While Lith and Samuel ate there food in silence, It looked like today was not such a day as the one to break the silence was Friya.
Instead, he ended up swamped in small talk.
"Seriously..." Friya stabbed her lasagne like she had a personal vendetta against it.
"... what kind of Professor just puts you in a room and demands that you figure out everything by yourself? How big of a jerk can she be?"
"I bet your family hired a tutor for you." Yurial chimed in, shaking his head at her remark.
"Yes, why?"
"Only tutors spoon-fed magic. My father never explained anything to me, unless I was uncapable of understanding something on my own. He would just give me books and demand results."
This time Lith joined the conversation and said "By the way, why your father didn't teach you all these exercises beforehand? It would have given you quite an edge, and I don't think the academy would care."
Yurial shook his head again, sighing.
"Oh, yeah. Just because my father is an archmage, I have all the knowledge of the world at my fingertips." He said gritting his teeth.
"I wish it was like that. Until my great-grandmother became a mage, our was a family of commoners. The two things she passed down on his bloodline are: the spite for nobles, no offense." He said raising his in sign of apology toward Friya.
"None taken." She replied, while actually shivering with fear. The Headmaster's words were finally clear to her. People like Lith would resent the nobles that abused their authority, and so would magic bloodlines.
"And her hard-working nature." Yurial continued. "In my family, the less you do, the farther you get from the line of succession. Some of my profligate siblings are as good as disowned, with no money or authority of their own.
The reason why I am the heir is because of my talent and efforts, and I could lose the title anytime if I start to slack off. When I asked my father to teach me the secrets of the academy, do you know how he replied?"
Yurial made a stern face, speaking with a low, harsh voice, mimicking archmage Deirus demeanour.
"Son, your grandfather was just a noble, not even a mage. My foundations and resources for magic where nothing compared to what I gave you. If you cannot achieve as much as I did despite all that, teaching you is pointless.
For our Kraston family to prosper, you need to be able to walk with your own legs. Getting unfair advantages make you lazy and reliant on other's help. There are no shortcuts in life to achieve what really matters. Now go back to work!"
The whole table giggled, Yurial had got so immersed in his persona to yell the last part, drawing on him the looks of their neighbours. Realizing his slip-up, Yurial had become red, so Lith asked Friya about her tutor, to cut him some slack.
"I asked her countless times." She sighed
"But she always replied that our money was buying her services, not her loyalty. And that she had no intention of taking the smallest risk with the Mage Association for such a little sum." Friya scoffed.
"With the amount we paid her, we could have probably built a fortress. What about you, Samuel?"
Samuel looked up from his food and said, "I am mostly taught by the village guard, our village being nesar the forest required a few mage but mostly small time ones"
"There I asked for one to teach me a bit and rest of knowledge I picked up here and there, so no official teacher."
"The local lord took interest in my talent, hoping I would help his son in future, sadly his heir died one night mysteriously and the attention on me was forgotten"
"But I did catch an injured thief on the run once escaping which allowed me to be allowed in academy after that Marchioness allowed my admission here."
"What about you Quylla?"
Quylla was wolfing down her second serving of lasagna, looking at Lith's steak like a hungry tiger. The mouthful she had taken was too big for her to talk, so they had to wait for her to be able to swallow.
"I had no tutor." She explained, while trying to wipe the sauce off her face.
"The healer of our village had been killed by some bandits, so his books were available for everyone. I was an orphan, too weak to work in the fields, so I began studying them.
Once I understood magic, I became the next healer, until the Duke that was managing the rebuilt of the village heard about me. He built a house for me, and when I became old enough, he recommended me to the academy. You know the rest."
She returned to give her meal all the care she could.
"That story is really impressing." Yurial said. "But at the moment I am so amazed by the amount of food you are eating that I cannot think about anything else."
"I swear, she wasn't like this yesterday." Friya said.
"It must be Vastor's tonic." Lith said. "She is shorter then me by a good head, yet she is eating more than me. I guess she needs a lot of food to catch up. Mind if I touch your head?"
Quylla violently blushed, tried to say something, but her mouth was full again, so she just nodded, lowering her head. Lith pretended to cast a spell while actually activating Invigoration.
"Your muscles are severely undeveloped, and your bone density is terrible. You need to drink more milk, for your skeleton."
"It's the first time I hear this." Yurial asked with a curious look in his eyes.
"Mind to explain?"
"It's an old saying from my village. Meat for the muscles, milk for the bones. How do you think I got so big at twelve?" Was what he actually said.
Despite being three years older than him, Yurial was just a few centimetres taller than Lith, while Friya was five centimetres (2 inches) shorter than him. To Lith's amazement, the four of them ordered a bottle of milk each, starting to drink it instead of water.
While Lith was explaining the same, he didn't notice Samuel eyes changing a bit for a second but gladly went back to normal.
Samuel thought in his mind, "These terms were used by medical ninja while making ration balls for mission, stating a balanced diet the topic which was initiated by Tsunade."
"But Lith clearly lacks the basic sharpness of a ninja along with the fact that Lith didn't show any signs of being a trained fighter based on his gait. Though Samuel had doubts, had doubts, he decided to ignore the same.
While inside his soul a dark glob stated, "Another otherworldy demon, the will of this planet is really interesting"