As if the twin royal heirs could not be any more different, Elizabeth was almost loving the Academy even while Raziel detested it. She always was the more outgoing and energetic of the two, letting her brother deal with the more intellectual aspects of things while being the more gung-ho and physical one.

Raziel was a bookworm, focusing mostly on training his brain and his magical prowess. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was more of the mind to learn only a bit more than what was needed in terms of intellectual things while investing more of her free time into honing her martial prowess.

That was not to say that she was utterly inept when it came to strategy, tactics, and logistics. Far from it, actually. Such things were integral to the path of physical power and martial supremacy, for as much as she would love to simply charge headlong into the fray and drive deep into the foe before her, she knew all too well, that to do so without proper supply lines, tactics or strategy was a disaster waiting to happen. That didn't actually mean that she could use those things in an office setting, but if she was out and about and doing it all in person, then she was set.

An army marched on its stomach, and it could easily be destroyed if its commanders fell for traps, deception, and other such things. That’s not to say she was actually that good at putting that into practice on a larger, more detailed, or longer scale, but she loved the ideas, nonetheless.

That was another reason why she was having a decently fun time here. She had always loved the more intellectual side of combat, despite being shite with numbers and the actual implementation of it on a larger scale, with that being her only real drive towards the more mental side of things.

She knew of tactics, strategy, logistics, and army maintenance, but this place taught her a new element of war that she had neglected. While it would be damn near suicide to try and steal away and hide amongst the Darksolian armies to gain intel, that was not the case for other forces.

Intelligence was also a key facet of competent war-making and physical fights. After all, how else would you know your enemy while knowing yourself unless you managed to do a bit of spying? So, while Raziel stumbled his way through the Academy, constantly bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t indulge his lust for more esoteric knowledge, Elizabeth had a fucking blast every time that she and her fellow students had to run laps, spar, engage in small-scale and low-intensity wargames and the like.

And, although she was having an amazing time, that would soon come to a screeching halt as the next phase of Academy life began to rear its head. It started small at first; a normal lesson about physical fitness had been shortened so that people could be taught how to sense magic. But that kind of thing had happened before, so she didn’t bat an eye. Then more and more of the lessons were switched over to things like philosophy and geography and even to things like economics.

This was where the mask of complete dominance and perfect competency that she had built up began to slip, and where Raziel began to shine as he had always tried to. As the lesson plan changed, physical exercise became less and less of a factor and began to be something you were expected to do during free time. The multi-day wargames were now replaced with more pen and paper exercises, and while both of these tested the same things they did so in different ways.

Raziel sucked at being outdoors and being in a more physically demanding situation, while Elizabeth performed rather sub-optimally when it came to paper tests and participating in a text-based wargame. Essentially, Elizabeth was the more hands-on, physical kind of person and could easily deal with things like this if she was out there and able to interact directly with it. Raziel, on the other hand, was less of an in-person commander and more of a ‘behind the lines’ commander.

He was the kind of person who could look at thousands of documents and hear messages from dozens of people and process what was going on and what needed to be done immediately, always being able to make the right call with all the info he had at his disposal. He could read between the lines and detect misuse of supplies and corruption in the ranks simply by looking over a handful of documents and comparing that information to what he already knew. But, if you sent him to the front and expected him to be a commander that could lead forces into battle, then you would have picked the wrong commander.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, was all about the action. She was a combination of the commanding styles of General Patton and several more ancient commanders, leading from the front with her charisma being the glue that could keep entire armies from breaking. However, if you put her in an office and asked her to crunch numbers and handle the actual meat and potatoes of logistics and supply, you’d see just how little she actually knew about it and how terrible she really was. She knew their importance, sure, but while she could tell you what was needed and where it needed to go, that was about it.

She loved the concept, but she was garbage at the implementation, unlike her brother. And then, as the lessons shifted to more and more intellectual things, so too came the thing she dreaded more than anything else. Magic Lessons! With her royal powers severed, she had lost the general ease that she had once had regarding magic. She had never needed to worry about it up till now, as it had simply been so natural that it was as easy to use as it was easy to breathe or have your heart pump. With that cut, however, she was now falling behind because she could no longer use it nearly as easily.

Raziel, on the other hand, was now having a ball. As time marched on during the second third of the Academy’s opening semester, the twins had their roles in their respective groups reversed. If only they knew what awaited them from the third part of the first semester onwards, they might have actually considered themselves lucky to have enjoyed even a single part of their time here at all.