The rest of the way to class is quiet, but Bella seems to struggle to hold back a tiny, pleased smile.
I also catch her glancing my way every now and then.
Just as she catches me peeking at her, but I’d rather not think about that right now.
After arriving at Dungeon Ecology, she mercilessly guides me toward some open seats at the front of the class. Right in the middle, too.
She studiously ignores my glare.
In the end, Dungeon Ecology turns out to be far more interesting than I expected.
A lot of the material covers things I’d already guessed at through experience, but never understood in a way that would allow me to teach it to others.
Things like how Dungeon environments form in the first place, how mana saturation influences monster behavior, and how ecosystems inside Dungeons stabilize over time.
The Professor—a scarred old dwarven man named Harn—also explains something that immediately catches my attention.
Overflow.
It’s something I was already aware of, but the way he explains it makes it seem almost simple.
“Mana builds up in the depths of the Tunnels, y’see,” he says. “When it goes unchecked, it destabilizes the environment. Breaks down those pesky barriers that keep the Dungeon from opening.”
He conjures an image of a dungeon viewed from outside, its entirety shown in a three dimensional illusion. Inside, mana builds up like water until it fills the dungeon entirely.
Then one of the walls burst, and the mana rushes out.
“Eventually, it’s too much. The Dungeon pops like a bubble, floodin’ the Tunnels with its influence. Monsters, plants, buildings—you name it, it tosses it out to make room for more mana.”
The illusion disappears.
“So the System helps regulate that buildup. Each time someone clears a dungeon, either by killin’ most of the beasties inside or accomplishin’ some odd goal the System assigns, it pushes that buildup onto the Delvers that done it,” he continues.
Another illusion appears, showing the same dungeon, only half full of mana this time. Inside is a small mock-up of a delving team, and the mana that was building up suddenly rushes towards them before seemingly getting absorbed.
“Experience, levels, loot—you name it, the System sets it up. Anything to burn the excess mana.”
In the end, all of it acts as a form of mana redistribution. Delvers clear Dungeons, the System converts excess mana into rewards, and pressure inside the Dungeon decreases temporarily.
While not the most exciting class, I wasn’t going to complain. It’s already helped me expand on what I thought I already knew, and that was more than enough for me to think it worth my time.
After that comes Survival Logistics.
I wasn’t entirely sure what the class actually covered when I selected it as one of my electives, but I figured anything involving survival would eventually prove useful.
I was... only partially right.
The class focuses almost entirely on large-scale Delving operations.
Supply management. Storage allocation. Route planning. Emergency reserves. Reward distribution.
Apparently organizing a multi-party expedition into the deeper layers of the Tunnels is a logistical nightmare capable of collapsing entire noble houses if handled improperly.
Which sounds important, but I can’t help but find it incredibly boring.
I spend nearly the entire lecture staring blankly at charts detailing food consumption ratios and emergency ration preservation techniques while silently wondering if it’s possible to abandon electives after enrollment.
Gods, I hope I can.
Because unless something goes catastrophically wrong, I fully intend to never be responsible for organizing any of this.
Mana Theory (Practical) comes next.
That’s where my boredom shifts into frustration. Thankfully, I at least have Cari and Bella here as well, as it’s another mandatory class.
It’s still mind-numbingly dull.
The Professor certainly doesn’t help.
Professor Elyrian is an older elf with silver robes so pristine they practically glow, and the kind of posture that somehow manages to look disappointed in the entire room at all times.
He also teaches like someone who learned mana manipulation before he learned how to walk, and fully expects us to be the exact same.
For nearly an hour, we discuss mana types and what they’re known for. The literal basics of the basics. Divine is good at healing, removing curses, and dealing with... evil shit. And undead.
Fire is good at burning things. Earth is good at making stuff. Lightning shocks things. Water makes things wet.
Just as I’m about to fall asleep, the topic shifts to how each affinity interacts.
The Professor even brings out a stack of visual charts displaying each affinity and its opposing element.
Fire and water oppose one another—go figure. So does wind and earth. And nature and necrotic. Light and dark.
Somewhere around then, I actually fall asleep. Thankfully, Bella nudges me awake when we finally reach the practical portion of the class.
Which is admittedly more interesting... at first.
Each student receives a small ritual construct designed to absorb exactly one hundred mana.
Simple enough.
