"Why does everyone look so glum?" Mathilde asked, still approaching Adam.
Yet the other students just continued to walk away, their ears clogged by the ultimatum threatening their scholarships, and their faces too tense to belong to teenagers.
Adam shrugged. "They told how they lost access to the mana pool."
"Oh... that." For a mont, a grimace twisted Mathilde’s features before she shook her head. "There is no use burdening yourself with our old problems, at least, not before attending your first class."
Sarah nodded, a soft smile tugging at her lips, and a sliver of hope brightening her youthful face. "Trevor, Jonathan, Nadia—I’m sure they’ll co up with a solution." She turned toward Quintella, who hugged her plushy. "And with the two of you reinforcing us, our chances have multiplied."
Quintella raised an eager fist. "They multiplied by seven million!" Then she tilted her head, her pink eyes trailing toward the ceiling pensively. "Chances for what?"
While the girls exchanged confused glances about the outrageous number, Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. "I’ll teach you math daily after classes, so stop with the seven million."
Chuckling, Quintella rushed to the doorway of the dorm. She waved, nodding. "I’ll learn. But now, we visit Mathilde’s spots!"
For the rest of the day, Adam accompanied the girls. They sat beneath an arched arrangent of vines and purple flowers in a hidden corner of the garden. The scent was sweet, like honeydew, and the maze of pruned bushes and thorns made it ideal to relax away from curious gazes.
He visited many more scenic or tranquil spots, while Mathilde and Sarah helped him familiarise himself with the college facilities. In the greenhouses, teachers busied themselves with potted plants, hideous and mysterious in equal asure, while the unmistakable stench of processed ingredients swirled in colorful wisps from alchemical labs. Students scrambled around, showing off the spells they had learned during the holidays or chatting with teachers Adam believed were their ntors.
Though more intrigued than impressed, he smiled. This youthful vigor reminded him of his days in Alkemia Al-Nur with Julius, Shepard, Arun, and the others. Still, a frown couldn’t help but crease his brow when the sun began to dip behind the horizon and the sky turned a flamboyant orange.
Legs dangling from a hovering platform, on which a jewel throned on the pedestal at its center, he sighed. The jewel cast dancing auroras on his back, the campus sprawling beneath him as he muttered, "I wanted to scout the libraries."
Mathilde, more comfortable, gave an exasperated sigh. "Who wants that on their first day? Anyway, which library? There are at least ten, each divided into dozens of subsections, so ssy that they might as well be mazes trying to trap your soul in a hell of ink and paper." She shuddered. "Last ti I went to the Astral Wing, a book bit ."
Quintella gasped, eyes widening. "Really?! Are you alright?"
"She’s just ssing with us." Adam rolled his eyes.
"It happened." Mathilde folded the left sleeve of her white shirt, revealing faint scars left by jagged teeth. "Their access isn’t restricted without reason. I’ve heard that a student from the House of Invocation almost had his body possessed by the will of a long-dead magus just from holding a scroll the wrong way."
Adam scratched his head. Even the ancient grimoires he had unearthed were just that—books. No, that wasn’t true. Selene had sealed his soul in the Sunfire ancestral grimoire, and so had Elena. If arcanists and archmages, to whom he didn’t even spare a glance, could do that, what about the terrifying magi? Sohow, he began to consider Mathilde’s wild stories as more than jokes.
Sarah continued, her eyes darting hesitantly between Adam, Mathilde’s arm, and Quintella’s plushy. Eventually, her voice tightened like a drawn bowstring. "Outstanding students like Trevor or Nadia walk on eggshells there, much less we. In truth, we barely browse the books by the entrance of the library, and solely if a teacher has our back."
Quintella blinked. "So... no library trips?"
"I don’t recomnd it." Mathilde shook her head, the silent warning in her focused gaze making Adam chuckle. "I’m dead serious, Adam. Even if your family taught you magic well, you’re just a new student without experience on this campus. No teacher will grant you access willingly. No student will lend you their opportunity to browse new spells. And, without offense, no one will entertain the whimsical idea that you’ll benefit from that one trip."
Adam simply smirked. Heavily restricted ant far from the college staff’s prying eyes. Knowledge would flow as long as he entered. But the teacher who would accompany him was... troubleso. He needed soone who wouldn’t care too much about how far he went, preferably one of the magi who had shown hostility when he had enrolled. After all, he knew how they thought; let the punk go further—it’ll be a lesson he’ll never forget.
As he tucked his fingers around his chin and sneered, Sarah’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. "You won’t give up." It wasn’t a question. "You should at least know this: to enter, you must either earn your House a thousand points or beco the disciple of a teacher."
"Why would disciples be granted access?" Adam frowned.
"Because they help their ntors with various tasks and research projects. You can see this as repaynt, but don’t expect easy access either." Sarah rose under the light of the first stars. "Maybe once per sester. Twice if he really likes you."
They all stood up, walking toward a tiled terrace lined with golden symbols. It rose from the ground, then descended from the hovering platform in perpetual motion. Once on it, the sounds of rumbling stones and mana accompanied Adam’s laugh. "A thousand points shouldn’t take too long."
Yet, he had no idea he would be off to a bad start when Mathilde’s lips curled into a mischievous grin. "I’ll let you realise for yourself. Now, night is settling, and three ladies need their friend to escort them back to their rooms."
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