Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Time passed quickly with Evin and Arza running between classes.

Evin managed to obtain the most basic knowledge of Runes, some insight on how his mana-core worked, some grand promises of great blazing spells, more Imperial and Arithmetic that he\'d liked to learn, and some regret in choosing the Enchanting class possessing only a Shard of Irratas and a Shard of Lochra. One made him feel as if he was setting himself on fire, and the other made him disgustingly aware of the nitty-gritty details of his body. Evin resolved to absorb the Shard of Apdenul after for the next week\'s lessons, as he was very impressed by Arza\'s feats of strength.

But that was for another day.

Currently, he was sitting inside a lavishly decorated classroom, with a variety of eyes staring at his side. He was waiting for Chairman Kent to come inside the room and teach him all about Imagination Casting. The subject he was forced into, and one he wasn\'t welcome in.

The seating in the class very clearly depicted the situation.

While Evin was sitting on the left side of the classroom, nearer to the windows, 13 noble children in the class were sitting on the right side of the classroom, closer to the doors and all clustered up. Evin guessed that most of them must be the sons and daughters of small baron families, a couple of them the offspring of viscounts and only one of them a son of a certain Countess.

Well, it wasn\'t a small classroom per se, with about forty seats in total, so it wasn\'t that glaring… but Evin reckoned that anyone with an eye should be able to see the gap.

\'And I\'m supposed to be the destroyer of these rifts…\' Evin thought with amusement.

Sheepishly, he stole a glance towards Decatur, and found the latter scowling back at him with eyes full of hatred and disgust.

<Told you he wouldn\'t have fixed his attitude, even with his mother berating him like that,> the voice chuckled. <I reckon her words made him hate you even more.>

<He acts afraid of his mother, so why doesn\'t he do as she asks of him?> Evin sent a thought back, albeit with some difficulty.

To achieve this feat, Evin had to grasp at the lodestone (that was given to him by the old woman who taught Mana-core cultivation) and circulate Thought energy in his core. Then he needed to remake these energies in the shape of a rune, which meant [Connect], and send them towards the inside of his head. At that point, he would feel his core greedily absorbing the mana from the lodestone, almost taking one twentieth of it. A quarter of the mana that the voice needed to create that great explosion.

<Oh, how great the world would be if a few condemning words from a mother could turn these spoiled children into proper adults,> the voice laughed, <Wasn\'t it the same story with Kolin? The boy looked deadly convinced that you were the reason for all that was wrong with his life, even after that passionate speech about king Roland from Arza.>

The night Arza went to sleep over at a friend\'s room, he came back at midnight, clearly annoyed, murmuring something about idiot mules acting as if they\'re regal purebred horses. Evin was too sleepy to care about the boy\'s state of mind, so he didn\'t really bother to talk with him at the time. It became quite obvious that there was a fight between Arza and Kolin\'s group, as the two were clearly at odds when they had to share a classroom the following day.

At that time, Evin finally realized that Arza too, was a young and simple teenager. Petty and childish. He called the other group a pack of skunk liars and he tried to bait the others into settling things with their fists not twice, not thrice, but ten times.

Kolin\'s group of course, did not let Arza have his way with them, trying their best to keep the scope of the fight to verbal jabs only. \'It is my wish to refuse a fight from you. Haven\'t you taught us to be honest? You dog!\' the boy\'s annoying retorts echoed into Evin\'s head again.

More than once, Evin imagined Arza just jumping at Kolin, but he seemed to be holding himself back for whatever reason. Evin asked about it later and found that aside from a light slap or a light punch, Arza refused to fight someone seriously without their consent.

Evin didn\'t understand the boy\'s weird set of rules and just hoped the two sides would leave him alone. For whatever reason, Evin would also be repeatedly dragged into this conflict, always by Kolin or one of his group. They would all act as if Evin was the reason for their undesirable conflict with Arza and argue as such.

Sighing, Evin looked towards the other side of the classroom, and found a similar situation brewing there. All the nobles were sitting reverently around Decatur, all wearing a damning scowl on their faces.

