The Heaven’s Eye Tower in the capital was nearly identical to the Tower in Teira, save for the sheer number of people who went there to socialize with their friends and business partners.  It was the hangout of the rich and powerful in the city, a place for refined and wealthy people to congregate and socialize, a place where they could receive the attentions of the Heaven’s Eye attendants, some of the most beautiful people in the entire Kingdom.

Most of the people in the huge lounge were doing just that, spending time with each other, talking over food, going about some of their less important business.  In one fairly out of the way corner that gave a fantastic view of the rest of the huge lounge and all of the people in it were three young women, recently reunited after returning to the capital after having spent several years apart, communicating with each other only by mail.

One was darker skinned than what was usual for the Bull Kingdom, with the deep natural tan of the natives of the Samar Kingdom across the Gulf of Discord south of the Bull Kingdom.  She was dressed in a red and yellow dress and wore a warm and inviting smile on her beautiful face.

The second had the looks of a Bull Kingdom native save for rather unusual long silver hair and was dressed in a blue skirt and white jacket.  If anyone had been tempted to try and approach them by the first woman’s inviting demeanor, they would swiftly have that temptation killed for the second woman had an attitude that looked cold as ice that promised nothing for anyone who might disturb the three of them.

The last was dressed in an elaborate black sleeveless dress that reached her ankles and had a slit up to her thigh, complimented with a pair of long black gloves that extended past her elbows.  She had piercing green eyes that shone like the finest of emeralds, long red hair that fell down her back like a river of fire, and the kind of figure that could inspire lust and envy in just about anyone who saw her.

These women were Elise and the two noblewomen who had taken the enrollment test with Leon the day before.

“… but every time I tried to get within range, you would skip around me!  It was sooo frustrating!  I could barely even touch you!” Asiya, the darker-skinned woman, exasperatedly complained.

Elise had been curious about how her friends had fared during the enrollment test, and Asiya had been quite eager to sate her curiosity.  The power and written tests were boring and could be ignored, but Asiya narrated the combat test with enthusiasm, energetically gesturing and almost acting out the first duels right there in the booth.

“Perhaps you should train a little more, prepare yourself to face anyone with any weapon,” said Valeria, the silver-haired woman, with an expression of cold dispassion that was broken only by the shallowest of smiles sent Asiya’s way.

“Hey!  I train plenty!  You’re just a monster with that spear!” Asiya pouted.

For a moment, a tiny smile of pride appeared on Valeria’s lips when her skill was brought up, but it was gone so fast that only her two friends saw it.  “Well, then we should just train together.  Maybe some of my monstrousness will rub off on you.”

“Yeah!  Let’s do that!  What about you, Elise?  You need to train too, right?”

Elise smiled and laughed at the thought.  “Oh, I don’t rely on violence so much here.  Besides, ascension through the tiers of magic doesn’t necessarily need warrior’s training, right?  But I would love to train with you two regardless, even if all I do is sit there and watch.”

“But you should join in!  Come on, it would be so fun!”  Asiya almost reached out and grabbed Elise’s arm, but restrained herself.

“Oh, I’ll consider it.  By the way, did anything else happen during that combat test?  Something unexpected, maybe?”  Elise had seen Leon at the training field, and she couldn’t imagine that his appearance there wasn’t attention-grabbing.

“… There was indeed some unexpected excitement,” Asiya answered.  “A Valeman was there, and he challenged Gaius Tullius!  Everyone thought the Valeman would lose, but he beat Gaius so badly he passed out from embarrassment!”

“I don’t think he passed out from the embarrassment,” Valeria muttered as she remembered the vicious strike Leon made against Gaius’ spine when the nobleman tried to rise after being beaten down.

“I’ve never met the Young Lord Tullius, but I’ve heard that he has some talent with the blade, how was he beaten so quickly?” Elise asked with a knowing smile.

