“Didn’t she say that she didn’t want to spend time with us?” asked Lucas.
“It appears that I have a very addictive presence,” Eren said, sticking his chest out.
“Well? How did it go?” Lucas queried as Vaelith came within earshot.
“It can’t exactly go badly, now can it?” replied Vaelith.
Hearing this, Eren found an opportunity to impose his presence on the conversation. “I dunno, I wasn’t really expecting much.”
“Like you’ll do better. We’re probably not even getting graded on this.”
“Watch out — if you do too badly, you’ll leave a bad impression.”
“I don’t want to hear you anymore. Lucas, how did yours go?”
“Lucas already has a girlfriend. Stop trying to get too close to him. He probably did better than you, anyway.”
“Why can’t you just keep your mouth closed for just half a second? Also, Lucas, is this true?”
“I mean, kind of. Not in the way Eren probably meant it, though.”
“Now, what could that possibly mean? I only mean the best for you, Lucas. Don’t get me wrong.”
“Yeah, you do. By the way, what took you so long?” asked Lucas, eager to change the topic now that it had become too personal.
“Did I spend a long time in there?”
“Yeah. Did you have to take a dump in there or something?”
“You make me tired just by existing. And by your logic, Lucas also had to take a dump in there.”
“Well, Lucas isn’t as subject to his desires as you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Vaelith asked, vividly incensed.
“Nothing.”
After they stood in silence for some time, Lucas sought to break it. “How long has it been since we came here?”
“Probably two or three hours by now,” Vaelith said.
“Will the other tests also take this long?”
“I doubt it,” Eren replied, without the exasperating attitude he took to previously. “I think this is the first time the school has had to deal with so many students.”
“What do you mean?” Lucas asked.
“Did you think that the top academy on the continent would be taking a hundred students a year? Besides, only five people got turned back this year, which is an unprecedented low.”
“Isn’t that just because they had no magic?”
“Yes, but normally people wouldn’t only be rejected for their lack of usable magic. The brightness of the crystal ball during the entrance ceremony also depicted how much Azla you have. It takes in a certain amount of Azla flow for a second after you touch it and uses that to determine how bright it will be. Normally, if the brightness doesn’t reach a certain level, you would be turned back, even though you had magic.”
“How does the brightness get measured?”
“The professors estimate it every year. They also take into account how many people are enrolling, how well-equipped the mages in six years have to be, and quite a few other factors. After that, they just look at how bright the ball gets and make their judgements off of that.”
“So there’s actually a thought process behind all of this… So why did they only turn back the ones without magic this year?”
“Don’t ask me like I’d know.”
Vaelith, who had been silently observing the entire conversation, now stepped in. “They might have foreseen something bad in six years. Professor Marris is a pretty good diviner, from what I’ve heard.”
“How does divining work? Doesn’t she use water magic? It can’t be a magic technique, then, can it?”
“It has something to do with reading the flow of Azla in the leylines. Since the leylines are connected worldwide, they tend to hold a lot of information about the present, but your interpretation depends on how apt you are at discerning Azla flow. If you’re very good at understanding what is currently happening across the continent, apparently some extremely small discrepancies across the general flow of the Azla in a specific region can point to a very vague interpretation of the future.”
“What are leylines?”
“Did you listen to my whole speech without understanding a single thing?”
“Yeah,” Lucas replied, now wondering if it would have been better if he had interrupted her.
“You know how your body has veins of Azla? Leylines are basically the same thing, but instead of winding across a body, it winds across the world.”
“Oh, so do they have specified elements?”
“You’ll find out in-class. I don’t feel like explaining that much right now.”
“Or is it because you don’t know enough to answer his questions?” asked Eren, back to his annoying self. However, before Vaelith had the opportunity to respond, Eren’s name sounded loudly over the crowd of a hundred some students. “Oops, looks like the professor has taken a liking to my irresistible presence. Gotta go!”
“Honestly… he’s so annoying. Now who’s this girlfriend that he was talking about?”
Lucas searched the crowd for Rebrixi, not taking very long for her eyecatchingly bright blond hair. Spotting her, he merely pointed. “That’s her.”
“No introduction? You guys must not be very close.”
