Bronson whispered the light incantation, forming the mental image of just red green and blue light to see if he could cut down on Kol expenditure. As expected the small ball came out white. Oh, nice. But the small circle illuminated around him looked wrong. Ah.

  Bronson cut off the Kol and instead recast the spell, just cutting off the wavelengths at the end of the spectrum, beyond what he could see. The Kol expenditure was a little higher than the RGB version, but less than the default. It was a happy medium because he still needed to grow his Kol capacity, but finding ways to cut down on expenditure was worthwhile, with active skill use taking from the same pool. He left the ball floating over his shoulder and quickly got dressed. Then snuck from the room, taking care to avoid stepping on Abrax’s clothes, which were strewn haphazardly over the floor. How is it already a mess?

  Out of their room, he made for their front door, using the light glinting off Berrioux’s cage as a beacon. As he drew closer two additional pinpricks of light appeared, the light of the orb reflecting off Berrioux’s eyes.

  The faebeast’s eyes met his and it let out a series of soft clicking sounds in greeting. Bronson gave the bird a little wave and opened the door, stepping out to start his morning.

  Berrioux and Abrax had been up to something the night before, what it was Bronson didn’t know, which meant Abrax would probably be sleeping for a few more hours yet. This wasn’t dissimilar to the rest of their classmates as they had all gone to some kind of student-run freshers’ party and whatever alchemical spirits they were drinking, were evidently far more potent than anything from earth as the whole floor seemed to be eerily silent, beyond the occasional retching sound.

  When Bronson made his way out of the building and into the campus proper there were more than a few students shambling students, their hangovers were more present than they were. The vacant looks in their eyes only served ot make them appear as a horde of zombies ready to claw their way into some lecture hall.

  Bronson didn’t envy the existing students, they had their compulsory classes to attend. Of course, not every single person looked half dead, but the fully living were a small minority. A far-off gong sounded and a number of people visibly flinched. Maybe when he had more time he’d join one of the parties, even if just to get into drinking games with impunity. Fun, if a little evil.

  Bronson grinned. But his mirth faded as he remembered just how much work he still needed to do. He’d spent the whole night before studying and he’d got more done in that one night than he’d probably got done in a fortnight back at his original uni, but there was just so much to learn. He also needed to select what classes to take in the next couple of days.

  He’d get the chance to figure out what to do with them later, but first, he had another session with Ayo.

  Does it ever stop raining?

  Bronson’s second trip to Ayo’s house took far less time than the first, but in exchange his clothes clung to his skin, it made his body look especially skeletal.

  Bronson stepped up to the thick double doors of the large stone house and knocked. Fifteen seconds later the doors swung open allowing upbeat pop music to flow out of the house and into the street, whatever sound dampening wards were active not setup to prevent sound from leaking through an open doorway.

  “Oh hello Jem, come inside.”

  Bronson was frozen in shock, not at Ayo’s use of the wrong name, but her appearance. Her nails were painted. She painted her nails? The scent of sweet soap even clung to her. It seemed as though his early arrival had caught her in the middle of a spa treatment. Even her antlers gleamed in the way he’d seen from some of the more appearance-driven students at the university.

  Was she pretending not to like this kind of thing to come across as a stern and rigid drill instructor?

  Then as if remembering to get back into character, Ayo said, “Don’t just stand there dripping on my doorstep, take some of your training clothes and have a shower.”

  Her efforts were fruitless. His image of her had already changed.

  Bronson made his way down into the basement where Ayo’s training rooms were. How they’d constructed the building so quickly and with so little fuss raised questions, but maybe in a world with magic building codes weren’t as stringent. That or their authority could be used to sweep a little construction work under the rug.

  Despite clearly being new, the space was well furnished, even if not to the degree he’d enjoyed in the castle. Bronson walked over to a closet and pulled out a clean set of workout clothes alongside a towel and making his way to the bathroom.

  The deluge of warm water crashed down onto him, more stream than shower and the heat seeped into his body, loosening his sore muscles. Bronson stepped out of the water and quickly grabbed for the bar of plain soap on the rack.

  So only she gets nice soap huh? Bronson worked the soap up into a lather then and dove back under the water. Maybe he could ask Ayo to start putting some of the nice soap downstairs too.

  Ten minutes later Bronson exited the shower, feeling clean, relaxed and a little overheated. Ayo was still nowhere to be seen so he quickly walked back into the bathroom and hung his damp clothes up on the heated towel rack. He knew it was just because magic made it more accessible, but it really did feel luxurious to be able to step out of the shower and dry himself with a heated towel.

  Bronson sat down at the centre of the training room and waited. When Ayo arrived her appearance was a bit different to usual, instead of her typically austere appearance, her antlers were still gleaming and she was now wearing light blue eyeshadow on top of the rest of her more relaxed get up.

  Before long Ayo had Bronson moving through the typical exercises, her holding onto one of his limbs to act as resistance as he slowly moved through the limbs range of motion. Despite himself his eyes couldn’t help but be drawn back to Ayo repeatedly.

  “What is it?” Ayo asked.

  “I didn’t think you were the sort of person to wear make up.”

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  She gave him a flat stare. “What’s do you mean by that?”

  Bronson thought about explaining his hypothesis about how she pretended to be more stern than she actually was, but the expression on her face said everything he needed to know. He shut his mouth and threw himself back into the exercises.

  It’s fine my jaw was tired anyway.

  At least speech didn’t require the same degree of musclulature as walking. Even if it seemed like he would need to practice speaking too, just to make sure it wasn’t tiring to speak for extended periods, or loudly.

  Apparently irritated by Bronson’s comments Ayo applied more resistance. When Bronson left her house his body was aching all over. This is almost as bad as the pain from the brooch. Okay it’s not but this is more constant.

