Chương 97: Chapter 95 - Yup, I'm from Ascentia.

"Come on Nythera, wake up, time to go to class!" Rowen's knuckles rapped on her door.

"Come on you icicles, get up! We all got language class and it's an early start" Vargan grumbled. They rushed down the nearly empty halls, down flight after flight of stairs and around a half dozen bends.

"Why they made this place such a maze, I cannot fathom" Valerius said from her shoulder. It's kinda like having another Talvik, but less condescending. Don't worry Talvik! I will save your spot when you return!

"I got it! You guys are from Hammer Rook right? I thought about it all last night." Vargan watched expectantly. Nythera turned away as they rushed down the halls "well actually…"

"Haha! I knew it all along! Caught you!" Vargan chuckled to himself. Oh fucking Hel, do I need to drop him in the hallway? Really? And in front of Valerius? This is going to be such a mess. Rowen's hand was already on the hilt of his sword, flux charging around him. We should attack in tandem then take Valerius and shove him into a closet until we can bribe him into complacency.

"Yup, you have to be from Ascentia! Right? That strange little nation right by the damned Center?" Vargan looked incredibly sure of his guess.

"Yes, you're right! Ascentia is where we are from!" Nythera laughed nervously, nearly tripping on her own feet as she took another turn.

"Yes, well guessed Mr Dunsteel, We are both from Ascentia." Rowen confirmed.

"Just call me Vargan, really, no need for formalities between Northerners." Thank Kronan we got through that, I don't really want to drop a classmate on the first day. Vargan's hand clapped Rowen's back, sending him stumbling forwards "Hahaha, I knew it, you Ascentians are so strange. Being that close to The Center addles your mind." Valerius coughed as best as a Cat could, "May I inquire as to what courses you two Ascentian's have enrolled in?" Rowen answered "Battle magics."

"Oh really, how interesting. I have heard hearsay that the students of those courses tend to be somewhat unhinged."

"What about you Valerius?" Nythera asked her shoulder-Cat.

"Oh, I?" Valerius stuck his chin up "I am in aetherite studies actually, though I do dabble in battle magics on the right occasion. Speaking of that I heard strange rumors about your testing group." Strange rumors? About our group? What the Hel is going on.

"Apparently an illiterate woman, oddly enough she fit your description, blew up everything and nearly killed half the class with nothing but her arm. Is it true?" Valerius watched her from the corner of his eye.

"What exactly did they say?" Nythera deflected.

"They said three instructors died with the first blast and then a fourth of the class with the next. Gladius himself tried to stand up to the woman with the destruction arm but failed to save his classmates from the next barrage, which killed another half." Valerius recounted.

"What? Those rumors are grossly exaggerated, no one died!" Nythera replied in shock. I am going to strangle whoever is spreading these, just wait till I get my hands around their neck. Valerius shrugged "Well those are the rumors, you are apparently quite the formidable one, Miss Aurendor." Vargan ripped open the class door, hinges squeaking in protest, he and Rowen rushed in.

"By Kron- this room, quite lovely." Nythera said as her and Valerius entered. The small class room had a layer of dust coating everything and books that look like they hadn't been touched in three centuries. Need to be careful with Vathrial terminology, do they even know Kronan here? An irritated guy in student robes sat at the central desk, glaring at them. A handful of students sat scattered throughout the room, full of people who all clearly looked different. The annoyed guy snapped shut the book he was reading.

"Alrigh class, let's get started and get this over with." He stood up and slammed a fist on the table, wincing with pain.

"This class is simple, you either pass or you flunk out of the entire school. Can't read, can't study. You will do hours of homework every day or you can just go home right now..." he droned on and on about rigor and failing. Wow this guy is really boring, come on it's just a language class. I wonder if I can find an artifact that lets me read and skip it all.

"Let me be painfully clear, you either pass this class this semester, or you go home." he finished, glaring around the classroom. His eyes locked onto Valerius and his gaze immediately softened.

"Except for you, Master Hightail, of course you will not be failed." A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Valerius held his head up high, as high as a cat sitting on a desk could. She snorted, which earned another glare from the unnamed professor. Page after page they ran through basic grammar and sentence constructions at a blinding pace, no one had the bandwidth for chatter.

How strange, this language is closest to the western languages, like that of Tianshiang but… Most of the class was spent going over the three sub-runic alphabets that meld together to form over 5000 distinct characters. Each character took one runic piece from each of the alphabets. Yeah this is going to take a long time, this might be the worst language I have ever seen.

One agonizing hour later "Remember the first fifteen pages of your textbooks by the end of the week, if you can't identify each subrune on any character you see, you won't last long in week two. If I must, I will fail you next week." She and the others rushed out the door, eager to escape the disappointed glares of their upperclassman-professor.

"What a prick" Vargan grumbled.

"Bye bye Nythera! Rowen! We have to get to Edge-Cliff Studies!" Valerius struggled to keep up with Vargan, narrowly dodging other students rushing down the hall.

