Before heading to her room, Emily visits the information hub to collect a free spell just in case Jenny checks which spell she chose. Finding Tom aer have already left, she quickly gets a duplicate copy of Burning Hands and goes back to her room. Settling back down at her desk, Emily looks at her Spellbook.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Spellbook]

  First Circle:

  -Burning Hands

  -Air Bst

  -Stunning Touch

  -Grease

  -Eartheion

  -Fsh Freeze

  -Iron Bde

  -Light

  -Touch of Decay

  -Switch

  _____

  She looks at her extended Spellbook with a mixture of satisfa and disappoi.

  It’s great that I collected all these spells, but half of them seem kind of useless or redundant because of other spells. Like Iron Bde, all it does is summon a small knife, why waste mana and casting time when I just carry a knife? And I don’t think I need Burning Hands if I cast Stunning Touch, surely electrog someone will take them out of a fight faster than just burning their skin.

  “Urgh, did I waste my time? At this point, I should have just created my own spells!” Emily’s growing anger fizzles out as her throords spark a new idea.

  “Why don’t I? I have a lot of refereerial now after all,” with a grin and new motivation, she opens her notebook to the first page.

  Learn spells (csses?)

  -Create spells

  Wait, that was a goal for a reason.

  Remembering her inal purpose, Emily checks her progression requirements.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Progression]

  [Circle/Stage:] First

  Requirements:

  -Intelligence 23/35 (Not plete)

  -Create 5/5 unique F rank maes (plete)

  -Create 0/1 E rank mae (Not plete)

  -Learn 5/5 first circle spells (plete)

  -Learn 1/3 basic magiowledges (Not plete)

  _____

  Happy at the pletion of one of her requirements, she flips to the bnk page and begins drawing magic circles. Squeezing fic circles onto each page, Emily fits all eight spells she cast onto a single double-page spread. Looking at the circles together, she begins to spot a few small simirities.

  These two runes are repeated across these spells, maybe the ruo desigouch? And this one is used in both id water spells, maybe aal crossover? This one has more eg lines…

  Scribbling notes down and analysing the spells before her in fiail, Emily falls into a focused trance, ign the passage of time.

  At 7:59 pm, Emily looks up from the messy notes before her. She leans ba her chair and stretches, before standing up and walking to the door. Pg her palm against the smooth panel, she is a small amount of mana as usual and grins as the door vao reveal Juliana standing with a look of surprise on her fad her arm raised about to knock.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” Emily says casually, tilting her head to the side with a look of .

  “Ah, nothing,” Juliana quickly brushes off her surprise before switg to a grumpy pout. “If you were able to predict when I would open the door, why did you ignore me earlier? I know you only had one lesson this m, so you were totally in!”

  “Haha, nothis past you, does it?” Emily giggles, still not tired of having this same versation with Juliana.

  “I was doing some testing with the new spell I learned earlier, you ever five me?” she asks with a silly grin while presenting her arm.

  “Hmph.” Juliana hangs off her arm while responding with a stronger pout. ”Don’t ignore me again a me pick dihen maybe I’ll sider it.”

  “Haha, sure. Whatever you want,” Emily happily cedes as they leave.

  ***

  “EIGHT ELEMENTS?!” Juliana’s scream would have drawention of the entire cafeteria if it weren’t for the sound-isoting barrier around the tables.

  Emily nods and smiles silently, revelling in Juliana’s stunned silence. After a few moments of staring at her shocked face, Emily ’t take it anymore and bursts out in ughter.

  “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

  “Nope.” Wiping tears from her eyes, Emily raises her hand and starts summoning the elements.

  Thanks to her practice, f simple mental images of the elements has bee increasingly easy for her, so she quickly dispys fire, lightning, metal, water and ice.

  “I also do earth, wind, and light, but they require a little more tration.”

  “You’re really amazing.” Juliana’s ho praise brings a blush to Emily’s face. “ yoing to tell me you cast spells already.”

  “Ah, actually I– “ Emily pauses as Tom aer step into their sound barrier.

