16 - Odd

Ari blinked rapidly at the two messages confounding her right now: about her essence allowance exhaustion and the levelling up.
The former, she supposed, made sense, as devastating as it was. She hadn’t been keeping count of the number of essences she’d used. She’d simply assumed that it would be more than enough for the task she’d been assigned.
Of course she was out of Massa considering the sheer amount of spells that utilized it. It was almost always the negative balancing ingredient.
She still had Vitae and Vacu in abundance, but most of her beginner spells didn’t use Vitae or Vacu.
This didn’t seem fair. They hadn’t given her the right amount of essences for learning all the spells she’d needed to learn. She had a thousand and something spells left, and she needed more essences to practice them. She also needed essences to get her through the end of the week.
And she didn’t know why she’d levelled up. She hadn’t even earned up to fifty points yet. Were her calculations off somehow? Did she make a mistake somewhere, accidentally incorporate spells that she wasn’t supposed to?
Irritation crawled on her skin like ants.
She absolutely hated it when things didn’t go as planned.
It was her fault that her essences had run out.
But it wasn’t her fault that she’d levelled up. She’d painstakingly tried her best not to, but she’d failed somehow. How?
Either way, she needed to talk to Dean Octavius about this.
Ari got up, took a calming breath, and walked out the door.

---

Lyra was on her way back when she saw her new roommate leaving their room, every stride laced with determination.
She paused, watching her go. The girl was strange. Certain things about her unsettled Lyra, from the vacant look in her eyes to that bored expression, like nothing could shake her.
It was the utmost arrogance, as though her mind was occupied with things beyond the earthly plain, and so she didn’t care for the problems of mere mortals.
Also, the way she only held eye contact for a single second before looking away made her seem suspicious. Not to mention the way she talked. Everything about her communication was a little…off.
Her reaction to Faulkey’s attack was strange, too. Lyra couldn’t decide if the girl was brave or stupid. She hadn’t shown a lick of fear when he’d pointed the wand in her face. She hadn’t tried to dodge or shield herself, but simply stared into the air.
Lyra had thought it was just effrontery at first, but now she was leaning towards stupid.
Or maybe Arielle just didn’t understand what [Emberstrike] was and how much it hurt. Still. Common sense dictated that when someone pointed a wand at you, you didn’t just stand there like a lamb in moonlight.
If the spell hadn’t failed and Lyra hadn’t grabbed her out of the way, he could have temporarily blinded Arielle.
Lyra pursed her lips.
Then again, she could have sworn that she saw the girl’s eyes move distinctly, cutting to the left.
She’d only seen movement like that once before, with a silent spellcaster who didn’t even use hand signals to cast his spells. Just his eyes.
However, Arielle hadn’t been casting a spell, but she’d almost looked like she was.
So what had she been doing?
And what was she exactly?
She had to be special. Everyone who was admitted mid-cycle was special in some way to justify their late admission. A boy they admitted last week had memorized entire spellbooks and came from a clan of Luxa-dominant geniuses.
And the twins who’d arrived a month before him had some of the highest recorded mana capacity for their age.
Then there was Florian, who was partially-elf and whose Vitae control was leagues beyond anything Lyra had ever seen, even with her clan elders.
He was her true competition here.
But who was she kidding?
She was no competition for him. Last week, he’d made a pod plant sprout and turn it into a tiny monster that watered itself.
Lyra couldn’t even make her plants grow predictably.
At this point, she was still just a glorified herbalist, imbuing her body with the extracted medicine of the plants and trying desperately to refine her cores that way.
Even the new girl had seen it, had seen how weak she was. That was probably why she’d asked her that question.
Embarrassment flushed through her body, and tears pricked behind her eyeballs.
She’d been hoping for a kinder roommate, not like her last one, who had mocked her and told her that she wouldn’t make it through the first severance trials.
As luck would have it, Candice was the one who hadn’t made it. It was all Lyra could do not to rub it in, but she didn’t because it wasn’t like she had much of a leg to stand on.
Lyra had just barely scraped by, and Candice had loudly scoffed on her way out that Lyra wouldn’t make it through the next severance trials in a few months.
Lyra wanted to prove her wrong.
But if she was being honest, she didn’t think she would.
She would have to go home and disappoint everyone who had put their faith in her, her entire family, who had celebrated the first ‘real’ mage in their lineage.
She wasn’t a mage at all. She was a fraud.
She exhaled, steeling herself.
Now wasn’t the time to feel sorry for herself.
Now was the time to push even harder.
She wouldn’t go down without a fight. She would keep trying, and if her cores never developed, and she got cut from the program, at least she would know that she gave it her all.
She would accept her core suppression with dignity and grace.
And tons of depression, probably.
She got to her room and opened the door, pausing at the helm.
The sigh distracted her from her melancholy.
What the heck happened in here?

