The following morning.
News about Cassian's magical aptitude during his tactical magic test spread all across the school. About how he had kept his strength hidden from the world after all this while, his signature hurricane magic from the previous day had made everyone believe that he was truly capable of eradicating a portion of the empire's holy land with just only a single swoop of his hand. The prince was truly a dangerous being in their eyes. It couldn't be helped thinking like that, especially when everyone knew that Cassian was nothing but a frail prince not so long ago, he was doing nothing but being a cruel lord to his subjects and subordinates. And now to everyone the Prince seems like he was slowly biding his own time and honing his strength for only the goddess of fertility may know why.
Now in the present time, the students of the whole academy including the commoner students, started to feel competitive towards Cassian. They strived to work hard and catch up to him. Being an Adept mage with the fourth circle at the age of 19 was not uncommon but yet it was still a once or two times occurrence in a few decades...but for a prince and a royal blood like Cassian to be an Adept at 19?, it was definitely the first. Breaking the record of his grandfather being an Adept at 22.
And where was this terrifying, hidden mastermind currently sitting?
Right in the middle of the main, public library floor, slumped over a wooden desk like a normal student.
For the first time in his fourteen lifetimes, Cassian was actually studying. In previous timelines, he had ranked lower than most prestigious nobles because he was too busy trying not to die, though the corrupt instructors always rigged the scores so a royal prince would never rank below a commoner. But this time? Spite had driven him to actually try. He had ranked first on the tactical assessment the day before, and he was determined to keep his grades up if it meant unlocking the secrets of dimensional travel.
Unfortunately, a table of noble girls a few rows over didn't get the memo about being quiet.
"Does the prince know that the library has a special section for high nobles and royal children for them to study?" one whispered loudly.
"Of course his highness is aware," her friend hissed back. "—but I am certain that his highness must want to suffocate us with his presence and make everyone else uncomfortable."
"I don't think so, I think his excellency has changed... perhaps now he only wants to mix in with the rest of us."
"Are you insane? You mean that very same prince who executed a Count last week just because his face was annoying? Don't look at his eyes, he'll kill you!"
The group of girls chuckled and the whispers continued all around him. Sitting at his desk, Cassian's quill practically snapped in his hand. He was trembling in pure, unadulterated disbelief.
'I can hear you loud and clear you know!!?...You guys are literally ten feet away! Do you think you're speaking in code?!' he thought to himself. Just like Lucien the swordmaster, Cassian too as a fourth circle magician his physical senses were heightened and so was his intellect. Their "whispers" sounded like they were shouting into a megaphone directly into his ears.
Standing right behind Cassian's chair, Sir Lucien Arden noticed the prince's jaw tightening. Lucien, possessing the heightened senses of a peak swordmaster, had heard every word too.
Hoping to prevent a repeat of the Count Malakor incident, Lucien stepped forward and loudly cleared his throat, casting a stern, warning glare at the girls.
The students startled, instantly realizing they had been caught. But it wasn't the Knight Commander's legendary, terrifying presence that made them shriek in unison and begin violently trembling.
It was the prince.
A crimson glare coming from the prince's way. Slowly, Cassian lifted his head. His sleep-deprived, crimson eyes squinted with what they thought was malice, and suddenly the whole library went cold. The air became so freezing that the students could see their own breath in the air as they trembled.
"You're making noise," Cassian snapped, his voice oozing with absolute annoyance, dropping the polite royal facade entirely. "This is a library, and some of us are trying to study. If you're not here to study but here to gossip about me, then fuck off," The girls shrieked in unison holding on to each other. Suddenly the library went into an absolute, frantic panic
"Or should I do something about your loud mouths instead?" They shaked their heads in a frenzy as Cassian's voice oozed with annoyance. The threat hung heavily in the freezing air and the girls didn't waste a single millisecond; they grabbed their books and practically tumbled over each other to flee. Within thirty seconds, the sheer terrifying pressure of Cassian's glare—combined with Lucien standing behind him like a looming shadow—caused half the library to completely clear out. Students were scrambling out the doors as if a dragon had just moved into the building.
Just then Cassian's annoyance melted into a relief as the heavy doors slammed shut, leaving the room in a blissful, beautiful silence, the terrifying aura around Cassian instantly vanished.
