"Come in~"
Renna jumped up from her chair, her eyes locked on to the two gentlemen walking in the room.
"How was the school tour, Aurora? Did you like it?"
"Certainly, Madam." Aurora offered a polite bow.
"Professor D'Aramont was very generous with his explanations, I don't know how I could thank him."
"You could start by using my name." Lucien smiled.
"Now that we are colleagues, formality won't be needed."
"Don't listen to him." Renna popped in the middle of their conversation.
"He doesn't mind formality, but other professors will. You're still an assistant professor, so make sure you address them with respect."
"Speaking of which~ how's that question coming along?"
"Not good, Madam." Aurora shook his head, avoiding the little girl's glistening eyes.
"I believe this might be the biggest challenge I've faced in my life…"
'In this life, of course.' He fixed the sentence quietly in his mind.
'If I were in my prime, I would've solved it easily with some decoding or theory assistance spells…'
'But I am in no such place right now. I'll admit, I cannot force my way through this question with my theory knowledge alone.'
"No worries at all, young Aurora!" Renna took out a tray of macarons from nowhere, and offered the young man a piece.
"Brighter minds than you have tried, and all failed! Hahaha!"
"Is that so?" Aurora turned to Lucien, pretending to ignore what she said.
"Yes, indeed." Lucien nodded firmly.
"Right after you had left days ago, Madam Renna posted this question in the International Tuning Association. Many tried, but the Kael Prize had yet to be given."
"Kael Prize?" Aurora frowned. In his past life or from the inherited memory of the young boy, he had never heard of such thing.
"You must've been living inside a rock, Aurora." Madam Renna crossed her arms, stood proud.
"Kael Prize is the highest achievement a String Master could get, usually awarded for their new discoveries in Tuning. Along with my other three unsolved problems, there are now four unique questions in the prize pool waiting for a bright mind to unveil the mystery."
"And when they do, a Kael Prize will be bestowed to whoever that deserved it."
"Wouldn't that also include you, Madam?" Aurora asked curiously.
"Yes, but very bold of you to assume I could solve them myself." Renna began to stuff her mouth with macarons like a squirrel again, but for some reason, Aurora suspected its spells, he could still hear her clearly.
"I am in possession of quite a few Kael Prizes, but never once have I gotten a prize for making a question. When you perform Tuning at my level, you ought to experience a barrier at some point, and a Kael Prize worthy question could be easily formulated."
"It is the people who solve them that are the actual contributors, and more often than not, they aren't the ones who made it."
"Does that clear your mind?"
"...Let me guess, does the name also have something to do with our Lord Kael?"
"What's happening with you today?" Renna tipped on her toes, giving him a half-lidded stare, as if saying 'are you for real' with her expression.
"A joke, Madam, a joke."
"Hmmmm… Anyway," Renna ran over to her desk, and then came back to with something in her hand.
"Here is your identification card."
Aurora accepted the golden card bigger than his palm, and skimmed through the details encrypted:
[
Grand Noctis Academy Staff Identification
Name: Aurora
Title: Assistant Professor
Faculty: Distortion Type
Staff ID: KA-2026
...
]
'This is a String Artifact…'
String Artifacts were objects that had an Instrument, more precisely, they are Instruments themselves.
After successfully absorbing an Instrument, it would reside in one's soul. However, unlike String Masters or Monsters, which were humans and beasts respectively, objects exist with the absence of soul.
Since there was no place for the Instrument to go to, they would merge into the physical part of that object, granting them a Remnant Art. It can neither learn spells or progress, thus a String Artifact would only have one ability in its lifetime.
However, their natural occurrences are extremely rare. Humans could either be born with an Instrument, or absorb one later on to become String Masters. In the case of an object, the former was impossible, and the probability of the latter happening naturally was low.
Which was why, the majority of String Artifacts displayed on markets today, as well as the ID card Aurora was holding, was 'man-made' String Artifacts.
Still, that doesn't make it any less valuable.
"Are you sure, Madam?" Aurora asked hesitantly, wearing surprise on his face.
"Don't worry," Renna said lightly.
"The value of an Artifact is inconsequential compared to a student or staff at our academy."
"Treat it as your signing bonus, it is a golden ticket to everything in our Kingdom. Sign down there with your name using String letters, and its Remnant Art will allow only you, the rightful owner, to touch it."
Aurora followed his gaze to where she had pointed, and signed his name with String letters without hesitation.
"Sweet!" Renna cheerfully clapped her hands together.
"Visit the Royal Bank when you have the chance, we already opened a bank account under your name. Every fortnight, that's where we will be depositing your wage and bonuses."
"Oh, and one more thing." She looked at Lucien, the latter immediately knew what she wanted to say.
"Aurora." He took over the conversation.
"Would you mind supervising the upcoming student admission exam? Only a section is fine, we believe it's a great way to help you feel what it's like, being a teacher, before the school season starts."
"I am delighted to hear that." Aurora thanked the two board members.
"There exists of no reason why I would turn down the offer."
"Splendid!" Renna smiled joyfully, and handed Aurora a load of documents.
"On Tuesday, the day after tomorrow, the exam will start at 9am. We will have a group meeting at 6, here are just some more documents to get you ready."
She continued as Aurora began to store these files into his soul.
"As an exam supervisor, you only need to worry about the safety of the students. For academic security reasons, we won't reveal the exam content before the group meeting."
"Is there anything else you would like to ask before we call it a day?"
"Yes, Madam." Aurora asked, his voice lowered, the atmosphere suddenly became more sorrowful.
"I've been communicating with… with Professor Simon through spells, but for the first time, I am not getting any response."
"May I ask… if you know where he's been?"
Renna paused, as if she had expected it, her eyes gradually became more serious.
"Lucien."
The gentleman did not say a word, he bowed slightly, then quietly left the room.
"Aurora." She spoke, her voice grave.
"Professor Simon is dead."
"...He was killed."
"...What?"
Aurora froze, his expression written with shock, refusing to believe what he's hearing.
"We found his body in a snow field, along with the army of the Kingdom's knights that accompanied him, all confirmed."
"I need you to stay calm." Her gaze sharpened.
"Since the establishment of this Institution over 10000 years ago, there had only been 12 cases where our staff had died from unnatural causes, with the last of them dating back to 50 years ago."
"Not just us, but the International Tuning Association, and also the Royal Family, are treating this event with a high level of concern."
"We need every information we can. You were the last man alive that saw him, do you recall what happened?"
"...He told me to accompany him on a journey, to seek for something from a tomb." After a long pause, Aurora finally spoke quietly.
"It was a dangerous trip, I helped a lot with my spells… When we finally arrived at the tomb, he told me that I could leave, and handed me the recommendation letter."
"He didn't ask you to stay to help with exploring that tomb?" Renna frowned.
"He did, Madam. But I was the one who backed out." Aurora responded calmly.
"Why?" The girl looked even more confused now.
"...Just like you, Madam, I also know his situation." he continued.
"It wasn't until recent years, that he became more dire for progression. At first, I had my doubts about what's in that tomb. But then it came to me, the idea that it must've held something that could help him with his ambition."
"An unknown tomb, in the wild with countless String Monsters; no matter what the reward was inside it, whether an Instrument or String Artifact, I decided it wasn't worth risking my life for."
"The recommendation letter was what he promised me to help him reach the destination, after obtaining it, I returned to Valentine through some low-tier teleportation spells."
"...I see." Renna nodded, but did not express her opinion about his action.
Instead, she introduced another topic into the conversation, something so frightful, it was feared by all String Masters.
"Aurora, do you know anything about Collapse?"