Oddly, this struck a nerve within Lucas that he had never known existed before. Vexed, he led Vaelith to Rebrixi, not pausing to consider the reactions of the numerous feet that he treaded upon and shoulders that he bumped into. As Lucas approached Rebrixi, he began to rethink his decision. Many boys had been openly staring at her, which he had just realized, and perhaps showing his familiarity with her so blatantly would lead to animosity.
However, spotting Lucas's approach, Rebrixi, who had been looking for something to divert the uncomfortable gazes, waved and shouted out, “Lucas! Over here!”
Now that all of the attention had suddenly switched from Rebrixi to him, Lucas felt numerous jealous looks transfer from Rebrixi to him. “Oh, yeah, hey.” There was nothing else he could say on the spot. “Um, this is Vaelith. She wanted to know who you were.”
“Hey, Vaelith,” Rebrixi said, with her normal sweet tone that made Lucas feel like something had been off when she had asked him about his magic with such a cold and indifferent attitude.
Vaelith replied with nothing but an acknowledging glance. Lucas could feel the discontent whispers behind his back as they seemed to infect the air itself around him. They were probably about the fact that he was between two girls. Just as he was about to sink into the ground and disappear, Eren came running, swinging his wooden hammer around, shooing away the students in his way.
“What’s this I see?” Eren shouted above everyone’s heads. “Don’t try to claim two girls for yourself, you greedy man!”
Lucas, who had already been half-dead from embarrassment, didn’t know what to do except to throw his wooden shortsword at Eren. Thankfully, Eren’s hammer knocked the sword away mid-swing, resulting in no injury.
“What a violent tomato,” Eren said, picking up Lucas's shortsword and handing it back to him. “Let’s let the girls catch up. We’ll do our own manly things.”
“Like what?”
“Aww. Don’t tell me you want to stay here in their company.”
“Just— Just stop speaking already. But what are we going to do? There’s nothing here for us,” Lucas said, waving Rebrixi goodbye as he followed the already departing Eren.
“Now, how am I supposed to answer that if I’m supposed to stop speaking?”
“Alright fine, you’ve made your point. I can’t do anything without your magnificent presence.”
“Now that’s the spirit, Lucas! Let’s go see what we can find in the equipment room.”
“Why?” Lucas asked, unsure of the legality of the proposition.
“Because it’s fun. We might find some really cool stuff.”
“Such as?”
“You don’t know until you try. Who knows, we might find some artifacts in there.”
“And what will we do with them?”
“Well, we could… oh, I haven’t thought that far yet.”
“Well, anyway, how well did your test go?”
“Not very well. I started out by doing the wrong thing and conjured a bunch of vines around the hammer.”
“Is that not what you were supposed to do?”
“No. Your weapon was supposed to have a kind of flame-like substance around it. Was that not how it went for you?”
“Oh, well I couldn’t really tell the difference between my physical magic and whatever I infused the sword with.”
“Now what could that possibly mean? Don’t tell me you use fire or light magic.”
“I don’t,” Lucas replied, entirely truthfully.
“Ah, well, I’ll figure it out one day.”
Lucas wondered in what situation Eren would find out that he had the Strange Arcane. Probably not in any good circumstance, but that was a problem for a later Lucas. As they were about to reach the equipment room, the professor’s voice boomed in their ears as the wall of mist dissipated. “The magic testing is over. Please put your weapons away and return. This time, please line yourselves up instead of clumping yourselves into such incomprehensible blobs.”
The students rushed to obey, clogging up the entrance to the equipment room almost the moment Lucas and Eren placed their weapons back onto the rack. Without a path to the instructed destination, they could only back up into the hallways from which the students had arrived. As the clamor of the students filled the room, the noise penetrated into the echoing halls. A cool breeze blew in from the open door, whistling over the students’ heads and rushing into the corridors, brushing the flames into flickering, yellow phantoms.
The multitude of students squeezed into the room, pushing the duo further into the corridor. Only until they had passed two torches, each spaced ten meters away from the next, did the students finally begin to shuffle out. Lucas was met with cool air as he stepped into the equipment room and an even colder chill as he came out into the open field. As per Professor Marris’ instruction, the one hundred and two students lined up side-to-side in no particular order.
“This portion of the test will focus on your strength and endurance. You will be asked to participate in many physical activities so that we may have a good measure on your capabilities,” the plump professor said, positioning herself before the students, with the mountains and clouds serving as her background.
