"You're late."
Professor Mercile grunted, standing at the very epicenter of the empty combat facility, glaring at Cæ with his red eyes.
His spiky red hair, illuminated by the soft light of the evening Sun peering through the windows of the combat facility on either side, was as scary as ever, resembling the spokes of a porcupine than actual hair.
His towering, gargantuan body was even larger than that of Virlyd's, and his presence was even more overbearing than always.
"I had some student council business," Cæ replied, putting a small bag down by the wall in the facility as he stretched his body to warm up. "I am a member of the council, I should remind you. We were discussing something particularly sensitive and important related to the Vertir Duel Competition."
Professor Mercile's eyes lit up. "You must have decided who is going to be the representative of our magicademy. So tell me, who is it? It's Virlyd, isn't it? Of course, it is. You may have defeated him, and you did a marvelous job defeating him, but everyone knows that he is the strongest out of the two of you, for now at least."
Cæ shook his head, heaving a sigh. "Not everyone, apparently. Virlyd himself disagrees vehemently. He fought hard against his own nomination despite the fact that almost everybody was on his side, including me, for some strange reason. We ultimately agreed on a final battle shortly before the Magic Contest."
"Hahaha!" Professor Mercile burst out guffawing. "Of course he did! That sounds exactly like that fellow. Too afraid to accept what is clear to everybody else!"
Cæ heaved a tired sigh.
"I don't understand why he had such an inferiority complex. I've never met an affluent heir like him before; his humility and modesty put even the most humble of beggars to shame. It doesn't even make sense."
Cæ's bewilderment was understandable; it was one that was shared by a lot of people, after all. It was extreme enough that he had insisted on holding the tournament to have a meritocratic evaluation of all possible candidates. However, the fact that he insisted on Cæ even after it was clear that Cæ had only won because of the six that Virlyd had defeated before him was something that genuinely boggled the minds of even people who had known him for a long time.
"He is an excessively humble fellow," Professor Mercile admitted with a grin. "But it becomes more understandable when you understand why this is the case."
Cæ raised an eyebrow.
"What do you mean?"
Professor Mercile heaved a deep sigh. "He used to be an unremarkable kid growing up, but was as arrogant as you'd expect little richie riches to be. However, the biggest differences between him and other kids were that his parents were too… protective of his ego and feelings."
Cæ grew more curious, growing engrossed in the conversation.
"You know the thing that parents do when you're a kid, gassing you up even when you fail."
Cæ tilted his head with a mystified expression.
"What?"
"Tsk." Professor Mercile tutted with a hint of irritation. "You know, when you draw terrible scribbles for them and they praise your art skills as if you're the second coming of Artois?"
Cæ frowned. "What? Parents do such a thing?"
Professor Mercile turned towards Cæ with a glare. "Of course they do! What the hell were your parents—"
He froze as he remembered.
"Oh."
Cæ gazed at him, not entirely following.
Professor Mercile directed an uncharacteristically sorrowful gaze towards Cæ.
"I apologize."
CLASP
He patted Cæ on the shoulder.
"For what?" Cæ's tone was even more confused, completely lost.
His lack of experience with loving parents was so fundamental that he didn't even fathom what it was that he was missing. It was like someone expressing regret to him for not having tasted a particular food, or seen a particular color, or listened to a particular song.
It was even more fundamental than that.
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It was as if everybody else had a secret sixth sense organ while he had only five. He couldn't even begin to understand what he had missed growing up. Professor Mercile heaved a deep sigh as he put the matter away.
What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him. Knowing what he had missed could cause him to harbor even more resentment in his heart than Professor Mercile had sensed, which could derail his magic development and growth.
"Anyway, coming back to the point, his parents took the fib too far. Instead of just limiting it to when he was a kid, they continued it well past when he was a little toddler. They continued convincing him he was the best at everything he did for the first ten years of his life, whether it was combat training, academics, or any skilled activity. They became increasingly afraid of what would happen if they stopped playing along after playing along for so long that they tried their best to continue doing it even when he was ten years old."
Cæ winced at those words as he could easily imagine what was coming.
"And of course, as you, I'm sure you guessed, it all came crashing down when he interacted with some boys his age outside of the little play-along arrangement that his family had put him through," Professor Mercile heaved a deep breath. "He had a mental breakdown and had to be put through some serious therapy. His foolish parents passed away for unrelated reasons a few years later, leaving him to pull his way out of the abyss they had drowned him in. And ever since then…"
Professor Mercile shook his head.
