Shadow Vault. I invoked the spell silently, expending the Darkness-attuned mana I had prepared. My shadow rippled beneath me, then detached itself from the floor, rising up to my shoulder level. I stretched my arm forward, plunging it into the silhouette, which swallowed it up like a body of water. I focused my thoughts on the item I knew was hidden away in there, and immediately I felt my hand touch it. With a satisfied smirk, I grabbed it and yanked it out. My shadow returned to its normal state, and I placed the pillow onto my desk, then buried my face in it with a sigh of relief.
"You're really something else, Tione," Gennis said. "We have practicals right after this lecture, and yet you're wasting your mana on a mid-tier spell for something stupid like that."
I turned my head to the right to look at my friend and roommate, blowing a stray strand of hair out of my face as I did so.
"It's not stupid," I protested. "Think about it: I'll be going into my matches fully rested and refreshed, while everyone else will be struggling to keep their eyes open because they spent an hour listening to Professor Hadrik."
Gennis rolled her golden eyes. "I find his lessons interesting, you know."
"That's 'cause you're weird."
In the corner of my vision, I saw movement down at the front of the lecture hall. Celcian Hadrik, professor of theology here at Alsen Academy and the most boring man I've ever had the displeasure of hearing speak in all of my sixteen years of life, was approaching the lectern.
The fewer words I'm forced to hear from him, the better.
I closed my eyes and began attuning a bit of my remaining mana to the Spirit attribute. My affinity with Spirit wasn't the greatest, but thankfully the next spell I wanted to invoke didn't take much mana.
"Attention, everyone..." Hadrik began in his usual irritating way of speaking, where he trailed off at the end of every sentence.
Slumber. The low-tier Spirit-attribute spell took effect immediately. Keeping my eyes closed suddenly took less effort than holding them open, and my thoughts began to lose coherence as my consciousness slipped away.
"I have an announcement... starting today, we have a new—"
I faintly registered that the professor was starting his lecture differently than usual, but I wasn't able to process it before fully falling asleep.
The spell was meant to knock me out for an hour, but I could tell it hadn't been that long yet when I was shaken awake. I rubbed my eyes and looked at Gennis, who was gripping my shoulder with one hand and holding some papers in the other.
"Pop quiz, Sunshine," she said, handing me the papers.
Great, I thought to myself. At this point I had resigned myself to failing this course. I would still pass this year because I was acing all of my other courses, so I wasn't really worried about it. That said, it still felt embarrassing when I got a quiz like this one and couldn't even answer... huh?
"Hey, Gen, why do I have an extra?" I asked. It wasn't like Hadrik to miscount the number of students in each row.
"That would be for him," she said, pointing past me. There was always only an empty seat to my left, so I turned to see what she was talking about.
A boy I'd never seen before was sitting there.
"Woah!?"
"Please keep quiet back there..." Hadrik called out in response to my shout of surprise.
The boy didn't react at all. He was too busy staring off into space like he was deep in thought. He appeared rather forgettable for the most part, with messy hair and a plain face. What stood out to me were his deep brown eyes.
Brown is the color of physical strength and the Earth element. It's an eye color one would expect to see among laborers, soldiers, and athletes, not among students studying at a magic academy.
"He's the new student that just enrolled, Levin Aiken," Gennis whispered to me. "The professor introduced him right after you began your nap."
"A new student enrolling right before exam season?" I asked incredulously.
"Yep, and he's still waiting for his quiz paper."
"Ah, right."
I slid the extra copy over to him. He glanced at it briefly, then returned to whatever he was doing before.
Actually, what is he doing?
I had assumed he was just zoning out, but upon closer inspection, I realized his eyes were scanning from left to right, then back again.
He's... reading something? Something that only he can see?
As I continued to observe, he made some motions with his hands in the air in front of him. It reminded me of someone organizing documents, or of an airship pilot fiddling with the controls.
All I could tell for sure was that he didn't seem to have any intention of doing the quiz. Which made sense, since this was his first class. Honestly, I didn't know why Hadrik even bothered.
"Three minutes left..."
Right, the quiz. Well, let's see if I can answer at least one of these.
I began reading through the questions.
1. While all known major religions agree on the existence of the seven gods, they disagree on their origins and their names. Pick one of the gods and list at least four distinct names for them.
2. According to Belian scripture...
"Two minutes left..."
I set down my pen and flopped my head back onto my pillow.
Yeah, there's no chance, I'm getting a fat 0 on this.
