Chapter 1160: New life (2)

The Academy had posted its permanent schedules that morning. By dinner, the students had stopped discussing Blocks as an achievement and begun treating them as an inconvenience.

Marian claimed a section of the Grand Dining Hall table before anyone else could, then planted her Academy card beside her tray as though the glowing schedule had personally offended her. Selphine sat beside her, Aurelian arrived with vegetables piled across half his plate, and Mireilla brought two cups because she had apparently changed her mind halfway through filling the first.

Their schedules spread across the table one card at a time.

The Magicians’ Block had kept Elara, Marian, Selphine, Aurelian, and Mireilla within the same general part of the Academy, but their specializations had divided their afternoons into an untidy collection of practical sessions, auxiliary lectures, and supervised study periods. Marian wanted an agreement before someone disappeared into a laboratory and returned three weeks later claiming that time had escaped them.

"We can still meet here for dinner," she said, pushing her card toward the center. "That is the minimum."

Aurelian studied the overlapping schedules while reaching across the table. "Some of us finish later on fourth-day."

"You ruin every good moment by examining whether it is possible." Marian moved the vegetable dish away from his hand. "Agree first. Complicate it afterward."

Selphine rescued the dish before the dispute could become territorial. Mireilla proposed free evenings and occasional lunches, and the rest of the conversation settled into a loose arrangement: dinner when possible, one shared evening each week, and no accepting academic imprisonment as an excuse without evidence.

Elara listened while cutting into her meal.

The agreement should not have felt necessary so soon. They had known one another for only the length of an examination period, yet the thought of their table scattering across the Academy left an absence she could already imagine.

Marian glanced toward the empty place farther down the table. "Speaking of people who intend to vanish, where is Lucavion?"

Nobody knew. Aurelian had last seen him near the residential paths, while Selphine knew only that he had walked away after the meadow. Mireilla suggested that Lucavion had developed a talent for appearing wherever he pleased and leaving before anyone could ask when he would return.

Elara drove her fork into a potato. "Ungrateful bastard."

The conversation stopped around her.

She raised her eyes and found Marian watching with open interest. Aurelian had become deeply occupied with his plate, although the corner of his mouth threatened his innocence. "What?" Elara asked.

"I said nothing." Marian’s restraint lasted less than a breath. "It is only interesting that you sound abandoned."

"He left without saying where he was going."

Mireilla covered a laugh with her cup, and Elara found no support anywhere else at the table. She returned to her meal before Marian could turn the matter into a formal inquiry.

Lucavion had agreed to the lesson before the Rotunda results. He remembered inconvenient details whenever they gave him an opportunity to torment someone, so an actual appointment should have remained well within his abilities.

At least, Lucavion should have remembered that much.

Warmth pulsed beneath Elara’s fingers before she could pursue the thought further.

Her Academy card lit beside her tray. Two seats away, another flash spread across Cedric’s card.

The table quieted as pale script unfolded across both surfaces.

ELOWYN CAERLIN — REILAN DORNE

REPORT TO STUDENT AFFAIRS.

Elara forgot the food before her.

The summons had named them together. That detail pushed every harmless explanation aside and drew her attention toward the histories connecting Elowyn Caerlin to the man known here as Reilan Dorne.

Cedric met her eyes across the table. His expression gave nothing away, but his hand had stilled against the edge of his card.

Marian leaned across Selphine to read the notice. "The card can summon people directly?"

Aurelian abandoned his vegetables. "Apparently, it can summon two at once."

Mireilla looked from one glowing card to the other. "What does Student Affairs handle?"

None of them answered immediately.

Marian sat back and considered a more immediate difficulty. "Does anyone know where it is?"

This time, the silence answered for them.

******

Lucavion had spent enough time in the temporary residence to stop objecting to the word temporary.

The room encouraged that surrender. It offered a proper bed, a broad writing desk, an attached washroom with heated water, climate formations hidden within the walls, and enough warding around the windows that Vitaliara had once insulted their designer before discovering the spells would allow her through.

The Academy had given him three days to move into his permanent residence.

That left him ample time to ignore the matter until tomorrow.

Lucavion leaned against the window frame and turned the dark Academy card between his fingers. A pale line of mana moved beneath its surface, replacing his temporary examination registration with a permanent record. "Interesting."

Silver-white script arranged itself below his name.

PRIMARY BLOCK — MARTIAL ARTS BLOCK

His residential assignment followed, along with his first-week schedule and enough administrative notices to suggest the Academy had prepared for students who considered reading optional. A movement of his thumb replaced them with his examination record.

Weaponship had contributed a respectable number of Credits. Combat Awareness had done better, and Mana Control had awarded more than he expected, accompanied by a notation praising his adaptive performance.

The Oral Examination had been less charitable.

Lucavion considered the result before conceding that Selenne had judged him fairly. He understood magical structures well enough when he could feel them working, but his explanations only began resembling formal theory after someone dragged the correct terminology out of him. The Written Evaluation had exposed the same weakness with less patience.

That weakness was one reason he had entered the Academy. Knowing where pressure gathered inside a formation did not excuse him from learning what everyone else called it.

The blanket rustled behind him.

Vitaliara lifted her head, sleep having flattened the white fur along one side of her face. [What are you doing?]

Lucavion raised the card. "Checking what our generous hosts think I’m worth."

She examined the shifting script. [What is that?]

He crossed to the bed and held it where she could see. "An Academy card. Civilized institutions use these symbols to communicate schedules, rankings, and other complicated matters to people who can read."

Her golden eyes narrowed. [Lucavion.]

Lucavion indicated the shifting script. "The symbols represent words."

Vitaliara struck the blanket with her tail, and Lucavion stepped away before she could contribute her claws to his education.

The card had moved on to facility access. Basic cultivation chambers were available automatically, while denser chambers, specialist halls, recovery resources, and restricted sections of the western libraries required Credits, faculty approval, or both.

One higher-density chamber already accepted his standing. Another permitted him to request entry but still demanded authorization.

The arrangement interested him more than the ranking itself. A wealthy heir could enter the Academy carrying enchanted equipment worth a village, private training accumulated across years, and a household name capable of opening doors throughout the Empire. None of those advantages would place a single Academy Credit beside that student’s name.

The Academy had not removed wealth from its system. It had established a second currency beside it, one that could only be earned inside these walls.

Lucavion rather liked that.

He continued through the record until his Affinity result appeared.

CLASSIFICATION: UNRESOLVED.

Vitaliara had moved to the edge of the bed. [Your fire confused them.]

"My fire confuses most people."

[It confuses even yourself.]

"That is true. But only when I am too ambitious, though."

Her stare made clear what she thought of the distinction.

Lucavion moved farther down. His Rotunda result appeared near the bottom, rewarding his control, interpretation, and performance while withholding points where the examination measured established political legitimacy. He could embody the identity of a marquis’s heir for an evening, but the Measure had ended with an unaffiliated commoner standing on its floor. The score accounted for both facts.

He remembered the ranking displayed after the examination. The card showed only his own detailed result, but he had seen Elowyn’s name on the larger list.

A smile touched his mouth before he could dismiss it.

Vitaliara noticed. [Why are you smiling?]

Lucavion glanced at her. "Am I?"

She did not indulge him. [You are.]

Lucavion lowered the card. "I remembered Elowyn’s placement."

[What about it?]

"She ranked lower than I expected."