By Zephyria 
The main hall was enormous.
It was larger and taller than the banquet hall of the Ernhardt family mansion, yet surprisingly, it had very few pillars. There were twelve chandeliers lined up, and seven steps leading up to the dais. I had heard that the Emperor’s dais had nine steps, corresponding to the number of continental gods, and that the dais of dukes and marquesses had five steps, so this was the second-highest dais in the Empire. A massive red carpet stretched from the highest point of the dais all the way to the hall’s entrance.
Hershey Milton, who had guided me to my designated spot, greeted me in a hushed voice before moving to a seat on the left side of the hall. Over there, boys and girls wearing the same uniform as Hershey Milton stood in a line, observing the new students. Opening my Qi sense, I confirmed that about a third of them were students from the Swordsmanship Department. There were ten students who were Third-rate martial artists, seven who were Second-rate, and two who were First-rate. None were at the Peak or above. I had been inwardly complacent about my own realm, attained after forty years of training, so I was startled by the realms of these boys and girls who appeared to have just passed the age of Geomancy (*15 years old). It was a realm I had only reached when I was twenty. They reminded me of the rising stars from the Nine Sects I had seen in my past life, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
A deep hum resonated through the hall. The speech, which began with “Welcome, new students of Shierun Academy,” was neither too long nor too short. From my position, I could only tell that the speaker was an elderly woman. Her silver-grey hair was neatly tied back and hung down her back, appearing not so much styled as arranged to rest comfortably. One hundred and twenty new students. To their left stood about ninety work-study students, and to their right, about ninety teachers. The sight of nearly three hundred people, myself included, standing with their eyes fixed on one person’s mouth was quite a spectacle. Even unremarkable words sounded grand. I shook my head, thinking this was all because our family only had about fifty knights. In my prime, I had marched alongside tens of thousands of martial artists to repel the rise of the Demonic Cult… It was all useless now. It was even laughable.
As the speech neared its end, one new student stepped onto the dais as a representative. Without much scrutiny, I could tell he had just ascended above the level of a Second-rate martial artist. He was a boy from the Swordsmanship Department, just like me, and as I wondered what made him better than me, a red-haired boy standing next to me tapped my hand with his.
“Don’t stare like that. The representative for Shierun Academy’s new students has always been a commoner, Michael Ernhardt.”
“Mm.”
“It’s unreasonable to rank people by titles they haven’t even inherited yet.”
“Mm.”
As I nodded in understanding, the boy, looking somewhat annoyed, glared at me before looking away. Only after hearing the new student representative speak in a clear voice about diligently studying, holding high ideals, and bringing glory to the Empire did I realize why the boy next to me had been so irritated. I had forgotten to express my gratitude, as it seemed inappropriate to talk while everyone else was silent. Keeping my gaze forward, I opened my mouth.
“Thank you.”
“…Are you talking to me?”
“For telling me something I didn’t know…?”
“You, you don’t remember me?”
“…Mm.”
It was a troublesome sound. I was so busy with my training that I begrudged the time for summer and winter family trips. I hadn’t yet made my debut in high society, not being fifteen, so I only sent gifts from my family’s name to other families’ banquets and parties, without attending. I reunited with dozens of boys and girls every year on my birthday, but it was impossible to memorize the names of forty to fifty people who descended upon me all at once and then disappeared just as quickly. Some children who came last year didn’t come this year, and naturally, some who didn’t come last year did come this year. Moreover, there were over ten children with fox-like red hair among them! Combining my past and present lives, my age already exceeded fifty, so where would I find the time to memorize the faces of young children I met only once a year? It was already a struggle to memorize the names of my family members, household staff, and knights; I had to learn five new names a day when I was eight! While the wondrous principles of each martial arts move were easily remembered, these peculiar names were rarely grasped in one go. I was even afraid of forgetting my own name.
The boy, realizing I had forgotten his name even without me saying anything, bit his lower lip and glared at me. He was about three centimeters taller than me. His fluffy red hair hung down to his neck, making him look like a little fox, and his sharp eyes were a pale, yellowish-green, like a cat’s. Like most young boys I had met in this life, he was a beautiful child with a fair face and a slender jaw. As I looked at his pointed expression, a scene flashed through my mind.
“…Sh, Shei, Whe…”
“If you don’t remember, just say you don’t.”
“Sorry. I don’t remember.”
“Shayden Rose. This is the ninth time I’ve told you today.”
