Yoonjung stared at the flower dreamily, ‘Seriously, who are you?’ she whispered to the flower. It had since then been days she last went there. The flower stood proudly still in the plastic glass that Yoonjung found, filled with water.

Yoonjung glanced at her watch and gasped, ‘I’ll be late if I don’t go now!’ she hurriedly exited the room, locked the door and sped off to her class. Jieun was nowhere in the room when she woke up so she concluded the mysterious girl was already at school.

Hyosung was utterly disappointed when she arrived late at the dorm’s cafeteria yesterday. To save herself the trouble of facing a sulking wolf, Yoonjung told them the truth that she was bullied by Mirae and her friends(followers) before she got lost in the forest. She skipped the part while she was in the forest, feeling it was something private and a precious secret that only she could know.

‘Yoonjung ah!’ Hani waved her hand to grab Yoonjung’s attention. Hani stayed at the same floor as she was, so they had made an agreement to go down the lift together for school.

‘Kaja,’ Yoonjung breathed out and the two of them entered the lift to go to the ground floor. The lift made a ding sound as it reached the ground floor and both of them exited the lift.

‘Hani,Yoonjung!’Hyosung greeted them. Together with Jooyoung, she walked towards Yoonjung and Hani as they greeted back.

‘Let’s go,I need to buy more food for me in the school’s cafeteria,’Hyosung said.

‘Didn’t you just eat breakfast at the dorm’s cafeteria?’Yoonjung mused out loudly.

The four of them began to walk out of the building.

‘Oh Yoonjung, since you’re new to this school, let me tell you something. What day is today?’Hyosung asked, linking her arms to Yoonjung’s.

‘Friday?’Yoonjung lifted an eyebrow.It’s Friday today,right?

‘Correct!And,I don’t know if the outside world knows, but every Friday,we will be having sparring,’ Hyosung explained.

‘So,all the students will be there?’Yoonjung’s eyes widened.

‘Nope,’Jooyoung interrupted. ‘Each year will have its own time schedule to go sparring. For freshmen, since they’re don’t have to sit for very,very important international examinations, their study time decreases. Their sparring schedule is the first three hours from the start of school.’

‘So,8 am to 11 am?’Yoonjung tried to put on the puzzles.

‘Yes,’Jooyoung nodded.

‘For sophomores, theirs will be from 11 to 2. We, the juniors, will have our turns from 2 to 5. Sad,isn’t it?’Hani pouted, ‘Since we’re near to our important senior year, we have to study first while the freshmen and sophomores have fun watching the sparring.’

‘I take it that,the seniors will be sparring from 5 to 8 p.m?And they have to finish their school time during the day since they’re seniors?’Yoonjung tried guessing.

Hyosung hummed, nodding ecstatically, ‘Sparring is the time to show your ike’s strength. You can choose anyone from any class to spar with you. If your ike becoming stronger, you can promote to a higher level class. It’s really fun, watching the others show off their ikes and tricks.’

‘Ah,’Yoonjung nodded,indicating she understood, ‘So,are you all going for sparring to show your ike’s strength?’

The three of them exchanged glances and looked uneasily away.

‘What?Did I miss something?’Yoonjung asked.

‘Aniyo,’Hyosung shook her head.

‘So?’Yoonjung tilted her head.

‘The thing is, we don’t really fancy getting into other classes,’ Hani blurted out, ‘The fifth class always gets bullied for being the weakest of the school and for being commoners. Our bonds between our classmates are stronger since we always protect each other from the bullies. Even if our ikes become stronger, we’ll keep it a secret because we don’t want to move classes. Even if we change classes, we will be taunted for coming from the fifth class. So our classmates are like our family!’

Yoonjung frowned her eyebrows, ‘That’s…bad.’

‘But it doesn’t mean we don’t have friends from other classes. There are nice and bad people,’Jooyoung added.

Yoonjung smiled, ‘Of course.’

Yoonjung glanced around, they were in the middle of the track which separated the boy’s dorm and the girl’s dorm.The sight of girls running to the boy’s dorm took Yoonjung’s attention away from the girls. ‘Hey, where are they going?Are girls allowed to enter boy’s dorm.’

‘Them?’Hyosung pointed at the girls. ‘Oh,they’re going to the princes’ house.Technically, they can’t enter the building, but they can be outside of the building. But the girls have to pass by the dorm to go to the princes’ mansion.’

‘Wait,wait.Princes’ house?They have their own house?Why don’t they live in the dorm like the others?’Yoonjung frowned.

‘Because they’re the princes?’Hani said in a ‘duh’ tone.

‘But there’s a border that separated the land of the house which makes the girls can’t enter further. See that building on top of the hill?’Hyosung nudged her head towards a direction.

Yoonjung followed her gaze. She couldn’t see the building clearly since it was quite far from where she was standing and it was hidden by the trees, but from the size of the structure, she knew it was not just a house, it was a mansion.

 One question came across her mind, ‘If the girls wait for them there, how come they never see the princes?’

Jooyoung snapped her fingers together, ‘That’s where Fumus Prince comes in.’

‘You know his ike?’Yoonjung asked surprisingly.

Jooyoung chuckled before her face became serious, ‘Of course no, honey. You see, fumus means smoke. And in this case, the Royals of Fumus is known for the ike of teleportation, so obviously one of the princes has the ike of teleportation!’she ended off with an excited skip.

