Mother of Learning: ARC 1

9

“Yeah,” Benisek went on, clacking his tongue. “He also made me choose estate management as one of my electives. I hear it’s a really tough class, too.”

“Hm. Can’t say my summer was particularly stressful. I spent most of my time reading fiction and avoiding my family,” Zorian said. “Mother tried to dump my little sister on me this year, but I managed to talk her out of it.”

“I feel for you.” Benisek shuddered, stabbing his fork into one of the sausages on his plate. “I’ve got two younger sisters and I think I’d die if they came to live with me here. They’re both utter nightmares! Anyway, what did you take for your electives?”

“Engineering, Mineral Alchemy, and Advanced Mathematics.”

“Eh!?” Benisek blanched, a sausage suspended in the air half way to his mouth. “Man, you’re really taking this seriously, aren’t you? I guess you’re gunning for a spot in one of the spell forges, huh?”

“Yeah,” Zorian said.

“Why?” Benisek asked. He looked genuinely baffled by Zorian’s decision. “Designing magic items… that’s a tough, demanding job. Surely your parents could find you a spot in their business?”

Zorian gave him a strained smile. Yes, no doubt his parents already had a spot all planned out for him.

“I’d rather starve out in the streets.”

Benisek raised an eyebrow at him, but then simply shook his head with pity. “I think you’re crazy, personally. Who did you choose as your mentor?”

“I didn’t get to choose,” Zorian scoffed. “There was only one left by the time it was my turn to do so. I’m mentored under Xvim.”

Benisek actually dropped his spoon at this, staring at him in shock. “Xvim!? But that guy’s a nightmare!”

“I know,” Zorian said, releasing a long-suffering sigh.

“God, I’d probably transfer if I got assigned to that asshole,” Benisek said. “You’re a lot braver a man than I, that’s for sure.”

“So, who did you choose?” Zorian asked curiously.

“Carabiera Aope,” Benisek said, immediately brightening.

“Please don’t tell me you chose your mentor based on appearance.”

“Well, not just based on appearance,” Benisek said, brandishing his spoon. “They say she’s pretty tolerant…”

“You don’t want to do any extra work,” Zorian surmised.

“This whole thing is like a vacation to me,” Benisek acknowledged. “I get to postpone employment for two years and have some fun in the meantime. You’re only young once, you know?”

Zorian shrugged. Personally, he found learning about magic and gathering knowledge to be fun all by itself, but he knew all too well that very few people shared this opinion with him.

“I suppose,” Zorian said. “So, is there anything else that everyone knows that I missed while under my rock?”

He spent another hour or so conversing with Benisek, touching upon a variety of topics. It was particularly interesting to hear which of their classmates would be joining them this year and which wouldn’t. Zorian had thought the certification exam was a bit on the easy side, but apparently he was mistaken, since roughly a quarter of their classmates would not be joining them. He did notice that most of the failed students were civilian-born, but this wasn’t terribly unusual—mage-born students had parental support when learning magic and a reputation to live up to. He was pleasantly surprised that one particular asshole wouldn’t be joining them this year: apparently Veyers Boranova lost his temper on his disciplinary hearing and got himself expelled from the academy. He wouldn’t be missed. Honestly, that boy was a menace and it was a disgrace they hadn’t expelled him sooner. Fortunately, it seemed there were some things that just couldn’t be overlooked, even if you were an heir of Noble House Boranova.

He left when Benisek started discussing pros and cons of various girls in their class, not willing to get dragged into such a discussion, and went back to his room to get some reading done. He hadn’t even opened the first book properly when he was interrupted by a knock on the door. Very few people cared to track him down to his room, so he actually had a pretty good idea of who it was before he even opened the door.

“Hi, Roach!”

Zorian stared at the grinning girl in front of him, contemplating whether to take offense at the insulting nickname before shooing her inside. In the past, while he was still crushing on her, the nickname had kind of hurt. Now it was just slightly annoying. Taiven promptly ran inside and jumped on his bed like a little kid. Really, what had he ever seen in her? Besides a beautiful older girl who was fairly nice to him and had a propensity to wear form-fitting clothes, that is.

“I thought you graduated,” he said.

“I did,” she answered, taking one of the spellbooks he borrowed from the library into her lap to leaf through it. Seeing how she had already taken over his bed, he sat down on the chair in front of his work desk. “But you know how it goes—there are always too many young mages and never enough masters willing to take them under their wing. I’m working as a class assistant for Nirthak. Hey, if you took nonmagical combat you will get to see me all the time!”

“Yeah, right,” Zorian snorted. “Nirthak blacklisted me in advance, just in case I got any ideas.”

“Really!?”

“Yeah. Not that I would ever sign up for a class like that anyway,” Zorian said. Except maybe to watch Taiven get all sweaty and puffed up in that tight outfit she always wore whenever she trained.

“Pity,” she said, seemingly engrossed in his book. “You really should put on some muscle one of these days. Girls like boys who exercise.”

“I don’t care what girls like,” Zorian snapped. She was starting to sound like his mother. “Why are you here anyway?”

“Oh, calm down, it was just a thought,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Boys and their fragile little egos.”

“Taiven, I like you, but you’re really treading on thin ice here,” Zorian warned.

She tossed the book aside and looked at him. “I came here to ask if you would join me and a couple of others on a job tomorrow.”

“A job?” Zorian asked suspiciously.

“Yeah. Well, more like a mission. You know those job postings people tack onto the big board inside the administrative building?”

Zorian nodded. Whenever a mage in the city wanted something done for cheap, he posted a ‘job offer’ for interested students. The payout was generally miserable, but students had to collect ‘points’ by doing these, so everyone had to do a number of them. It was considered ‘practical learning’. Most people didn’t start doing these before their fourth year, unless they really needed the money, and Zorian fully intended to follow this tradition.