all of you." Lucy had tentatively accepted her apology. She felt that the two of them were undergoing similar changes. Despite their changes Lucy still found comfort simply being around them. She hoped that these changes wouldn't influence their relationships too heavily.

Fritz, and his friends had been oddly quiet since the exam. It seemed that they wanted to prepare themselves for the ranking tournament. It was also not in their interests to start a fight with Lucy now that she had been put in charge of the disciplinary committee. Despite being a tiefling, her exceptional combat abilities, and high scores made her a particularly well liked student by most of the faculty. Although made held prejudice towards tieflings for their behaviors only the elves truly disapproved of them entirely. Joseph was a rare exception to the rule. Lucy had received a new red, and gold uniform for leading the committed. It was particularly eye catching, but the Ice Queen was eating up all of the attention she was receiving. She was beginning to be looked at with both scorn, and admiration by students, and those outside of the school. Any kind of fame was good fame after all, as this gave her plenty of opportunities to earn merit. Merit could be earned through exams, or through completing missions for the school. First years weren't allowed to perform missions until after the outdoor exam. Merit could be used to purchase special materials for one's cultivation, weapons, or anything else offered at the school.

The attention that Lucy was receiving meant that often she would be approached first for the particularly high paying missions. She didn't feel ready yet so she had declined most, but she had finally decided that it was time to take the dive. She was to help in clearing out a bandit camp that had popped up along one of the main roads. Gary was not excited to be in combat. He preferred the peaceful days of quiet cultivation, but he knew that some bul-nonsense would occur, and that he would need to be there to pick up the pieces. It's not like he had much of a choice in accompanying her anyways.