Two youths among these noble teenagers stood next to the young heir of the Countess more confidently than the others, clearly used to his presence. Perhaps they were the sons of Viscounts among a pack of less noticeable Barons. One of them was a veritable giant with a buzz-cut, though he wasn\'t as large as Arza. This one stared at Evin with the same intensity as Decatur, as if Evin was the sworn enemy of his prophesized fate.

Evin could only marvel at how easily people trusted the words of others.

The other was a fit-looking youth about the same build and hair color as Evin himself, with the only difference being the pair of circular glasses he wore on his face. This one did not possess the hatred that the other showed, only expressing mild curiosity at this commoner among nobles. Evin saw him occasionally whispering something in Decatur\'s ears with a sheepish smile, and the latter allowing himself a slight chuckle, briefly forgetting about Evin\'s existence.

<Ugh, I\'m already getting bored of staring at that group. I\'m much more interested in the girl sitting behind you,> the voice said.

If Evin turned back to look – which he couldn\'t, for obvious reasons – he would find a young girl with long wavy black hair, resting casually with a notebook in her hands. Her name was probably Bella, and she was a daughter of a rich viscount... if Evin was to trust the shushed whispers that came from the other side of the classroom.

In any case, the girl had come much later into the class compared to the others, and saw the rift that had appeared between the nobles and a certain commoner boy. She seemed to weigh the two choices side by side and ultimately decided to sit behind Evin.

Whether it was because she wanted to sit nearer to Evin, or simply further away from the nobles, Evin couldn\'t tell for sure. His fancies told him that she did so because she found him interesting and wanted to be closer to him; but his wits reminded him that he was gravely wrong, as it was obvious she wasn\'t the best of friends with the nobles, with the occasional wary glances they sent towards her way.

As Evin was pondering about these topics, the Chairman entered the room.

He looked more amused, rather than annoyed by the obvious segregation in the classroom, and seemingly decided not to care. Evin could never tell whether the man was serious about this whole thing he put Evin to in the first place.

Everyone stood up to greet their teacher and after his approval, they sat down to their seats.

"Greetings, everyone… How have you been enjoying your time at the Academy?"

"It is most fitting, exalted high-mage," the nobles said in unison, clearly trained to do so from youth.

Their response was different from the shy silence of Pleaders and the bustling loudness of Demanders. It was something more artificial than the replies of those two groups… at least that was what Evin liked to think.

"Well, I\'m sure you all know the purpose of my coming here. To teach you all the wonders of Imagination Casting."

"Now, we all know how the kingdom vaguely forbids the nobles to learn secrets of magic before attending the Academies. And we all know how everyone and their mothers ignore this rule and feel it a prudence to be educated before coming here," the Chairman smiled. "But I must still teach you everything from the beginning, knowing that you know these things, but hoping it would help rekindle some lost knowledge for you all."

Arza had also spoken a bit about this vague rule of the kingdom, when Evin asked the boy why he needed to attend classes, despite being so knowledgeable about the subjects. Arza said that in truth, before the age of 10, he wasn\'t allowed to hear anything about magic, except for the most basic of concepts. Same with nobles. But no one seemed to mind the rule too much, doing their best to skirt around this limitation to the best of their abilities. To convince the kingdom that they were obeying the laws, they had to learn in the Academy, as if they were learning new things.

Evin pointed out that Arza was technically lying to the Academy, but the boy rebuked, saying that he still learned many new things during these classes with teachers. When Evin asked him if he would lie to someone when prompted about the matter, but Arza simply replied he would refuse to speak of the matter.

Sighing, Evin focused his attention back towards the Chairman.

"Imagination Casting, a method you are all familiar with, is widely recognized as the prime form of spell-weaving. Silent and practical, quick if you are well-trained enough, and very flexible in the hands of the capable. It does not have the glaring weaknesses of the other ones, except for the toll it takes on your mind."

"But of course it would toll our minds, as we\'re the ones who force the primal elements to move and shift for us. The concepts hidden from our ordinary eyes, but concepts which clearly exist in the fabrics of the world."

<Hmm?> the voice let out, slight confusion apparent in its tone.