"...Lady Morris. Lady Morris! Lady Morris!"

"Ah!" Penelope awoke with a cry. She felt someone shaking her roughly by the shoulders and began to flail about before she squinted her eyes open and saw Archie, who hastily released her upon feeling her wake up.

"I'm so sorry to have woken you in such a rough manner, Lady Morris!" Her retainer took a few steps back. He wore an expression halfway between apology and relief. "You weren't stirring when I called out to you and I was concerned that you may have developed a case of mana poisoning. I'm happy to see that you're well!"

The teen rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and blearily looked around the room. Light streamed in through the window, illuminating the fine mahogany luster of her large bedroom. For a moment, she felt like she was still in a dream, but looking at the furry man eagerly standing next to her bedside was enough of a shock to rouse her out of her stupor.

"Um, it's alright Archie. No, I'm just a heavy sleeper." She yawned and stretched her arms. "What's mana poisoning? That's a thing?"

He looked surprised at the question and only then did Penelope remember that she was planning on pretending to be knowledgeable about these sorts of things. Nevertheless, he responded quickly and with his customary politeness. "Oh yes. Mana poisoning can occur when someone is exposed to a place with a higher amount of ambient mana than they are used to. It results in a slowing of bodily functions and can sometimes present itself as an unending slumber. It's not very common outside of crystal mines and dungeons, but, well," he gestured nebulously around them, "the high density of all the artificial mana constructs here can also affect some people, especially if they're lower level."

Penelope paled as he continued to speak. "Could that still happen to me?" she asked, trying to keep the panic from creeping into her voice.

"Not to worry Lady Morris, by now I'm sure your body has acclimated to the atmospheric mana ," Archie said. The retainer seemed to want to say something more, but he hesitated.

Penelope waited for him to speak, but after a moment of awkward silence she prodded him. "Yes Archie? Was there something else?"

"...Pardon me for asking, my Lady, and do forgive me if this is beyond my station, but were you raised as a Nadir by chance?" he finally asked.

There it was again. Nerris had mentioned the same term last night. Penelope considered giving Archie the same non-response she'd told her roommate, but ultimately decided against it. Even if Cadfael had given her some vague reprimand for asking too many basic questions that might let people know she wasn't from around here, she needed someone to ask about the essential stuff. Archie seemed fairly harmless, and he'd probably figure out something was up with her eventually whether or not she tried to hide it.

Still, that didn't mean she had to be entirely transparent either. "What do you know of what it means to be a Nadir?" she hedged, betting on Archie's tendency to over explain things to keep him from questioning her circuity.

Luckily, that worked out, and Archie visibly brightened when given an invitation to demonstrate his knowledge. "Nadirs are those who focus on keeping their level low while developing the requisite skills or experiences to pick a specific class. Because the default initiate class only awards one point per level up in each specific category, this strategy minimizes the number of 'wasted' levels, so to speak. It's theoretically useful as the stats of someone raised as a Nadir will nearly always be better than that of the average person of their level. In practice however, the difference is quite minimal and only becomes more inconsequential at higher tiers. Furthermore, it's simply impractical for the average commoner to avoid gaining levels with the amount of labor that is expected of them starting from a young age, not to mention the practical concerns of survivability and the amount of resources necessary to catch Nadirs up to their peers once they've acquired their class. It was in fashion for awhile among the nobles, but it's since fallen out of practice. It turns out that cultivating heirs who are weak, fragile, and unlearned isn't so-"

Archie froze. He'd gotten a bit carried away during his speech. Taking a beat to cough abashedly, he rushed to soften his assessment. "Nadirs can simply be a bit sheltered. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but can be a problem if, for example, the head of a house dies and suddenly the house is inherited by an unprepared heir. This happened to the former House Gillia during the peak of the popularity for the practice, ultimately ending in the house's dissolution and greatly reducing the number of lords willing to take such a risk of that happening to their own house. That being said, it's still a viable practice at times, especially for those such as yourself who have been divined to receive a powerful class through inheriting a divine legacy."

Penelope took a moment to absorb all that her retainer had discussed. Claiming she was one of these Nadir would be very convenient for explaining away many of the inconsistencies in her past and the gaps in her knowledge. That being said…

"Weak, fragile, and unlearned." Penelope sighed. It'd be the responsible thing to do, but after he'd described it like that she couldn't help but feel embarrassed with what she was about to say.

