The Secret of Ruby

a chance encounter

Tania spent her breaks tutoring Coral every day, but saw that Coral never made much progress and was very anxious about it.

“Did you write the homework I assigned you?” Tania asked sharply as soon as she came up for her after-school tutoring.

Coral's eyes swam out the window, stammered and pinched her fingers behind her back half a dozen times before finally telling Tania with difficulty that she had lost her homework paper.

Tania was instantly enraged - she really wasn't a good person to lose her temper. Still, she tried to restrain herself from lashing out at Coral, and after smoothing out a few breaths, she calmed down enough to ask:

“How did you lose it?”

“I don't know, I had left it in the hole in the table, went to the bathroom and it disappeared.”

Tania tsked, “Watch it next time, I'll give you another paper later and do the other exercises today.”

After cramming, the sky was already a light purple color. There were no stars or moon in today's night, so it was a bit darker than usual, Coral took advantage of the fact that there was still a hint of the sunset's shimmering light lingering above the horizon, and fled out of the school in a puff of smoke like a mouse that had stolen the cheese, but Tania just gazed at Coral's departing back, shook her head, and twisted her head around to walk towards the library in big strides with the intention of going to look for Coral's cramming materials.

It happened to be the time when some of the student clubs were finishing up their activities, so despite the darkness, there was still some fireworks in the school. As Tania passed by the empty classrooms, she heard a few vampire students who had just finished their club activities making noise inside. She recognized the group of vampires by their voices, and they were probably the same students as herself.

The Emerald School adhered to the concept of randomized class placement, and there were both vampires and humans in every class. Although they were in the same class, their interactions were rare due to the small amount of time they spent together in total during the new semester.

Tania peered in through the glass window of the classroom door, the group of vampires all looked familiar to her, but the only one she could name was the playful blonde vampire at the head of the group. That was Violet.

As the only heir to the head of a prestigious vampire family, Violet Fitzroy had stunned the crowd with her exceptional talent when she first attended her first mage coven at the age of fourteen. Since then, both vampires and humans have heard about another magical genius from the Fitzroy family.

The news reports also often appeared to praise Violet's admiration. “Once-in-a-century magical genius”, ‘the future of the magical world’, ‘both talent and looks’, these labels were firmly stuck on Violet. Therefore, Tania was always shocked that the famous Violet had become her classmate. Of course, when Tania hadn't met Violet yet, her impression of Violet was probably that of a well-mannered nobleman.

If one looked at his appearance alone, Violet's neat and smooth blonde hair did appear to be of extraordinary popularity, and his body carried a light cinnamon wood scent that was quite aristocratic, so being called a noble gentleman was not at all out of place.

However, outside of his appearance, his words and behavior were not like the educated children of the rich and noble families. After Tania became a classmate with him, she realized that this male was a typical hangdog.

All she saw was Violet sitting on an empty classroom table with her legs crossed, saying loudly with a raised eyebrow:

“I've told you before, humans don't deserve to learn magic.”

“Yes.” A vampire with glasses beside him agreed, “The fact that this society has given us a higher magical talent means that vampires are a species better suited to survive, and according to the idea of evolution, humans really deserve to be eliminated.”

Violet pouted, “Monty, you're talking too seriously, I'm just too lazy to think about theories and such.”

“Also, there's no need to spend too much time theorizing about the differences between humans and us.” Monte replied.

Off to the side, another nerdy vampire asked, “So why did you guys choose to come to this human-compatible school?”

“The fact is that there isn't much difference between Emerald Academy and those few prestigious institutions that single out vampires in terms of popularity in the industry, and because Emerald Academy is supported by policy, it has a large number of guaranteed college spots and a large advantage in school rankings. A large percentage of humans means less competition and more opportunities for guaranteed admission.” Monty held up his glasses.

“Huh? So that's how it works.” The nerdy vampire was shocked.

“So I'm the only one forced by my parents to enroll in this damn school because of my family's proximity?”

“You're probably the only one, Laugher.”

“And you, Fitzroy.” Another vampire asked.

“If it was you, there's really no need to enroll here, is there? After all, with your grades, you're perfectly capable of going to a school with higher academics.”

