"Ahh!" My body sprung forwards, clashing into someone else's head.
"Ow ow ow ow!" Immediately, I held my head, I was on the ground in the hallway. And the other person now on their bottom, wearing a long white nightdress and long blonde hair?
My eyes lifted to see their face, and to my surprise, it was Claudia.
"Claudia? What are you doing here, why am I on the floor?" She rubbed her forehead, her eyes shut tight, and groaned in pain.
"It's the ow ow.. It's the morning, I was going to get water and you were on the ground unconscious, well you were spouting something.. It's fake?"
It was already morning and I was passed out in the hallway? Right, I was in some sort of illusion, a dream of sorts? I stood up, my hand stretched outwards and Claudia held on gently, getting up herself.
"Why was I passed out..?" I whispered, what was a dream and what wasn't?
"I'd like to ask you the same thing, Lady Ophelia." A voice from behind, it was Priscilla again. "Why were you sleeping in the hallway?"
"I don't know." When did I pass out? When did it start? From when I entered the hallway, or outside the front door? Or even further back, to when I went up to the roof? How much of it was fake, and how much of it was real?
"You should take a break, Lady Ophelia, you must've burnt yourself out from Layla's training."
"Burnt out? Lia, take it easy! Despite Miss Layla's approach, she wouldn't want you to overwork yourself." Claudia gave a quick smile, trying to cheer me up. But, I doubted that, Layla had a look of seriousness..
"Thanks Claudia, I'll try not to overexert myself." I reciprocated a smile back.
"How about it, take a break today, let's go shopping!"
"I'd love to, but I only have 2 weeks left and I still have a while before I complete Miss Layla's training."
"That's right Lady Claudia, you too have to continue your lessons, now move on along both of you." Priscilla promptly grabbed Claudia's hand, and left without another word.
It was only a matter of time till I figured out how much of yesterday was real. Till then, I had to refocus on the gruelling reps that I had yet to finish.
9:00, I got to work, using the theory that I had thought of before I was interrupted by Hanise. And to my surprise, it had far exceeded my expectations. I was able to easily keep the wind barrier up for 10 seconds.
It was less taxing, and having it activated while maintaining Aether skin however was still a little difficult. Nevertheless, I was able to do both at the same time without other problems.
One week drifted by without much else, the only issue was that I always woke up in the middle of the hallway. I had made steady progress, 2 days of constant Aether skin and wind barriers till I finished.
"You've finally completed everything, and with a day to spare Miss Ophelia." Layla clapped lightly, before standing up from her seat, clipboard and pen in hand. "How do you feel, after finishing everything I set for you? Relieved? Or maybe satisfied?"
"Both, I'm happy that I don't have to do that anymore, and satisfied that I was able to come up with better methods in casting."
She walked off, and I followed. We had returned back to her laboratory, she sat down, writing quickly before turning her seat to face me. Handing me the pile of papers that she had written all on.
"First, these are all the inconsistencies, the amount of times a spell was deemed a failure by me, how long you practiced, any changes you made, whether good or bad, and every successful rep I thought was perfect. Second, it's time we talk about my departure."
She was right, she really did write everything, it was things seen from another perspective, things that I could not detect myself. It was amazing, each annotation and detail was precise.
"How were you able to do all this? And especially without an ounce of sleep?"
"Of course, it's because I'm your teacher. You can look at those later, I'll be teaching you my special spell, and the outlines of what will happen during my absence."
And so she did, her special spell was not what I expected. A spell that I had not thought of before, and, a spell that I was definitely incapable of doing. Her departure was fairly simple, during her 5 year absence, I'd be left with a routine on how to perfect such a crazy spell.
And, though left without a teacher, her instructions were to do what I had been doing during the past 5 weeks. She said that I wasn't in need of a replacement, or anyone to really supervise me.
Praising and complimenting my intuitive thinking and intellect was something I also did not anticipate. I presumed she was some sort of priestess, her 'work' she vaguely described aligned with that assumption.
I was dismissed, and upon returning to my room, a blurry figure walked around the corner. My door was slightly open, and the figure had black hair-
I ran quickly, papers in hand, and a goal to determine who the culprit was. They had already disappeared, they weren't around the corner anymore.
"Li~a!"
"Ah!" Pushed from behind, the papers flew out of my hand, onto the floor. Instead of scrambling to pick them up, I used wind magic to float them back into my arms.
"Claudia? Why are you here?"
"Did you forget? It's Murren's birthday tomorrow! I swear Priscilla said you knew.."
"Yes, I remember, but I don't have a present for him."
"Tomorrow is a perfect day to shop! We'll get him a present before night falls." The thought escaped me, due to all this practice, and no lessons with Hanise, it slipped my mind. And, Hanise wanted to talk with me later, but that was already 2 weeks ago.
What did he want to talk to me about, was it about his birthday? He didn't seem like the type to shamelessly ask for a birthday even if he was a troublemaker.
Hopefully, nothing bad happens tomorrow. Hanise's birthday, what would I get him?