His petulant tone seemed to imply this was the tenth time. Only then did I recall. He was the boy who always left a card with his family crest, featuring a rose, on the gift wrapping. However, as was typical for most birthday parties, gifts were gathered, opened and sorted by servants, and then presented after the birthday. By the time a boy or girl wrote their name clearly on the card and asked me to remember them, it had been a strategy that consistently failed for over twenty of them. The faces of people from the Central Plains were easy to remember, but the people of the Sierran Empire all had large eyes, high noses, and slender faces, making them difficult to remember without prolonged observation. Deciding this was an opportunity to firmly memorize his face and name, I turned my body slightly towards him.
“I won’t forget now. Shayden Rose.”
“…Why are you looking at me like that?”
“So I don’t forget.”
If families have consistently interacted, it’s reasonable to consider them somewhat acquainted, right? Since Shayden Rose had dropped the honorifics, I decided to speak casually as well. In truth, I couldn’t remember who I should use honorifics with and who I could speak casually to among those who attended birthday banquets, so I always spoke casually to everyone. As I replied, his lips, bitten red, jutted out. What surprised me anew was how meticulously people in this land, both boys and girls, treated their faces. They would half-close their eyes like courtesans in the capital, tilt their heads as if dancing to look into the distance, keep their lips from being still, pursing them, then smiling broadly, then biting them hard, revealing their emotions completely. In my past life, or rather, when I was in the Martial Arts Alliance, I never saw anyone make such expressions. They were generally taciturn, only slightly curling the corners of their mouths to smile. They laughed openly, like the foolish members of the Peng family in Hebei or the thugs of the Black Road, showing their throats, but the members of the Martial Arts Alliance, including the Namgung Family, acted as if they were monks or Taoist priests, both men and women, maintaining a calm and serene demeanor. With monks and Taoist priests like those from Shaolin, Emei, Wudang, Mount Hua, and Jongnam leading the way, it was inevitable that the prim and proper would make up eighty percent of the Orthodox Sect. It’s not good to get lost in old memories while staring into the face of a boy my age. After scrutinizing his face, counting even the moles, I finally looked up.
Just then, the student representative for the upperclassmen gave some advice, and the principal took the stage again.
[Now, we will move to the lecture halls for the Swordsmanship Department, Department of Magic, Business Department, Administration Department, Secretariat Department, and Law Department. We will explain the courses available for each. Please follow your homeroom teacher carefully.]
[For the next three years, if you do not change departments, you will be seeing these faces, so I hope you will get along well. That is all.]
The voice that boomed through the hall was as gentle as it had been at the beginning. Dividing the 120-odd students into six groups would mean about twenty per class, so I should be able to memorize all their names within a month. A sigh escaped me involuntarily. Hoo, I exhaled, and several people around me followed suit with sighs and exclamations. I paused and looked around. I had never heard that sighs were contagious like yawns. Suddenly, I remembered what my Mother had advised before I came to the Academy. She had said that if you want to befriend someone, you should imitate their actions. Thinking that these young children were imitating such small things because they wanted to befriend me, a warmth spread through my heart like freshly steamed dumplings. Before arriving at the Academy, I had no intention of playing friendly games with these children, but given that my current appearance was that of a thirteen-year-old, it would be absurd to push away those who approached me. When I reach the age of adulthood, I will be leading the Empire with them, so aren’t they my future colleagues and comrades? I felt a sense of awkwardness, as if I had reached a new realm, thinking about the embarrassment a master who had undergone Reversal of Aging (*achieving rejuvenation through martial arts mastery) might feel when venturing into the Central Plains.
As we moved with the Swordsmanship Department students, I overheard someone whispering to the girl next to me, “She’s really just like the rumors, Ernhardt.” “Look, even her eyelashes are pink…” I was briefly curious about what rumors were circulating about me, but then I was startled and forgot.
“Greetings, everyone. I am Maelo Sanson, and I will be your homeroom teacher and instructor for beginner and advanced swordsmanship for the next year.”
His friendly voice cut through the murmuring.
“The Martial Arts Training Ground is open from seven in the morning until eight in the evening. Class times vary according to your individual schedules, from nine in the morning until eight in the evening. Swordsmanship doesn’t improve by rushing. The most important foundation for a first-year student is to eat a lot, move a lot, and rest sufficiently to build a proper body. Understood?”
This was the first expert at the Hwagyeong realm I had encountered since arriving in this land.