Violet was silent for a second and said, “It was not my own wish to enroll in the Emerald School. It's just that Lyraco insisted on coming here for some reason.”

“And then you followed your cousin here?”

“My mom said it would be best if Lelako and I were in the same school because it would make it easier for parent-teacher conferences later.”

“No way, you have to have your mom personally attend your parent-teacher conferences?”

“Isn't there usually a person in charge of these situations? Then Mrs. Fitzroy will come to our school in person ......”

Violet hurriedly called a halt, “Hey, you guys pay attention to the bias!”

At this moment, the little vampire called Laugher suddenly remembered something and grasped a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, “Right, you guys look at this.”

Tania also looked cautiously through the glass window to get the vampire's handheld. Because of the distance between them, Tania couldn't make out the contents of the paper, but couldn't help but notice a hint of familiarity.

“First Order of Magic Theory, Water Magic Concepts Fill in the Blanks.” Only Rauger could be heard reading out loud as he mirrored the words on the paper.

“What is this, an elementary school exercise?” Violet asked in surprise.

“I picked it up from the classroom floor oh!” Laugher gloated, “Please draw a diagram of the spell formation of the primary water magic ‘Rainfall Cloud’ in the square. This is quite difficult!”

“Is this the content of the elemental magic course that humans are learning?”

“It's so outdated to use spell magic until today!”

Violet snorted out a laugh, “It can't be helped, after all, they are a stupid species.”

Outside the classroom, Tania recognized at that moment that it was the roll she had left for Coral. The roll had somehow been picked up by these annoying vampires.

And those words from the blood students added fuel to Tania's already upset mood; she had intended to stop for a few seconds to eavesdrop outside the door just out of curiosity, but at this point she couldn't get out of her anger and was stuck like a nail in the hallway.

Inside the classroom, Violet suddenly thought of some ghostly idea, “I don't think anyone wants this paper either, do they? Do you guys have pens? Let me write something fun up there.”

“I've got one here.”

“Thanks.” Violet took the pen and grinned as she rolled her eyes about to scribble on that roll. The next second Tania, however, finally pressed on and stormed into the classroom, swishing the roll out of Violet's hands.

Violet was taken aback by Tania's aura, then and cursed loudly, “What are you doing?!”

“This is my stuff, you're not allowed to touch it.” Tania also responded in a stern voice without ceremony.

“How do you prove it's yours?” Violet deadpanned up.

“And how do you prove the scroll is yours?”

“It was in our hands the whole time, don't you see?”

Tania sucked in a large breath of air in exasperation, “I heard all of your conversations outside the door, just looking down on humans, and now you're going to randomly mess with our belongings?”

To the side, Monte came over and interjected, “Violet, give her back this scroll and keep your mouth shut.”

Only then did Violet settle down.

Tania glanced slightly thankfully at the vampire with the glasses. Before she could say anything, however, Monte went back to his own tall tale.

“This kind of stereotypical practice won't change the fact that humans will always be inferior to vampires in elemental magic, so it's just a meaningless thing. We don't need to have too much fun with such meaningless things.”

Tania did a double take at that. She thought to herself that this glasses boy was probably the one who talked the most in existence.

Of course, Tania was a straight-tempered person. Because she was angry in her heart, she cursed without the slightest reservation:

“Don't be so self-righteous, where is there any human who can't compare to a vampire, nowadays so many senior mages in the magic world are of human status.”

Monte rubbed his chin and said, “Classmate, I think you don't recognize the reality of society. Contemporary senior mages are dominated by vampires in both quantity and quality. There are times when recognizing one's vulnerability is necessary.”

Violette covered her mouth and laughed at that.

“You ......!”

Tania clutched the roll tightly:

“Fine, just wait for me all, I'll prove you all wrong one day.”

As she said this, Violet laughed even more excessively. Knowing she couldn't theorize any longer, Tania slammed the door hard.

She still had to go to the library - the homework paper had been found, but she still had to refine it.

This was for Coral to prove herself, for the human students to prove themselves.

This is something I must do.

Can't take it easy on Coral anymore, Tania thought.

I'm going to be tougher, and that's for your own good.