CHAPTER~25 Lessons That Cannot Be Stolen
The next day, we both skipped morning training.
Lucan’s hand was still shivering like an alcohol addict’s but I refused to let him exercise and sit it out alone.
We went to the canteen. The whispers were there, as usual… but different this time.
That’s Louis.
I heard he beat Aria.
Elite for a reason.
Maybe the rumor’s a lie.
I exhaled quietly.
Huh.
That wasn’t bad at all.
Then we went to class, where the first thing displayed was the updated Elite Rankings.
The names settled in one by one.
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1. Elena von Hestia
2. Arthur
3. Iris Aethelgard
4. Lucan Gray
5. Louis Casper
6. Aria Asteron
7. Theo von Brandis
_________________________________________________
A murmur rippled through the room. I felt it more than I heard it. Fifth. Above Aria. That alone made the air feel heavier.
Before anyone could say more, the door slid open.
A new professor stepped in young, almost deceptively so. An elf, with soft green hair and round golden glasses perched on his nose, smiling like he had all the time in the world.
I frowned.
He wasn’t in the original novel.
Which meant only one thing.
This man... Must be an extra.
"I am Lioren Ilyas Verdan,” he said calmly, adjusting his round golden glasses.
“Your philosophy instructor.”
The aura he had built until now didn’t fade.
It shattered.
Lucan immediately slouched in his seat, already preparing for sleep. Iris yawned openly, stretching without shame. Half the class erupted into quiet chatter, interest evaporating in seconds.
Philosophy.
Predictable.
Only a few remained attentive.
Aria sat straight, eyes sharp, listening with intent. Elena maintained her flawless posture, gaze steady and unreadable. A handful of nobles leaned forward too those who still believed words and ideals could shape fate.
I watched the room settle into its new rhythm.
I was just about to surrender to sleep when his voice cut through the noise.
“Who is Louis Casper?”
The class snapped awake.
Whispers ignited instantly. Chairs shifted. Heads turned.
Iris and Aria both looked at me at the same time expressions identical.
Again?
From the back bench, Lucan’s boot connected with my chair in a sharp warning kick.
I sighed, pushing myself to my feet.
“I am,” I said simply.
“Louis Casper.”
The room went quiet.
And for reasons I couldn’t explain,
the elf smiled.
“In the entrance exam,” he said, adjusting his round golden glasses, “there was one question. A single question I designed myself. Worth only one point.”
A few students shifted in their seats.
“This year, two thousand five hundred students took the entrance exam. Three hundred passed.”
He raised a finger.
“And among all of them… only one student wrote an answer that satisfied me.”
The silence deepened.
“The question was simple,” Lioren continued.
“What tastes the best in the world?”
Some students scoffed. Others frowned.
“Sweetness. Spice. Love. Kindness,” he said, listing answers without interest. “All common.”
Some wrote essays. Others hesitated, unsure.
His gaze sharpened.
“One student wrote a single word.”
He smiled again soft, unsettling.
“Hunger.”
The room froze.
Not because it was clever.
But because it was deep.
“And that,” he said gently, “was Louis Casper.”
A faint murmur rippled through the back rows chairs scraping softly, A noble girl near the window swallowed hard, eyes wide, her pen hovering uselessly above the page.
"Why did you answer that"
That question bring some cold memory's
"Hunger.”
I said
'Not the kind born from skipping a meal or counting hours until the next bite. The hunger I speak of is older than the stomach, sharper than longing."
"It’s the ache that makes every food feel like it could be the last, the thirst that turns even water into nectar".
"It is the hunger that reminds you life is
fleeting and fragile and every taste, every touch, every breath matters".
"Hunger teaches patience. Hunger teaches desire. Hunger teaches truth".
"It is not pain. Not misery. It is clarity. It is the pulse beneath your skin, the quiet voice saying: You are alive, and everything you seek must be earned
A noble who’s never missed will never trully understand it''.
I had the unsettling feeling that I hadn’t answered a question.
