Chương 52: Chapter 48: Your funeral

By the time Fabrisse returned to the academy, dawn was beginning to filter through the eastern windows. The corridors were empty. Everyone sensible was asleep. Fabrisse had experiments to run. Every conductive medium he could reasonably acquire would have to be tested. Copper first; iron next. Then there were the crystal powders, and combinations of crystal powders, and— He was still adding to the list when he reached his room. The upgrade was useful, certainly, but he wanted to know why it worked.

He dropped his satchel beside the bed and reached for a fresh notebook. Eidralith appeared. [Research Completed: +62 EXP] EXP: 2312/2800 So research earned experience points too. Had it always done that? Fabrisse distinctly remembered spending half a day cataloguing stones before Severa arrived and whisked him away. Maybe he'd gotten experience then too. He could easily have dismissed the notification without reading it. There had been a particularly interesting rock in his hand at the time. Still… Sixty-two.

That was it? He'd spent hours in the crystal caverns, discovered an alchemical reaction no one seemed to know about, and somehow improved an artifact in the process. Sixty-two. A few days ago, throwing rocks for an hour had earned him nearly a hundred.

"Questionable priorities," Fabrisse muttered. A page turned somewhere behind him. He looked over. Greg was awake, sitting perfectly upright in bed, spectacles on, reading by the early morning light.

"Did you just get back?"

"No." Greg glanced over the top of his book.

"Interesting. Because if I wake up and find you entering the room after sunrise, there is an eighty-seven percent chance you simply haven't gone to bed." He turned a page.

"You should probably sleep."

"I'll be fine."

"Your Air Practical begins in two hours." Fabrisse immediately lay down. He had already failed Basic Air four times. Like Fire, he couldn't afford another failure. So he closed his eyes, wondering if it was possible to get eight hours' worth of sleep in two. Severa Montreal had an unfortunate habit of appearing in practical lessons several years beneath her own level.

No one had ever managed to determine whether she was there to observe, assist, ask questions, or simply because she'd noticed an instructant standing still for long enough to become academically vulnerable. Officially, she had more than enough advanced practicals of her own to attend. Unofficially, she appeared convinced that every instructant represented a finite educational resource which ought to be extracted with maximum efficiency before someone else asked a less interesting question.

Over the years, the instructors had simply learned to budget an extra fifteen minutes at the end of each lesson for Severa's questions. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Fabrisse stepped into the practical ground. Severa was already there. Fabrisse stepped out of the practical ground. I should've skipped class. No. He was trying to do better.

Skipping practicals because one exceedingly intelligent girl might glare at him for an hour probably went against that. So Fabrisse went onto the field. Wind Thaumaturgy had been moved to the southern practice fields for open-air channeling. There were no desks to duck behind here, only chalk invocation circles and far too much open space. Severa stood across the field, her hair tied high with a silver band.

She didn't react when Fabrisse arrived, or when Replacement Magus Instructant Aval called his name during roll. She seemed perfectly content pretending he wasn't there. Fabrisse bit his lip. What had he expected? That the best student in their year would suddenly start paying attention to him because he'd visited her house once? Come to think of it, why was she even here? Severa was well beyond this class. She usually attended the senior practicals whenever she could get permission.

Perhaps she'd come specifically to watch him fail. At least she hadn't insulted him yet. Cuman gave a low whistle as he passed Fabrisse's circle.

"Kestovar! Still hiding behind girls with real talent, or are you planning to blow some air today?" Miro followed behind him and stuck out his tongue. Fabrisse ignored them. One of the chalk glyphs at his feet had smudged, so he rubbed his thumb over the line and pretended this required his full attention. Magus Instructant Aval stepped into the center of the field and clapped once.

"All right. Today we're playing Skybrace. I'm sure most of you have seen Instructant Ovrien demonstrate it before. Two teams, four players each. Get the silkball through the opposing net using Wind Thaumaturgy. No hands or feet. I don't care how you move it, provided you move it with wind. Three minutes." Several people groaned. Fabrisse understood why. The silkball was enchant-light and had an irritating habit of shooting off in entirely the wrong direction if you pushed it too hard. Skybrace required precision.

Two people here certainly had that. Severa and Cuman. Instructant Aval turned toward them.

"You'll lead. Take turns choosing. Three players each."

"I'll go first," Cuman said. That wasn't horrible. Cuman wasn't going to pick Fabrisse. Severa certainly wasn't going to pick him either. She actually wanted to win.

"Rhel," Cuman said. No surprise there.

"Larne," Severa answered.

"Verryn."

"Halma." That left one pick each. Fabrisse looked down at his scrolls. Excellent. Nearly over. Cuman glanced through the remaining students.

"I suppose I'll take Terrero. He's tall." Fabrisse was surprised he didn't take Miro, but maybe Miro wasn't any good at air-based invocations. For a moment, Severa didn't say anything. Fabrisse dared to glance up, already bracing for someone else's name. Severa looked across the field.

"Kestovar." Fabrisse looked up. A few other students did too. Miro made a choking noise that was probably supposed to be laughter. Surely she meant another Kestovar.

"Kestovar," Severa repeated.

"You're with me." Of all days, she had picked the one where he'd slept for less than two hours. Fabrisse made his way across the field. Cuman smirked as he passed.

"Your funeral." It might very possibly be so. He joined Severa's side and tried not to think about the fact that he had exactly one usable Air spell: Stillbrace. The only reason he'd been able to learn it was because it required minimal emotional input. Because of his abysmal affinity, though, it had taken him a week of persistent repetition to be able to semi-reliably cast the spell. That had been enough for him to clear Air Thaumaturgy Foundation I.

If I stand just downwind of Severa, I can catch the rebound if she puts too much force behind the gust. Stillbrace only holds for two seconds, so I need to cast after her. Fabrisse stopped beside Severa and glanced her way. Her attention remained fixed on the silkball Aval had suspended above the center of the field. Then he saw what must've been a curve of her lip. This is a setup. She was going to make him fail in front of everyone.