---

“I used up my allotted Massa allowance for the week.”
“I’m sorry?” Dean Octavius blinked at the young teen in front of him. When she’d returned to his office, he’d thought perhaps she wanted to make a complaint about an incident that had transpired.
Though the faculty tried to crack down on it, new students sometimes got hazed on their first day. Nothing explicitly violent anymore, mostly petty pranks and occasional mishaps. He thought she’d fallen victim to it and was coming to make a report against the perpetrator. He was glad for it. Sadly, not all students had the boldness to do that, and so often the perpetrators went on unscathed.
He’d invited Arielle in and gently guided her to sit. He thought he would have to comfort her or talk her through the report.
This was not at all what he’d thought she would say.
Yet she repeated it.
“I used up my allotted Massa allowance for the week.”
He shook his head. “I think you might be mistaken, dear. To exceed the allowance, you would have to have completed over a hundred beginner spells in the past few hours.”
She pursed her lips. “That sounds about accurate.”
One trimmed white eyebrow lifted on his forehead. “You completed over a hundred spells in a few hours.”
She nodded.
He didn’t believe her, but he asked anyway, “How?”
Her face flushed, and she glanced down, toeing the carpet and drawing lines.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But it’s not my fault, really. I was only learning the spells that I was asked to.”
“What spells?”
“The beginner spells.”
His ancient and wise brain was struggling to grasp what she was telling him.
“How many beginner spells did you do?”

