Chương 28: “What the Pug?! (1)”

! (1)" The pressure slammed into most of the students like a wall. It was not physical in the traditional sense, yet every student in the room felt it press against their chest as though the air itself had turned hostile. Professor Griffin had not moved at all, and yet, the effect was immediate. A boy in the second row pitched forward, his forehead striking the desk with a dull thud. Two girls went pale and slumped sideways, unconscious before they could even raise their hands.

Across the room, students crumbled one after another, some collapsing outright, others gripping their desks with white-knuckled desperation as their bodies revolted against the invisible weight bearing down on them. Beside Celestia, Anna let out a soft gasp. Her eyes rolled back, and she tilted sideways, her slight frame falling against Celestia's shoulder like a doll whose strings had been cut. Celestia caught her with one hand, steadying the girl against her so she wouldn't slide to the floor.

In the middle rows, Arthur was still upright. His jaw clenched so tightly the veins in his neck threatened to burst. A few other students had managed to hold on as well, but they were the clear minority. The vast majority of the hundred students were either unconscious or rapidly approaching it. And then there was Celestia. She sat exactly as she had been sitting before the killing intent began: straight-backed, composed, with Anna's unconscious head resting against her shoulder.

Her expression showed that she was entirely unbothered. She had read about killing intent in dozens of webnovels. The concept was a staple of the genre, a wave of murderous pressure that paralyzed the weak and tested the strong. Every author described it differently. Some called it bloodlust made tangible. Others wrote it as the psychic echo of accumulated violence. She had always found such descriptions overwrought. Now, experiencing it firsthand, or rather, failing to experience it, she was disappointed.

Was this one of the reasons why Jade told her that she was unsuited for martial pursuits? Celestia unfolded the ornate fan she kept in her sleeve and raised it to cover the lower half of her face. Griffin, for his part, was scanning the room. His gaze moved methodically across the rows, checking who had decked out and who remained conscious. He gave a faint nod at Arthur, then at the handful of others still conscious.

"Not bad," he said.

"There are quite a few good saplings this year." His eyes continued their sweep, and then stopped. On Celestia. Out of sheer surprise, he had unknowingly cut off his killing intent. The students who were still conscious gasped audibly, their bodies sagging with relief. A few started dry-heaving. Arthur unclenched his jaw and exhaled hard through his nose. But Griffin wasn't looking at any of them.

He was looking at the golden-haired girl who was letting an unconscious commoner sleep against her shoulder; she was staring back at him as though he had just read aloud a particularly dull passage from a textbook.

'What...?' Griffin's thoughts stalled. He simply tried this as a test and had expected certain students to withstand it, such as those with combat training, the ones from martial houses, and especially those who had already tasted violence in some form. But this girl, Celestia Von Reingarde, the Duke of Reingarde's daughter, one of the few important figures that even the professors couldn't dare offend easily, showed no signs of having been tested at all.

As if she had seen this entire thing a bore and simply couldn't be bothered to pretend otherwise.

'A thorny rose among weeds.' He couldn't help but be expectant.

"You're all dismissed," Professor Griffin said to the students around the room as they groaned and coughed.

"Those of you still conscious, help your classmates." Celestia gently shifted Anna upright in her seat and gathered her things, lightly slapping the latter's face to force her awake. * Her first week at Summit Academy passed by very quickly. Celestia's mornings began before dawn. She woke up when the sky was still dark, dressed in training clothes, and ran the perimeter of the academy grounds alone.

Jade's regimen had instilled the habit so deeply that unless she stayed up all night awake, she'd feel antsy not exercising this early. After running came bodyweight drills, the same calisthenics Jade had drilled into her, adapted for the limited space of the academy's outdoor training areas. By the time other students began trickling out of their dormitories, Celestia had already bathed and changed into her uniform. Her elective classes proved more engaging than expected.

The academy's curriculum was broader than the original novel had suggested: history, magical theory, aura application, and politics. She absorbed information like parched soil drinking rain, cross-referencing what she learned against her meta-knowledge of the novel's world. In the evenings, she wrote letters. Martha's correspondence arrived like clockwork, each envelope carrying a neatly penned report on the state of the office.

Her personal maid could not resist slipping in personal details, especially about how Paimon had taken to sleeping on Celestia's empty chair as though guarding it. She wrote back with equal regularity, keeping her letters brief. And then, at last, Friday arrived. Celestia had been waiting for this day since the schedule was posted. Her electives were interesting and the mandatory class was informative.

But the elemental tuning class was the reason she had carried a suitcase across campus that morning with considerably more care than she carried her textbooks. Inside the suitcase, cushioned in layers of cloth, sat the elemental egg. When she entered the classroom, it really wasn't like a classroom at all. It looked more like a personal laboratory that had been reluctantly retrofitted to accommodate students.

