NOVEL NEXT Chapter 223: Chapter 1—?
The magical kingdom of Sedaveria had a long history of culture, magic and influence.
Mages have ruled the kingdom for thousands of years. As such, the Imperial Magical Academy was a cornerstone of the kingdom.
The Imperial Magical Academy was a school where young mages aged fifteen and over attended, to be educated in magic for three years, and to form networks that would be crucial for their future.
The academy had expansive grounds, centrally located in Sedaveria’s Capital. There are numerous towers and buildings, dedicated to learning.
Today was the first day of classes. New and returning students prepared for their day.
Sunlight shone through the windows, sparkling off exquisite jewellery. Long waves of pink hair, golden flower hairpiece, a baby-blue dress with white ruffles…the students’ eyes couldn’t help but follow this person’s movement—
—Lady Cassiopeia Schauss.
Currently, the most prominent healing noble family were the Schauss Family, who led a dukedom south of Sedaveria’s capital. Duke Schauss and his wife had three children: two older sons named Orion Schauss and Perseus Schauss, and one younger daughter named Cassiopeia Schauss.
This year was Lady Cassiopeia Schass’s first year.
Currently, she walked with two of her best friends, Lady Ethel Silvercharm and Lady Alexandra Slate, following the stream of students heading to the grand hall of the Imperial Magical Academy for the first assembly of the year. As they walked, Cassiopeia greeted the other students that she knew, including Prince Alexius.
However—
However, there was no Lady Alyssa Rosewood glaring at Cassiopeia from among the crowd. And so, Cassiopeia smoothly entered the grand hall and took a seat with her friends.
The hall had a tall, curved ceiling supported by stone arches, and large windows on both sides let in the brilliant morning light.
Cassiopeia looked around; she had a sense of excitement and anticipation in her chest. The words in the novel weren’t as detailed as what she could see with her own eyes. The Academy had exquisite architecture and interior design. She was looking forward to three happy school years, years that would replace her old less-than-happy experiences in her first life.
After all the students sat down, the student council, the teachers, the vice dean, and the dean filed in, onto the stage.
Dean Palatinate smiled. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Imperial Magical Academy of Sedaveria…”
Dean Palatinate also welcomed the new ‘preparatory’ students—commoner mage students who were starting one year earlier, so that they could learn how to read and write and also learn some basic magic that noble mage students already knew by the time they entered the academy.
After he finished speaking, Dean Palatinate invited the student council president to speak.
Crown Prince Rian rose to his feet. He walked to the speakers’ podium. “Thank you, Dean Palatinate. Good morning, all. I am Crown Prince Rian Azure, though my role today is your student council president…”
Crown Prince Rian explained the regular tutoring and help-sessions, organised by the student council, where students could get extra support and study together.
Once the assembly was over, the first-year students followed Lord Zaffre to their first class—a lecture in magical theory.
Except, Cassiopeia didn’t follow Lord Zaffre. She had passed the magical theory component of the alternative-stream entrance exams, so she didn’t need to attend magical theory. She had also passed magical history and political science, thanks to her tutor.
However, she hadn’t passed combat magic nor spell-writing theory—because as a healer, magical combat wasn’t important for her, and she also leaned into using spoken spells rather than written spells—so she’ll have to attend those classes. This was a good thing—Cassiopeia still wanted to enjoy the school life.
Cassiopeia temporarily bid farewell her two friends, who hadn’t taken the alternative stream exams, and followed Vice Dean Blewitt, to learn about the research subject.
Vice Dean Blewitt explained how they had two weeks to choose a supervisor and a topic. She then invited Dr Lady Rose to speak and give advice about choosing a topic and research tips, scaling the scope appropriately depending on how much time they had. Dr Lady Rose also gave some ideas on possible topics and described the topics of the older students before them.
Cassiopeia had been very certain about what she wanted to do—research to convert healing processes using the reference healing method into repeatable and reproducible spells. Recently, she had a second transgender patient (!), and she could feel how repetitive some of her healing was becoming. Those parts would be perfect candidates to be turned into spells.
However, the original novel’s plots came back to her mind.
