Chapter 201: So close, yet so far
Chapter 201: So close, yet so far
Cassian had already left the noisy duo behind. When he reached the third floor, he found the sign that read **Registration Office Professor Pharsa Muclein** on the wooden door at the end of the long corridor.
He tapped the door softly. From inside, an exhausted, weary female voice murmured, "Come in..." as if she were drowning.
When Cassian turned the doorknob and stepped inside, he realized he had entered a miniature chaos.
The room was in a disastrous state. Hundreds of documents scattered on the floor, thick books piled up and about to topple over, empty coffee cups, and scrolls of parchment covered everywhere. There was almost no clean space to take a step.
Behind this mountain of paper sat a woman behind a desk. Her dark green hair was messy as if it had not been combed for days, resembling a bird’s nest. The black bags under her eyes were so deep that her face was pale enough to resemble a corpse. She was looking at the pile of papers in front of her with empty, drained eyes.
Without even lifting her head, the woman pointed with her hand to the chair across from the desk. "Go have a seat," she muttered.
Then she looked at Cassian from the corner of her eye. When her eyes caught sight of the tattered, dusty clothes on Cassian, her face involuntarily tightened, and an annoyed expression appeared. "I hope you will not waste my time required for registration."
Cassian walked over, crushing the documents on the floor without caring, and sat in the chair.
The woman picked up a quill pen and began a barrage of questions.
"Are you a noble?"
"No."
The woman let out a deep sigh. "Do you serve any noble house?"
"No."
The woman’s eye began to twitch. She tapped the pen lightly on the desk. "Is your family very wealthy? Or do you have a sponsor covering your education, guild support, or something?"
"No."
Pharsa’s patience finally overflowed. She threw the pen onto the desk, ran her hands through her hair, and shouted in anger.
"THEN HOW ARE YOU GOING TO AFFORD THE FIFTY GOLD ENTRANCE EXAM FEE, BOY?! This is not a charity! If you do not have money, why are you stealing my time? I have not slept for three days anyway!"
Cassian did not react in the slightest to the woman’s hysterical breakdown. He merely raised his right hand slowly into the air. His palm was facing upward. The fabric of space rippled slightly, and out of nowhere, an embroidered silk pouch that looked quite heavy dropped directly into Cassian’s palm. Dimensional magic...
Pharsa’s jaw clenched, her eyes widening in astonishment. Her anger had instantly extinguished, leaving bewilderment in its place. Slapping a hand to her forehead, she asked in disbelief, "How did you... sneak that inside? Did security not check you at the gate? It is forbidden to bring dimensional items into this building!"
Cassian dropped the pouch full of gold onto the desk among the papers with a solid thud. Looking at the woman with his red eyes, he said nothing.
Pharsa shook her head. "Ahhh... Who cares really. I just do my job."
She pulled the pouch toward herself, quickly checked the gold inside, and tossed it into her drawer. Then, she pulled an officially sealed paper from under the pile on the desk and handed it to Cassian.
"Sign here. And fill out these fields completely."
Cassian took the paper. The form requested details such as the candidate’s class whether Mage, Warrior, or Support, which element they specialized in, and the sword or magic school they belonged to.
Cassian took the quill and filled it out quickly.
When he reached the class section, he marked the **Warrior Class** box without thinking.
When he came to the main element section, he circled the **Ice** and **Flame** elements.
For the sword art or school section, he clearly wrote **NONE** in bold letters.
He signed the paper and handed it back to Pharsa. Pharsa took the paper and skimmed it. A warrior... both ice and flame elements... and no sword art on top of that. "An interesting way to commit suicide," she muttered internally but did not speak up.
She pulled a thick, silver gilded ticket from her drawer and handed it to Cassian.
"Take this. It is your ticket for the entrance exam. Be at the academy in exactly two days at 11:00 in the morning. If you are even one minute late, you will be eliminated. No objections accepted."
As Pharsa buried her head back into the documents on the desk, she shooed Cassian away, pointing to the door with her hand. "Go on, I am swamped with work, get out."