Long workbenches lined the walls, cluttered with glass instruments, bottles of reagents, and what appeared to be a terrarium housing a small, flickering flame that moved like a living thing. A few chairs and desks had been arranged in the center, but it felt like they were there just to justify the concept of a classroom. Celestia counted fewer than ten students in attendance.

'That makes sense.' Most first-years would not have had the opportunity to acquire an elemental egg this early. The majority of students who bonded with elemental spirits did so in their second semester, after months of study and preparation.

The ones here now fell into a narrow set of categories: heirs of noble houses with longstanding elemental traditions, exceptionally gifted commoners who possessed innate skills related to elemental affinity, and outliers like Celestia who had acquired an egg through less conventional means. She set her suitcase down beside her chair and waited. The clock ticked past the hour, and the door swung open. A woman entered.

She was tall, with dark hair pulled into a loose braid, and wore a long coat over her instructor's uniform that jingled faintly as she walked, tiny charms and trinkets sewn on the fabric.

"Good afternoon!" she said, setting a leather satchel on the front desk.

"My name is Professor Fae. I'll be your instructor for Elemental Tuning." Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Celestia blinked.

'Fae.' She rolled the name around in her mind and felt an immediate, instinctive unease. In her previous life's worth of reading, the word fae carried a very specific set of connotations, none of them reassuring. Tricksters. Deal-makers. Beings who operated on rules that only made sense to themselves and who took great pleasure in the misfortune of those who didn't read the fine print.

'It's just a name,' she reminded herself.

'Just a name.' She set the thought aside. Professor Fae surveyed the small group with an expression that suggested she preferred teaching fewer students. A smile showed on her face.

"Wonderful! A very manageable number." She clapped her hands once.

"Let's begin with the basics, shall we? By the end of today's session, those of you who have elemental eggs will have the opportunity to attempt your first summoning." Professor Fae's lecture moved at a brisk, almost eager pace.

"Now, as most of you know," she began, tapping the chalkboard with a piece of chalk, "the classical foundation of elemental summoning is rooted in the four primal elements: fire, water, earth, and wind. For centuries, these were considered the only domains an elemental spirit could inhabit." She drew four circles on the board, each labeled accordingly.

"However," she continued, and her eyes brightened in a way that suggested this was her favorite part, "elemental summoners of the past eventually discovered that the boundaries were far less rigid than anyone assumed. Spirits began manifesting from concepts that had nothing to do with the classical four." She added more circles to the board, branching outward from the original four like the limbs of a tree.

"Even now, there are people contracting elements of obscure or never-before-seen concepts. I believe the latest discovery is an elemental concept of sleep." That got a few murmurs from the students. Professor Fae raised a hand to preempt the obvious objection.

"Yes, yes, we know, it's no longer technically an 'element' in the traditional sense. But we still use the term to simplify the nomenclature. Arguing over what to call them would take longer than actually studying them, and I'd rather we spend our time on the latter." She set the chalk down and turned to face the class.

"Other than using an elemental to directly assist you in combat, there are other applications. An elemental can imbue itself into a weapon, enhancing its properties based on the spirit's nature. A fire elemental might grant a blade searing heat. A wind elemental might make an arrow fly faster and farther. The versatility is part of what makes elemental bonding so valuable for Tower climbers." She clasped her hands together.

"Now then, are there any questions?" No one raised their hand. Professor Fae looked almost disappointed by the lack of curiosity, but the expression vanished quickly, replaced by something far more animated.

"Great!" she said, clapping once.

"Then let's move on to the exciting part." Her smile widened in a way that made it very clear which part of today's lesson she had been waiting for.

"Who here brought an elemental egg with them?" Three hands went up. Celestia's was among them. Professor Fae's gaze swept over the three students with barely contained enthusiasm.

"Wonderful. Then we'll proceed with live summonings today." She gestured toward the far end of the laboratory, where a section of the floor had been cleared. Etched into the stone was a wide summoning circle. Beside it, on a low table, sat an array of reagents in glass vials, neatly arranged.

"I've already prepped the summoning reagents and the circle," Professor Fae said.

"Don't worry, you don't need to pay for any of them. Consider it a first-day courtesy." Her generosity, while appreciated, did not surprise Celestia. It was abundantly clear that Professor Fae's passion for elemental spirits was less of a professional interest and more of a clear-cut obsession. The woman practically vibrated with anticipation.

"Once the process begins," Fae continued, her tone shifting to something more serious, "it's up to your own talent and compatibility to bond with the elemental. I can facilitate the summoning, but the spirit itself decides whether to accept you. Understood?" The three students nodded.

