The bramblevine lashed out of Mal's hand and onto Hypode's face.

  Hypode let out a scream that was quickly muffled by the Bramblevine growing around his mouth. He flopped to the ground and flailed like a seizure victim.

  Mal jumped back and waited for Hypode to rip off the Bramblevine.

  The seconds ticked by. Hypode continued to give muffled screams from behind the Bramblevine. It continued to grow, wrapping around his entire head. Mal found his guard dropping. He reached up and scratched his temple.

  But… Bramblevine is a common pest. Is he really having this much trouble with it?

  Hypode slammed his arcane sphere into the Bramblevine, hitting himself in the face with a blast of mana. The Bramblevine fell off in chunks, but Hypode had very successfully managed to knock himself out, his face now a steaming red lump.

  Immediately cheers and boos broke out from behind him. Mal turned around just in time to see a random student yell out, "Get off the stage!"

  Rolam clapped enthusiastically, a wide grin on his face. Philo took off his glasses and squinted his eyes. Nima looked absolutely starstruck.

  A gaze from his side cut into him in a way that was almost physical. He turned to his left to see Savaly with her vision focused directly on him. If he didn't know any better, he would say that the way she was looking at him reminded him of a magical scientist looking at the results of an experiment. He got the impression that his attempt to stay under the radar had failed absolutely magnificently.

  A hand clapped down on his shoulder. Vigil gave him a sharp nod.

  "Well done," Vigil said. "I mentioned Bramblevine, but nobody takes the next step and thinks of using it in a fight. For some reason, most of these brats consider it dishonorable or something."

  Mal lifted his lips in his best approximation of a smile. "I was just lucky, sir," he forced the words out. Great, not only did he get the attention of the student body, but it looks like two different professors had their eyes on him for two different reasons. "If I hadn't caught on to your trick with the Bramblevine, I would've been in trouble."

  "Oh, shooing it away with mana? You've never done that before?"

  Mal shook his head. "No, Prof, this is all very new to me. I had no idea that you could use aligned mana to—"

  "Aligned mana?" Vigil's eyebrows furrowed together. "What are you talking about? There's no aligned mana involved. All you're doing is just taking advantage of the repulsion effect to knock the plant away."

  What? Mal thought. That's not what that felt like. My mana and the plant's mana were interacting. Once I managed to achieve that resonance, it moved back on its own. I didn't… force it away. At least not in the way that he seems to be describing…

  Instead of saying any of that, Mal decided to cut the conversation short. "Oh, I'm not sure where that terminology came from. I should get going."

  "Yes, yes. And don't worry, I'll be sure to arrange for stronger opponents. A mind like yours should be nurtured, not left to die on the vine."

  Mal's smile turned even more brittle than it already had been. "Thanks… sir."

  "Now off you go. It's time for a debriefing."

  "Being slow, I can tolerate. Being dumb isn’t the worst thing in the world. But you know what I can't stand more than anything? A lack of will."

  Mal watched as a few of the students next to him seemed to flinch at Vigil's last word. There.

  "It is your life on the line out there," Vigil snarled, his voice low and gravelly. "We don't live in a safe world. Incursions from below, invasions from the east by magical beasts, rogue wizards—any one of those could be a threat to your life. This isn't a game. By being a wizard, you've marked yourself as a target of interest to all those groups. Magical beasts will seek to hunt you down because of the mana that you emit. A dark magic practitioner might decide that your core would make for a lovely ingredient in one of their potions."

  Mal tried to keep as straight a face as he could. Yup, I don't have any personal experience in that.

  Vigil raised his chin and looked down on the students. "But you know what I saw out there?" he said. "It seemed to me that none of you grasped that in the slightest. Because if you did, I would've seen you fighting a hell of a lot harder than what I saw today." His tone went to a more neutral state. "Except for two students who I leave unnamed."

  At that, Mal felt about a dozen gazes drill into his back. Thanks, Professor, he thought. Really appreciate that.

