As the Duke and his followers, as Ajax started to think of them since from the power he felt in the DUke’s aura he didn’t even think he needed guards, exited the dining room everyone else was motionless at the hasty manner in which the duke left. It wasn’t until the door closed with a solid sound that they were brought back to from their shock.

“Well that was certainly something, it also went a lot better than I expected.” Hatchet, who was the one with most experience and no deep understanding about the Duke, was the first to speak.

“W-What was that p-presence?” Ajax couldn’t maintain his strong facade now that he was alone with Luna Hatchet and Alfred.

“Oh? Was he your first?” Luna asked, sounding a bit surprised.

“Right, you’ve never met anyone with an aura before.” Hatchet nodded as if he just remembered.

“What is an aura?” Ajax asked.

“An aura is a representation of power.” Luna started. “Most living beings have instincts, input up from birth, we may learn to react differently to the inputs as we experience them but we have them, monsters have them and even other intelligent races like elementals have them.”

“That doesn’t explain what I felt.” Ajax said as he thought back to when he was in the presence of the dragon back in the forest more than five years ago. He didn’t feel anything then.

“Everyone also has an intent. Which is how aura first manifests itself. It takes a high level of both stats and combat skills for an aura to form, the first form it takes is killing intent.” Luna continued. “It appears around level one hundred combatants, ninety-three being the historical record for achieving it and takes strong emotions to produce.”

“By around level one hundred and thirty-five it starts being ever present without conscious suppression. By level one hundred and fifty there is no suppressing it. Thankfully it seems humans are incapable of perceiving an intent while their perception is below twenty-five. Otherwise most high nobles would be forced to avoid their children and definitely grandchildren their entire childhood.” Luna, as one of the only healers to bother with studying trauma extensively in an effort to help her long time friend shivered as she thought what could happen if humans could feel auras before twenty-five perception.

“The limit is still a hard barrier, that and the fact that prolonged exposure quickly builds up a tolerance means it shouldn’t be a problem for long to you.” Alfred said, looking at Ajax. “Now we should address more important things, like what will you be wearing tomorrow morning?”

“Tomorrow morning?” Ajax asked, confused.

“The duke personally invited you for a meeting.” Luna said while giving Ajax’s delving clothes once over. “I hope you don’t plan on going like that.”

“He also said I should come by some time in the next two days.” Ajax reminded them with a dumbfounded look on his face.

“That was an overly polite way for him to say come meet with me tomorrow morning.” Alfred facepalmed at Ajax’s answer. “Do you honestly expect the duke to change his schedule so that he is ready to drop everything for you at a moment's notice over the next two days?”

“I don’t usually ask such personal questions, but , Ajax, do you have any social skills?” Luna asked slowly.

“I have a few merchant skills.” Ajax said a little defensively.

“I’m not sure if I should be more shocked that you managed to go through five years of training with Hatchet, while successfully learning from him, without picking one up. Or that you reached such a high level at your age without one.” Luna said while shaking her head in disbelief.

“Oi!” Hatchet huffed in mock outrage.

For the rest of the evening Ajax was comforted over the day’s events as well as assured that tomorrow’s meeting would be nothing more than an offer to join the academy in one capacity or another with perhaps a few questions about his magic which seemed to have sparked the duke’s interest. That Luna didn’t ask a single time about the duke’s granddaughter let Ajax know that Hatchet had told her about that bit beforehand.

For the second time Ajax spent the night in one of Luna’s guest bedrooms. With the early meeting at the academy it only made sense for him to stay in the noble section of the city. Alfred spent no less than thirty minutes fussing over his clothes the following morning despite all of them having been picked out the night before.

“Remember, you still have the option to refuse.” Hatchet said as Ajax left the manor.

Ajax didn’t say anything and simply gave his teacher an understanding nod. The short trip to the academy was boring. The roads were practically empty with no nobles having left their houses early in the morning. Every other house Ajax only caught a glimpse of a servant cleaning or maybe rushing back with some shopping.