The professor retrieved a small, flat, cylinder-shaped magic artifact with a screen very similar to the card that Lucas had, which she called a stopwatch. The professor requested the students to sprint one hundred meters, which she marked on a patch of dirt cleared of grass with her water magic, recording their times on a piece of paper supported by what looked like small beads of water that she was actively controlling.
Following the sprints were a variety of other events, including a kilometer run, ball throwing on both arms, and a push-up test. As the tests began to conclude, Lucas realized that he was very far ahead of many of the other students; perhaps it was because he had gained many physical capabilities.
Having failed the push-up much earlier than Lucas had, Eren was squatting next to him, watching until Lucas's arms finally gave way. “What a slacker. Only fifty four push-ups?”
“Yeah? How many did you do, pray tell?”
“Sixteen,” Eren answered, unabashedly.
“Three times less than I did, huh?”
“Thirteen, if you don’t count the ones that I faked.”
“Right.” Lucas pushed himself off his stomach with his aching arms and looked around, noticing that almost everyone had been watching him complete his last push-ups. “Am I the last one to finish?” he asked no one in particular.
“Yes, you are. You tied with Jareth,” Professor Marris replied, appearing behind him.
Lucas spun around and immediately stood up.
“Now, now. There’s no need to put so much stress on your legs just to show me a little bit of respect,” the professor said as Lucas's legs gave way, assuming a kneeling position that drew laughter from many students that Lucas noticed were on the ground themselves. “Your physical testing is now over. You may all return to your dormitories for a quick wash-up. Arrive at the cafeteria at half past twelve.”
The students’ clamor started again as they struggled to their feet and found their friends. Lucas limped along with Eren as Vaelith ran up to them as well as she could in their state. The three took out their cards and tracked their dormitories down. As they neared their dormitories, Vaelith took a different turn that presumably led to hers. Once Lucas and Eren were back at Room 152, Lucas immediately took to the restroom, quickly taking off his clothes and placing them atop the toilet lid. He rushed into the shower and made triply sure that the sliding glass door was closed.
Now that he was in, he had to examine how the mechanisms worked. Back at Everward, if he wanted to be clean, all he needed to do was take a bath in the lake. It had been Rebrixi who had supplied his brain with information of a more advanced form of hygiene, constructed from invisible tubes and pressure mechanisms inspired by some technological empire way back when.
Below the adjustable showerhead was an assortment of knobs of all sorts of different sizes, labeled with small, colored plates. Lucas remembered Rebrixi had said that the big one engraved with a blue letter C and a red letter H would change the temperature of the water. He turned the knob, just to see what it would do. If he had any hopes, they were let down by the complete unresponsiveness of the showerhead.
“You doing okay in there, Lucas?” Eren asked from outside the shower’s opaque glass.
“I don’t know how to turn the water on,” replied Lucas.
“Here, I’ll come in.”
Lucas immediately responded, “No, no, no. Please don’t come in.” He held the handle of the sliding door to the wall so that Eren couldn’t open it without overpowering him.
“Alright, fine. It should be the smaller knob to the lower right of the big one. The more you turn it, the stronger the water will be.”
Lucas complied and immediately turned it to its full capacity. He didn’t know what he expected. The water crashed into his face with full force, knocking his head into the wall opposite.
“Ow,” he said, rubbing the back of his head as he tried to stabilize himself amidst the torrent of liquid bombarding him with immeasurable wrath.
“Oh, yeah. By the way, the water is really strong if you turn it to the max.”
“Really helpful,” Lucas said, after finally fighting past the unforgiving drowning agent and turning down the dial eightfold.
“Thanks, I appreciate it. I work hard every day to provide worthy service to those around me,” Eren replied, his voice slightly more muffled after having stepped into his own shower.
“Oh, they even give us shampoo and everything!” Lucas exclaimed after seeing a rectangular indent in the wall that held a variety of toiletries, such as the aforementioned shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and other shower products.
“No, really? What’s the point of showering, then?” Eren shouted over the loud spray of the water.
“I dunno, I’ve never even seen a shower before. We had a really clean lake, but that was about it.”
“And everyone shared it?”
“It was really big. If you wanted privacy, you could just walk about a third of the way to the other side. You’d be too far for anyone to bother paying attention to you.”
“How deep was it?”
“Deep enough in the center that we could fish there. Using boats, of course.”
“Did you guys ever bother to swim to the deep part?”
