Willem knew that sooner or later the news that he was a Grand Mage would become common knowledge, however he had a brief moment to fix the attitude of those who thought they could bully others. This did not come as a charity to the less fortunate, or out of some misplaced notion of heroism. Many people have looked down on him since he's entered the magic academy, and without fail he has remembered the names and faces of every one of them.

The mages in the academy had a specific pecking order when it came to strength. Those who excelled in their studies and showed capabilities would get the teachers approval and advance to the next level. The first level, as you arrive to the magic academy, is the initiate class. When you are tested for your primary and secondary aptitudes, you are placed in accordance with how strong your magical force is. After initiate is beginner, then intermediate and advanced. From advanced it goes to expert and finally Grand Mage.

Willem jumped directly from initiate to intermediate due to his natural talent in the connection of strings to his magical force during his test.

Each level would have progressively less people. In fact, in the entire magic academy there was thousands of beginners but only sixteen Grand Mages including Willem. By comparison, there is roughly forty expert class mages who have yet to jump over the gap into a Grand Mage.

Charles Almo, a fifteen year old primary fire intermediate mage was the first to officially welcome Willem to the intermediate wind class. He did so by spitting on Willem's robe and knocking the tomes he had off the table. The second was his lackey, Fredi Overa, who was a wind intermediate mage. He guffawed whenever Willem would pass, but was quick to anger once he realized that Willem did not even pay attention him. When Willem turned his back, he would make a passing remark about having Kinsey 'attend' to him at night once Willem died. He would never say it to Willem's face. No, every time he came across Willem, it took every ounce of willpower in Fredi to suppress the weird feeling of wanting to look down and run far away, though he was too stupid to understand why.

One day, Charles was feeling especially daring, and while travelling with his pack of delinquents forcefully knocked over Willem's tomes that he had borrowed from the library. He poured oil over the tomes and chanted a flare spell intending to set the tomes on fire. Willem grabbed the hand of fire and shoved it into Charles' mouth, but before the flare spell could be dissolved by the saliva Willem channeled his magical power and forced the fire down Charles' throat, burning his esophagus and searing his lungs shut. Luckily an expert water mage was nearby and had watched the whole thing. He quickly healed the lungs and esophagus of the young man until the medical care unit arrived. If he had hesitated for even a moment Charles would have assuredly suffocated to death.

Willem looked at Charles, then Fredi and the other delinquents. He gestured toward the books on the floor, soaked in oil. Fredi picked them up with fervor and placed them neatly onto a nearby table before being ushered away by the guards nearby. When the investigation had been concluded, Willem was found to be acting in self defense and Charles had been charged with attempted destruction of magic academy property. If his parents had not been rich nobles who donated money to the magic academy, he would have been penalized even greater and forced out of the academy. Now, every time he passed Willem he would cough dryly before scuttling along.

Willem did not see himself as a loose cannon who fired upon anyone that glanced at him, but the previous indiscretions of the intermediate mages left a bad taste in his mouth. The nobles with magical aptitude thought they were the best thing to exist since loaf bread. Anyone that did not give them the proper amount of respect would have both their lives in the magic academy and their families lives outside suppressed exponentially. Willem could not rewrite every injustice, but that did not mean he would roll over and expose his stomach for any of the so called nobles.

The same thing happened when he first started calligraphy and alchemy classes. Though the strength these students showed was much lower than the intermediate fire mage. They thought they were more cunning in their treatment, replacing his inking pens that he got from Archus with lower quality versions. Willem knew immediately what they did, and confronted them. When asked for proof, he would get physical until they released what weak magical force they had.

When they released their magical force he would absorb it until not even a little bit was left. This forced their spatial spell to end and everything in it to explode out from the void. After that, no one dared to even speak to Willem for fear of having their magical force taken away. Though it was a temporary punishment, having ones magical force so viciously taken away was more psychologically damaging than physically.

Afterwards, Willem's reputation as mysterious and interesting was replaced with vicious and cruel. Many students actively avoided him, and only the teachers seemed to show any interest in his behavior. He was never reprimanded, as even the teachers knew Archus was mentoring him personally.

Unfortunately now he was in a new area in the advanced classes of the school. The rooms in the advanced sector were more prestigious and isolated as to not interrupt studying. Even though it had been a month since he joined the class, he did not go out of his way to cause trouble or friction with anyone. He diligently studied and exchanged ideas, sticking to his daily routine.

