Once the official announced Ryther’s evaluation, the whole room became deathly silent like the calm before a storm. Rosland and Raia could only stare wide-eyed at the back of Ryther as the whole room erupted in chatter as the children and parents talked, and the school recruiters dashed forward to be the first to invite him to their schools. It was quite a comical sight to see the old men pushing and shoving each other out the way.

“Dear child, we at the Devlin Institute would like to offer you a full ride scholarship to our school.”

“Pfft, just a full ride? The Devlin Institute has sure fallen! We at the Roswell Academy will give you a full scholarship along with a private tutor and a monthly allowance of 1 gold!”

Within the span of less than a minute, Ryther had been completely surrounded by the group of recruiters who were screaming their offers out loud in an attempt to get his attention. After Rosland and Raia recovered from their shock, they noticed that he seemed to be out of it as he was just staring at his soul weapon. Worried for his son, Rosland forced his way through the crowd of recruiters and with much difficulty, reached his son.

“Son, you alright?”

When Ryther heard the sudden familiar voice, he finally snapped out of his daze and saw the worried face of his father in front of him. Confused at why his father looked so worried, he noticed that he was surrounded by old men who were yelling out things he couldn’t comprehend. He didn’t understand where these people came from and why they were surrounding him.

Rosland sighed in relief since Ryther seemed to be alright. Still, he was worried about his condition so he made the decision that it would be best if they could return to their home as soon as possible. After he took a short breath, he shouted out for all the recruiters to hear.

“Okay gentlemen. My son’s not in a really good condition at the moment so we will be retiring early today. If you wish to speak about school enrollments, please come seek us out at the Provincial Lord’s estate tomorrow. Thank you!”

There was quite a few grumbles from the recruiters once they heard what Rosland said. One of the recruiters even had to gall to talk back to him.

“Just who are you to tell us what to do?!”

All the spectators went deathly silent once they heard those words. They couldn’t believe someone would have the gall to say that to Rosland. As the officials were about to come intervene, Rosland once more spoke.

“I am the father of Ryther if you haven’t noticed! Also, I do have a position that is titled the Provincial Lord of Haneul. Now, do I have the qualifications to leave here with my son gentlemen?”

Even though Rosland had kept his voice calm and collected, one could easily tell that he was not amused whatsoever by someone trying to stop him. The earlier recruiter, now terrified, quickly nodded his head and got out the way along with other recruiters, creating an open path.

At that moment, guards also rushed into the cathedral. Behind them was Raia, who just winked at them. Rosland couldn’t help but to admire his daughter’s quick reaction to bring the guards just in case. As they moved forward, Raia walked beside Ryther and the guards surrounded them as they hastily left.

As the spectators watched the contingent leave, they began to discuss what just happened.

“The Lord is so lucky to have such a talented child.”

“I agree. Also I felt a little moved seeing how worried he was for his son.”

“Of course our Lord was. There’s no way such a great person as our Provincial Lord wouldn’t love and cherish his children.”

As they spoke, some even started to scorn the recruiters.

“Just because they’re some representatives of some school, they act so high and mighty. How dare they challenge our Lord like that?!”

“They better be thankful that our Lord is so kind. It would’ve been just for him to punish them!”

The school recruiters could only gulp and wipe off the cold sweats that appeared on their forehead when they heard what the civilians were saying. They really had gone overboard this time. It was pure luck that they received no punishment.

Inside the Provincial Lord estate, Ryther was inside his room alongside Rosland, Raia, and his mom, Leslie. After arriving back at the estate, Rosland had immediately brought the family over to Ryther’s room and had called for the physician to come. Leslie, once she heard that Ryther was unwell, had immediately rushed over to check on her son. After consoling her for over ten minutes that he was fine, she finally calmed down.

Leslie was a gorgeous lady. With her long curvy blond hair that reminded others of a cool summer breeze and those bright playful green eyes. At the height of five foot eight inches and a slim S line figure, she was the envy of all women.

After the physician had come by and declared that there were no issues with Ryther’s body,everyone left the room except the family members as Rosland finally asked the question that had them puzzled.

“So Ryther, why did you blank out like that?”

“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but when I looked at the sword and the engraving on it…Emotions just started to well up inside and a large sadness hit me….”

When everyone heard what Ryther said, they all had an “Ah” expression on their face. At that sight, he couldn’t help but tilt his head in confusion. At the sight of his brother’s confusion, Raia explained the reasoning.

