Anala entered the classroom and tried to ignore the glares of her classmates. She sat next to Eve who smiled at her.
"Are you okay now?"
"Yes, thanks!" she said and looked at the blackboard.
"Self-study? Again?" she said surprised.
"Yeah, you missed nothing. We got self-study yesterday too,"
"Well...at least people lost their fails,"
"Well not everybody though," she added.
"Right...but I at least did the dual spell..." Anala looked at Lajla and Leona. "Who else didn't finish?" she asked.
"Only Emelin,"
"Really?" she said surprised but was interrupted by Hito who cleared his throat. She quickly apologized.
"Too late, let's write a test!" Hito smiled. "But don't worry it's easy, since Anala joined us, we can all write why you had different rules while learning the dual spells. We did this before, so you should already know what I like, but don't forget we are barely in the middle of the semester. There is still a lot to learn!" his smile now looked more devilish than before and everybody quickly picked their pens. After about fifteen minutes he stopped them and took their papers.
"Let's see, where is Emelin..." he said and found her paper. "Good job, you remembered what I told you!" he then looked through the papers again and made two stacks. "It looks like most of you figure it out, but let me explain," he said and picked up each paper from one stack.
"Anala, you understand that you need to stop blaming your failures on your element affinity. Lajla needs to understand her shyness and Leona her pride. Faul needs to learn how to focus and work hard. Only Anna misunderstood, I don't want you to shut up. Just try to not always seek help, do it yourself! Oh yeah, Eve! You surprised me to learn about your temper, very good." he commented briefly at each paper.
"It was not exactly fair, but I used few of you to make a point to others. Brutus, Mob, Azi, and Harry you don't have to worry, I had no intention to make this a special lesson for you. Do you have any questions?"
"Are you going to give us a special lesson as well?" Harry asked.
"Maybe..." Hito hesitated.
"You said there is still a lot to learn but dual spells were the goal of this semester...what else it's there?" asked the Smith.
"Well, everything...First of all, you did not really learn much of the theory, now didn't you? I am also pretty sure you all are behind in some of the basics, be it either the size of the circle, the stamina consumption, the focus, the power...most of you also only know one or two spells from each dimension..." Hito looked at the Cook as she raised her hand. "Yes?"
"I am sorry to interrupt, but why care about theory when we already know the real deal?" she asked innocently and Leona smirked.
"Well technically you don't have to, but it helps a lot to put what you can do to a broad context... that said I was thinking about you five. If you want I can prepare the final test sooner for you. If you finish it, you don't have to attend my classes,"
"That would be great!" said the Smith.
"There is nothing suspicious? Like forcing us to slave labor when we fail?" asked Laura and Hito laughed.
"No, no, nothing so serious. But you will only get one try for this special offer," he smiled.
"Riiight..." Laura was unsure, but he waved his hand.
"Let me think about the test and the date. I will tell you when I get the details ready. Anyway since you pointed out that most of us already know the dual casting, it should be no problem for me to test it every class, right? You Unni say a number," Unni was slightly surprised but then said twelve.
"Number twelve is Anna! Come here and show us your spell again!" Anna walked down the stairs and nervously start conjuring.
"Come on, we don't have the whole hour!" he said after five minutes, but that did not really help her.
"Well then, try until the end of the class. Anyway, for this lesson, I want you to all try making the biggest circle you can appear on the blackboard. Don't conjure anything, just the circle is enough. Let's start from the top left. Laura!" Anna finally managed to create her spell about ten minutes in, when the focus of the class was now more on Hito and sat happily down.
"It was very slow Anna, think about it and improve the speed," he said to her when the bell rang.
"Wait...did we just had a normal lesson with him?" Faul asked out loud when Hito left. Few people laughed, but few were also annoyed about his bias against adults.
"This school should not discriminate based on age!" said Ell and Harry agreed.
"It is not, he is just correctly pointing out, that we are simply more capable than you lot. Why should we be in the second year when we are capable as thrid years?" Laura asked as other adults were either already out or not really foolish enough to engage teenagers in a discussion.
"Says somebody who can't even conjure a palm-sized circle?" Faul jabbed her, but she scoffed.
"If the size is so important you should worry about yours, boy," she laughed.
"Very mature humor for a twenty...thirty years old?"
"Listen boy!" she snapped, but Harry interrupted her by saying the teacher was here.
"Thank you, representative!" she said bitterly and went back to her seat.