After taking a quick shower in the communal shower stalls, Caspian wandered the halls of the academy. Light gray stone surrounded him on all sides. An arched ceiling stood several feet above his head. Situated on the left wall were several large windows that had been evenly s.p.a.ced a meter apart, allowing sunlight to travel into and illuminate the hallway.
His bare feet padded along the dark gray tiles. He held his dark brown boots in one hand and black cotton pants in the other. Several droplets of water ran down his bare back and chest, and his s.h.a.ggy red hair was still damp from the shower he"d taken just a few minutes prior. Wrapped around his waist was a towel, which kept his modesty intact.
Not that there was much reason to worry about modesty. Even if someone was awake, it wouldn"t matter. This school had no female students. Only a few members of the staff were women, and they weren"t allowed near the dorms except when cleaning, which happened in the afternoon when students were attending cla.s.s.
It didn"t take him long to reach his dorm room, despite how convoluted the academy"s interior could be. He"d long since memorized the layout of this place. It helped that he"d been living at Arcadia"s Knight Academy since he was ten. Upon opening the door to his room, Caspian was greeted to the sight of his roommate making a few last minute adjustments to his outfit.
"Oh, Caspian." Turning around, a young man wearing a chipper grin greeted Caspian with great enthusiasm. "I knew you"d be coming back in soon. You were out practicing this morning again, weren"t you?"
Christopheles Siene el Ancor―Christo for short―was a youthful teen with short, spiky white hair and blue eyes. He was a little on the short side, standing nearly a head shorter than Caspian. This did not mean he could be underestimated, however, as there were few people who could match him when it came to wielding a dirk―a small dagger used for thrusting. Like most days, Christo was wearing the standard academy uniform: dark blue pants and shirt, a white vest, a blue shoulder cape, brown boots and a belt. Strapped across his lower back, attached to the belt, was a sheath containing his dirk.
He and Christo had been roommates since they were thirteen, the age most students were when they first started at the academy. Christo was a very cheerful young man, always smiling and always positive. Perhaps even a little too positive. His jolly demeanor, bubbly personality, and general exuberance were so overpowering they seemed forced. It was simply hard to believe anyone could be that happy all the time.
"And? So what if I was?" Caspian walked further into the room, stopping by the dresser next to his bed and opening the top drawer to begin pulling his clothes out. "I fail to see how that"s any of your business."
Despite how cheerful and friendly Christo was, Caspian always tried pushing the other young man away. He didn"t want to be friends with his roommate, or anyone else, for that matter. It had nothing to do with Christo and everything to do with Caspian. He just didn"t like people, and with good reason, he felt. Only one person in the entire world had earned his trust, and Christo wasn"t her.
This didn"t stop the young man from trying to befriend him, however. Every day the other boy would greet him with that large, obnoxious smile plastered on his face. He would then proceed to talk Caspian"s ear off, blathering on about anything and everything. No matter what he did, Christo would proceed to pester him like n.o.body"s business.
"Now, now," Christo chuckled while Caspian set his clothes on the bed, letting the towel fall to the floor so he could get dressed. "There"s no need to get defensive. I think it"s admirable that you"re so dedicated to your training. Very few people can wield a blade as well as you can."
There was some truth to Christo"s words. Caspian was ranked among the top ten sword users in Arcadia"s Knight Academy. He currently held the t.i.tle of second place. The t.i.tle of first belonged to one of the older students, a quiet young man by the name of Darin Shivals Merikh. No one knew much about Darin, other than his current ranking as the top contender for becoming a Sorceress"s Knight.
"Well, thank you for that. However, I"m not really in the mood to talk right now."
"When are you ever in the mood to talk?" Christo asked, his tone making it clear that he was joking.
With a sigh, Caspian finished getting dressed in his own uniform, one nearly identical to Christo"s. The sole exception was his sheath, which lay strapped across his back via a bandoleer that contained a plain-looking broadsword.
Christo merely chuckled some more. He followed Caspian out of the room and, with the brightest and sunniest and most obnoxious grin he could muster, walked up behind Caspian and threw an arm around his shoulder. He studiously ignored the way Caspian grunted out a complaint under his breath. He also ignored how Caspian nearly stumbled at the unexpected―or maybe not so unexpected―maneuver.
"You never change, do you? Even after all the years we"ve known each other, you"re still as grouchy as ever." Christo didn"t give Caspian any time to come up with a proper comeback before he started steering them down one of the many identical halls. "Come on, let"s grab some breakfast before all the good food is gone."