To distract myself, I began planning ahead for my match during practicals. My opponent today was Hagen, a large blue-eye boy who used a greatsword and had a preference for spells that restrict his opponents' movements. It was something he desperately relied on, seeing as how his swordplay was garbage.
Gennis teased me about wasting my mana earlier, but it was just that, teasing. She knew that I didn't get my 12-2 win record from dumb luck; the nap I took was my declaration of confidence. Hagen might be high-ranked in our year, but my research assured me of two facts: he struggled against people with excellent mobility, and he had never once fought a purple-eye like me. The second one wasn't as surprising as it might sound, since purple-eyes are the rarest color in this academy.
Second-rarest, I corrected myself, glancing at my new seat neighbor again. He was stretching his arms now, and making a big show of it too. He finished, then grabbed a pen, centered his quiz paper in front of him, and... waited?
"One minute left..."
As soon as Hadrik called that out, Levin's pen began flying across the paper, a strange grin on his face.
Man, I can't believe anyone could actually have fun taking a quiz. What a weirdo.
Still, he seemed confident as he blitzed through the questions.
Is he actually going to do it? Ah, wait, he froze.
He had reached the bottom of his paper, but his hand had stopped moving, and his smile faded. He furrowed his brow, then began frantically searching through his invisible floating documents, but—
"Time's up. Please pass your tests to the center aisle..."
Levin tossed his pen aside and sighed, then slid his paper over my way without a glance.
"Damn, what the hell was that last question? I don't remember writing anything like that in my setting notes," he muttered to himself.
I passed his paper and my own blank one to my right. I heard a snort of laughter from Gennis.
"Wow, even the new guy is doing better than you," she said after handing them off.
"Shut up. He's a weirdo like you, it doesn't prove anything," I grumbled.
The students were all filing out of the classroom now. Some were more excited for the upcoming matches than others. Gennis finished gathering her belongings into her bag and stood up.
"You could at least read the textbook a bit. Anyway, ready to go?"
I shook my head, though, and jabbed my thumb to my left.
"Nah, I'm gonna stay a bit. I figure I should make sure the new guy doesn't get lost. You know how Instructor Telle gets when students are late."
"Alright, see ya."
She joined the line at the exit. By this point the classroom was mostly empty. Levin had gone back to his invisible documents again.
Well, I don't actually care if he gets lost or not. I just want to indulge my curiosity a bit.
I leaned over and tapped his shoulder. He jumped a bit.
"Huh? What is it?" he asked.
"I just wanted to know what that is," I replied.
"Uh, what do you mean?"
"I mean that," I said while pointing towards the empty space in front of him.
His eyes widened.
"W-Wait, you can actually see that?" he stammered.
"Of course I can see it," I lied. "It's floating right there, how could I not see it?"
"That... no, even when I used it in front of the headmaster, he didn't bat an eye. You're a purple-eye, so maybe it's a Darkness spell? Actually, I can just check, can't I?"
He began muttering to himself and messing around with "it."
"What was your name again?" he asked.
"I never gave it."
"... okay, so can I have it now?"
"Tione."
"Tione? Hm, so you aren't even a named character. This is really weird..."
Huh? Named character?
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"Okay, here it is," he said, completely ignoring my question. "You have... no active spell effects, no Feats, and these Skills are all normal ones that shouldn't give you any unusual abilities, so how are you... wait."
Levin put his hands in his face and groaned as the realization hit him.
"You're just fucking with me, aren't you?"
"Yep," I said with a big grin. "Little tip: if you're trying to keep whatever that is a secret, work on being less obvious when you use it."
"Duly noted," he said with a defeated tone.
"Soooo... can you tell me what it is?"
He seemed to be able to analyze me somehow using those documents, so now I was even more curious.
"Nope."
Unfortunately he shot down my question right away.
"By the way, where is everyone?" he asked, just now noticing that the lecture hall was empty aside from us.
"Wow, you're a real airhead, aren't you?"
"I... can't argue that, I guess."
"Next class is practicals, so they went out to the practice field. Come on, I'll lead the way."
I grabbed my own bag and stood up.
"Oh, no need, I can navigate there myself," he said, standing up and appearing to position one of those invisible documents in front of himself. I wondered if it was a map or something.
"Trying to save face? Alright, then you lead the way, and I'll follow," I said. "Just a warning: it's a seven minute walk, we have ten minutes before the class starts, and the teacher is very strict about tardiness. So, no pressure."
Well, if I use my Air spells, I can get there in under 2 minutes, so at the very least I'll be fine. But let's see whether this guy will taste Telle's wrath on his first day.