  Clig her tongue in slight annoyance, Emily looks over at the twins.

  “Hey Emily, we join you?” Hester asks before once again freezing as she sees Juliana’s crest.

  Emily silently looks to Juliana, expeg her positive response.

  “Sure! I don’t mind.”

  Emily returns to eating, ign the repeating versation until she’s pulled ba by Tom.

  “Oh, by the way, why did Miss Forsythia want to talk to you?”

  “Nothing much, she just wao warn me about Jeremy and Kyle’s clear animosity, a me know I should go to her if I ever needed any help,” Emily casually brushes off his question.

  “I see. Did you go collect a spell afterwards?”

  “Yep, I already cast it too.”

  All three of her friends nod with little response, causing Emily to frown.

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “You just told me you maed eight elements on your first attempt, learning a spell in a day seems pretty mundane pared to that,” Juliana says with a cheeky grin. “You’ll still show me though, right?”

  Emily rolls her eyes and raises her hands in front of her.

  I’ll just have to show you something more shog then, won’t I?

  With practised grace, she weaves together a set of hand signs and in four and a half seds, a fiercely burning fme coats her palms. As she had hoped, Juliana is suffitly surprised by her dispy.

  “That was so fast! How did you learn tless casting already? And why’s your fire so pretty?”

  “My fire’s an odd colour because my mental image was metal-eating fmes. And using the t made the spell too weak, so I worked out how to draw the circle with hand signs, freeing up my mind for a solid mental image,” Emily gives her standard response while distractedly drawing patterns in the air.

  “Amazing, tless casting of any form is sidered a huge advantage and a difficult skill. you teach me?”

  Emily exaggeratedly siders for a while with her hand rubbing her , enjoying Juliana’s puppy dog eyes.

  “Sure, I could never say no to that face,”

  Juliana grins triumphantly as Tom cuts in.

  “ you teach us too? That looked so cool!”

  “Tsk, maybe if you learn a spell by lesson.”

  “Aww man, that’s way too hard,” Tom pins, grumpily sloug in his seat with his arms crossed.

  The h at his dispy aurn to their meal.

  ***

  Later that evening in Emily’s room, Emily and Juliana are sitting together on her bed with Juliana’s notebook opeween them showing a familiar Air Bst spell. After an hour of Emily guiding Juliana through the hand signs she’s already memorised, Juliana sits back with a groan.

  “Urgh, how do you do this so easily? My fingers keep getting tangled.”

  “Haha, giving up already?”

  “No! I just want a little break,” Juliana grumbles sulkily.

  Emily smiles and sits back as well, happy to stop staring at spell formue for a bit. Juliana breaks the silence a few mier with a question.

  “Hey, Emily?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why did you seem so a Tom aer joining us earlier?”

  “Ah, you noticed?” Emily reacts sheepishly, scratg her cheek slightly embarrassed to be seen through so easily a sed time.

  “It’s written all over your face if you’re looking close enough!” Juliana grins smugly.

  “Oh?” Emily raises a brow and leans forward with a smirk. “You’re watg me that closely, are you?”

  Juliana’s eyes go wide like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar and her entire face flushes bright red.

  “Haha, to answer your question,” Emily starts, saving Juliana from her embarrassment, “I just don’t really like being bothered when I’m eating. Bit of a habit from when I was young.”

  “Really? Why are you okay eating with me then?”

  “That’s different, I agreed to eat with you beforehand. They just walked over when we were already settled.”

  “Aww, and here I thought I ecial,” Juliana teases.

  “Of course you are! You think I’d agree to teay random mage my craft secrets?” Emily says with monity.

  They both start to giggle. Ohey’ve calmed down, Juliana asks another question.

  “Hey, what do you mean a habit from when you were young?”

  “Ah,” Emily pauses awkwardly, sidering if she should say anything. Remembering Juliana’s genuine respoo Tom asking why she hangs out with oners, she decides to be ho.