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“A hundred and fifty-three.”
“What?”
She flinched at his barked word. “I know. It’s a long way from a thousand, but I was making good progress until the EPUQ forced me to stop .”
“No, it’s not….” He shook his head, his beard beads clicking against each other. “You mean to tell me that you learned a hundred and fifty-three spells in just two hours?”
“Yes. I can complete the rest once I have my essences.”
“You’re not supposed to complete the rest.” His voice was a breath of disbelief. “Young Arielle, you’re not supposed to do that much in a day. Your EPUQ…did you fracture it?”
“No. It warned me, and I took a break when it told me to.”
“Let me see.” He gestured with his hand, and she slid the device out from her robe, handing it to him.
He activated administrative access and was able to see that she had indeed used up all her Massa essences plus most of her Calor and Luxa. Luckily, there was no microfracture.
Still, he couldn’t believe it.
“Let me see your Grimoire.”
“It’s back in my room. Should I go get it?”
The evidence was already in front of his eyes. He couldn’t remain in denial forever.
He shook his head. “No need.” He’d seen enough.
Dean Octavius had known that Arielle’s capacity was on the extreme upper end of normal for her level. He’d been expecting a young genius, ahead of her class, scoring the highest marks.
But this was beyond his expectations.
He stared at her for a while, reframing everything he thought he knew about her.
He’d been willing to overlook what had happened earlier today, her seeing through his spell. He’d thought perhaps she had an unawakened recessive Luxa-dominant bloodline trait.
Or maybe he’d simply not cast the spell to the best of his abilities, even though that was doubtful, as casting illusions came as easily to him as breathing.
Even Gio Li, the most talented mage he’d known, with a powerful bloodline trait, had not seen through the illusion as a first-year.
But this girl had.
And now she had completed a hundred and fifty-three spells in two hours.
He truly didn’t know what to make of that.
“Dean Octavius?” she prompted. “Am I in trouble?”
“No,” he said automatically. It was her first day, and he didn’t like to censure students on their first day. Everyone was allowed at least one mistake in their lifetime. “I’m just a little stunned right now.”
“I’m sorry if I did the wrong thing. I wasn’t trying to. I was just trying to learn all the spells.”
“Why would you attempt to learn so many spells?”
“Because Lyra told me I needed to do it for Professor Valeria’s class. She said I should learn as many spells as I can because I might be asked to perform them.”
He rubbed his eyebrow. So, she’d taken Lyra’s words literally. Arielle seemed genuinely concerned about the issue, as though she believed her entire future hinged on her learning every single spell in existence in a single night.
“She might have said that, Arielle, but no one actually expects you to learn a thousand spells in a night,” he said. “No one expects you to learn a hundred either. It’s more that you’re supposed to try your best.”
“But this isn’t my best. It’s not even halfway my best.”
“It’s not?”
She opened her mouth and closed it, slowly blinking as though realizing something.
Then she glanced at the ceiling. “No. I was wrong. It is my best.”
She was clearly lying.
She hadn’t pushed herself hard at all to do those spells. She didn’t have any of the tell-tale signs of exhaustion, and didn’t seem tired or plagued with head or stomach aches.
She seemed perfectly fine, as though she’d spent the last hour doing nothing but drinking afternoon tea.
“I wanted to be prepared for my first day of class,” she said. “I know I’m already behind on the curriculum, so I was trying to get used to it.”
So she had taken his words to heart. A little too to-heart.
“No one is expecting you to catch up in one evening,” he told her. “Yes, we’re a tough curriculum, but we’re not unreasonable. We want you to push yourself, but not to a pathological level, otherwise you’ll burn out quickly.”
“Oh,” she said while he still tried to process the news.
Did she not have a refractory time? Each mage, especially beginner mages, needed time for their cores to cool down before filling up again. Beginners, who had unrefined cores, needed a longer refractory time, and only Archmages could perform spells without any significant downtime.
Unless she was casting the spells at lightning speed, that should have taken longer.
Either way, a true beginner mage would not be able to cast a hundred and fifty-three spells in two hours.
A hundred and fifty-three…
Octavius finally let out a dry chuckle.
He had to laugh at himself here. It was really his fault that he’d been so slow on the uptake.
He’d been impressed by the girl’s cores and her capacity, but he’d not thought to ruminate deeper on them and consider why a girl raised in the moats would have such stellar starting stats.
He’d assumed Elric had trained her with guided meditation, but even if he did train her, it didn’t explain all of this.
Plus, according to Elric’s story, he’d only just learned of her existence a few days ago.
So, how exactly was she so good?
The possibilities were endless and dangerous, but he ruminated on them anyway.
Elric, my dear boy, you thought you could keep this secret from me forever?
His shock was slowly giving way to excitement.
To have such a student at his academy…oh, it was going to be so delicious when the inter-academy tournament began. Last year had been awful for Erynwall, and it had been the first time they had not taken home a major trophy.
It was in part thanks to the beast from Roe Academy. Selena had also been exempt because she’d had to travel to deal with family matters.
Only two Erynwall students had been in the top 10, and Dean Octavius had borne the other school heads’ teasing as gracefully as he could, though it still rankled.
This time, it would be his turn to rub it in their faces.
Especially Dean Wilcox, the arrogant son of a–
“Well,” he said more to himself than her. “This semester is going to be very interesting.”
She didn’t respond to that, just gave him another of her slow blinks.
“I can gift an allowance refill just for today,” he said, “However, be warned that we put those limits for a reason. Granted, no first year has ever finished their allowance this quickly before, but we don’t want it to become commonplace.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
“However, there is a way you can earn extra essences if you want.”
“How?”
“Rava and Garrick, the custodians of the castle, are always in need of help from students,” he said. “Helping them gives you an increased allowance for that week, or in some cases, they give you a reservoir with excess essence.”
The girl’s eyes sparkled with the first signs of life.
“What kind of work?” she asked.
“Nothing too difficult,” he said. “As you can see, we have our own mana generators on campus, so that we don’t have to be controlled by the limits placed on the closest kingdom. We operate as a sovereign island, and of course, we still have to answer to the Celestial Assembly, but this gives us more flexibility and control. However, generating our own essences causes problems, and the custodians are there to deal with the problems.”
“What kind of problems?” she asked.
“Development of pressure points, essence waste management, occasionally, the essences fuse with the wildlife and the sea creatures, and we experience a mutant attack.”
She didn’t laugh at his joke or gasp in horror. Instead, she gave a short pause. “You want me to battle sea monsters?”
“Of course not.” He needed to stop trying to catch her off guard. It obviously didn’t work on her. “They’ll probably have you doing waste management while they focus on the harder things.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“You should go introduce yourself to them. At this time, they’ll probably be behind the Luxarium, the glass building to the left.”
“I will seek them out. Thank you.”
He nodded and reset her weekly allowance before handing her EPUQ back to her.
“Thank you,” she said, putting her hand on her chest.
“You’re welcome,” he answered, and as she walked out the door, a huge smile sat on his face.
Thank you, Elric, for the golden goose.

