"Fate? You alright?" Venden turned his head and gave Fate a worried look as the other Journeyman lay there, quietly staring at the ceiling.
"What–" Fate cleared his throat, his voice having gone hoarse. He became acutely aware that it had been a while since he had drank any water. He tried to speak once more, grateful that his words came out clearer this time. "What's her last name?"
"Sedronol. Why? Do you know her?"
"You could say that."
"Well, I know where she likes to read at this time of day," Venden told Fate after checking the time. "I can take you to her once we get out of here."
"No, no. She won't want to see me."
Venden's look grew skeptical as he probed for more information. "She talks about her time in Brergan often, but she's never mentioned you. What happened between you two?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
The noble let out an annoyed puff of air from his nose but stopped prying. "Alright then. When is that nurse going to let us go? The Office of Noble Lineages closes in a few hours."
On cue, the door opened, and in strode the nurse, her brown hair billowing out behind her like a cloak as her soft brown eyes scrutinized her two patients.
A blanket of Mana spawned around both of the Journeymen, pushing in through their pores and eyes and ears and even their unmentionable bits. Expecting to feel pain, Fate was surprised to find that he felt nothing from the Mana besides a slight feeling of something within him.
That Mana meticulously scanned Fate and Venden from top to bottom, lingering longer on where their worst injuries had been before continuing on. When the Mana vanished, the nurse gave a sharp nod.
"You two are free to go," she said, her words as sweet as honey. "No lingering injuries, all of your bits are back in place. And next time, try to keep yourself in one piece. Making a new ear is much harder than repairing half of one." She gave Fate a chastising glance before leaving.
"It's a good thing there aren't any classes today," Fate said appreciatively, tossing the blanket off of him and standing with a stretch. "I've already missed three and a half days' worth of them already."
"Three and a half days?" Venden asked bewilderedly. "It's the first week of class. How the hell did you manage that?"
"Nobles picking fights, detention, and an unpleasant experience where all my memories and personal thoughts were examined by the principal."
"No wonder my sister pissed you off," the noble replied. "She does that to me on a good day. I can only imagine the effect she'd have on someone that went through as much as you did."
"Yeah, well. I'm used to it," Fate said with a touch of bitterness.
"Well, you won't have to worry about that from me anymore. I'm done being my family's lapdog. I think it's about time I strike out on my own."
"See you later then, Venden. Good luck with that whole 'emancipation' thing."
"Thanks. And good luck to you."
They said their goodbyes and parted ways, one off to his dorm and the other to the Office of Noble Lineages found within the city.
Fate flopped onto his bed belly-first, burying his face in his pillow as he sighed deeply. He flipped around onto his back and stared at the air in front of him, trying to decide what to do for the next two and a half days he had left in the weekend.
'I'm far behind on my Monday/Wednesday classes,' he realized. 'I haven't attended a single one besides the category classes. That's Etiquette, Physics, and History. Two four hours' worth of lectures each and whatever assignments they assigned.'
He let out another sigh as he pushed himself off of his bed. He might as well spend the weekend catching up. It's not like he had anything better to do.
He took off in the direction of his Etiquette professor's office, intending to visit each professor to collect the information he needed to understand and the work he needed to complete.
When he met with each one, he went back to his dorm room and dumped all of the items out of his storage ring and onto the bed. Thankfully, it wasn't much. Only six lectures and no assignments. Each lecture was contained within the same kind of Memory Balls as Professor Faraday's lectures.
Just like before, he would be able to go through each in an instant, but would need a few hours to make sense of them.
He did have about thirty pages of the History textbook and another twenty from the Physics book that he had to read, but he should be able to finish those in a few hours.
Thanks to the similarities between Ziob and English, he could read at a moderate pace. It was still below average among nobility, as he still had trouble associating the Ziob letters with their English counterparts, and then assigning the proper sound to the Ziob letters.
Regardless, he got to work, cracking open the Physics textbook and reading about the basic laws like inertia and the premise of an equal and opposite reaction for every action. While the text was boring and monotonous, the subjects discussed were anything but.
Fate ended up tearing through the required twenty pages and then some, making it forty-three pages in before he had to stop and move on to the history book.
He looked up bleary-eyed from the History textbook five hours later to find it was past midnight. Scratching his head with a yawn, he stowed the books in his ring and slipped off his robes.
He stuffed them in the washer and waited a few seconds for them to be cleaned before pulling them out and carefully hanging them in his closet. Then he crawled under his bed's blankets, falling asleep the moment his head came in contact with the pillow.
In the morning, he had twelve hours of lectures ahead of him.