“I never did. I’m scared of deep water. It gets really dark after about twenty meters offshore, so I’ve never gone past fifteen meters.”
“What a wimp. I bet I could swim better than you.”
“Have you ever swam before?” Lucas asked, well aware that he himself had never bothered to properly learn.
“No,” Eren replied. “But I know I can still beat you.”
After realizing that the conversation was about to retire into pointlessness, Lucas refrained from replying and instead tried some of the provided shampoo on his hair. Most of these things had not been introduced by Rebrixi; Lucas's mother had told him about them the day before he departed for school.
After the refreshing shower, Lucas quickly dried off and put on his second out of three sets of clothes. “I’ll wait for you,” Lucas said.
“Thanks,” Eren replied.
Lucas sat on his bed, still in the messy state that he had left it in this morning. He looked across at Eren’s bed, noticing that it was quite a bit more haphazard than his was. As Lucas's attention drifted to the windows, he was suddenly struck by a thought. “Do the dormitories across from us not have windows?” Lucas asked.
“I don’t think they do,” Eren’s voice drifted from the loud pitter-pattering of the water, accompanied by the occasional splash. “After all, the school is gigantic and they’re clearly not on the other side of it.”
Lucas pulled back the curtains and beheld a view of the town, centered on the left of the school, from the perspective of any passersby looking directly back at him. The mountains from the northern side of the school seemed to disappear into the distance on Lucas's left side quite quickly, while the mountain range on Lucas's right side seemed to keep on going for quite a while.
“Is this mountain range connected to the one surrounding Everward?” he asked.
“You didn’t know? That’s the Argent Verge. It’s one of the longest mountain ranges on the continent, I think. It goes from Everward all the way to the southern border and into Genesca. We’re sort of in the middle of it right now. Everward’s pretty northern, you know.”
“What about the part that kind of disappears off to the distance on the left?”
“The left..? Oh, you mean from your perspective. That would be the east, right? That’s the part that goes out to the sea. It sections off a part of Hycadia that’s sort of secluded because of its borders; you know, they have the sea and the mountains surrounding them.”
Just past the large town was a forest, with taller trees jutting out here and there as it stretched into the distance. A large road from the vibrant town led out of the gate in the high walls and into the darkness of the forest. It was surprising how abruptly the village transformed into forest; just a six-meter-thick wall, and it became trees.
“How far does that forest stretch for?”
Eren turned the water off, ceasing the splashing sound. The shower door slid open, signified by a loud thunk as it hit the wall. Lucas heard rustling and assumed that Eren was drying off and changing. The door to the restroom finally opened, sending a plume of warm air into Lucas's face, even though he was across the room from it.
“What took you so long?” Eren said, shaking his head, flaunting his already-dry black hair.
“You’re the one who was changing just now,” Lucas replied. “By the way, how is your hair dry already?”
“Trade secret” was all Eren said in reply. “Come on, we have to be at the cafeteria in” — he glanced at the analog clock that hung above the door — “oh, twenty minutes.”
“We have time. It only took us three minutes to come back up here.”
“Perfect! I’ll write a letter to my parents, then. I forgot to do it last night.”
“You write letters to your parents? Who delivers them?” Lucas asked, considering whether or not he should follow this custom.
“Who do you think? The dragons? No, seriously. Who did you think would deliver the mail?”
“Who does, though? I’m genuinely curious.”
“And genuinely living under a rock, by the looks of it. The pony express, Lucas. Didn’t you see their stations when you were coming here?”
“Dunno, I fell asleep halfway through. I think we only passed — like, what? Three villages? — before I fell asleep.”
“If you took the main road, three villages is enough for you to see at least six stations. There’s one in every village except the really secluded ones, like Everward. There’s also one in the halfway point between two major cities on the main road that connects them.”
“Oh, wait, are they the weird, kinda long house things? I think I saw some people riding ponies and stuff in and out of them. They were wearing these really formal dark green caps, too. I think I saw one with a white badge on his.”
“‘And stuff?’ What else would they be riding? Dolphins? And you said you saw someone with a white badge? That’s the head courier for the region, I think. Hycadia is split into twenty regions, so he’s probably the one who manages everything in our region. I think he’s gone to our place once and had a feast with us. Why would he be riding a pony, though? Isn’t his job managing the whole regional system?”