  The worst thing was that he had to go back to Ayo’s again tomorrow, hopefully she’d at least be in a better mood. Though maybe there was another solution to his musculature predicament. He did still have that note from the martial guy in the library, so that might be worth checking out. Even if it seemed a little sketchy.

  Bronson pushed the thoughts to the side for the moment, instead focusing on getting back to the university before the skies opened up again and on his options for class modules. From what he could tell most of his classes would be focused on magic specific subjects with the option of taking some non magical modules if he so desired.

  Of course Bronson intended to focus on the magical kinds rather than the mundane. At least in the first term they didn’t have to choose between that many and he Abrax and Vic would be going along to some of the taster sessions later that afternoon to help cement their picks.

  – — — — — –

  Bronson got back to his apartment and headed for the bedroom.

  In the kitchen Abrax was busy hoovering down a plate of bacon and eggs. He’d said something as Bronson walked past but Bronson didn’t catch it. Abrax hadn’t bothered to stop eating as he spoke.

  Bronson quickly changed out of his clothes and into a fresh set. Despite their time on the towel rack they hadn’t fully dried out and he had no intention of spending the day in ever so slightly damp clothes. There was almost certainly a spell for it, but he was yet to learn it.

  Bronson smiled to himself. It would only be a matter of time.

  Vic came and found the two of them and they set off together to their first set of taster sessions. There were actually far too many potential courses for them to take for them to attend all of the taster sessions which meant that they had to have some digression in their choices.

  When Bronson skimmed the options, in his booklet, he couldn’t help but feel like a kid at a pick n mix. He wanted to try almost everything, though of course there were some classes with a similarity to chocolate covered raisins like philosophy. On a surface level it sounded interesting, the opportunity to compare between Dari and Earth, but in reality it would probably be as dry as a shriveled raisin.

  Thankfully not all of the module options had taster sessions on the same day, though there were still quite a lot to choose from, even if they did have four hours to try things out.

  Bronson went back over the list and picked out a few classes. First he went for the ones he felt he needed.

  Supplementary Kol Manipulation and Introduction to Dimensional Theory. Tyrus had already pushed him towards the classes but he also knew that his Kol manipulation was far behind everyone else’s, he even learnt that many of them didn’t actually use a skill to accomplish it, and dimensional theory was a no brainer. The mark was called a dimensional mark, and The Black Spot had tapped into its power. If he needed to improve his odds of unlocking the higher tier version class he’d need to start working towards it asap.

  Then he looked over the list to see if there were any more he wanted to do quickly underlining Incantation Crafting and Familiars and Spirit Binding. His eyes roved the list a few more times, some options standing out to him like: Melee for Mages, which might make sense for him given his non entirely magical class; Body Enhancment which probably appealed to him more for the moment than it should have, given that his stats were high enough to not need it if his body was in decent condition and Introduction to Temporal Magic, an option that seemed especially alluring after fighting under the effects of Tyrus’ haste magic.

  It had allowed him to fight monsters way higher than he should have been able to, though he wasn’t sure how much of that was also the impact of the sword. According to Aoife his brief stint of using it had probably used a similar amount of experience to what he gained, simply in the internal experience buffer. The sword being one of the tools that make use of experience as well as Kol, like Karim’s flying treasure.

  Apparently Bronson’s Kol density wouldn’t have been high enough to even activate the blade.

  While he went over his options Vic and Abrax’s discussion had devolved into an argument over whether enchanting or alchemy was more useful while Berrioux repeatedly underscored Introduction to Ethical Necromancy and Smithing. It seemed the bird had opinions too.

  Vic grabbed his arm. “What do you think Bronson? We should all try out alchemy right?”

  “He’s not an idiot, he thinks we should do enchanting. It’s more useful.” said Abrax.

  “You know, I’m not sure,” said Bronson. “While you two try those out, I might try out Incantation Crafting.”

  “Nevermind,” said Abrax, “I was mistaken.”

  “Bronson don’t you want to match class schedules with us?” asked Vic.

  “If I can that’s great, but there are some classes I actually need to take.”

  Abrax made a, ‘go on,’ gesture.

  “Kol manipulation and dimensional theory.”

  “Bronson, those are polar opposites.”

  “Yeah, Bronson I don’t think I’ve even seen you cast any magic, I don’t think you can just pick up dimensionalism, especially with poor Kol control.”

  Bronson gave them a wry grin. “And that’s why they’re both necessary.”

  Abrax rolled his eyes. “Your funeral.”

  Berrioux let out a little squak and Abrax reached up giving the bird a scratch under its chin.

  “Well you only need to take those two classes right?” asked Vic.

  “Yeah?”

  “In that case, let's look for taster sessions to go to at least, we might be able to match most of our schedule.”

  That reignited the Alchemy vs Enchanting argument, in the end, Abrax won, with the concession that they would try out Allchemy next, and that he actually had to give it a proper go.

  Abrax grumbled a little but once they actually got to the alchemy part, wherein they were given the task of brewing a simple potion, he seemed to be having fun. It also seemed like he was well versed in it given the fact he finished and then helped both of them brew theirs.

  Brewing the potion reminded Bronson of chem labs, it seemed as though alchemy involved a lot of measuring and titration among other little steps that brought the memories bubbling up. The only issues came from the more magical steps, but Abrax’s swift intervention helped him through those sticking points.

  If he weren’t stuck in his class catch-22 he could have easily seen himself setting up an alchemy shop somewhere. Maybe going into it with some of his close friends. Unfortunately, he had things to get done and even if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure where owning an alchemy shop fitted in with his princely duties.

  Nessa’s excitement over his class grade definitely meant she wanted something.