***
The cafeteria was a s.p.a.cious room reminiscent to the grand hall of a n.o.ble"s mansion. Surprising, since the academy only housed, at most, one-hundred people at any given time. White marble tiles made up the floor, their polished surface gleaming as sunlight reflected off them. Due to the many large windows, the cafeteria had a very open feel to it, making one almost think they were outside rather than inside. Only the ceiling that stood high over everybody"s head and was decorated with an intricate network of arches let the students know otherwise.
"Come on, come on." Christo continued to drag Caspian further into the room. They pa.s.sed by several tables that were lined up along the floor at an even distance from each other. There were seven in all, and each one was long enough to comfortably seat twenty people, although they were mostly empty at the moment, due in large part to the fact that many of the students were only just now waking up. Most were probably only beginning to get dressed. "Let"s hurry up. I"m starving!"
"You"re always hungry," Caspian said, grunting as he managed to finally jerk his head out from underneath Christo"s arm. For someone so short, the cheerful, dagger-wielding young man had one h.e.l.l of a grip.
"Hahaha!" Christo laughed, that grin he"d been wearing since Caspian had returned to their dorm room still plastered on his face. "I guess I am, but I also imagine that you"re pretty hungry too, right? I mean, you were the one who got up really early in the morning to do some training. And, knowing how you train, you must have burned through a lot of energy." Caspian would have disputed Christo"s claim, but his stomach chose that moment to intervene, rumbling like an about to erupt volcano. The grin on Christos"s face widened. "Ha! I knew it! Now, let"s get some grub!"
Relenting, Caspian let Christo drag him over to the back of the cafeteria, where a rotund woman stood in front of a booth filled with various types of breakfast foods.The woman was one of nearly a dozen maids who worked for the academy. Like all maids, she wore the traditional outfit of one: a black dress with a white bodice, along with the standard maid headpiece.
"Good morning!" Christo"s buoyant greeting put a smile on the large woman"s face.
She wasn"t a very attractive woman, even with the smile. Her skin was rough and somewhat dry from being out in the sun too long. Her large hands looked kind of like balloons. Several rolls of fat fell over the fabric tied around the waist, and two chins hung beneath her jaw, wiggling and jiggling with every movement she made.
Caspian didn"t judge the woman for her looks, but he did wonder why she didn"t exercise more―and what she must"ve been putting in her belly to get that large.
"And a good morning to you as well, Christo. Will you be having your usual breakfast?"
"Hahaha! You know me too well!" Christo"s bright grin seemed to gain a new level of l.u.s.ter as he was handed a plate consisting of different danishes and several sausage links. Caspian"s roommate had always been a sucker for anything sweet and salty. "Thank you."
"You"re very welcome, young man." The lady manning the cafeteria then turned to Caspian, her face slowly deadpanning. "Here." She handed him a very basic plate of biscuits and gravy. Withholding the urge to sigh, Caspian accepted the plate. Having spent over a third of his life here, he"d grown used to this treatment by now. Most of the staff treated him the same way.
Caspian didn"t bother thanking the woman, and she merely turned away from him, pretending he didn"t exist. What else was new?
As the two began walking away, Chris...o...b..lanced his plate on one hand and used the other to pat Caspian on the back. "Don"t worry about your food too much. I"ll give you some of my danishes," he said in a consoling voice.
"It"s not the food that bothers me," Caspian informed Christo, a dry look on his face. Was his roommate really that blind to the prejudice he received from the staff thanks to his less than n.o.ble lineage? Ever since they had been put into the same room, the insanely joyous young man had appeared completely oblivious to how disliked he, Caspian, was.
"Huh?" Christo looked at him, clearly confused. "It"s not?"
"No, it"s not."
"I see. So then, what is bothering you?"
"... nothing," Caspian sighed, "just forget about it."
"Well, alright." And just like that, Christo forgot all about what happened, just like every other time this happened. "Now, let"s eat!"
As they sat down to eat, Caspian released a heavy breath. He really hated having this idiot as a roommate. Still, it could be worse. At least he wasn"t bunking with Davidé Gorossolaine.
***
Cla.s.srooms at Arcadia Academy were all very uniform. They were tertiary cla.s.srooms, meaning each row of desks, which consisted of three long tables capable of seating three people, was higher than the one before it. There were two sets of stairs in between the three tables, allowing students to ascend the higher level desks, and five rows in all.