The age of these kids was a bit higher than the others, as ones power was somewhat related to age. The more experience and diligence during practice, the closer one comes to using one hundred percent of their magical ability. These children had accessed roughly ten percent of their powers and could be considered top tier in terms of the hierarchy of the school. Suddenly seeing someone around eighteen with the same strength as them seemed like a farce.

It was not until they realized they could not understand what Willem and the teachers talked about did they realize what a large gap their was between them. Early today, they even saw the teacher give a slight bow to Willem when he entered the class. They could only assume it was a figment of their imagination if it had just happened once, but every time Willem raised a question the teacher would again bow slightly before answering what he knew. This caused heavy grievances in their heart, and since they were still young they settled the grievances the only way they knew how, fighting.

At the end of the class, once the teacher had bowed slightly to Willem and left, they grouped up and approached Willem's desk menacingly. Willem could feel their anger and fear, it was yellow with a tinge of red. It gave off the distinct look of a swirled lollipop. Willem could not help but think about how he did not have his tea this morning, and was now fancying himself a cup.

When they arrived at his desk, he had already packed up everything into his spatial spell and was preparing to leave. One of the eldest boys slammed his hand on the desk, sending a crack through the middle of it. Each desk was assigned to one person, so this act itself was declaring his intention to fight.

Willem looked down at the broken desk, and placed one finger on it. From his finger, dirt and wood sprouted forth and encased the boys hand inside it. The wood reached up to his forearm, then elbow and finally his upper arm before resting on his shoulder. From the wood came sprouts of red fruits the size of a blueberry. Willem plucked the red fruit while the other students looked on in horror at the trapped elder boy.

"It's called Manzanita fruit. Would you like one?" Willem motioned for one of the students nearby to eat it.

The boy dared not decline, but he had no idea what the fruit was or if it was poisonous. He took his chances and ate into it. It had a sticky texture and a sour taste, with a hard seed in the middle but otherwise it was not bad at all.

Seeing that the boy did not die, many of the younger followers breathed a sign of relief. Suddenly they felt a cold gaze run along them and their knees buckled. The class was split half men and half women, but the women were younger and did not dare to go against the words of their upperclassmen. So when the boys sauntered over to Willem's desk, the young girls hid behind them sheepishly. Now they had wished they put up a little resistance, as they felt a gaze of killing intent that they could only equal to a magical beast outside the safe area of the capital.

They did not know much about magical beasts, but the parents of the children often told them horror stories of magical beasts coming in the night and kidnapping naughty children who did not go to sleep when they were told. Only a handful of children in the academy had actually encountered a magical beast, and they would often regale others with stories.

However, in front of Willem, it was as if they were stripped down to the very core of their person, and in their hearts all that was left was fear. Some of the younger girls could not hold on any longer and began to piss in their robes. Others fell to the floor weeping for their parents, the boys nearby were shaking but dared not move in case Willem did the same to them what he did to their upperclassman.

Willem looked around lazily, then said something no one in the room expected.

"Bring me a cup of black tea, now."

He sat back down at the desk and looked at a young girl with thick brown hair covering her face. Her brain seemed to melt at the implausible situation, and could only stutter out "w-w-w-w-w-what?..."

"Black tea, I fancy a cup. Bring it to me quickly, and your upperclassman will be spared. His life is now in your hands. Though, he was the one to pick the fight mind you." He was getting progressively better with his conversations and hoped Kinsey would provide more insight into its usefulness in the future.

As if her body had just been shocked by a thousand snail eels, her body would not move no matter how much she tried. She looked around in horror as all the boys, the upperclassman whos arm was trapped and the girls whom had wet themselves were looking at her. She had always done her best to fall in with the right crowd to avoid bullying unlike the previous classes she was in, so having this much pressure on her was too much all at once. She immediately fell over unconscious.

The scalp of the upperclassman went numb in shock. Willem continued to wait quietly, and no one was making a move. All of a sudden, the wood and packed dirt around his arm tightened, constricting his blood flow. He felt several pricks in his arm, and immediately felt a little light headed. He dared not scream out in pain, but visibly his expression went from slight discomfort to pure terror.

"Black tea, now." Willem quietly whispered. Though he had used an extremely quiet voice, the tense atmosphere and lack of movement made it abundantly clear what he said.

One of the boys carried over some black tea and heated it up, but before he could begin to pour it, his nerves got the better of him and he accidentally spilled the scalding tea on Willem's robes.