Except the ritual intentionally slows mana transfer to almost nothing unless fed very precise amounts of mana in carefully controlled trickles of specific affinities. And the ritual itself somehow adapts to the affinities each person has.
As someone with all affinities, this makes mine an absolute nightmare.
Bella finishes hers in under a minute, because she’s Bella and she’s awesome like that.
A small sphere of pale light blooms above her desk as her ritual completes successfully.
Cari finishes a little over five minutes later, letting out a squeal of joy that disrupts my concentration for just a moment, instantly erasing my progress.
She quiets instantly when I slowly turn to lock my bloodshot eyes onto her.
She ducks her head sheepishly, pretending to be incredibly invested in examining her now lit ritual device.
After a few moments of letting her suffer under my death glare, I return to the task at hand.
Only for my ritual to continue rejecting mana every few seconds like an angry puzzle box designed specifically to ruin my day.
Dozens of students finish before me.
Then dozens more.
Professor Elyrian eventually drifts over to my desk, watching silently as my ritual rejects mana for what feels like the thousandth time.
“You’re forcing it,” he says at last.
I stare at him.
“I am literally doing exactly what you told us to do.”
A faint crease forms between his brows, as though he’s genuinely confused by my inability to grasp something obvious.
“No,” he says, incredulity dripping from his voice. “You’re thinking about the affinities individually.”
“...Because they are individual affinities.”
“They are expressions of mana. Not separate forces.”
That is somehow the least helpful thing anyone has ever said to me.
I decide to put my utmost into ignoring his hovering, shifting back to the task at hand.
Switching the affinity of my mana is almost like flexing a muscle I never knew I had. It’s simple, thank the gods, in that it’s completely intent based.
So if I think of fire while willing the mana to transfer to the device, the mana type changes to fire. Same for water, earth, and so on.
But it takes focus and a constant stream of uninterrupted intent. If I think of literally anything else, my mana’s affinity changes.
Because apparently nature and plant mana are nearly identical. So are necrotic and decay. And so, so many more.
But yeah, sure. Expressions of mana, and all that. Obviously.
That’s not even the worst part though. It’s a damned guessing game, at least so far as I can tell, which affinity is the one that the device wants at any given moment.
As I’m transferring mana, it’ll just... stop accepting it.
Then I have to start working through every single affinity I know of until it finally starts accepting mana again. Over... and over... and over.
By the time I finally succeed nearly half an hour later, I’m dangerously close to biting the ritual construct out of spite.
Or biting the Professor, who had been wandering back and forth between all of the slowest students and offering utterly nonsensical instructions.
Thankfully, I’m not last.
Barely.
If it wasn’t mandatory, I wouldn’t even bother with the class. But it is.
Well... that, and shifting mana affinities will probably be useful.
I’m just not sure exactly how, yet.
Not that I’d ever tell the Professor that. So far as I’m concerned, he can shove his elitist attitude so far up his rear that even the gods wouldn’t dare search for it.
Hells, he even has the audacity to give us the assignment of taking the ritual construct home and cutting how long it takes us to activate it in half.
In a week.
My eye twitches on the way out of class, and Cari and Bella wisely give me space until we split up, each of us heading to different classes.
Mine ends up being the most surprising of the day so far.
Weave Theory.
I’d been shocked to even see it listed among the electives considering how little most people seem to know about the Weave in the first place.
Turns out my assumptions weren’t entirely wrong.
The classroom itself is strangely small compared to most of the others I’ve seen so far, with only around twenty students scattered throughout the room. Instead of neat rows of desks, the room is arranged more like a study hall, with circular tables, overstuffed chairs, bookshelves, and loose stacks of papers spread across nearly every available surface.
It feels less like a classroom and more like a room meant for a club.
And the moment I step through the doorway, I freeze.
The Professor is already present, sitting on the desk at the front.
And she’s a foxkin.
Foxkin ScholarLevel ??
At least... she appears to be.
White hair spills down past her shoulders, matching the snowy fur of her ears and tail. Her eyes are an icy blue disturbingly similar to my own, though thankfully lacking the impossible depth I’ve seen in them before.
More importantly, she only has one tail.
But despite the disguise, I know her immediately.
Bluebell.
My pulse stutters. On instinct, I extend my senses slightly, focusing on the bonds connected to my Oathstone, finding it instantly.
A thick band of impossibly woven mana that stretches between the two of us, not unlike the connection I now share with Cari after her Tier up.