  "With that said," Vigil crossed his arms. "You're not hopeless. I think that just about every person on the face of the planet has a killer instinct deep inside. My job is to bring that out. Over the course of the next six years, each and every one of you are going to learn how to forget all the niceties that civilization has taught you. And in the end, you'll be equipped to face down anyone who seeks to harm you or your own. Be they magical beasts, human, draconid, or whatever else. Class dismissed."

  After deflecting questions from his fellow students, Mal managed to escape back to the dorm. Dinner would be in a few hours, but he had some time to work alone.

  And work alone he did.

  He managed to snag the textbooks from Lusia—despite her protests about wanting to carry them—and decided that he would focus on figuring out everything he was supposed to know for the first year. No more mistakes, no more accidentally revealing knowledge that he’s not supposed to—from here on out, he’d be the ideal first-year student.

  In between breaks, his thoughts wandered to various random things. His fellow circlemates’ poor performance, his newfound theory of resonance in aligned mana, and his own massive failures in staying under the radar.

  With the first, he’d ended up taking a break to draft a letter to the office of student affairs requesting a transfer. With any luck, they’d take his request seriously and get him moved. He cited the fact that both an elf and the draconid were on his team, along with the fact that he was the—ugh—second-rank student during the entrance exam. He really, really didn’t like calling attention to that fact, but for the sake of getting him off of a circle containing two Heralds, that seemed perfectly reasonable.

  Mal thought of an alternate reality where either Nima was somehow the heroine or he was replaced by the heroine, resulting in him being on a circle with not one, not two, but three Heralds all destined to fight him.

  Mal thanked Eternus that he had enough mercy to avoid that worst-case scenario.

  Once he was done drafting the letter, he walked outside of the dorm and went over to the mailboxes at the front. He slipped his letter in and pulled on a red tab. Just to the side, there was a quick blue flash and the letter disappeared. From what Mal understood, it would be sorted out by the school’s mailing service and forwarded to the appropriate department.

  With that done, he went back to studying. He occasionally wrote down a few of his theories on mana resonance in a spare notebook, but for the most part, he remained on task and focused. He had to get this right. He was already getting an enormous amount of attention, and it was only the first day of classes.

  Mal didn’t bother to head out for dinner, instead electing to remain inside and continue studying. He also chose to avoid his roommates and stayed inside of his room, even as he heard them head through the front door.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  He studied long into the night, pulling out an arcane sphere for lighting once the sun had disappeared.

  Eventually, his body couldn’t take it anymore, and he noticed his eyelids dropping. He shut the textbooks and stumbled over to his bed. He crashed into it and immediately sleep took him away.

  The next morning, Mal received a few furtive glances from Rolam and Nima as they got ready for the next day of classes. Lusia had waltzed into his room, took his textbooks without so much as a by your leave, then stepped back into the common room. Mal checked the calendar—potions and herbalism, both taught by Cassandra Eclus.

  After they were done getting everything ready, they stepped out of the door and Mal bumped directly into Philo's hard, scaled body.

  "Mal, my apologies!" Philo adjusted his glasses and looked down at Mal. “Philo shouldn’t have gotten in the way like that."

  Mal shrugged. "No problem. Why are you back here? I would've thought you’d gone on ahead?"

  “Philo forgot his textbooks," Philo said. He coughed and motioned at the door. "If you don't mind?"

  Mal stepped to the side and idly noted that Philo was breathing hard, like he’d just run a marathon. Rolam and Nima stepped to the sides, allowing Philo in. Rolam took a few more steps and started walking as if nothing had happened, then let out a sigh and looked back at Mal.

  "You're gonna wait for him, aren't you?" Rolam asked.

  "Yes? Why wouldn't I?"

  Rolam let out a dramatic sigh, then leaned against one of the pillars supporting the overhang. After a minute, Philo stepped out and shut the door behind him.

  He nodded at Mal. “Philo sees that you waited for me, thank you."