The academy was massive. Tall walls secluded the compound from the rest of the noble section while also giving them a straight passage to their exclusive exit and entrance to the side of the capital. Unlike what he expected the compound housed no dormitories, instead there was an even split of the terrain between an enclosed training hall, a school building and a courtyard separating the two.

“Who’re you?” The guards moved to intercept Ajax as he approached the gates, though they were there more for aesthetics than as an actual physical impediment to entry.

“My name is Ajax, I ha-” Ajax didn’t even get to finish his words as the guards moved aside.

“The headmaster is expecting you.” the guard opening the gate for him said. “If you’d follow me.”

“Just like that?” Ajax asked with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. “What if I was lying.”

“Then you have the entire trip to the headmaster’s office to admit it and get off easy for lying.” the guard that stood by the gate said.

As they were going through the building the guard pointed out a few of the rooms to Ajax. The building had seven floors, each floor was dedicated to a different class. The incoming first years would be on the bottom while the sixth years were all the way on the sixth floor. Each floor had specially dedicated classrooms for certain courses like Alchemy or Enchanting as well as offices for some of the teachers.

On the seventh floor there were five doors. Four of them were split, two on each side of the corridor with a final door at the end of the hallway.

“All four entrances are for the library, in there -” the guard started to explain but Ajax was already tuning him out.

Ajax found himself in the presence of an aura, it was a different one from Duke Manashaper’s. While this one didn’t feel as threatening it felt, somehow deeper.

“Are you listening to me?” The guard's hand on his shoulder helped Ajax focus again. “I said you can go ahead and knock.”

“Who’s aura is that?” Ajax asked instead of taking a step towards the door.

“That would be our previous headmaster, he chose to stay on as librarian and advisor when he passed his seat to Duke Manashaper. Now go on.” the guard urged him, clearly he was already accustomed to the aura that seemed ever present on the seventh floor.

“Enter.” Ajax head after he rapped his knuckles gently tapped the door twice.

“Ah, thank you for coming to see me, Ajax.” Duke Manashaper said as he stacked all the papers scattered across his desk and put them to the side in a pile while also motioning Ajax to take a seat in one of the two chairs opposite him.

“Thank you for inviting me.” Ajax said with a small bow of the head that Alfred had him practice a few times before he let him go this morning.

“Is there anything you’d be willing to share about your application of magic?” The duke said, almost physically vibrating with excitement.

“I thought you asked me here to discuss a position in the academy?” Ajax asked. Being in the man’s aura making him more straightforward than he would otherwise be.

“That discussion can wait until our third and last member of the meeting shows up, the guard that brought you up should be getting him as we speak so we have a bit of time.” The duke waived off the question.

Ajax simply nodded before he extended his hand and conjured up a small flame in the palm of his hand.

“As I didn’t have anyone to teach me how to use my mana for spells I learned from the only source I had access to.” Ajax explained as he played around with the control he had over the flame. “Cobalt casters were the only thing I had to mimic so I picked up casting through chantless mana manipulation.”

“And how do you think it compares to regular casting?” the headmaster said after a brief pause, recognising Ajax wasn’t going to reveal anymore right now.

“In terms of both output and efficiency I am quite a few steps behind.” Ajax admitted. “But I do make up for that in flexibility and invocation speed .”

“Fascinating.” the duke’s eyes following the flame as it flared, dimmed and even heated up and turned blue. “I’m guessing visualization matters a lot more for you than it does for us. Do you have any desire to learn regular casting?”

“I do, but I don’t plan on practicing it. I would be studying it more for any insights it might offer me rather than using it.”

“And why is that?”

“Because from my experience with the few chanted spells I do know I found that my method of casting is somewhat exclusive with chanting.” Ajax let out a regretful sigh. “Much like rune casting the skill actively makes leveling chanting harder, I am not willing to forcefully level chanting up to check if the opposite is true.”

Their conversation is cut short as three knocks sound before the door opens. “You called for me headmaster?”