"Finally, some peace and quiet." He hummed happily to himself, paging through his book again totally unaware of Lucien's gaze falling down on him. He went right back to reading about dimensional coordinates, totally relaxed.
Lucien didn't move. He stared down at the top of the prince's jet-black head, his ice-blue eyes darker and more complicated than they had ever been.
'He cleared out half the room with a single sentence,' Lucien's thoughts spiraled, his chest tightening with a dangerous mixture of suspicion and a strange, unbidden fascination. 'He claims he wants peace, yet his words are laced with the absolute authority of a tyrant. But that smirk... why does he look so genuinely relieved just to be left alone with a pile of academic books? He is an enigma. He acts like a monster, yet he craves the quiet isolation of a scholar. What is your true goal, Cassian? I will not let you out of my sight.'
*****
The silence in the library stretched, thick and suffocating, until the rustle of Cassian's turning another page became the loudest sound in the room. Cassian kept his eyes firmly glued to the ancient text, but he could practically feel the heat of Lucien's intense, unblinking glare boring into the crown of his head.
It was driving him completely insane.
Slowly, Cassian closed the grimoire with a soft sigh and leaned back, looking up at the towering knight with a perfectly practiced expression of mild irritation.
"Sir Arden," Cassian drawled, gesturing toward the wide-open windows that looked out onto the sprawling campus. "The Academy has a state-of-the-art training ground. As a legendary swordmaster, shouldn't you go stretch your legs, practice your swings, or do whatever it is that the holy knights do? You don't need to stand here watching me read grammar rules."
Lucien didn't even blink. His posture remained rigid, his jaw firmly set. "My instructions from His Imperial Majesty were absolute, Your Highness. I am to remain by your side. A true knight does not abandon his charge for personal recreation."
'Why is he trying so hard to get rid of me?' Lucien's mind raced, his suspicion spiking to dangerous levels. 'What are you planning to do the moment I am out of sight? Are you trying to retrieve a hidden dark artifact? Contact an underground network?'
Cassian took a slow, deep breath to keep from screaming out loud.
'Urgh, just leave already, you're suffocating me!. It's like a giant, six-foot-four boulder is blocking my entire path, and I can't breathe! Go away! Please! Go do something, anything, just leave me alone!'
Before Cassian could formulate another elegant way to banish his future executioner, the heavy library doors swung open with an arrogant, deliberate slow pace.
A sudden, malicious presence invaded the room, instantly disrupting both of their inner turmoils.
Walking down the aisle with a punchable, smug grin was Damian Reinhardt.
The Reinhardt Dukedom was the ultimate political enemy of the royal bloodline. Duke Reinhardt was the half-brother of King Cedric, and his third son, Damian, had been Crown Prince Adrian's loyal, bootlicking lapdog since childhood. For Cassian, who had transmigrated through hell and back over and over again, the Reinhardts were his absolute worst nightmare right alongside Adrian.
In past timelines, he had suffered countless assassination attempts at their hands. He had been publicly humiliated by them. But worst of all—**Timeline Eleven.** Cassian's blood ran completely ice-cold just thinking about it. In that horrific timeline, the Reinhardts had successfully orchestrated a political marriage, trading Cassian off to a barbarian prince of the Eastern Coast just to use his divine royal fertility as a political breeding tool. That absolute brute of a barbarian prince had kept Cassian imprisoned, impregnating him with eleven children in the span of five years. It was, without a doubt, the most profoundly traumatic, horrifying lifetime he had ever endured in his whole transmigration lives.
Suddenly, his body ran cold.
'Curse this ridiculous royal bloodline trait,' Cassian thought, his fist clenching under the table until his knuckles turned white. 'Curse the goddess of fertility, and most of all, curse whatever twisted, sadistic author wrote this godforsaken novel!!..and my sister too for sending me here!"
Looking at Damian right now, Cassian's fear rapidly morphed into a cold, lethal spite. Just like Count Malakor last week, Cassian realized it was better to cut down his enemies while they were still sprouting. The problem was, Reinhardt was a powerful Dukedom. Cassian couldn't just call the guards and execute Damian without a bulletproof, valid reason, or the political backlash would destroy him and end up being executed again.
"My vile cousin," Damian jeered, stopping at the edge of the table and looking down his nose at Cassian. "It hurts my heart to see you ignoring me like this."