"A Sorceress is a woman with the ability to summon Spirits, allowing them to reside within her body in order to utilize that Spirit"s power," the teacher, a nondescript man with a balding head and brown eyes, lectured as he stood in front of the cla.s.s. Like the students, his uniform was reminiscent of a military outfit. It was very utilitarian: black wool pants and a white shirt with red at the hems and a red shoulder cape, black leather boots and white gloves. "The ability to take a spirit into themselves is a gift that only females are capable of due to the overabundance of mana they produce, which is essential for creating life."
Caspian sat in the top row near the left corner of the room―his favorite place to sit because no one bothered him. He hardly paying any attention to the lecture their teacher was giving. He"d heard this song and dance many times before. It wasn"t like they were being taught anything new. He could probably recite the current lecture being shoved down their throats by heart now.
When a Sorceress allowed a spirit to inhabit their body, they formed a temporary contract with the spirit in question. This contract was what allowed a Sorceress to use that spirit"s power. These powers were as great as they were varied, and depended largely upon the spirit that was summoned. Different Spirits controlled different aspects of the universe, from elements to fundamental truths that applied to the very concepts of human existence.
A good example would be Apollo, a spirit who controlled light. Say someone was in a small dungeon. It was dark and they couldn"t see. Calling on Apollo would enable them to summon a light to guide them on their way. That was a very basic example, however. Apollo was an elemental spirit, not a conceptual spirit, which was a vastly more complex subject matter.
The relationship between Sorceress and spirit was very much give and take. In return for being able to use a spirit"s power, the Sorceress was drained of the life energy that all women naturally produced. Because it took the energy that went into the process of conceiving life, the Sorceress in question was left sterile. In return for leaving them unable to bare children, Sorceresses were given incredible longevity, due in no small part to the Spirit"s vitality mixing with their own. The oldest living Sorceress was over one-thousand years old, and he knew for a fact that she did not look a day over twenty.
Life energy, or Mana as it was often called, was the energy that women produced in order to create life. While the act of creating new life also required a male to involve themselves during procreation, it was the woman"s Mana that did most of the work and allowed new life to be born. This was just another reason only women could earn the t.i.tle of Sorceress, and why women were held in such high regard.
Caspian knew all of this. He"d learned it two years before coming to the academy, which was why he didn"t pay attention to the boring old man and his equally dull lecture.
"Can anyone tell me the name of the first woman to claim the t.i.tle of Sorceress?" the teacher asked. For several long seconds, no one raised their hands. Caspian looked around at the students, all of whom appeared uncertain. He would have scoffed, but he honestly didn"t care enough to scoff, or so he kept telling himself.
Eventually, one of the young men stood up. He was a very large teen, and not in the way the woman who manned the cafeteria was large. This particular individual looked like he"d spent his entire life lifting boulders for a living. His uniform looked like it might tear at the seams if he so much as flexed.
"Sylvia de Floresca," the heavily muscled teen answered. There was a confident, borderline c.o.c.ky smirk on his face. Which, Caspian knew, was not really anything new; the boy was almost always smirking. He had that "holier than thou" att.i.tude the n.o.bility loved to flaunt when in the presence of a peasant down pat.
Caspian disliked him all the more for it.
"Correct, Julius. Now, can anyone tell me what she is most well-known for?"
When no one spoke up to answer his question, the teacher looked around at all of the students, before spotting Caspian sitting at the top, his chin set on the b.u.t.t of his left hand as he stared out of the window.
"Sol!" the man snapped, causing everyone to look at him. "Since you don"t seem to feel the need to pay attention, you must already know the answer. Why don"t you share it with the cla.s.s." It wasn"t a request.
Sighing, Caspian stood up, ignoring the looks of loathing he received from his cla.s.smates. Much like how he was used to receiving a less than warm reception from the staff, he had also grown desensitized to the animosity he garnered from his peers. What did he care if a bunch of inbred idiots despised him? If they wanted to make something of it, they could come at him anytime; he would be more than happy to shove his foot off in their a.s.s. Maybe one of them would even leave in humiliation for being beaten by "that peasant boy."
It wouldn"t be the first time such a thing had happened.
"Sylvia de Floresca is best known for ending the Elven Wars exactly five-hundred years ago, when she made a contract with Odin to wipe out an entire section of the Averantasia forest, which, at the time, held the elven stronghold, Meravil. Even to this day, the scars from Odin"s attack are still present there."
"That is correct... Sol ." The instructor grimaced, reluctant to admit that Caspian was right, and probably embarra.s.sed that his plan to humiliate him had backfired. "You may sit down."