Honestly, Cassiopeia had started to forget. After so many years since she last read it—over five years now—Cassiopeia couldn’t remember a lot of the minor events in the original novel. As for the major events, she believed that they simply wouldn’t happen anymore. Alyssa wasn’t around anymore, and Prince Rian and Ayden made major changes. As for marriage with Prince Alexius? Forget it, Lady Adrienne Obsidian was Prince Alexius’s good friend, everyone believed that they were likely to marry in the future.
However, if a plague did occur…then did they have antivirals? Vaccines? These words, items, long forgotten, re-emerged in Cassiopeia’s mind at this time.
Did these exist yet? They would be useful for so many diseases.
She suddenly became very conflicted.
Vice Dean Blewitt and Dr Lady Rose passed out a small information booklet and then led everyone to the academy library, so that they could start researching possible topics.
The library was very beautiful, but Cassiopeia only spent a few minutes admiring it before heading to the healing books section and split her attention on three different ideas: the development of healing spells, anything that could be related to antivirals, and anything that could be related to vaccines and immunity gain.
There was a break for lunch, and Cassiopeia was able to meet up with her friends again. The lunch hall was noisy, as they all shared and talked about their first class.
Cassiopeia then had another research session, before attending the last class of the day, a weekly series on different skills.
Afterwards, Cassiopeia went to the clinic to see her new patient, before returning to the academy for dinner.
Over the next few days, Cassiopeia continued to split her research explorations. She was torn between what she should pursue. She discussed it a little with her friends, and they thought that working on anti-disease spells made the most sense. But then they became more hesitant when Cassiopeia explained that antivirals would be best if they were pills or potions, things that they didn’t have experience in making.
Furthermore, Cassiopeia still felt duty-bound to convert her gender transition processes into spells.
She occasionally saw Ayden around the academy, either walking somewhere, or across the dining hall, but it was never at a convenient time to talk (not to mention, Prince Rian was always next to him). Finally, she sent Ayden a message via her communication mirror.
Ayden replied back promptly, and they organised a meeting for the very next day, when they both had research sessions.
They chose to meet in Cassiopeia’s rooms.
“So, what exactly is the problem?” Ayden asked.
“It’s about my research topic.” Despite the privacy spell that Ayden had cast, Cassiopeia lowered her voice. “Do you think the plague, or a plague, would still happen?”
“The plague-curse, a vanishingly small chance. A plague, possible,” Ayden said.
Cassiopeia’s lips thinned. “In that case, have you and Prince Rian worked on vaccines and antivirals?”
Ayden’s brows rose. “No, we haven’t. That’s a very good point.”
Cassiopeia explained what she had found so far: there existed spells and potions used to target specific diseases, much like antivirals; and there were also spells used to protect against diseases, but these were typically general shield spells. Ayden and Prince Rian themselves had prompted the development of the latter, due to the reveal of bacteria and microbes.
“…I feel like there is more to be done in these spaces. But I don’t know anything about how disease-treatment spells and potions are made, and I don’t know how vaccines worked either.” Cassiopeia sighed. “But then, I still need to work on those gender transition spells. I feel like that’s something I could do…”
“Some vaccines contained part of a dead virus, but that’s the limit of my knowledge,” Ayden said. He thought for a moment. “You raised a lot of good points. Developing treatments and vaccines for diseases has the potential to benefit a lot of people, but the path there is unclear, with a lot of background material that we don’t know. Meanwhile, you’re one of the best people posed to develop gender transition spells due to your experience, and it would be more achievable during the academic year. On the other hand, I suspect that it’ll be easier to find a healer to supervise you on the disease topic.”
Cassiopeia smiled wryly. Being told that she had good points made her feel a bit better, but it ultimately didn’t help her chose what to do. “What should I do?”
“If you want, you could do both, one during school hours and one outside school hours during clinic time,” Ayden said. “But it really depends on you. What makes you most excited right now?”
“…Vaccines and antivirals,” Cassiopeia admitted.
Ayden nodded. “In that case, why don’t you speak to your father? I’m sure he’ll know a lot more about what has been done already, and who could be your supervisor and help you craft a project proposal that can be completed in nine months.”
“Okay. But…I was also thinking that we could set up a clinic or research centre to look into this. Like, an infectious disease clinic.”