“Ah, whenever a person awakens their beast soul, they do experience its emotions. The first time tends to be the strongest moment, but it usually isn’t as strong as what you experienced. Anyways, call out your soul weapon again~ I didn’t get to have a good look at it because of all the commotion earlier~”

“Raia! Let your brother rest. He just had all that happen to him not too long ago!”

While he watched bemusedly as his mom began to scold Raia, he did think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have his family inspect his soul weapon.

“Mom, it’s alright! You never know, you guys might notice something that I didn’t so it might be a good idea to have you all look at it.”

As he said that, Ryther thought of the image of Azuron’s Requiem and willed it to appear. Once again, the blue and silver lights appeared around his right hand before they condensed into the shape of a sword. As the light disappeared, Azuron’s Requiem and its chilling aura appeared.

Rosland, Leslie, and Raia could only sigh in appreciation of the sword’s beauty. It really was a masterpiece. As they looked at the blade, they could make out the etchings of Azuron’s Reqium. After he thought about it a little, Rosland spoke up.

“Azuron is most likely the name of your beast soul in their prior life. As for requiem… it usually means hymn for the dead… Maybe they lost a loved one and was out for revenge? Or they could have been a commander during the first Great High God War and have been in remembrance for his fallen comrades? Well, it’s not like we can find out right now anyways. Once you’re able to communicate with your beast soul you can ask them then.”

Ryther nodded his head at his dad’s words. He was right, he would have all the time in the world with his beast soul from now on so later on he could just directly ask about it.

“Well anyways, this is one fine weapon. It is probably the finest soul weapon I’ve seen; even better than Raia’s. Unfortunately, neither your mother nor I are trained in swordsmanship so I’ll recruit a swordsman to tutor you okay? Anyways, the next topic we need to go over is about what school you will be attending. The recruiters were basically fighting for the right of you attending their school. Thanks to saying you weren’t feeling well and using my status we got away today, but I’m sure they’re going to come in force tomorrow.

In my opinion, it’d be best for you to attend Royal Beast Spiritualist Institute. It’s the best school in our Kingdom and only accepts the brightest students. With your evaluations, I’m confident you can even get into the Institute as a honor student. Also, your sister attends the same school so I can be more at ease knowing you two can take care of each other.”

“Yeah, this noona will make sure no one bullies you, except for me that is. OUCH THAT HURT DAD!!”

After he knocked his daughter in the head, Rosland continued.

“Anyways, excluding what your sister said at the end, what do you think? We won’t force you I’m just telling you what I think would be for the best.”

Ryther stayed silent for a few moments and contemplated the question. It would decide his future after all. After mulling over it in his head for a bit, he nodded. It really wouldn’t be such a bad idea to go to the best school in the Kingdom along with his sister, even if it was only for a year or so.

“Yeah, I think that’ll be for the best, dad. I have two years until I start school anyways. Oh yeah, I’ve been curious, but what did I get on my evaluation?”

When Rosland and Raia heard his question, they could only look at Ryther blankly. This kid, just how out of it was he?!

“You...you really don’t remember?!”

“I told you noona, I was already engrossed in the sword at that time….”

“Haa…. What am I going to do with this child… Son, you got a superb on soul strength and have the rare dual attribute beast soul..with an S grade…”

At first Ryther thought his dad was joking, but when he figured out that his dad was speaking the truth, he could only dumbly stare at his family in disbelief.

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The next day, the whole morning was hectic as the family had to entertain all the recruiters who came to the estate. Even though it was exhausting meeting with each and every recruiter and rejecting them, he finally completed the tasks around lunch time. Once the other recruiters knew that they had been rejected for Royal Beast Spiritualist Institute, they weren’t even mad.

Also just like his father guessed, he did receive a full scholarship and honor student status from the Royal Beast Spiritualist Institute. He would receive a stipend of ten gold a month and would be able to choose his own curriculum. The only course that he really had to attend was the weekly honor students class and that was it. After he signed a contract that stated he will attend the institute two years later, the recruiter left with a hop in his steps.

It was common knowledge that people only attended school from the ages of fourteen to eighteen, a total of four years. The reason for this was that most children would learn all the basic knowledge from their households from a young age. Once they became more mature, they could attend the schools to learn more advance knowledge and techniques which took four years to learn.

Even though he was depressed at the thought that he had to wait two more years, the thought of finally learning the way of the sword excited him and he pestered his dad non-stop about it. After a week, word that the position was accepted arrived. The next morning, he finally arrived.

This would be the first meeting between the Draconic Lord and his diabolical sword master, Dylan.