"Ha-haha, this kid is something else," Victor gasped, his face carrying an amused smile as he witnessed the entire duel unfold before his eyes.

Not only did Vlad have skin tough as steel, which left the one-ring spells unable to cause any serious wound, but his strength was equally impressive. Even a ’Trainee’ would not be able to lift such a heavy object, let alone throw it. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Is this why the Pyro Tyrant recommended him?" Victor murmured, moving towards Vlad, who had just placed his application in the pocket of the unconscious Dorin.

"Here, take this as well," Victor said, removing the rune-engraved silver ring from Dorin’s finger and handing it to Vlad.

"Is it really fine for me to take it?" Vlad asked in an innocent tone.

"You shouldn’t be asking that after slapping a professor on your enrollment day," Victor muttered irritably, shoving the ring into his hand.

Vlad had thought he might be punished for hitting a professor, but on the contrary, Victor wore a faint smug expression on his face that he was failing to conceal. He had even given him a reward.

Well, how could Victor not be pleased. An S+ talent who might become one of the strongest warriors of Argentum had enrolled for the knight path, and not only that, she had an affinity with the Anemo element, which was the very same element in which Dorin was an expert.

It was as if someone had slapped Dorin, his rival, across the face, except it had actually happened, and by none other than a D-Ranked commoner whom Dorin had looked down upon.

Victor was absolutely delighted. It was his complete victory.

On the other side, as Vlad received the ring, a system screen appeared before him.

Ding...

[You have received a magical artifact: Space Ring.

Description: The ring is connected to an interdimensional space where the user can store their belongings.

Storage used: 95%

Note:

1. The ring cannot store another artifact of similar kind.

2. The ring cannot store a living creature.]

"I can store my stuff in this ring?" Vlad mumbled, both surprised and excited. Turning to Victor, he informed, "Professor, the ring appears to be full."

"Oh, Professor Dorin must not have taken the scenario of losing into account, so he did not empty it beforehand."

Victor grabbed the ring and poured his mana into it. Moving his other hand towards it like a claw, he wrenched his arm away. Coins, clothes, books and other random items burst outward from the ring in all directions, filling the entire room.

"Here you go," Victor said, returning the ring.

Its filled storage had reduced to 1%.

"You can only store your belongings by activating the ring with your mana," Victor explained. "You will be able to use it once you form your core."

Vlad nodded and slid the ring onto his finger. He removed the torned jacket and shirt he was wearing and took out another set of clothes from his backpack.

"Tch, I have already lost two sets of jacket and shirt before even reaching the academy," he mumbled, his brows furrowing as he changed.

Victor directed him towards the door on the opposite wall from where Vlad had entered, to receive his student ID.

To exit the room, he had to insert his identity card into the door lock. The card slid inside, producing the sound of rotating dials.

Click...

The door opened. Once Vlad stepped out, the door closed behind him and his card slid out from the other side.

As Vlad grabbed the card, he found a new detail added to it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ARCANE ACADEMY

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Name: Vlad Lumberjack

Age: 16

Rank: D (Knight)

Attribute: Darkness, Lightning

Grade: Novice]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Card ID: BR-08-5387

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"I never thought I would go through this much trouble just to enroll in the academy," Vlad sighed as he read the details. He noticed that his grade had changed from unassigned to Novice.

From what he had learned from the ’How to Knight’ book that Elaria had given him on his seventh birthday, Novice was the grade assigned to students who began their official journey on the path of a knight. The grades were as follows:

Novice → Trainee → Squire → Candidate

There were four stages Vlad needed to pass before even receiving the title of a knight.

He lingered on his grade for a few seconds longer than he intended to, his crimson eyes filled with excitement. He had officially taken his first step towards his dream.

"What took you so long?" A voice reached his ears, pulling him out of his daze. He turned to find Chloe sitting with her back against the wall, arms crossed and bag placed on the ground beside her.

It was only then that Vlad took in his surroundings. He was in a narrow open path outside the Convocation Hall, with two high stone walls on either side where glowing golden lamps were placed, casting long shadows of Vlad and Chloe on the ground.

It was already late into the night, but the path was as bright as day.

"Where are we?" Vlad asked, confused.

"I don’t know."

"Eh? Have you been waiting for me here?"

"I’m hungry," Chloe said, ignoring Vlad’s question.

Vlad released a sigh as he moved closer to her and picked up her bag from the ground.

"Let’s find something to eat."

After walking for a few seconds, the path turned at a sharp ninety degrees.

As Vlad and Chloe rounded the corner, both of them froze in their tracks, for before them was a sight they had never seen before.

A monumental structure, its dome reaching the clouds above and its width spanning even wider than all of Grimwood Village, stood before them. Its stone walls glowed with luminous golden and silver patterns from the bright lights embedded along its surface.

Four tall towers were mounted at each of the four corners of the building, each one looking majestic with intricate architectural engravings adorning them.

Around the towers, small stones, lanterns and fragments orbited at a height, defying gravity.

"You are amazing, Arcane Academy," Chloe murmured with parted lips.