Ayden’s look of approval boosted Cassiopeia’s confidence. Now that she had experience with the reference-healing clinic, Cassiopeia talked about how and who they could pull together, and how they could get funding. She even said that they’ll need to work with Prince Rian and the Royal Healers’ Association.
All in all, it was a very productive and fruitful meeting.
On the weekend, Cassiopeia returned to the Schauss’s house in the Capital and asked to speak with her father.
Her father put on pensive expression after Cassiopeia explained everything, from the idea of developing vaccines and antivirals, to the possibility of developing a research centre, and ending with her problem of choosing her research topic for school.
“A ‘vaccine’ seems like an interesting method to prevent the spread of disease,” he said. “But the mechanism at how a potion could impart life-time immunity towards a single disease is unclear. Using part of a dead virus would require us to be able to isolate that virus and ensure that it’s not alive, and even though, how can we be sure of its efficacy?” He frowned.
“It won’t be easy to develop,” Cassiopeia said.
“And setting up a research centre takes time,” Duke Schauss said.
Cassiopeia nodded. “Will you help me, Father?”
“Of course.” Duke Schauss. “I know some healers who could be suitable supervisors to assist you on this topic, not to mention that you have me and your mother. As for your work with the reference healing clinic, a new student mage will begin research in two weeks. That researcher will be able to assist you in developing those ‘gender transition’ spells.”
As part of the clinic, Duke Schauss had promised to fund a student healer mage for three years. After a round of searching and interviews, a suitable person had been found.
Cassiopeia’s expression became better. “Oh! Ayden said I could work on the spells on clinic time, but a new researcher would be helpful.”
Duke Schauss smiled indulgently. “Don’t worry, Cassiopeia. I’ll sort everything out for you.”
Two days later, Cassiopeia’s father put her in touch with a senior healer named Healer Alabaster. That healer agreed to be Cassiopeia’s supervisor (as a favour for Duke Schauss).
With the supervisor chosen and topic/theme chosen, Cassiopeia’s new school life begun.
Under the senior healer’s direction, Cassiopeia spent the research sessions during school hours to learn, learn, learn more about different healing spells and healing potions, and how they worked. She attended breakfast, lunch, dinner, and duelling and spell-writing classes with her two best friends. And she went to the clinic on afternoons and on the weekend when she had patient appointments, and also worked on developing spells based on the reference method. The new student researcher hadn’t arrived yet, so Cassiopeia focused on preparing documentation. Every day was busy, and every night, she collapsed into bed and fell to sleep instantly.
As the start of the original novel came and went, as the days passed by, Rian felt more and more confident.
Rian ultimately was the person who understood best the difference between the world of his first life and the world of the second life. If he thought too hard about all the people who had died in his first life due to the zombie plague, his chest faintly felt uncomfortable.
However, in this second life, he and Ren Xiyang and all the people they worked with had done a lot to avoid that future.
Now, when the original novel started, he had some agents monitoring key people and key locations, including monitoring the academy and Cassiopeia Schauss.
Everything was playing out differently. Different people met at different times; the class lessons themselves had changed; Cassiopeia was busy researching and working and studying, and no rival or arch enemy rose from the student cohort to replace Alyssa Rosewood’s role.
Rian didn’t relax his guard. But he was very satisfied.
This satisfaction spread into other aspects of Rian’s life. He enjoyed being the student council president for the second time, commanding the attention of the student body. He enjoyed commanding Ren Xiyang’s attention, both during the day and during the night. Even Alexius seemed more pleasing to his eyes now, though perhaps that was because Alexius was now busy with study and didn’t have so much time to bother Ren Xiyang anymore.
Even the idea of Prince Pollux and Hadrian Terra soon returning to live in the Rosewood house didn’t spark any feelings of possessiveness. Instead, Rian became very curious—had they progressed their relationship yet? Could they perhaps need a little help from him?
Pollux: achoo!
Background nobles: GASP! Rumour has it that Earl Rosewood met with Lady Cassiopeia Schauss in private, in her bedroom!
Rian: *smiles innocently* Oh?
Gosh, do you remember when Ren Xiyang revealed the existence of germs? That feels like ages ago!
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