“Haaaah…” Dennis slumped on the desk and let out a tired sigh.

Lith lay on the backrest of the chair he was sitting on and he too sighed after closing his eyes.

The class he was attending was an advanced class in magic casting. It was simply too boring for him and Dennis, as there was nothing advanced in it.

Yes, it was advanced, but it was equivalent to the spell casting powers of a rank 4 and not much. Lith’s spell casting was at rank 6 and it was boring to know what he already knew and the same was the case for Dennis as his level was at rank 5.

They had to attend two hours’ worth of such a boring theoretical class just for the sake of attendance. Since they were the toppers, they only had to get 45% attendance in total and as for the rest, it was 85%.

If they failed to meet this criterion, it would cause a lot of problems such as fewer credit points, a decrease in merit points, fewer resources and extra classes as well as detention tests.

Thus, Lith had to attend classes along with Dennis. Every week, there were around 20-25 classes that happened in total and out of it, Lith, Ralph and Dennis had to attend around 8-12 in total.

They couldn’t do anything about it, and their parents and teachers encouraged them to attend these classes in order to refresh their knowledge and possibly learn something new.

Yes, that was indeed true. They did learn a few new things, but it was nothing that was too beneficial to them. However, they still couldn’t do anything about it, so for the sake of attendance and their parents’ and teachers’ words, they kept attending classes.

“Your highness, sometimes I think I should violate a rule too and be grounded like Ralph.” Dennis said to Lith in a tired tone.

His voice was low and there were too few people in the advanced class, so it wasn’t too much of a problem to speak about Ralph’s punishment openly like this.

Lith chuckled lightly while still having his eyes closed, and said while resting, “you can try.”

“As if.” Dennis replied.

The two got up and left the classroom after resting a bit. They went straight to their dorm and didn’t roam around as they didn’t want to hangout without Ralph, who was grounded, so thus they went straight back.

A few minutes later.

“HAAH!”

Clang!

Lith and Dennis, as soon as they entered their dorm building, they heard Ralph’s shout and a metal hitting metal sound. The sound was coming from the training arena present in the building’s backyard.

The two guessed Ralph was training and, since they were free, they walked towards the training arena to have a look at what he was doing.

Reaching there, they saw Ralph continuously attacking their teacher, Arya and trying his best to cause some damage to her. The two were holding metal swords, and it constantly made clanging sounds as Ralph attacked and their teacher blocked.

A few moments later, Ralph slashed at Arya’s neck, but the latter blocked it with her skills, which far surpassed his, even with her rank being suppressed to his level. Arya then hit Ralph’s stomach with the hilt of her sword, causing the latter to fall down on the ground.

The hit wasn’t too strong to cause any damage to Ralph, but was strong enough to have him fall butt down on the ground.

Arya walked towards him and lent him a hand to get him up. She looked at him with her black sunglasses covered eyes and said seriously,

“Ralph, you are constantly aiming for the vitals. This won’t do. If you can’t land a hit in any of the vital areas within two to three hits, leave them alone. Go for the whole body instead. Remember, one hit may cause a lot of damage to the vitals, but if you hit the other areas a few times, it would give an equivalent result.

Going for the vitals is good. You should always try that. However, many are aware of such a thing and they have protective spells or artifacts to defend it. Thus, always be aware of this. Also, your movement while hitting me on the leg was too sloppy. There’s also this mistake…”

Arya lectured Ralph for a good five minutes and explained to him the things he did wrong as well as could have been done better.

Ralph listened attentively and made a mental note of whatever his teacher was explaining. He was so focused on the explanation Arya was giving that he didn’t notice Lith and Dennis had arrived.

Arya finished explaining to Ralph and said in the end, “your training for today is over. We’ll continue this tomorrow.”

Ralph nodded his head and thanked his teacher for her instructions. Arya walked past Ralph after it and met Lith and Dennis on her way to her floor. She greeted them normally, which they reciprocated and left after that.

Lith and Arya’s relationship hadn’t developed to a very high degree and was still at early stages. Plus, things would become awkward if Ralph and Dennis realize Lith was with her. She was the teacher of these three and her dating one of the students would make her relationship with the other two pretty awkward.

Lith understood this very well, and so did Arya. They didn’t need to communicate with each other, as they had a tacit understanding about it. Thus, they behaved as a teacher and a student when in front of the other two.

After Arya left, the two walked towards Ralph. Looking at Ralph drenched in sweat, Dennis said,

“Damn, Ralph. You are drowning in sweat. Just how crazy was the training?”

“Pretty crazy.” Ralph said in a neutral tone to Dennis while wiping his face with a wet towel.

Ralph was getting influenced by Dennis, and his vocabulary was also starting to change. Had it been a few weeks before, Ralph would’ve said something like, “absurd”, “tiring” or “brutal” and never would’ve used informal words like “pretty crazy”. This slight change was all due to him hanging out with Lith and Dennis, and his formal way of speaking was starting to change a bit.

Dennis nodded his head in understanding. He knew how crazy their teacher’s training was and could understand why Ralph seemed so drenched in sweat. He then said to Ralph,

“Go shower, Ralph. Me and his highness would order food in the meantime and wait for you at the dining table. Before going, tell me this. What do you want to eat? I’ll order yours too along with ours.”

Ralph thought for a bit about what he wanted and said, “get me one mocha frappe, a cream roll, cookies and a medium-sized strawberry cheesecake.”

Ralph picked up his duffle bag from the training arena and, walking close to Dennis, he patted his shoulder and replied,

“Are you never tired of speaking nonsense?”

He then left without hearing what Dennis had for a reply. Lith let out a small chuckle hearing such a response and Dennis just sighed, thinking of how much good food Ralph was missing out on.

After this small talk, the two went to the dining table and sat there, waiting for Ralph and their order to arrive.