I’d revealed something.
Across the room, I saw it land unevenly.
One boy scoffed under his breath, silk-lined sleeves folded tight, as if the idea itself offended him.
Hunger, to him, was an inconvenience something solved by snapping fingers or raising a voice.
Two rows back, a girl didn’t move at all. Her shoulders were tense, eyes fixed on her desk, jaw set hard enough that I could see the muscle twitch. She didn’t look enlightened.
She looked seen.
Then
________________________________________________
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Concept acknowledged.
________________________________________________
No fanfare. No reward.
But thats enough
The words sat at the edge of my vision, colder than usual. Heavier. Like the system wasn’t congratulating me but filing something away.
I swallowed.
Lioren didn’t comment on either reaction. He simply nodded once, like a man confirming a suspicion he’d held for a long time.
he simply looked at me.
Not the polite glance a professor gives a promising student, nor the sharp inspection reserved for talent.
His eyes held something older recognition, perhaps. Or caution.
Elves lived long. Long enough to forget what hunger truly was.
Most of them studied it as history. As statistics. As something that happened to other races in inconvenient centuries.
Lioren’s smile faded, not into disappointment, but into stillness.
“Hunger,” he repeated, softly this time.
His fingers tapped once against the podium,
the sound echoing louder than it should have in the quiet room. A habit, maybe. Or a tell.
“An answer born not from cleverness,” he said, adjusting his round golden glasses, “but from memory.”
He exhaled slowly.
“In philosophy,” he continued, “there is a difference between knowing a concept… and experience it”
His gaze lingered on me a second longer than necessary.
“Only one student understood that difference.”
For the first time since he entered the room, the aura he carried was no longer detached or amused.
It was wary.
As if he had just realized that the boy seated among nobles and prodigies was not someone who merely read the world
but someone the world had already tested.
“Please, sit, Mr. Louis,” Lioren said softly.
“as he said Hunger… is the taste that lingers longest.”
He turned to the class, hands folding behind his back.
“Let me tell you something, children. You are fortunate a lot more than you realize to sit in this room and be able to study "
His golden eyes swept across nobles and commoners alike.
“Education is the only kind of power that grows when shared, yet cannot be stolen when held alone.”
He paused, letting it sink in.
“Strength can be broken. Wealth can vanish. Titles can rot with time. But what you truly understand becomes a part of you and no force in this world can tear it away.”
A faint smile returned.
“Study not to impress history,” he said quietly. “Study so that when the world tries to starve you of food, of hope, of choice you will still know how to survive.”
Then his tone shifted, softer, but heavier.
“Study history,” he said.
“So you recognize the mistakes before you repeat them.”
“Study music,”
“So your soul does not harden when words fail.”
“Study the sword,”
“So you understand both how to protect and how to restrain yourself.”
“Study how to speak. How to walk. How to think.”
His gaze lingered on each student, unblinking.
“Study what you can… because the world will not ask what you were meant to learn.”
Only what you managed to carry with you when everything else was taken"
The room didn’t erupt into applause.
It didn’t need to
Lucan, half asleep moments ago, sat a little straighter now. His shaking hand stilled not because it had healed, but because his attention had anchored it.
He didn’t look at me. He didn’t need to.
Iris had stopped yawning.
She leaned forward instead, chin resting in her palm, eyes bright not amused this time, but curious in a way that suggested she’d just found something worth remembering.
Aria hadn’t moved at all.
Her back was straight, arms folded, expression unreadable. But her gaze was locked on the professor now. As if measuring his words against her own beliefs… and finding friction.
Elena remained composed, flame-like presence steady as ever.
But for a brief moment so brief I almost missed it her fingers tightened around her pen.
Not anger.
Recognition.
The class didn’t return to chatter right away.
Some students stared at their desks. Others stared at nothing. A few glanced at me,
No admiration.
No resentment.
Just understanding what i said
And somehow that felt more than any applause ever could.
And quietly, I realized some lessons settle in long before they ever need a name.