  Mal awkwardly looked over at Rolam, then back to Philo. "Yeah, no problem. Let's get going."

  The five made their way to the potions and herbalism department, located at the rear of the campus. Philo was the first to break the silence.

  “Philo’s mother was actually an herbalist," he said.

  Mal glanced at him. "Is that so? I didn't know draconids had herbalists."

  "It's a rare profession," Philo said. "In part because it's so challenging. Herbalism is enormously difficult, involving a great deal of memorization and caution due to the unpredictability of aligned mana."

  "Herbalism involves aligned mana?" Nima asked.

  Behind him, Rolam seemed uninterested in the conversation, but Mal could tell from the way his ears were twitching that he was paying attention.

  "From what Philo understands," Philo held his hands up in surrender. "Philo doesn't know much about the field, to be clear. He tried his hand at it when he was younger, but his mother always told him that he never had the talent for it."

  Rolam snorted. "Makes sense."

  Philo's gaze darkened and his claws glinted as they moved in the sunlight. Nima seemed to pick up on the tension and let out a strangled laugh.

  "T—that's so interesting! Do you know anything about our professor?"

  "Just the things Philo told you last time we discussed this," Philo's claws dropped back down to his side and he looked away from Rolam. "She's a potions prodigy, Philo thinks she’s the youngest professor, actually."

  "Really?" Mal asked, curious. He’d never heard this before. "How old is she?"

  "Twenty-six? Twenty-seven?" Philo shrugged. “Philo knows Igna is in her 40s. Vigil is hard to tell, Philo knows that he's old." He stroked his chin. "The headmaster is the second youngest, surprisingly. Only a year or two older than Cassandra. They even went to school together."

  Mal definitely didn't know that. And he would've never placed the professor for being so young. He'd always just assumed that due to the professor's powerful core, he looked young, despite being ancient.

  I guess that just proves how dangerous he is, Mal thought. To be headmaster of the most prestigious magical academy in the world at such a young age…

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Lusia was walking a little more carefully than usual.

  “Lusia?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  “One of the other maids informed me that I should watch my step. She seems to be correct, as I tripped over her boot.”

  Mal frowned. That sounded like bullying.

  “What’s this maid’s name?”

  “Dahlia. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.”

  The group slipped back into silence. When they arrived at the potions and herbalism department, there were a few gasps from the side, even from Mal.

  The department was less of a building and more of a large domed glass structure. Sunlight streamed from the outside and onto dozens, if not hundreds of different plants growing in patches on the ground, raised platforms, and several even hanging from the ceiling.

  Inside, a lone figure trimmed off a few vines using some garden shears. She set them down, then glanced at Mal and the others through the glass. She motioned with her hand and gestured for them to come in. Mal looked at the others, shrugged, then stepped over to the doors.

  When they stepped inside, there were already a few students in the shrubbery, looking at a few of the plants with open-gaped amazement. A handful were simply standing in the central hallway, looking from side to side as if unsure what to do.

  Cassandra glanced over at Mal and frowned. "I remember you. You're the troublemaker. Split some kid's skull wide open."

  When she spoke, smoke came out of her mouth from the pipe lodged between her teeth.

  Mal looked over at an interesting-looking plant. "He kind of did that himself."

  Cassandra gave him a look that made it very clear that she did not believe him. She looked over the rest of his group with the same sneering expression before she stopped at Lusia. Her face reset to a neutral state.

  "Is he treating you all right, girl?" she asked. "He hasn't tried anything, has he?"

  "I require further context. What things could he have tried?" Lusia said.

  Cassandra took the pipe out of her mouth and set it between her fingers.

  "Hurt you. Touch you. Anything inappropriate."

  Mal squinted his eyes at Cassandra. What did this woman take him for? Some kind of entitled noble bastard who would—wait, that would've been exactly the right assessment of him less than two days ago.

  Lusia shook her head. "No, my lady. He has done nothing of the sort."