‘Are you from Fumus clan?’Yoonjung wondered, in which Jooyoung eagerly nodded. ‘That explains everything,’Yoonjung added with an amusing smile.

Jooyoung giggled, ‘Oh,please. Don’t mention it,’she slapped Yoonjung’s arm embarrassingly making her jumped a little.

Yoonjung lifted both her eyebrows worriedly and looked over to Hyosung and Hani who mouthed “Fangirl mode” while pointing at Jooyoung.

While Jooyoung was giggling all by herself, Yoonjung shuffled nearer to Hyosung. ‘The princes… I assume they never join the sparring before?’

Hyosung hummed, ‘Never.’

Loss of focus in classes.Teachers talking to themselves.Eager glances to the watch.Usual signs for every last Friday’s classes.

10,9,8….

Yoonjung swore she could hear everyone’s thoughts even though no one was making a sound.

3,2,1.

‘Seosaeng-nim!It’s already 2 o’clock!’Jin stood up dramatically while showing his watch.

Miss Song, the Language teacher who taught both ancient and modern languages rubbed her temple in annoyance. ‘Open to page-,’

‘NOOOOO!’the whole class groaned.

Miss Song rolled her eyes, ‘All of you weren’t even listening to what I have been discussing. Now, go to page 121 and finish all the questions. That will be your homework.’

The students quickly scribbled a quick reminder to do the homework on their notebook.

‘Can we go now?’Jimin asked, his fingers were tapping the desk impatiently.

Miss Song swatted her hand, as if waving away a fly, ‘Yes, you may go now.Out you go.’

The class broke into cheers before they burst through the door, bringing along their gym clothes.

‘Where are we going, gym?’ Yoonjung followed Hyosung who was leading the way together with Hani and Jooyoung.

Hani scoffed, ‘Of course not!We’re going to the amphitheater!’

‘A-Amphitheater?’ Yoonjung’s eyes bulged widely as they walked out of the building.

A sudden eerie familiar feeling haunted her body. Yoonjung immediately whirled around, looking everywhere to catch where the feeling was coming from.

‘What is it Yoonjung?’ Hani asked worriedly, watching her new friend reacting queerly.

‘I feel lie..,’Yoonjung’s sentence trailed off, I’m being watched. ‘..N-Nothing,’ Yoonjung offered a reassuring smile.

‘Okay then,’Hani shrugged off.

Yoonjung her dry lips, Seolma….was it, the hunters?

‘Yah..this school is really no joke,’with widened eyes, Yoonjung whispered in awe. Stunned, she just stood there like a frozen statue until Hyosung pulled her to sit.

‘Why is this place so big?’Yoonjung asked, observing every details of the building. There were 4 big screens magically floating in the air, an automatic mark counter and thousands of seats.

The amphitheater is in oval, with the juniors only filling in not even the quarter of the seats. They were seated at the right side, as what had been instructed by Mr Lee, their gym teacher. The difference between sparring lesson and gym lesson was that during sparring, they would fight as if they were in a real fight with the exception of causing others death, while during gym lesson, they would learn how to combat, emphasized on their skills and stuffs.

‘Isn’t this place is used for only each year at different times? Why are they building this so big?’ Yoonjung asked again when her previous question wasn’t answered.

‘Because there will be Sparring Tournament annually, and all the students from elementary to high school will gather here to watch the tournament,’ Jooyoung explained kindly.

‘Ah,jinjja?Is there any requirement to enter the tournament?’

‘Um, high school students spar with high school students, middle with middle, elementary with elementary,’ Jooyoung said.

‘Have you tried to enter before?’Yoonjung asked curiously.

Jooyung shook her head abruptly, ‘No thanks. I’m going to get myself killed. It’s a tournament where girls have to spar with boys if they were paired up together.’

‘W-What?It’s not separated between boys and girls,’Yoonjung frowned deeply.

Jooyoung shook her head. Hyosung,who had been listening since before turned to Yoonjung, ‘Look to your left, see that boy walking down the stairs towards Mirae?’

Yoonjung looked at the direction Hyosung pointed. She squinted her eyes to get a clear view and saw a male student with a cap on and piercing gaze was smirking as he headed towards Mirae. Yoonjung nodded her head, ‘Yes. Why? What’s wrong with him?’

‘That’s Song Minho, better known as Mino. Class 3-1, from Glaciem clan. He’s a noble and was the champion for last year’s Sparring Tournament for sophomores. He got third for overall rounds-,’

‘Wait!I still don’t understand.Champion for sophomores, third overall? What does it mean?’Yoonjung held out her palm out to stop Hyosung from explaining further.

‘You see, the Sparring Tournament is open for all the students who want to enter. That means, your sparring enemy can be either your junior or senior. If you’re the last one in the batch to lose in the tournament, that means you’re the champion for your year batch. Since Mino qualified to finals and was the last person in our batch to lose in the tournament, he’s automatically our batch’s champion.’

Yoonjung gulped, ‘That’s quite a complicated explanation,’ she commented, blinking rapidly as she digested all the new information.

Hyosung laughed, slapping Yoonjung’s arm as she said, ‘Sorry new student.’

‘Didn’t you ask before about the Kingkas?’Hani chimed in, ‘He’s one of them.’

‘I thought the princes are the Kingkas?’Yoonjung tilted her head.

Hani waved her hand in dismissal, ‘The princes never showed themselves. Since they never bothered to be one, the current Kingkas are taking their places as Kingkas. Not that the princ