Cassian took the ticket and, without uttering a single word, stood up and left the room.
### A Familiar Description
A few minutes had passed since Cassian’s departure when the door to Pharsa’s room opened joyfully, without a knock this time.
The person who entered was one of the Academy’s top students. She had flame red hair cascading down her shoulders and emerald green eyes brimming with life.
Iris Inferna... the small, fragile girl had grown up, turning into a young woman making a name for herself at the academy with her beauty and talent.
On the silver tray she carried in her hands were two steaming mugs of fresh coffee and two large slices of dessert covered in chocolate sauce.
Professor Pharsa, when she saw the girl walking through the door, had her irritable and exhausted expression instantly dissipate.
A large, genuine smile spread across her face. Opening her arms wide, she practically groaned, "Irisssss! I want to resign! Being an adult is too exhausting, save me from here!"
Iris, trying not to drop the tray in her hands, giggled at Pharsa’s dramatic rebellion. As she placed the tray on a relatively empty corner of the desk, her eyes locked onto Pharsa’s face. She paused for a moment, then burst into a huge fit of laughter, unable to contain herself.
"Hahahaha! Professor..." Iris said, holding her stomach from laughing. "Since when have you been growing a mustache? Ahahaha!"
Pharsa froze with her arms suspended in the air. She blinked. "What? What mustache? Why are you laughing, Iris?"
Wiping the tears from her laughing eyes, Iris picked up the small hand mirror tucked between the books at the edge of the desk and held it up to Pharsa’s face.
When Pharsa looked in the mirror, she could not believe her eyes. Someone had drawn a highly detailed, curled handlebar mustache and a goatee on her face with black ink! Combined with the bags under her eyes, her reflection in the mirror looked like a crazy pirate who had escaped from an asylum.
"HAAA?!" Pharsa shrieked, covering her face with her hands in horror. "What... How?! Since when has this been on my face?!"
She tried to wipe the ink, but instead of coming off, the ink spread even further, making her face pitch black.
Trying to suppress her laughter, Iris asked, "You fell asleep at the desk before I arrived, did you not? Surely someone sneaked in and drew it."
"NO!" groaned Pharsa, making the black ink on her face even worse. "Just now, two minutes ago, I was accepting someone’s exam form! I spoke with him, I interrogated him!"
Iris blinked in astonishment. "You mean... that person seriously spoke to you while you were in this state?"
"Yes! I even yelled and shouted at him!" Pharsa’s face had turned beet red from embarrassment and anger. "Ah! Was I in that state?! That damn white hair, ominous bastard! He definitely saw this disgrace on my face but did not say a single word to warn me! It is all his fault!"
While Pharsa continued to mutter to herself, the cheerful expression on Iris’s face suddenly froze. Her heart began to beat rapidly in her chest.
"White hair...?" whispered Iris. Her voice had suddenly dropped, her joy giving way to a deep, suffocating melancholy.
Pharsa paused from wiping her face and looked at Iris. When she noticed the sudden change and the sense of being lost in the girl’s eyes, she forgot her anger.
"Iris? Are you okay, sweetie?" she asked with concern. "Do you know that disrespectful brat? He was a weird guy with scary, red eyes."
White hair... Red eyes... Cassian’s silhouette fell into Iris’s mind.
Iris swallowed hard. She tried to swallow the bitter lump that settled in her throat. Forcing her facial muscles, she placed that familiar, bright, but now equally fake forced smile on her face. She shook her head.
"No..." she said, her voice trembling, though she tried to hide it. "No, I do not know him. He just... he just reminded me of an old friend, that is all."
She quickly wiped away a teardrop that was about to fall from her eye and, to avoid making it obvious, took a large forkful of the chocolate dessert on the desk and stuffed it into her mouth. Her cheek puffed up like a squirrel.
As she chewed the dessert, she averted her eyes and murmured in a muffled voice, "Come on... let us clean that face of yours, Professor. Otherwise, you will be disgraced before the whole academy."
_ _ _
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