“Gaius is quite skilled,” Valeria confirmed.  Elise fully believed her, for Valeria’s father was the Exarch of Calabria, a trading city that lay on the Naga River and bordered Gaius’ home Duchy.  The two had known each other for years, and Elise had even lent her ear once in a while to Valeria’s complaints about his attempts to court her a couple years ago.  “This Valeman, however, was unrelenting and came at Gaius with the kind of savage ferocity that Gaius didn’t seem to expect.  A bit naive of him, given who he was fighting against.”

“What was this Valeman’s name?” asked Elise.  She felt it was obvious who this Valeman was, but she wanted to be sure.

“I think it wa—" Asiya suddenly cut herself off.  Her eyes widened in disbelief and she stared at the young man who just walked in through the Tower’s front door and stood there just past the doors looking a little lost.  “That’s him!  The guy who just walked in!”  She wasn’t so rude as to point, but she did indicate where she was looking with an emphatic nod.

Valeria looked over at Leon, but her icy expression didn’t even flicker.  Elise, however, allowed a devilish smile to appear on her face.

“Leon…” she whispered, just loud enough for Asiya and Valeria to hear.

Asiya turned her eyes towards her friend with a look of shock.  “Do you know him?” she asked.

Elise nodded at Asiya, before apologizing as she rose from her seat.  “I’m sorry, but this is something that I really ought to take care of…”

As Asiya and Valeria stared in surprise and wonder, Elise walked towards Leon with an ethereal grace.

Leon didn’t notice her approach.  The air was filled with the single most delicious scent he had ever experienced, and his eyes were glued to the restaurant adjacent to the lounge where it was wafting from.  He was tempted to walk over and see what it was, but before he could, Elise walked up and lightly tapped his shoulder.

Leon was momentarily startled and almost drew his sword until he turned and saw Elise’s familiar bright green eyes and impish smile.

“What a coincidence, seeing you here, Leon!” she said with a wide and welcoming smile.

Leon’s face immediately lit up with an unabashed smile, though it quickly disappeared as his cheeks went a bit red.  He could see a few of the other patrons giving him dirty looks, though whether that was because he was an outsider or because he was talking with Elise, he wasn’t certain.  Regardless, he didn’t want to look weak in public and did his best to keep his expression stoic and unreadable.

In that, he was only moderately successful.

“Wasn’t… uh, expecting to see you here,” Leon said, his voice only a little bit shaky.

[HA!]  Xaphan was watching, as he had little else to do until Leon got those potion ingredients and couldn’t help but loudly laugh at Leon’s obvious lie.

Of course, Leon knew she’d be here.  He wouldn’t have put so much effort into preparing himself this morning had he not been expecting her.  The past month and a half had helped him get a little more used to being out among people, so combined with his mental preparations, he felt a little more confident in his ability to talk to her.

“I was only in Teira to get away from the capital.  Ajax is my uncle, and his Tower seemed as good a place as any to get away for a while.”  Elise flashed him a radiant smile, then moved a little closer.  “So, what brings you here?  Looking for something in particular?  Or are you just here to see me?”

Leon’s heart raced and his blush deepened, but he was still able to form words.  “Yes…  I need to find some, uh, ingredients…  There’s a potion I need to make…”  He stumbled a bit on his words a little, but Elise’s smile only grew wider, helping to soothe his anxiety.

“Oh…  That’s disappointing, I was hoping you had come here to see me…”  She pretended to pout and gave him a heart-melting look of disappointment.

“I have to admit…” Leon hesitatingly began, “… that this matter wasn’t time sensitive.  Could’ve come here at any time to get these ingredients, but… well, I’d hoped to run into you…”

With that admission, Elise’s expression changed startling quickly, turning into a brilliant, beaming smile.

“I’m glad you decided to come here, you’ve already made my day that much brighter,” she replied.  “But we can talk about that later.  You’re here for business, so let’s get that business out of the way right away.”