"Bye Valerius! See you later" She waved back. I'm going to pet the cat later, for now, cantrips! Finally!

"That class is going to be a problem, I think we will need to focus on language for a while before we can do anything else or we will be failed out before we can learn anything" Rowen muttered. Cantrip class was hosted in the biggest classroom she had seen yet, with a wide arching ceilings reinforced with thick stone columns. Students were scattered out over the space, two meters between each seat. Most looked to be very bored.

How strange, this place looks like it's built to withstand a siege, it doesn't even have shelves, just stone work. And why such space? Oh hey I recognize some people from the testing group! Nythera and Rowen found an unoccupied spot near the back of the room, their attention quickly drawn to the center as an old man paced before the class.

"You will call me professor, no more no less… Now can someone define what cantrips are?" he grumbled, looking on with disappointment. Looking around at random, he pointed at one person "Gladius boy, please answer now."

"Cantrips are magic cast with no dedicated skill, typically just your own flux pool and your flux control stat." Gladius said with a hint of pride.

"Good, yes, they are sometimes called raw magics, unguided magics, or other such things. None of that matters, what they are is versatile magics, accessible to you with just a bit of flux and allowing you to access flux-typing far out of your skill range." He walked up to a board at the back of the room made of perfect white stone. Tracing his finger along it, the board lit up with a dim green glow where his finger passed.

"These are the basics of what you need to cast a cantrip and …." Ok so you need Flow Quality and control together, but dramatically less resonance, hmm. So in theory despite my lack of affinities, I should have enough raw stats and flux to force cast cantrips regardless?

"Now look here" his right hand glowed with a dull yellow, the energy floating up above his palm into a sphere.

"This should be compatible with most people, regardless of natural affinities, light is one of the easiest things to generate, simply by condensing unattuned flux or even several types of attuned flux, you can create a basic light, though efficacy varies by typing." He stared into his own light"Before you begin trying to condense your flux, let me warn you right now, this is your only warning on the matter." he coughed.

"Anyone who tries to weave dangerous flux types, such as certain types of fire, earth flux, or lightning, or attempts unguided flux exercises beyond what is immediately instructed will be permanently removed from my class. Last semester we had to expel three students for bringing down the roof with earth flux trying to make a simple light cantrip." His gaze softened.

"Use what you need, not what you can. Begin" The students all turned to their hands, trying to bring the flux to bear. Nythera held out her left, figuring the prosthetic wouldn't do well for a first try. Flux flowed, first at a trickle just a few drops at a time. With a shove of will it turned into a small stream, motes of energy coursing into her palm where she concentrated them. She glanced over to find Rowen staring angrily at his palm, the hand in question sitting in a vice grip "Come on, come on, MOVE!"

he yelled at his hand, not unlike many of the students. Nythera smirked. I am going to have to show my classmates who's on top. It'll be easier to get information once they know who to fear. Though if I go too far Rowen might get mad. But I also get cool cantrip skills. The flux warped into a bright glowing lump, which she tried to pry off her palm into the air. It was far whiter and less yellowy than the professor's had been. Suppose mine is probably unattuned, I wonder what flux he was using? Now come on, Move!

She pulled again, the forming orb stretched from palm up into the air before snapping back down. Ok fine you want to play games? You will OBEY. Nythera pulled with her Authority this time, her commands thundering within herself with the force of cannon fire. The flux orb popped off with ease, as if desperate to obey. With a single flex of her will it moved back and forth, up and down, and started spinning. Her grin grew with every twitch of the orb as it danced to her will.

With a simple twitch it split into two glowing orbs, which began to orbit each other as they spun on their own axis, like little planets. I can probably use this for seeing stuff in the dark, but with flux-sight I don't really need it. As a blinding tactic it might have value. Let's see how big we can get it. Nythera let the deep pool of flux within her stream into the orbs of glowing light, the orbs surged in both intensity and size as she allowed a few hundred flux to pour into them.

I could use these to illuminate targets… no wait I can see them with flux-sight anyways. Damn it. The orbs had swollen to the size of her head and were still gaining size while their orbits slowed. Dualcasting (lvl 1 > 2) Oh now we are talking! Let's see if I can get some more out of this. She split another orb off, making a triad, and then pushed them to spin around each other faster, dumping several hundred flux into the process. And now we will see how big I can get these…

Flux by the thousands poured from her freely as the orbs ballooned to nearly the size of people, spinning at an incredible speed well above her head. Dualcasting (lvl 2 > 3) The skill thrummed in unison, helping slightly with the control of the spheres. Given it's meant for dual casting skills I'm kinda surprised it does anything at all here. Rowen coughed and Nythera tore her eyes off the brilliant glowing spheres of energy.

"Yes? What do you need Rowen?" She asked, glancing at him. Everyone was staring into the air above her, the class stood dead silent.