  Cassandra gave a nod.

  "All right… But listen, if anything ever happens, you can talk to me and I'll make sure that he's put six feet in the ground."

  Lusia tilted her head by a fraction of an inch. "Thank you? Though I don’t understand why you’d bury him, or how that’s relevant.”

  Cassandra looked away from Lusia and craned her neck in a circle. "Looks like everyone's here." She raised her voice. "Brats! Get in here!"

  A handful of students scurried from out of the plants and into the central walkway.

  Once everybody was in, Cassandra gave a nod. "Welcome to herbalism. Let's get started."

  "The vast majority of you have no idea what herbalism is, otherwise you would've requested to leave this class."

  At that, Mal raised an eyebrow. Certainly an interesting start.

  He thought back to the first timeline. He did remember dropping out of herbalism at some point—it was an optional class, but it was in a strange situation where you were enrolled into it automatically. He couldn't quite recall why, however. He was hoping that Cassandra would go into that.

  "First of all, to understand herbalism, you need to understand potions." Cassandra reached for her side and pulled out a glass vial containing a strange blue liquid.

  "This is a potion. A potion is a pretty simple thing, at least in theory. You grind up various magical herbs and ingredients, slow cook it over a fire, and voilà—potion."

  She set the potion back inside of her belt and pulled out another glass vial from the other side of her hip.

  "This, on the other hand, is an infusion." She paused and smirked. "I can tell by the blank expressions on your faces that you have no idea what that is. That's fine—for now, just think of it as a type of herbalist potion."

  Mal actually did know what an infusion was. He'd read the textbook, after all. An infusion was a type of brew created by steeping the ingredients in water to allow the magical properties to disseminate naturally into it.

  Unfortunately, the herbalism textbook was kind of a mess. It'd been full of contradictions and confusing statements that even the author seemed to be flabbergasted by. This is part of what he was hoping to clarify by coming to the class.

  "An infusion is created in a similar sort of way as a potion. You add some magical ingredients. You let them steep inside the water—boom, infusion. So what's the difference between an infusion and a potion?"

  She tucked the infusion into her belt just like she had done with the potion. Her pipe went back up to her lips and she took a small puff, then breathed out. A small cloud of smoke came out and floated lazily up to the ceiling.

  "Whether or not there's any unaligned mana in the mix,” she said.

  Mal blinked. The herbalism textbook hadn't mentioned that.

  He knew that adding unaligned mana was an essential part of potion making. If you didn't do that, then you would end up with an unstable, unreliable mixture. It was considered a bare basic. And now he was learning that there was a field of magic that apparently did without this basic. How would that even work?

  "For those of you who have done a little bit of potion making, you probably think I'm insane," Cassandra said. "But believe it or not, this is how magical ingredients were used for thousands of years before potion making. Unaligned mana is a modern luxury. There was a time when we didn't have it. Users of magic had to make do and learn how to adapt with the tools that they had."

  That made sense to Mal. Modern wizardry was called modern for a reason. There had to have been some kind of ancient precursor.

  "You might ask why you should learn these old ways." Cassandra shrugged. "Mana core exhaustion can and will happen. After a particularly intensive battle or even doing construction work—whatever you choose to go into after this—there will come a point where you'll be unable to use your core. If you're injured, or someone else is injured, you'll be completely useless. But if you know at least some of these basics, you might be able to turn a bad situation into something salvageable."

  Cassandra walked over to one of the plants and rubbed her fingers against the leaves. The whole plant shivered and a small red fruit appeared from the central stem, the stem wrapping around it like a blanket. Cassandra reached out and put it in her mouth and chewed.

  "And let's not forget —" she swallowed. "That you live in a world inhabited by plant life. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't know how to take advantage of that."

  By the end of her talk, most of the students seemed hesitantly excited. Philo looked intrigued, and even Rolam was giving a begrudging nod.

  "So, who's ready to learn how to make an infusion?"