The familial bond is impossible to mistake.
Her eyes flick toward me.
Then she smiles faintly and presses one finger lightly against her lips in a silent shushing motion.
What in the name of the gods is she doing here?
Before I can spiral further, movement around the classroom drags my attention elsewhere.
The students here are... strange. Not visibly, necessarily—though some definitely are.
A few first years sit scattered throughout the room, but most appear significantly older. Second years. Third years. Even several fourth years.
One student near the back has nine silver bands stitched into the shoulder of his uniform.
Whoa...
I knew students could technically continue attending the Academy for as long as they could afford tuition—or contribute enough to justify remaining—but I’d somehow assumed anyone staying that long would eventually become faculty.
Apparently not.
Then my eyes land on a familiar figure seated near one of the side walls.
The phoenix girl Bella beat during the entrance duels.
What was her name again?
Ah, Vanessa. That was it.
All I can remember of her is the fact that she was mouthy, and had some kind of phoenix-like magic. True to form, she somehow manages to look insufferably smug while silently reading a book.
Beyond her, the rest of the room only grows stranger the longer I look.
One girl absentmindedly trails her fingers through a tiny floating ribbon of water that moves against gravity entirely on its own.
A beastkin boy near the windows has silver eyes that seem to faintly glow as he watches the girls water magic with an almost concerning intensity.
While more than half of the class seem perfectly normal, there are about six or seven who have strange features, traits, or abilities scattered about.
Realizing I’m still standing in the doorway, I quickly move to take a seat.
Bluebell—Professor Bluebell, apparently—moves calmly toward the front of the room like none of this is strange at all.
“Well then,” she says brightly, clasping her hands together. “Welcome to Weave Theory! Or perhaps condolences.”
A few upper year students groan, and Bluebell beams proudly.
“I’m Professor Mirel,” she continues smoothly, not even a hint of hesitation as she lies. “And before any of the newcomers ask: no, we do not know what the Weave actually is.”
Vanessa rolls her eyes before burying herself in her textbook once more, and a few other fellow first years also seem disappointed.
“This class,” she continues, “is not designed to provide answers. If we had those, this would simply be Weave Facts, and I would have even less funding—if that’s possible.”
The nine-year snorts with amusement.
Instead of beginning a lecture, papers appear in her arms in bundles, and she starts handing them out.
At a glance, I can see that these aren’t like most of the classes I’d been to, with schedules, lesson plans, and so on.
Instead, it’s research notes, experiment logs, recorded testimonies, and...
Mana readings, I think?
Some are decades old. Others seem recent enough that the ink still looks fresh.
“We study patterns,” Bluebell explains while casually hopping up to sit atop the front desk again. “Interactions. Contradictions. Occasionally we poke dangerous things with metaphorical sticks and document the results.”
“Or literal sticks,” one older student corrects flatly.
Bluebell points at him.
“As Tovin said. It’s all about testing!”
I’m beginning to understand why this class has so few students. And why those that are here appear to be strange in some way, shape, or form.
“We also,” Bluebell continues, “welcome independent theories, supervised experimentation, mana anomaly reports, and any firsthand encounters with phenomena relating to the Weave itself.”
Her gaze flicks toward me for just a fraction of a second.
“You will quickly discover,” she continues smoothly, “that the Weave does not behave consistently. It contradicts itself constantly. It ignores rules whenever convenient, reacts strangely to intent, emotion, memory, and even occasionally seems capable of responding to observation itself.”
Vanessa scoffs at that. “What, the so called ‘Realm of Mana’ has a mind of its own?”
Bluebell turns a sharp grin on her. “Yes, precisely. I’m glad you asked, because you are one of the kinds of people that this class is meant for.”
Vanessa narrows her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The Academy,” Bluebell says more softly now, “maintains this class because ignorance is significantly more dangerous than curiosity.”
Vanessa seems about to object, but Bluebell waves a hand and her mouth snaps shut with a click so loud that I wince in sympathy.
“Most magical disasters throughout history were not caused by malice,” she continues, smiling faintly. “They were caused by confident people insisting they understood things they very much did not.”
The look of offense on Vanessa’s face is almost enough to distract me from the fact that Bluebell is somehow teaching a class about the Weave.
Authors Note:Surprise :)
The chapter name may not be final. I think it's hilarious, but... eh. If ya'll have better ideas for a chapter name, let me know haha