Eventually, Lyrian lost the crowd and quickly escaped into the woods, finally breathing a sigh of relief as he walked back home alone.

Looking at his hands, scraped and bruised, he thought to himself, 'I thought this would be a breeze, but I haven't even made it to the entrance exam and nearly got eliminated. I guess I'm still way too weak.'

The only reason for him wanting to join the academy was to gain strength. The close call of today reassured him of that goal, making him even more determined to become stronger.

When he arrived back at the camp, he entered and saw Leonidas outside in the living room once again, sharpening his sword with a rock.

Unlike the previous time, Leonidas looked at Lyrian and stood up before walking up to him and greeting him.

"My name is Leonidas Serroa, it's good to meet you." He said, pushing his hand out toward Lyrian.

Lyrian shook his hand, slightly confused. "Ly-Lyrian Theagled. It's good to meet you as well. What's with the change up all of a sudden? The last time I tried to talk to you, you ignored me like I was nobody."

"Oh right.. that. I just thought you were like all the other nobles, bigoted and egotistical. I don't blend in well with those types of people, but now that I know you aren't like that, I want to make you my acquaintance, since you are pretty strong."

Leonidas spoke directly, seeming to not have any underlying meanings. Although Lyrian was slightly taken aback at his straightforwardness, he accepted the proposal.

"Sure, you are pretty strong as well. We can be acquaintances." He smiled, allowing Leonidas to return tending to his sword.

"Hey uh, Leon," Lyrian said, wanting to be a little more familiar.

Slightly stunned at the fact that someone had nicknamed him, Leonidas looked up. "Don't call me that.. Leonidas is fine." He said, uncomfortable to accept a familiar nickname.

"How do you conceal your mana so well? I've actually been looking for a way to do that for a while now."

"My mana?" Leonidas said, pausing for a moment as if thoughts raced through his head.

"Oh.. it's just a breathing technique I learned from my family. They are swordsmen, so hiding their magic aura is a given need. I can teach you if you want, it isn't too hard."

Lyrian was slightly wary of Leon's pause, but shrugged it off as nothing, simply eager to finally learn how to conceal his mana.

"Sure! Can you please teach me?"

***

The two spent the following couple of hours in conversation whilst Lyrian learned how to conceal his mana.

It wasn't a spellbound technique, but more so a physical change in one's breathing pattern that blocked the meridians from spewing mana outside of their walls.

After Lyrian finally learned it, he wanted to go out into the forest to try and see if there were any animals there that he could hunt.

It wasn't to train or to even eat, but to feed Garmr, as he complained about food frequently. historical

It wasn't like he could get hungry when inside of Lyrian's shadow, but he still could grow to miss the flavor of meat every so often.

Leonidas also decided to tag along, saying he wanted to train his sword in the forest, and Lyrian wasn't really in the position to deny him so he agreed.

'Ahh shit.. I'll probably just have to say I gotta take a piss or something to feed Garmr.' He thought to himself as the two began heading towards the forest.

Once inside, the two walked around for a bit, looking for a place to train as Lyrian tossed some pebbles at birds sitting on trees, making them fall down into his hands.

"I'm hungry, these might help me during the entrance exams." He awkwardly laughed, trying to come up with a feasible explanation for Leonidas, who just thought that he was a weirdo.

Finally, after a little while longer, Lyrian said that he needed to pee and quickly ran into the jungle, leaving Leonidas alone in a fairly open area where he already began his sword training.

After running quietly for 20 seconds, Lyrian finally stopped. Looking around, he seemed to be in as good a place as any to feed Garmr.

"Garmr, come ou--" Suddenly, his speech paused as he heard some noise from close by.

He immediately crouched, concealing his aura while also doing the breathing technique he learned from Leonidas to hide his mana, completely erasing his presence.

Looking around, he traveled through some bushes to come across another open area where he saw five kids randomly talking to each other.

'What the heck!? What is my luck? I just had to come to a place where a whole group of kids were?' Lyrian thought to himself as he slowly tried to back away.

'I'll just find another spot I guess...'

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Glorifying that bastard Lyrian!?" A familiar voice suddenly rang from the group of kids.

'My name? What's going on here.' Lyrian thought to himself again, quickly going back into the bushes to spy on the kids.

"Black sheep? Is that the nickname you gave to your little peasant goons? I know what you are trying to do, you're trying to make Lyrian seem like the good guy here and want others to support him." Bardon yelled at another kid, three other delinquents behind him all ganging up on one kid from Lyrians point of view.

"So what if I want to glorify him!? Would it hurt you so much if Lyrian represented us low-status nobles and actually stood up for us?" The kid that was being ganged up on yelled back.

Upon closer inspection, Lyrian also recognized him.

It was the kid from the campfire place yesterday, the one that talked to him after he spoke back to Silvus' assistant brashly.

That was also the same kid that came up to Lyrian first after his fight with Silvus where he beat him.

And now, It looked like he was going so far as to get beat up by Bardon to defend Lyrian's honor.

Seeing this unfold, Lyrian couldn't help but feel bad for the poor guy.