“Maybe he wanted to take a fun break?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lucas. They take breaks, but they don’t wear their uniforms while taking breaks. Something’s probably up, but whatever. I’ll ask my dad about it.”
“We have roughly twelve minutes. I’ll stop bothering you. Go write your letter.”
“Alright. Now…” Eren shuffled through his trunk, which he had placed right beside his bed. Retrieving a feathered quill and a corked ink bottle, he grabbed one of the pieces of paper that had been sitting in a neat pile on the desk. Eren lit a low-hanging lamp, situated above the desk, despite it still being high noon, with plenty of sunlight shining through the window. He uncorked the ink with a slight pop, causing a surprisingly woody smell to waft across the room. “‘Good afternoon, or whenever this letter reaches you, Father’… Yeah, that sounds about right. ‘I’ve gotten to school safely and I got tested as a healer, which was mildly disappointing. By the way, I met someone from Everward named Lucas who told me that our head courier had been personally riding a pony, which I believe is worth investigating. Unless you know why already, of course.’ That should be about it, right? ‘Your son, Lucas' — ah, wait, I meant Eren! Shoot. Where’s my eraser?”
Lucas picked up the black rectangle that had fallen out of Eren’s trunk. “It’s this, right?”
“Right. Thanks, Lucas.” Eren erased the half-written “Luc” and wrote his name and signed right beneath.
“So, now what do you do with it?”
“Now I roll it up and seal it. Where’s the red stick thing? I also need the stamp. Do you know where the stamp is?”
“No, why would I? Should I?”
“Nah, never mind.” Eren got up and walked over to his trunk, his fancily tailored green-and-gold shoes tapping against the bare wooden floor. He shuffled through the trunk once again, retrieving what was quite indeed a red stick and a dark, petrified wood stamp. He returned to the table and detached the lamp from its post. Holding the red stick close to the lamp, Eren carefully positioned himself above the letter that he had scrolled up without Lucas's noticing. The red stick quickly began to melt, sending a soft sound as a droplet of red hit the paper. Eren immediately separated the red stick from the lamp, which he placed back onto its post.
After waiting approximately ten seconds, Eren grabbed the stamp and pressed firmly onto the red droplet. Waiting for another fifteen seconds, Eren finally lifted the stamp. Lucas got up from his bed and quickly hurried over, observing the seal. It was the image of a coin with what looked like a depiction of the sun encased within it.
“It should still be kind of wet, so you shouldn’t touch it.”
“Got it. So now what do we do with it?” Lucas asked.
“My dad told me something about how the school’s mailing system works.” Eren tapped the wall, right under the lamp. A hole appeared, seemingly sucking what had been a solid patch of wooden wall into its dark depths. Eren waited approximately thirty seconds before placing the letter into the hole, watching it as it disappeared into its dark depths. The hole quickly refilled with wood, vanishing altogether. “They tie up the letter so that not too much stress is placed on the seal once the letter gets to them. Then they give it to a courier who happens to be travelling in that direction and who will hopefully not get lost in the delivery to the next station.”
“I should try that,” Lucas said.
“It’ll be a little more complicated for you because you don’t have a family crest. You’ll need to write the recipient’s name and address, including the name of the city and mailing region. Not everyone knows the name of Everward, you know. There’ll be no way for you to seal the letter, especially since they need to see the address while delivering, too.”
“Oh, yeah. You also said that they didn’t have a station in Everward, too, right?”
“That’s not much of a problem. They can still access Everward; it’s just that they won’t stay there because there’s nothing to stay for. It’s just a slightly more tiring round trip.”
“Speaking of which, how do you get a seal and a crest and a stamp and everything?”
“That’s really hard, because you need the royal family, specifically the king, to recognize your family as nobility before they grant you the right to bear a crest. Even then it still has to go through the Council to decide whether or not the family has contributed enough to the kingdom. I think the last time a commoner family, or a non-noble family at all, for that matter, was recognized into nobility was at least a century ago.”
“What’s the council?”
“It’s this group of five old people — the oldest of the royal family of Aurevelis and the four of the eldest members of the four families that are the closest related to the royal family — Viremont, Marrowind, Drevance, and Lorenx.” Looking at the clock, Eren suddenly added, “We should go. We only have five minutes to find the cafeteria now. If we don’t get going, we might be eating crumbs off the floor.”