The training staff fell to the floor with a loud thud. The blow wasn’t intended to be strong and was just for show, but even so, the prince’s body could not withstand it. Not only had he dropped the staff, but his palm was also rubbed raw, turning red and swollen.

“Oh dear! Are you all right?”

Instructor Meiran hastily came to check on him. Putting his incompetence aside, Judas was still the first prince of the kingdom. Even the smallest wound on him was a big deal. It wasn’t just the teacher who was making a fuss.

“Egret, does it hurt a lot? Hm. That human, how dare he hurt Egret.”

“Haha...”

Egret grabbed his wounded palm with his other hand and looked troubled. Yuni glared furiously at Ethan even if the boy couldn’t see her. Then she flew onto Egret’s hand with teary eyes.

“Egret…”

“Well now, it is not a serious wound.”

“But you need to stop practicing for now. I’ll give you a bag of ice to hold. Go and take a seat.”

The teacher had somehow overheard the soft murmur Egret had meant only for Yuni to hear. She gently pressed his shoulder to move as she instructed. He had no other option than to comply, so he placed the bag of ice on his injured hand and sat down in the corner while she took his place to practice with Ethan.

“Ethan, you said you’re a new transfer? I can tell from your physique that you’ve trained in martial arts. Why did you choose the art of bo staff?”

“I wanted to take this class to build my skills in handling various weapons.”

“Not because you have nothing more to learn from the swordsmanship courses?”

“I wouldn’t dare to be that conceited. It’s just…”

He didn’t react emotionally to the teacher’s provocation. Instead, he maintained a calmness in his tone.

“I wish to perfect my swordsmanship.”

As if to show his determination, he swung his staff and flawlessly demonstrated the stance he’d learned in class. Meiran’s eyes lit up with interest.

He certainly comes from a family of martial artists. He’s mastered the fundamentals in a very short time.

All the instructors and teachers at Ruvar-H were given information on each student’s identification and family because fostering talents required knowledge of the child’s background. Most of them showed skills that were related to their families and their individual experiences. But it wasn’t always the case, and in those instances, it was up to the teachers to seek out the student’s talents and help develop them. As for Ethan, he fell into the majority, having inherited the family gift.

“Your aspiration for perfection is great for a student. But...”

She trailed off and easily parried his strike. And unlike the practiced moves that were taught in class, she swiftly got under his guard, aiming at his stomach. Taken by surprise, Ethan hastily raised his staff to block, but the impact flipped it up and around, and his own staff hit him on the back.

The blow made quite a loud noise, and it made him wobble. But he hadn’t let go of his staff. Catching that detail, the teacher smiled at him.

“See? You need to be cautious from now on. Each weapon has its own principles. The nature of a staff is different from that of a sword.”

After the class was over, students swarmed around Ethan.

They had heard Instructor Meiran call him by name, and she’d said that he was familiar with martial arts. Judging by his black hair and eyes, the students of Ruvar-H had guessed his identity.

“Hi, new guy.”

“I’ve never seen any student be able to ward off Instructor Meiran’s surprise attack. Not once. I don’t think even the upperclassmen would have been able to do it!”

“As expected of the Heigar family.”

Ethan Heigar.

House Heigar rivaled House Delfia as the most powerful family in the kingdom. In short, he was the young master of the house of the duke. The swordsmanship the Heigars passed down in the family was known to be the pride of the kingdom. That fact alone had drawn many students with much respect toward him.

“Hm.”

The prince was very short compared to the kids surrounding Ethan, and Egret couldn’t get close to him again. Egret contemplated whether to say his farewells for the day, but he scratched his chin and ended up turning to go. He neither had the strength to push through the swarm of children nor felt the need to do so. Unlike the prince, Ethan had gotten a warm welcome on his first day of school. Leaving him behind, Egret walked away slowly.

This class was the last on his schedule today since he couldn’t be enrolled in many classes due to his poor health. Stepping out of the gym, Egret looked up to the late afternoon sky. It was just before sunset.

“Somehow... nothing seems to have changed about me.”

“Hm? What’s wrong, Egret? Is it because your hand hurts?”

“Oh, Yuni. Are you still thinking about that? My hand is fine.”

He spread his palm, showing how much the swelling had gone down. She gently landed on his palm and looked up at him.

“But you don’t look fine.”

“Oh? Do I not? Haha... I cannot help myself, can I.”

“What is it? What’s going on?”

“I was just thinking how nothing has truly changed.”