---

As Ari went down the stairs of the main building, she received another prompt from her system.
DISTRIBUTE LEVELLING POINTS NOW.
She sighed.
Right after she solved one problem, she was reminded of another.
As Master Phineas had explained, advancing to a new level gave points that one could assign to the other stats. It could be her physical stats, her mental stats, or something he called ‘combinatorial stats’. There were also hidden stats that she could search for on her system profile.
“How you distribute your levelling points depends on your build,” Phineas had said. “Which in turn is dependent on your lean. You currently have a Luxa-Massa lean, so I suggest you focus on stats like agility, as Massa can weigh you down and focus because Luxa requires a lot of it.”
As though the system could read her mind, it gave another prompt.
 
EXPLORE POSSIBLE BUILDS FOR YOUR LUXA-MASSA LEAN.
The Paladin (Open to Explore)
The Truth-Seeker (Open to Explore)
The Peacemaker (Open to Explore)
The Sea Settler (Open to Explore).
More incoming…
 
Ari frowned.
None of those builds attracted her. It all sounded too…light.
Perhaps her lean wasn’t for her after all. Or maybe she just hadn’t had time to go through all the possible builds yet. There were probably better options there.
She would do it after she was done with her visit to the custodians.
As she was about to head out the entrance, her attention was snared by something happening on the ground floor.
She heard the sound first, of harsh breathing and crackling fire.
That was what caused her to look up.
In the center of the hall, within a circle, two people battled. It was the girl from before, Selena, and she was dueling with a dark-haired boy with tanned skin, glasses, and a thin, tall neck that made him look slightly like a vulture.
He had a black sword in his hand, and with Vacu swirling all around it.
It was the most Vacu Ari had seen in one place, and she was fascinated by how he managed to fix it there with almost no other essence supporting it.
Runes. Catalyst.
She could see the odd shapes floating above the swords now, supporting the Vacu essences. The boy had carved runes on his sword to keep a constant Vacu flux around it, likely making it ten times more dangerous.
And the girl was holding a dangerous weapon too.
It was almost painful to look at, a writhing strand of blinding blue-white light in her hand, brighter at its core and feathering out into thin, branching veins that flicker in and out of existence. The air around it shimmered from heat, bending the space slightly, like a mirage. Every movement left a jagged afterimage that lingered for a split second before snapping away.
As the two fighters circled each other, the whip was alive and crackling in stark contrast to the silent hiss of the sword.
When she finally swung it at the boy, the noise sharpened into a violent crack, which he intercepted with his dark shield.
The strike echoed with a fading electric buzz as the boy shifted and intercepted her next attack, cutting through lightning with Vacu-laced steel. It snuffed the lightning out at the places it touched, but when Selena pulled back the whip, the lightning roared back to life.
She came at him again, slashing wildly, pushing forward doggedly, overwhelming his responses.
“Come on, Telip!” She laughed as she fought. “Is that all you have for me today?”
The boy, Telip, didn’t respond, his face showing the strain.
Ari went closer to take a better look at the Vacu runes. They truly were odd little shapes, these catalysts. They were made of tons of Massa and Luxa, and strangely, it appeared the Massa overpowered the Luxa.
So wasn’t it an overly negative charge? How was that holding onto Vacu when Vacu was also negatively charged?
The runes were holding the spell in place for a very long time. How long? What was the limit?
What could Ari do with this knowledge? Could she create catalysts herself? Could she copy the one he had now?
“Watch out!” Ari heard, and she looked up in time to see Selena swing the whip at her opponent once more.
This time, he sliced the lightning in the middle, cutting it into two.
Except the severed end wasn’t quenched.
It arced away from the source, right toward Ari’s face.