Damian smoothly drew a heavy, ornamental training glove from his belt and dropped it onto Cassian's open book. "You've been acting quite bold lately, Cassian. Breaking stadium walls, executing midline nobles... you seem to think you're untouchable. I'm here to challenge you to a standard sword duel. Just a friendly match to test your... recovery. Unless, of course, the fragile prince is too terrified to hold a blade?"
It was a blatant trap. Damian's hidden malice was obvious—he wanted to use the guise of a "friendly, unranked duel" to permanently incapacitate or cripple the arrogant prince, keeping Adrian's path to the throne completely clear.
Lucien immediately read the room. His ice-blue eyes shifted from Damian to Cassian. Lucien knew the palace records perfectly: Prince Cassian was notoriously weak. He had spent his entire youth fooling around, throwing tantrums, and neglecting his physical training while his siblings mastered the sword. He knew nothing of swordmanship.
For a brief, unbidden second, a strange surge of worry flickered in Lucien's chest. But he quickly brushed it off, his jaw tightening. 'If the prince is foolish enough to accept, his injuries are his own bad luck. If he possesses even a shred of sanity, he will refuse.'
Cassian slowly stood up, pushing his chair back. He looked dead into Damian's smirking face.
"Very well then," Cassian said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "I accept your challenge."
"Your Highness!" Lucien barked out, his voice sharp with genuine surprise.
Damian chuckled, exchanges wide, wicked grins with the group of noble friends who had followed him inside. "Wonderful. You made a grand choice, cousin. I vastly look forward to our duel then, Your Highness."
Damian and his group giggled arrogantly, turning on their heels and strutting out of the library. Within minutes, the news of the impending royal duel spread across the campus like wildfire. Students began abandoning their classes, sprinting toward the central combat arena to watch the trainwreck.
"Your Highness, do you even realize what you've just done?!" Lucien stepped directly into Cassian's space, his voice tight with an irritation he couldn't quite suppress.
"Sir Lucien Arden," Cassian cut him off. He lifted his head, his crimson eyes hardened like polished rubies. "This is a matter of pride... and revenge. The young Duke has graciously provided me with a perfect, legal arena to teach him a lesson. How could I possibly refuse?"
Cassian stepped around the table, a confident, lazy smirk gracing his lips. "Just take a step back and watch me. In fact, you and Elias should go place your highest financial bets on me right now and I assure you, you're going to walk away very rich men."
Lucien ground his teeth, thoroughly irritated by the prince's sheer audacity. "How can you be so incredibly impulsive?! Swordmanship is nothing like magic, Your Highness! You may be an accidental prodigy when it comes to the elements, but the blade is a matter of grueling, physical discipline. You have done absolutely nothing but laze about for years! How could you possibly think—"
"Shhhhh."
Before Lucien could finish his lecture, Cassian casually reached up and placed his soft, pale index finger directly over Lucien's lips.
Lucien's entire body violently froze. His words died in his throat. His ice-blue eyes widened in sheer, absolute shock as the cool touch of the prince's finger sent an unbidden, electric jolt straight down his spine.
Cassian tilted his head, his smirk widening into something devastatingly beautiful and wicked. "Just watch the space, Sir Arden. After all... since when were you so deeply worried about me, the villainous prince?"
Lucien flinched backward, clearing his throat aggressively as a dark, subtle flush hit the tips of his ears. "I am not worried! But I swore a sacred vow to both His Imperial Majesty and the Goddess that I would protect your life. If something happens to you in that arena because of your own arrogance, I will never forgive myself."
Cassian turned his back to walk toward the arena, his internal monologue rolling its eyes so hard it physically hurt.
'LIAR!!' Cassian screamed internally. 'Fuck you, you want me dead more than anyone else in this room right now! You're just mad you aren't the one holding the sword!'
"Just wait and watch, Lucien," Cassian called back over his shoulder, his voice dripping with cool confidence. "I'll prove you wrong."
'So much for my plan of doing absolutely nothing in this lifetime,' Cassian thought as he walked down the corridor toward the locker rooms. 'But at least my grueling years as a rogue mercenary in timeline six, and my multiple lifetimes of literally running for my absolute life from Lucien, are finally going to pay off. I know exactly how to handle a sword. But I have to keep it mild. I can't afford to arouse another massive wave of suspicion like I did at the magic exam. We're going to keep this moderate, simple, and swift.'
*****