Caspian nearly sighed in relief and did as told, sitting down and going back to his staring. By the Spirits he hated cla.s.s.
***
Cla.s.s ended with the ringing of a bell.
Caspian stood up from his seat and scooped his books off the desk. He then proceeded to make his way toward the exit with haste. If he could just make it out of the room before Christo, then he would be home free and wouldn"t have to deal with the annoying young man. At least, not until it was time for their next cla.s.s.
Too bad someone else had to get in his way. And it just had to be the muscle-bound idiot. Great. This was just what he needed to complete his morning. An argument with some sn.o.bbish n.o.ble who thought being able to lift a two-hundred pound boulder made someone special.
Caspian stared at the person blocking the doorway with half-lidded, deadpanned eyes. "What do you want, Julius? In case you haven"t noticed, I"m kinda in a hurry right now."
"I see you"re as rude as always." Julius ran a hand through his longer than average blond hair. Caspian had no clue why the teen had such long, silky―not to mention girly―hair, but it looked absolutely ridiculous when combined with his way too musclular physique. "Not that I expected anything less from an ill-bred fool like you. Uncouth behavior is expected from peasants of your stature."
"Is there a point to this? Or are you just pontificating for the sake of listening to yourself talk?"
Julius twitched, but quickly reigned in his anger. He put on a smile that was so fake it made Caspian want to gag. "You never were one for small talk, were you? Alright then, I"ll get to the point." The fake look of cheer disappeared as the much larger male leaned down to glare at Caspian, who merely returned the look with a bored one of his own. "I don"t want you to think you"re better than I am just because you currently have the highest grades in cla.s.s. You"re nothing, less than a bug. I could step on you and no one would give a d.a.m.n."
Ah, so he was threatening Caspian because he was jealous. That didn"t really surprise him. Many of the students at this academy despised him for that very same reason. Of course, many of the students also sat on their laurels, trying to ride on the coattails of their n.o.ble status. They didn"t work for what they had. Almost the entire lot of them were a bunch of lazy fools who"d rather spend time chasing skirts than actually training. Maybe if they worked as much as he did, he wouldn"t be so far ahead of them in cla.s.s.
Or, he could just be upset that Caspian didn"t even bother paying attention in cla.s.s and still excelled in school. That was always a possibility.
"Is that all you wanted to say? If so, then I"d like you to move. Your fat, narcissistic a.s.s is blocking my way."
"What was that?!" With an angry glare etched onto his face, Julius grabbed Caspian by the fabric of his shoulder cape. He pulled the much smaller teen toward him, trying to intimidate Caspian by overwhelming him with his presence, size and ma.s.s. "Now listen here you little―aaaggghhh!"
Caspian dusted himself off after forcing Julius to let go of him. He looked at the hand that had been grabbing him by his clothes. The wrist, now bent at a slightly awkward angle, was swelling up to nearly twice its regular thickness, and had taken on a bright red coloration. It was not quite broken, but some serious strain had definitely been put on it.
"I would suggest not touching me again," Caspian advised in the same bored tone he"d been using for their entire confrontation. He walked past Julius with an uncaring expression. And why should he care? The fool had it coming, trying to act tough and get in his face when he"d never done a single thing to the guy. What was it with people like Julius constantly trying to pick a fight with him just because he wasn"t a n.o.ble?
Bunch of shallow, simple-minded buffoons.
Stepping into the hallway, Caspian began making his way to the nearest courtyard. There were fifteen minutes before the next cla.s.s started and he wanted to be alone.
All around him, people stopped and stared as he walked by. Some pointed while others talked. None of what they said about him was very nice.
"Hey, hey look. It"s him?"
"That"s the peasant, right? How did he get into this academy?"
"He doesn"t belong here."
"He should just leave. Can"t he see he"s not wanted?"
Caspian gritted his teeth behind closed lips. His hands clenched. He didn"t care about these people, nor did he care about what they thought. He didn"t, he didn"t, he didn"t...
... so, then, why did listening to these people degrade him always hurt so much?
"Caspian! Hey, Caspian!"
Eyes widening, Caspian picked up the pace, going from a quick walk to an outright sprint. Hot on his heels was Christo, who ran after him, waving his arms in the air with frenetic motions like some kind of idiot.
"Hey! Wait up, Caspian!"
"No! Go bother someone else!"
"Eh?! Is that any way to talk to your best friend?"
"We"re not best friends! We"re not even close to friends! Now go away!"