  “Well, when I was really young, like before I turned nine, I used to live alone in the slums.” A look of horror dawns on Juliana’s face as Emily tinues. “Getting food was quite difficult, sometimes I stole, other times I got lucky and found discarded food irash. But whenever I did have food, I’d hide while I ate. If any of the other kids, and even some of the adults, fouing, I’d either have to fight, run, ive up my food.”

  Juliana moves forward, pushing the notebook between them aside and pulling Emily into a hug. At first, Emily freezes. But after a few moments, she s her arms around Juliana as her head on her shoulder, rexing as she keeps going.

  “After Dad had taken me in, I ate my fill, but I guess the habit kind of stuck with me.”

  “That’s so horrible,” Juliana says tearfully. “No child should have to fight for food.”

  “Yeah, well, I lived, didn’t I? Besides, I was one of the lucky ones. At least I got out.” Emily goes silent, enjoying the warmth and tact for a short while before they separate.

  As Juliana pulls back, Emily reaches up and wipes the tears from her face while chug.

  “Jeez, I thought you were meant to be f me.”

  Juliana blushes and starts to apologise, but Emily waves her off with a smile and ges the subject.

  “Right, wan back to learniure casting?”

  With a nod from Juliana, they pull the notebook bad tiheir lesson.

  ***

  The following m, Emily wakes up and checks her css list to find she has aiquette css at 9 am. After a quick m shower, she heads over and waits in front of Juliana’s room to go to breakfast together.

  Walking into the cafeteria, with Juliana once again hanging off her, Emily spots Tom aer sitting together at a nearby table without any food, waving them over.

  “Want to eat with them?”

  “Sure!” Juliana cheerily agrees, dragging Emily towards them before she ge her mind.

  They sit down together, briefly exging greetings with the twins before food.

  “Really? Eggs on toast?” Tom questions his sister disapprovingly.

  “It’s a good meal!”

  “We have whatever we want though! Live a little.”

  Emily tunes out the two bickering and turns to Juliana.

  “Do you have any csses today?”

  “Yeah, I have a wind specialist css today at two. What about you?”

  “Etiquette at nine,” Emily says, receiving groans from all three of her friends.

  “What?” she says, turning to look at the twins rejoining civilised versation.

  “We have etiquette too,” Hester says with a look nation.

  “That bad?”

  “Yes, our st etiquette lesson was s I almost fell asleep!” Tom excims dramatically.

  “Corre, you did fall asleep. I had to wake you up three times,” Hester ents dryly.

  Sensing the start of another sibling squabble, Emily looks to Juliana to be the voice of reason.

  “I agree with Tom on this one, I fell asleep during my etiquette tut at home.”

  “I don’t know what I expected,” Emily sighs, rolling her eyes at Tom and Juliana.

  Soon their food arrives, with a rge ptter of toast in the tre of the table and an assortment of toppings on each of their ptes. Eating and making small talk, with Emily mostly fog on her food, the time passes quickly and soon they are all getting up to head out.

  “Good luck with your lesson, you’ll !” Juliana says happily, giving each of them a hug before they separate at the entrao the transportation rooms.

  “Thanks, see you at lunch,” Emily says before walking into a transportation room with the twins.

  One spatial shift ter, and the trio make their way towards a lecture hall. The room they enter looks identical to the one in which they had their elemental sele lesson. Emily would have believed it was the same room if it weren’t for the extra thirty seds of walking it took to reach it.

  “Where do we want to sit?” Emily asks the two css veterans.

  “The back,” they both answer in unison, elig a chuckle from Emily as she heeds their advid walks to the back row.

  Settling down in their seats, the twins tinue an argument they were having about the correumber of pillows to sleep with as Emily silently watches the door. Over the course of the five minutes, before the css starts, the only other student who enters is Nico, the gloomy-looking boy Emily saw but alked to in her first lesson.

  At 9 am o, the door opens again and a short, rotund man with slicked-back grey hair and a thick handlebar moustache walks in with purpose and a straight back. Stepping up to the dais, he turns to the css and announces proudly:

  “My name is Ede, sed circle mage, and I’m here to teach you scum the most important lesson you will learn in magic society, etiquette!”

  Fuck.