Bookbound Bunny

"Not going to show off your stuff?" Lotte asked, gesturing towards Thomas.

He shook his head. "I'd rather wait until I've picked my specialization and see what the teachers have in store for me."

"Suit yourself," she replied with an exaggerated shrug.

Shawn must have still been completely bewildered by seeing the two girls' magic, as he didn't even let any of his usual discouragement towards his fellow humans show.

Once he makes his pick, maybe I could ask Arakil for an incantation or something to give him? Lily pondered.

Lily also glanced at the target dummy that Lotte had hit, its repair magic desperately fighting against the persistent corrosion from her spell. Lily instantly understood why there was a ban against her participating in direct duels; if all her spells lingered like that, then the Wards wouldn't be enough to stop any significant harm to another student.

[Acid is an appropriate comparison, although I'd still classify this as a type of poison magic. I must say I'm rather impressed, although I can't imagine it made growing up easy for her—no doubt ostracized by her peers. I've seen similar issues with anyone born with latent necromantic talents, a real shame as magic isn't inherently good or evil, it's what you do with it.]

Lily, as always, found Arakil's random extrapolations interesting, although she failed to see how it could be classified as a poison. In her mind, for something to be poisoned, it needed to be of flesh and blood, or at minimum something like a plant—the training dummy, of course, met none of those conditions for her.

Eventually, their tour resumed, and this time they went outside. Shawn was tempted to pry some further information from Lily and Lotte, but neither was too interested in talking with him. Even Lily, who tried to be friendly with anyone, was finding herself wanting to disassociate with him as soon as possible.

They headed out the back and to a large open area, but other than the ground looking freshly packed, there didn't appear to be any discernible landmarks.

"And this is the backyard, where you can sort of go wild," Shawn explained. "For the type of magic that you can't cast indoors, or with a notable amount of collateral damage."

"It doesn't look very used… does it also have a repair enchantment on it?" Lotte asked.

"No, one of the teachers is a powerful earth mage, and he flattens it every two days or so," Shawn responded.

"Strange, I didn't spot this open land when I was observing from the outside," Thomas commented.

"Oh, that's one of the best parts. The entire area is veiled in an obscuring spell, so people on the outside can't snoop," Shawn answered.

"That seems excessive," Lily replied.

"Supposedly, there was a huge kerfuffle between the factions doing espionage on each other and even sabotaging practice. The headmaster was forced to intervene and put an end to it, which resulted in this. Each faction has their own private area," Shawn explained.

"Couldn't they just walk beyond the barrier? It doesn't actually stop anyone from entering, just from looking in," Lotte said.

"Ha! Spoken like a true Maranix," Shawn chuckled. "In that case, they are putting themselves at risk of getting caught, which is fair game. Before anyone could snoop and from a big distance."

Lily found it a bit absurd and didn't understand why people took this whole faction thing so seriously. She would much rather focus on her studies or advancing her own magic, and found herself sympathizing with the poor headmaster.

Oh no… I just realized that Rose is probably deep into the faction stuff. No way she wouldn't want to be number one, and that would naturally extend to Terravix too.

And that brought an end to their tour, brief as it was. Shawn tried to get the girls to demonstrate some more magic, but they declined and opted to see the library that Thomas had mentioned. The trio thanked him for the tour and then said farewell.

Following Thomas, they briefly discussed what they'd witnessed. None of them had really felt any passion for this whole faction yet, but they had to admit that the facilities looked good and would definitely be helpful for training. Thomas, on the other hand, seemed more interested in proving Shawn wrong and seemed a little stir crazy for classes to start.

Just a few days and the deadline will be up. I wonder how many more students will pass. I'm really looking forward to my first class!

Thomas led them back to the castle and then eventually to a set of large doors, which opened themselves when he touched the handle. Inside was a multi-tiered library, with rows upon rows of books, parchments, and scrolls.

[Oh my… this is quite wonderful. What I wouldn't give to peruse all these books and add them to my own collection.]

Additionally, various couches, tables, and chairs were scattered throughout to create reading areas. The upper floors even had private study carrels, with chained books—a bookworm's dream.

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The staircases leading up had signs indicating the access levels, which seemed to increase based on your years at the school. This meant that they had full access to the first floor. But Thomas quickly pointed out otherwise.

"We're limited to that small section over there until classes start," he said, gesturing off to a cordoned-off area with a few shelves. "Also we aren't allowed to borrow books yet, which kind of sucks, but I suppose they don't want any fresh students potentially destroying them."

"I still can't believe the first thing you did was find the library and spend time reading here," Lotte teased.

"I like to be informed."

"Reading is fun," Lily added.

"Eh… how about we go get some food instead?" Lotte suggested.

"Sure, I haven't tried out the main cafeteria yet," Thomas agreed.

"It's too bad Aura is in the girls' dorm today, or we could have introduced Thomas," Lily said, a mischievous smirk on her face.

Lotte giggled in response, "That would have been pretty funny. I guess there's always next time."

The trio had a decent late-afternoon meal; Lily was quite surprised by the portion sizes and what the food was meant to look like when it didn't receive the Phoenix treatment. They chatted briefly about their expectations and which classes they were looking forward to.