Elise took his arm, causing Leon to freeze up a little in instinctive displeasure at the unexpected physical contact, but since it was her, he held his tongue and did his best to ignore the side of him that was demanding more personal space.  Besides, her touch was light and more suggestive than demanding, though she did quite easily steer him toward the back of the Tower, toward the magical lifts that would take them to the other floors.

So taken was Leon with her at that moment and so in his own head about his behavior that he didn’t notice her rather blatantly glancing over to the corner of the room where Asiya and Valeria were sitting, watching their every move.  Asiya was staring with something that resembled awe and wonder, with a hint of playful admiration at Elise’s decidedly bold behavior.  Valeria, meanwhile, remained quite cold and inexpressive, but Elise knew her silver-haired friend well-enough to recognize the surprise and acceptance in Valeria’s demeanor.

A moment later, the two stepped into one of the lifts and Elise activated the runes to take them to the second floor.  That was where all the merchants affiliated with Heaven’s Eye gathered and was the best place in the entire city to find rare and valuable materials.

“So what ingredients are you looking for?” she asked as the lift began to move.

“A core from a fifth-tier fire beast, a feather from a fourth-tier bird possessing wind magic, and a century-old Kagu flower,” Leon replied, most of the uncertainty and anxiety in his voice vanishing as he composed himself and focused on the task at hand.

Elise looking thoughtful for a moment.

“I’m not sure about the Kagu flower, those are rare and only grow in places with a high density of fire magic in the air, but the other two shouldn’t be too hard to find since they’re less specific.  Still, I think we should be prepared to have to make some custom orders; as prepared as Heaven’s Eye is, we don’t have absolutely everything in our stocks.”

When the lift doors opened, Elise lead Leon to the most reliable merchants, but unfortunately, they couldn’t find any of the ingredients Xaphan needed.  They asked around for almost an hour, but all to no avail.  In the end, Leon was forced to place a formal order with Heaven’s Eye that Elise facilitated for the organization to find the ingredients for him.

“Heaven’s Eye will send a messenger to you when we find what you’re looking for.  All you need to do now is wait.”  Elise closed the distance between herself and Leon and lowered her voice to an intimate whisper.  “For now, how about we go downstairs and talk a little?  I’d like to get to know you better…  Or if you like, we could continue to look around some more, surely you need another weapon or some armor, too?”

‘Armor?  How did I forget that?!’ Leon thought with a little panic.  He glanced around at the merchants around him and saw a few pieces of armor, though none that could be said to be particularly well-made.  They were also fairly expensive, going for thousands or tens of thousands of silver coins.

Leon shivered a little when he thought of the potential cost of getting armor custom-made if these were the prices for generic armor.  He had a small mountain of money left for him from his family, but he still balked at spending so much of it at once even on something so critical as armor.  For now, he decided to simply wait and see what kind of armor he should be given during his training.  He doubted he’d need better armor for a while, anyway.

“I should probably get going.  I slacked off a bit today, and I need to get some training done.  I want to enter the Knight Academy as ready as I can possibly be.”

This legitimately disappointed Elise more than she expected, but she didn’t pressure him to stay.  They’d already had almost two hours together, and that was more than enough, at least for now.

“Of course.  You’ve some august company with you this year, and you need to be on top of your game if you’re to distinguish yourself.  But don’t be a stranger, if you need anything at all, you know where to find it.” she said quietly, her smile fading a little as she took a step back.  Leon gave her a small smile and gently nodded.

Together, they silently returned to the lounge.  Elise didn’t hang on his arm this time, giving him some space, and despite his initial reluctance, Leon was a little disappointed that she didn’t make that move.  He briefly considered making one of his own or of trying to spark up some kind of conversation with her, but he wound up spending so much time trying to think of something to say that the lift doors opened before he could say anything at all.

So, Elise escorted him to the Tower’s door and there they said their goodbyes.  Leon walked away with none of the ingredients that he’d gone to Heaven’s Eye to acquire, but he still left in a good mood.  As far as he was concerned, it had been time well-spent.

-—

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