Egret walked along slowly with Yuni on his palm. As the afternoon classes ended, he could see students going to their evening classes, enjoying their breaks, or like him, heading back to their dormitories. They were all wearing the same uniform as him and looked of a similar age, but nobody seemed to notice him.

“Maybe it’s because they don’t know?” Yuni said while twirling her green hair.

Egret blinked in realization.

“Because they don’t know? I suppose that could be true since people do tend to be wary of unfamiliar beings.”

“Of course. Once anyone knows who you truly are, they can’t resist loving you. Just like we do.”

Before he knew it, the sun had begun to set.

The next day, Baikal ran into Judas again. This time, it wasn’t economics but on the way to history class when their paths crossed. It wasn’t a surprise, as it has happened before. But then, the prince did something unexpected.

“Good morning. You seem to always move in a group together.”

Strangely enough, Judas had greeted them first. Baikal was dumbfounded. He never once expected that he would hear such a cheerful greeting from the prince.

“We appear to have few classes in common. I will look forward to it.”

“What the…” Baikal almost cussed out loud to the prince, and he’d barely managed to pull himself together before he’d committed to it. Judas’ easygoing attitude made him even more furious. Baikal snickered and sneered. “Ha! You seem to misunderstand something, Judas. Please refrain from thinking that we’re on the same level just because we take the same classes.”

“Hm? Ah, that is not what I meant.”

“Should I clear it up for you? Don’t you think you’re disrespecting the discipline of history? You’ve missed more days than you’ve been in class, and there’s no way you’ll ever catch up. You should probably just withdraw from the class immediately.”

The students watching them turned their heads and giggled. It was a clearly condescending statement.

Although Judas was a prince, he was only a student at Ruvar-H. The other students might still practice minimal decorum out of respect for his lineage, but they were not required to embrace his incompetence. Who would accept and show respect to a prince who was always out sick? The boy was only a prince in title, having achieved barely anything significant so far in his life. His outward appearance was noble and as delicate as a doll, but it didn’t cover up the shortcomings of the white heron prince.

Judas didn’t respond and just stared blankly at Baikal, who saw that the prince’s eyes did not hold any grudge or anger. The burly boy clucked his tongue and looked away.

At that moment, the teacher came into the room and started to call attendance, beginning the class.

Despite how the students assumed Judas would stop acting peculiar after those remarks, he continued behaving strangely. He greeted and talked to his classmates as if the public humiliation hadn’t bothered him. And he wasn’t only talking to Baikal. The prince greeted every single student he ran into. He smiled despite their meek responses—he truly was persistent.

After about a week, no one could walk past the prince without noticing him. If he was famous for being invisible before, now he was displaying an overwhelming presence that made some feel uncomfortable.

Students reacted in one of two ways. Some would respond to him while reassessing him, and some felt uncomfortable and ignored him. Most of the students behaved like the second group. Ethan belonged to the rare first group. He looked at Judas, who now persistently attended bo staff class.

Judas smiled as he held the staff with improved confidence. He looked up at Ethan as he spoke. “I have been working hard to train my arm strength. Today will be different.”

Contrary to his confidence, Judas lost his grip on his staff and fell hard to the floor. He sat down and had ice bags on his hands and knees. He gave Ethan an awkward smile as if showing how sorry he was to his partner. Ethan raised his hand to gesture to Judas that it was fine, and he continued to participate in a duel disguised as a practice with Instructor Meiran.

It had been a week since this pattern had emerged. Unlike other classes, the bo staff class was always in the afternoon as it involved practicing with a partner. Certainly, the class would help Egret build this body’s stamina more than mere breathing exercises would, but his bo staff technique did not improve much. He wasn’t able to practice much when he couldn’t even block a planned strike, let alone make a strike himself.

Regardless, Egret kept meticulous notes of the class in his head. He was not able to practice the techniques because of his limited physicality. But because of his prior knowledge of martial arts, he was perfectly absorbing the theory of the art of bo staff in his mind. If he had the stamina, he could show great achievement that even Instructor Meiran would have difficulty fighting back.

“Well. This is a treat in a tall jar.”

Egret let out a laugh to himself while he curled and uncurled his injured hands. It was just like in the fable of the fox and the stork, where the fox could not get to the food in a tall jar.

It was a shame that he could not put his knowledge to use. But he was satisfied that he could at least learn the theory internally. He had lived a life as the great sage, but there was still so much that he did not know. It had been only ninety-two years of life. For a human, he had lived as long as he’d been able, but it was too short of a time to learn all the knowledge in the world and understand the truths of the universe. Even though he had been called the great sage, he had never agreed with the title.