"Then let's begin. First volunteer, step forward." The first student was a young man from a noble house, Celestia didn't recognize the family crest on his uniform, but his confidence suggested he had been prepared for this. He placed his egg in the center of the summoning circle and stepped back to the edge. Professor Fae activated the circle. The reagents flared. Light crawled up from the etchings on the floor, spiraling inward toward the egg. Then the egg shattered.

The broken pieces pulled inward, drawn together as though by a collapsing gravity. The shards compressed, folding into themselves, and the light that had been crawling along the circle surged upward in a blinding implosion. When it faded, something stood in the circle. A dragon. Miniature, roughly the size of a sheep, with ember-bright scales and smoke curling from its nostrils. Its wings flared once, scattering sparks across the stone floor. A classic flame-based elemental, the kind depicted in old textbooks.

The class let out a collective sound of awe. Professor Fae looked genuinely delighted. The dragon regarded its summoner for a long moment, then dissolved into light. The light sank into the back of the student's hand, and when it faded, a crimson tattoo remained, a stylized flame curling across his skin.

"A successful bond!" Professor Fae announced, beaming.

"Excellent. The tattoo is your contract mark. It will allow you to summon your elemental." The student returned to his seat, flexing his hand with barely concealed pride. The second student stepped forward. This time, the egg produced a wolf, sleek, silver-furred, and crackling with wind. It materialized with a howl that sent a gust tearing across the laboratory, rattling the glass instruments on the workbenches and sending loose papers spiraling. But something was wrong.

The wolf's eyes fixed on the student with an expression that could only be described as contempt. It held the gaze for a few seconds before turning away. Then it dissolved and no tattoo appeared on the student's hand. The student stared at their bare skin. The silence in the room was painful.

"A failure," Professor Fae said. Her voice was sympathetic but matter-of-fact.

"That's very unfortunate. The spirit found the bond incompatible. It happens." She offered the student a kind look.

"You can try again in the future with a different egg." The student sat down without a word, visibly deflated.

"Next," Professor Fae called. Her gaze landed on Celestia.

"Your turn." Celestia rose from her seat, suitcase in hand. She walked to the summoning circle, knelt, and opened the case. The elemental egg sat nestled inside, wrapped in cloth. She lifted it carefully and placed it at the center of the circle. After she stepped back, Professor Fae activated the circle. The same process repeated, light spiraling inward, energy converging on the egg. The shell cracked, then shattered, the fragments pulling together and collapsing inward just as before.

But this time, the implosion of light was brighter, searing even. When the light cleared, something stood in the center of the circle. It was small. Distressingly small. The creature stood on four short, sturdy legs, its compact body low to the ground and wrapped in a coat of soft, fawn-colored fur. Its face was… unusual. The snout was pushed inward, almost flat.

Large, round, dark eyes bulged slightly from either side of its wrinkled face, giving it an expression of perpetual bewilderment, or perhaps perpetual judgment. It was difficult to tell. Its ears flopped forward like it was folding. And it had a curled tail, tightly wound as a cinnamon roll atop its broad, squat hindquarters. The entire class stared. Celestia stared.

"What... is that?" Professor Fae muttered. The creature blinked its enormous eyes once, slowly, as though the world around it was an inconvenience. Then it yawned, a vast, cavernous yawn that revealed a pink tongue and seemed physically impossible given the size of its face. No one in the room knew what to make of it. This was not a creature documented in any bestiary. It was something entirely without precedent. Professor Fae leaned forward, eyes wide with academic fascination.

"I've never seen this species before… It's a new discovery!" The creature sat down heavily on its haunches, as though standing on all fours had been a generous concession it was no longer willing to make. And then it spoke. The voice was deep and absurdly grandiose for something that barely reached Celestia's knee. Awoo-wooo-woo! (Lo! At last mine slumber endeth.) But Celestia heard something else entirely. Awoo-wooooaooaooo! (Hark, ye trembling mortals, for thy sovereign awaketh!) Everyone looked confused.

The students exchanged glances. Professor Fae tilted her head, studying the creature with intensity. Awoooooooooooo-wooo-wooowowowowowoo-woo. (I am Sir Ozymandias the First; Seeker of Bacon, Stripper of Chicken, the Moonhowler of the Seven Suns, and the Everlasting Eldritch Sorrows.) Its curled tail wagged a few times. Awoowoa. (Kneeleth, and bear witness to greatness incarnate.) Celestia was standing at the edge of the summoning circle, her crimson eyes locked onto the creature, this round, wrinkled, fawn-colored thing that had just introduced itself with the gravitas of a prideful eldritch god. Sir Ozymandias turned his bulging gaze directly to her. Awoo-wooo-wooo-woooooo woowo. (Art thou deaf, woman? Or hath thine intellect fled thee in awe of mine presence?) He snorted a wet, wheezing sound. Awooooooooo. ('Tis well known that mortals oft faint upon first beholding perfection.) Celestia stared down at him. It was a fucking pug.! (1)"