Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

«Oh, I don’t pity you,» Zorian said. «I think you’re very inspiring, actually. You’re a single parent who somehow managed to find the time to teach himself magic to such a degree that a world-renowned institution like the academy in Cyoria acknowledged your potential. They gave you a scholarship, didn’t they?»

Kael nodded. «I wouldn’t be able to attend otherwise.»

«They rarely give out scholarships, you know?» Zorian said. «About 5 to 6 of them each year. You must be pretty amazing to have caught their attention like that.»

«It’s mostly my medical expertise,» Kael sighed. «I made a vow to myself after… well, you know. I swore to myself I would become the best healer of the age and make sure a tragedy such as the Weeping can never happen again.»

Uh… wow. Zorian didn’t know what to say to something like that.

«I made quite a lot of progress on that front, if you permit me to be a little immodest here.» Kael said. «But… well, it’s complicated. We can talk later, if you’re still interested. Me and Kana are rather tired from the journey and I’d like to retire for the day. Kana especially.»

Zorian suddenly noticed Kana was starting to doze off on Kael’s shoulder. She had been so quiet throughout his entire interaction with Kael that he had almost forgotten she’s there. If only Kirielle could be that docile.

«Yes, sorry about that,» Zorian apologized. «I got carried away, I guess. I’ll have to give you a tour of the city some other time, then.»

They spent the rest of the walk in comfortable silence.

«You were absent yesterday.»

Zorian gave Akoja an annoyed look. She wasn’t going to give him grief over that, was she?

«I was excused,» he noted.

«I know,» Akoja said. «I was just wondering where you were.»

Zorian was about to tell her it wasn’t her damn business where he went in his free time, but then he reconsidered. He was getting strange vibes off Akoja, almost as if she was… concerned about him. Very strange. Normally he would write it off as just another weird thing Akoja did from time to time — the girl seemed to have logic all of her own sometimes, one that not even her obsession with rules could explain — but his recent conversation with Kael stopped him. Was he too dismissive of other people? Up until yesterday, Kael was simply ‘that morlock transfer student’ to Zorian… It brought back memories of his conversations with Zach, and the other boy’s remarks about Zorian’s behavior in previous restarts, before he became aware of the time loop.

«I was doing a favor for Ilsa,» Zorian said. «Showing our newest transfer student around the city and such.»

«Oh,» Akoja said, glancing at Kael for a moment. The white-haired boy was sitting several rows behind Zorian, silent and aloof as always. He gave virtually no indication that he knew Zorian was in the classroom, but Zorian could feel the morlock’s eyes on him from time to time. «Who is he anyway?»

«Kael Tverinov,» Zorian answered.

«I didn’t mean his name,» Akoja huffed, realizing, after a few seconds of silence, that he wasn’t going to say anything else.

«Not sure what else to tell you,» Zorian shrugged. «He sounded like a good person to me.»

«He looks kind of arrogant,» Akoja remarked. «And girly.»

«Well how judgmental of you,» Zorian remarked with a frown. «You come off as a bit arrogant yourself, you know?»

Well, so much for being nice to Akoja! She stomped off soon after that, shooting him a nasty glare.

Resolving to be more understanding towards people was hard.

It took Nora Boole only 2 days to organize their first lesson, and the moment Zorian stepped into the classroom Nora had reserved for them he realized Nora was taking this very seriously. It was a professional-looking workshop, the sort that students normally couldn’t access without special permission from the teachers. Nora beckoned him forward, positively radiating excitement and enthusiasm. Suddenly he remembered why he had been pensive about getting instruction from her. Considering the amount of homework and additional reading Nora assigned as a matter of course during her classes, Zorian dreaded finding out what she considered an appropriate workload for an actually talented student.

«Ah, you’re too quiet!» she complained. «Courage, Zorian, courage!»

«Right,» agreed Zorian half-heartedly.

«We’ll make a proper crafter out of you yet, just you see!» huffed Nora. «But first, let me just wrap up our discussion from last time. I was a little long-winded, but what I had been trying to build up to was that spell formula are… support magic. Magic affecting other magic. By itself, even the most elegant spell formula is merely a theoretical exercise. You need to actually cast the spells and anchor them to the spell formula before it’s of any use. I note this because Ilsa seemed to think your skill in invocations would do you no good in my subject, which annoyed me because it revealed a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the discipline. Which is very disappointing, coming from her, since she is… well, you know…»