The next day, Derek and his friends went early to take their seats in the judge’s booth for the Runic Schema competition. The judges were all high level members of the faculty and distinguished alumni of the Runic Schema College. With the assorted guests, the booth had a little over twenty people in it. Derek and his friends were joined by Alicia’s roommates, Alicia’s mother and fiance, and several other assorted family members and distinguished guests of the judges.

Derek was happy to see his cousin Sofia there. She often teased him in class but it had always been very good natured. Her mother was the Dean of the Runic Schema College, so it was natural for her to be at this competition even if she was a student in the Mage College. When she sat with him she looked him over, “Derek, are you ready for the competition in a few days? I hear you got paired up with another tier two for the first round. I hear it’s going to be a tough fight for you.”

Prince Blake of Elnon overheard this from where he was sitting in the corner. He had done nothing but scowl at the normal students he had seen. He had perked up when Sofia appeared as she looked quite stunning in her mage’s robes so he was paying close attention to her conversation with Derek.

Derek’s opinion of his friend’s new fiance was continuing to plummet, no matter how much benefit of the doubt he tried to give the man. The glass of wine in his hand this early in the day was one demerit, the second was the young man’s active leering at every good looking woman in the room. Now the man decided to contribute to the cause of reducing Derek’s opinion of him audibly as well, “Tier two? I thought this was an elite Academy. How strong can it be if the tough fights are between tier twos?”

Derek glanced at the man. He knew Blake was late tier four, which was rather high for his age. He had reason to be proud of himself, but he seemed to misunderstand some things about the school. Sofia seemed a bit incensed by this statement though. As a member of House Windreach, the prestige of the Academy was a significant portion of her identity.

Before she could speak up to scold the arrogant young prince, Derek squeezed her hand and spoke, “Big sister, there is no need to be upset with him. He will learn soon enough the caliber of this Academy.”

She glared at Blake before snorting, “Hmph, as if tier two sixteen year olds would be something to turn your nose up to. Does this fellow even get that this Academy graduates tier four students as young as twenty years old. Is late tier four something so great at twenty five? This old lady is only twenty two and I have been late tier four since last summer.”

Blake’s scowl got deeper as he heard this. He was already proud of his own accomplishments, but he was tier one at sixteen. He had only reached tier two at nineteen and had made it to this level only recently through the expenditure of some expensive treasures and by executing death row inmates for essence. To think that this Academy produced students as powerful as him by age twenty? That was quite the blow.

Derek was still trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. He smiled at him, “The Academy accepts only the elites of the region. If everyone here was weak, people like Queen Therese would not have come over a thousand kilometers from home to go to school here. The students are usually tier three or four when they graduate here, with the vast majority graduating early due to reaching the qualifications of completing the course load and reaching tier four.

“This is why the vast majority of the students you will see in the next few days will be in the first through fourth grade years. Maybe anywhere else, it would be quite the achievement to reach tier four by twenty five, but here? A student is much more likely to die before graduation than fail to reach tier four.”

As they talked, the students filed into the competition space. There were over six hundred students gathered here for the competition and their names and year groups were marked in front of them. The students of the crafting schools were much less likely to graduate earlier than the students of the combat schools due to the fact that the essence gain from crafting was nowhere near as rapid as combat. Also, the crafting schools focused far more on teaching technique and the students were far more likely to willingly lengthen the time they spent in the Academy to continue to improve their craft.

This meant that these colleges were much more likely to have a better balance of new to older students. This fact was proven by the near even distribution of students to grade year prior to year nine. Year nine and ten had slightly fewer as many students would have gained as much as they could by age twenty four.

The students of each year group were clustered together and they all looked quite eager. Derek made eye contact with Alicia at the back of the room and joined her other friends in waving to her. She smiled happily when she saw them, but quickly focused as the judges announced the beginning of the competition.

For the normal person, it was hard to tell what they were doing. They each had a plate in front of them that they inscribed into. It would then project a three dimensional shape into the air above it. They were each attempting to create the most unique and powerful schema they could. Though Derek was an ameteur schema inscriber, he knew enough of the process from listening to his mother that he could understand what he was seeing. Furthermore, runes were universal, and Derek could easily translate the power of the runes he was seeing.

Their seats were perfect. Derek could see each student’s work and his inexpert eye gave him some insight into what they were doing. Most were doing their best to create more traditional Mandala style schemas. Some wanted to go for a unique design and went with the Lotus style of the east. Derek saw with some surprise that many of the more proficient students were attempting to include his mother’s mana catch into their designs.

He felt pride knowing that once this caught on, his mother would be known as the person who had advanced schema design the most since Alton Sindmire proved that one hundred percent essence conversion was possible two hundred years ago. This mana catch would increase the essence conversion of a schema by up to thirty percent, making the vaunted one hundred percent much more likely. Early estimates already boasted that his mother’s technique would be able to revolutionize schema creation in the region and increase the percentage of the population with over ninety percent conversion from merely one percent to twenty percent.

The process of creating these schemas proved to be too boring for some. Garrett and Desmond both received elbows in their ribs from their girlfriends for falling asleep during the competition, though only Garrett snored. That earned a few good natured laughs from his neighbors and a sardonic sneer from Alicia’s new fiance.

After several hours, the last of the schemas had been created and the judges left their stands to compare and judge them. After half an hour of inspection, they all returned to their seats and began their deliberation. Finally, late into the afternoon, they announced their findings. It was no surprise to Derek that Alicia had received first place for her year group and he was even more pleased to see that she had made it to fourth place in comparison to the other years. Her design had been quite innovative, showing off all the lessons she had learned as Eona’s apprentice.

When she received her prizes she was quite excited and came over to hug her mother, her teacher, the girls of her dorm room, and finally Derek. He laughed as he saw how excited she was and he thought back to all the years she had stayed with them. He remembered the rivalry they once had and the friendship that had grown between them in the last few months. He had to admit that she had grown on him and he was quite proud of her success, as if a member of his own family had been successful.

The others in the booth were quite happy for her as well. She received many congratulations from the others and the mood was generally good. There was only one person who seemed to be set on ruining the mood.

Blake seemed to take exception when he saw his fiance hug Derek. He turned to Derek and pulled off his glove. He reached out to slap Derek with it, but the youth dodged it easily.

Derek looked at the young man with some consternation in his eyes. Several others had seen it as well. Alicia looked on awkwardly, but her mother Therese finally broke the silence, “Blake, what was that? We are guests here. We are quite far from Elnon right now. This isn’t a place where you can just do what you want.”

Blake had been surprised at Derek’s quick reaction, but after being scolded by his future mother-in-law, he remembered his purpose. He looked at her, then back at Derek before explaining himself, “I would normally try to stay low key, but this young man has crossed the line. He is all too familiar with my fiance and now he has put his hands all over her. I demand a duel.”

Derek looked at the man like he was an idiot. How could a hug be considered putting his hands all over a girl? How could his behavior the last day be considered low key? Furthermore, what gave this guy the confidence he had right now? Derek had already seen his status. Though he was a high tier four mage, his casting ability wasn’t much better than Derek’s.

Blake saw Derek’s look and seemed to grow even angrier. He looked like he was going to make a scene before Derek finally spoke up, “If you would like a duel, we can have one, but it’s going to have to wait until after the Spring Tournament.”