"He refuses to believe that he is the best at what he does. He refuses to harbor pride. He refuses to harbor an ego. He refuses to accept praise. He only recently accepted that his talent for magic was elite despite having spent years in the Elendir Institute of Magic," Professor Mercile snorted, shaking his head. "Every time I had ever told him that he was an elite talent who had been chosen by the Elendir Institute of Magic, he would often say something like 'not at all, I'm unworthy of this esteemed magicademy.' Can you believe it? This is what happens when you have crazy rich people who are detached from reality as parents."
Cæ was stunned by the revelation. "So that's what he acts the way he does… No wonder, I always thought that it was simply far too absurd to genuinely have such a low opinion of himself under normal circumstances."
Cæ hadn't even contemplated that Virlyd's excessive humility might've been some remaining trauma from what happened to him as a child. However, it made sense that there was an extreme reason why it was happening. The modesty that Virlyd displayed was too much to have occurred naturally.
"You know what the kicker is?" Professor Mercile grumbled. "Virlyd is not merely an 'ordinary' elite talent."
Cæ raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, exactly?"
"I'm sure you must have sensed it, even if subconsciously," the professor huffed. "He thinks that he is at most an 'ordinary' elite talent in the magicademy just like the average student at this magicademy. What he doesn't realize is that…"
His eyes sharpened.
"He has far, far more potential than he realizes."
His tone was heavy.
"His self-deprecation, his trauma, his fear of believing in himself… they're psychologically holding himself back. They're shackling him from reaching his full potential, making him 'only' as strong as the rest of them. But if he ever breaks shackles and realizes his full potential."
An excited grin emerged on Professor Mercile's face.
"He will be a monster."
Cæ gazed at him with a stunned expression. "…He already feels like a monster."
"You have no idea," Professor Mercile shook his head. "His talent for martial and domain magic is truly incredible."
"What about his magic aptitude, though?" Cæ frowned. "Wasn't his magic aptitude relatively ordinary for this elite magicademy?"
"Correct, but magic aptitude is not everything, young lad," Professor Mercile huffed. "Magic aptitude is just the most important form of magical talent, but there are other forms of talent. How quickly your magic casting speed is, how quickly you memorize runes as triggers for eidos. And so on and so forth. It's just that magic aptitude is the most important, without which you can't possibly cast magic. His magicapita aptitude is elite, but his greatest talents lie in domain and martial magic, allowing him to greatly outperform his nominal magic level if not for his psychological issues. My greatest fear is…"
Professor Mercile clenched his fist, "…if he doesn't break this habit before he graduates, he will likely never outgrow it."
Cæ understood where he was coming from. A person's capacity to change psychologically is reduced by their mid-twenties. Any change from that point on would be either very gradual or would require extreme states of mind or highly impactful events that altered one's mind to an extent.
They were hardly reliable ways to overcome such a trauma.
Therapy could certainly be quite effective, but Virlyd didn't strike Cæ as the type of man to go to therapy to fix his problem.
So how else was he supposed to fix it?
Cæ froze as realization dawned on him.
He turned to Professor Mercile with a knowing gaze. "You…"
"It seems you figured it out," the professor huffed, averting his gaze. "Yes. I had hoped that he would break out of his shell by defeating a dazzling combat genius like you along with the other five, but you truly exceeded my expectations."
Cæ's stormy gray eyes sharpened. "Was the only reason that you offered to coach me him?"
"No." Professor Mercile shook his head. "I am earnest in my desire to whip your martial magic into shape. You are a true genius of combat in your own right, and it would be a shame to let you squander your potential as a magetant because of your utterly foolish choice of diversifying your magic mastery."
The man almost burned a hole in Cæ with the intensity of his glare.
Cæ heaved a tired sigh. "Still, no wonder you told me all of this. You're hoping that I can break him out of his shell in our final battle."
"It's unlikely… but yes."
Cæ shook his head.
"I don't care about his problem. I respect him, but I have my own problems to deal with. I'm not going to go out of my way to do anything for him."
"Hah, you don't need to. Just make sure that you crush him with everything you have. And that will be enough. Speaking of which, we have wasted enough time. Time to get started with the training! It's good timing, too, since I won't be your training partner this time."
Cæ raised an eyebrow. "What…?"
"You see, I have invited someone with as much talent in close-quarters combat as you. She should be arriving any minute…"
Cæ frowned.
"She?"
"Got a problem with that, punk?"
STEP
A fierce female voice drew his attention behind him.
Her athletic uniform fit her lean body, contrasting with her bronze skin, and her long curly brown hair descended to her waist in curls. Her body, despite being lean, was quite toned, since the tight athletic uniform highlighted her developed muscles.
Her light green eyes flickered with ferocity.
"I'm going to beat you up today."
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