Naturally, all three were quite enamored by the dungeon, as it was the reason for picking Regarth. Lily mentioned the storage bag she had seen Rebecca use, and the other two immediately wanted one for themselves.

"Treasures sound great, but honestly, I'm looking forward to growing stronger from defeating monsters," Lotte said. "Where I grew up, there weren't even small fry like gremlins and slimes, so I couldn't do anything to improve my situation."

This led to her giving an abridged version of her story to Thomas about her poor condition due to her toxic bloodline. He was taken aback by it, and his realization that not all bloodlines were good was evident in his expression.

Lily briefly mentioned her own experience with gremlins, which had the other two on the edge of their seats. It appeared that her experience was somewhat unique, perhaps due to her upbringing in the orphanage or because Ceedale was slightly more rural than the other cities.

"Are you sure monsters will help your… condition?" Thomas asked.

"The few gremlins and slimes we killed slowly improved my Mana," Lily answered. "If the dungeon has stronger monsters than gremlins, then I don't see why not. Although… personally speaking, I've never had any improvement to my physique."

"Right… the non-magical demis are supposed to grow physically stronger from monsters," Thomas replied. "Is that the trade-off from being magical?"

"Well, my big sister Rose grew stronger physically and magically, but she is a Dragia, so maybe they are special?"

Both of them turned to Lotte, expectantly.

"Well, I can kind of answer that," she replied. "I told you I nearly died and needed medicine, and hunting monsters was brought up as a potential solution. Well, my father, bless his heart, bought a dire bear! He had it chained in a cage, and then I had to defeat it."

"Wait… you were impressed by my gremlins and slime hunting, but you fought a dire bear!" Lily expressed her shock.

"I mean, I didn't fight it, it was like fishing in a barrel," Lotte explained. "Plus, I was too young to even cast spells at the time, so we extracted some vials of my blood, and I had to throw them at the bear. It wasn't a pleasant experience, but it did solve my short-term problems."

"Couldn't your father have helped?" Thomas asked.

"The more people around a dying monster when it crumbles, the fewer the benefits," Lotte answered.

"I've witnessed it firsthand. My own little solo hunts were far more effective than when I went with other kids," Lily confirmed.

Thomas sighed, rubbing his temple. "That's crazy… but I guess you didn't have any other choice. I just can't imagine someone leaving their child to fight a monster on their own."

"Like I said, it wasn't great, and I was bawling my eyes out. Especially seeing something die because it came into contact with my blood. I mean, that's a terrible experience for a little kid, no?"

Lily and Thomas nodded in agreement.

"And that's why I'm here. Because my bloodline has grown stronger over the years, but my body hasn't. I'm hoping to spend a lot of time in the dungeon to make up the difference."

"I'm almost jealous. I wouldn't mind gaining some muscle from hunting monsters," Thomas replied. "Humans only gain Mana, so I guess Lily and I are in the same boat in that regard."

Well, if you ignore the fact that before my Mana Core purified some of my body, I could barely walk at a brisk pace. Even now, I'm likely to remain short probably forever.

"Isn't that technically a benefit, though?" Lotte asked. "If we think of the defeated monsters like a resource, I'm probably forced to split it between my body and Mana, while you two can focus on just the latter. Sure, I want my body to be stronger now, but just enough to handle my bloodline."

"Huh… I never thought of it that way," Thomas murmured. "I really should start thinking about my specialty and my path here."

"Any ideas?" Lily asked curiously.

"Well, I was tempted to be a fire mage, because who doesn't want to throw a fireball? But if your big sister is a Dragia, then I might want to pick something else…"

"Just please don't pick ice… unless you want to get rid of me," Lotte said with a cheeky wink.

"Ice is cool… pun intended," Thomas chuckled. "But, I quite like magic that has a lot more explosive force behind it."

"I would've said typical boy, but Rose is probably even worse than you," Lily admitted. "I genuinely thought she was going to burn down an entire forest at one point. I only hope that her year here has calmed her down a bit."

"Yikes. So definitely not fire. Plus, it would probably be as useful as spitting in the wind if I'm ever in a team competition against her."

"Oh, what about lightning?" Lily suggested. "One of the examiners used it, and it was quite loud and flashy."

"Oh, that's a good idea," Thomas agreed.

"Wait, why did an examiner use lightning? Was it that snooty bastard?" Lotte asked.

"No, it was Delila from Helia," Lily replied. "I said my cloak was resistant to magic, and she used the opportunity to test it."

"Okay, now I'm super jealous," Lotte whined. "It looks cool, probably keeps you warm, you can move it with your mind, and you're telling me it also resists magic?"

"Uhh… if it's insubstantial magic, yes. I have trouble with physically manifested stuff like rocks."

"Maybe I should pick Star Magic," Thomas said half jokingly.

They continued chatting for a while longer, discussing magic, life, and their expectations. Thomas seemed intrigued about the possibility of lightning magic and said he'd try to read more about it.

When they were finally done, they parted ways with Thomas, who was heading back to the boys' dorm, while Lotte and Lily went back to the girls ' dorm. Since they were now effectively friends, they showed each other where their rooms were, so they could meet up later.

Lily found the girl a bit strange, but in a good way, and was grateful that she'd have a familiar face in the alchemy class. While she hoped classes would start as soon as possible, she was looking forward to spending more time with her new friends.