Reluctantly, she nodded. "Yes. I do happen to be a Nadir."

Archie looked mortified for a moment and bowed deeply. "I do apologize for any perceived insult, Lady Morris!" he said, "I would never have guessed you to be a Nadir. You're not like they are usually expected to be. You're…" he desperately searched for some way to salvage the conversation, then his face lit up. "You're a real articulate lady!" He smiled at her. Penelope gave a flat smile back while screaming internally.

With that, the flustered retainer quickly spoke about needing to prepare breakfast and before she could blink he'd made his escape from the room.

Penelope gave a small exhale of relief before summarily flopping down onto the bed and giving the mattress one last hug. "Goodbye heated bed, my beloved. Weep not, for we shall meet again come brighter days." She nuzzled the ever-so-warm blankets one last time then forcefully extracted herself from the covers before she could fall asleep again.

Much like the previous night, Penelope briefly used the washroom then took a moment to stare out her window; not a dark cloud could be seen and rather than the dread she'd felt looking out into the darkness before, now she gazed out upon the view in breathless wonder.

Far, far below sprawled an enormous city surrounded on all sides by gleaming water. Penelope had learned from her conversation with Nerris that the city was known as Loria and was the Imperial capital of the country.

The crowded buildings below were made of gleaming white marble with the rooftops painted in a dazzling mix of vivid oranges and bright blues. The city was tiered into different elevated sections, with buildings becoming larger and more extravagant towards the higher layers on the inside of the landmass. At the very center of the city was a magnificent castle, though even its tallest towers were below wherever Penelope now resided, making her wonder how she was so high up.

Although she was too far away to properly see any of the foot traffic on the streets, perhaps most amazingly of all was the utterly packed sky over the city. Hot-air balloons, skyships, and even individual blurs of people or some other kind of large animals flew through the air in a myriad of colors and forms. The largest of these crafts were situated around enormous bubbles of water which floated lazily over the city and even the lake beyond. Some of these bubbles of water were clear while others had a large core of earth and aquatic greenery floating inside. She even spotted fish swimming around inside some such spheres.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

The whole scene was lit in the sparkling morning light of the rising sun. It made Penelope's breath catch in her throat and she couldn't help but take a moment to lose herself in the sight. She gripped the windowsill and leaned her head on one side of the frame as she spent minutes just gazing out on the city below.

"Happy Birthday, Penelope…" she whispered to herself, a light smile playing upon her lips.

—-----

Penelope nervously sank into her seat and tried to ignore the stares she could feel burrowing into her from all over the room. When she'd been told that they were to begin lessons in the lecture hall, she'd imagined something like the lecture halls at a college or maybe even just like the plain old highschool classrooms she was used to. Instead, what she got was a mix between a grand courtroom and the Pantheon. The room was perfectly round with a tall, dome-shaped ceiling capped off by a skylight at its crest. Around the edges of the hall were several groups of raised desks, each of which had literal stairs up to their seats. And at the very center of it all, at a desk emblazoned with a large emblem of a rat, sat Penelope.

It felt like she was the chief justice in a courtroom waiting for its next petitioner. And every one of her fellow justices was looking at her, waiting for her to deliver her verdict.

Cadfael sat to her left and she shot him a desperate please-help-me look, but he only tilted his head. "What's wrong? Are you feeling alright?" He asked with faux naivete, concern absolutely dripping from his voice.

She scoffed. "You know what's wrong!" she whispered harshly towards him. "Why is everyone staring at me?"

He gave a little laugh, then shrugged. "It's to be expected. I imagine everyone's quite curious as to who shall be leading us for… well probably for the rest of our lives. At least in name anyhow."

Groaning, Penelope couldn't help but admit that the boy had a point. When Elder Ptoly had explained that she would be the leader of the group of heroes, she'd accepted without giving it too much thought. Suddenly her role was becoming a bit more concrete.

It wasn't all bad. There were only nine of the Zodiacs in the room so the pressure wasn't quite as overwhelming as it might be. Renslow, Hu, and one other person weren't there. Nerris had explained on the walk over that this lesson was specifically about magic conjuration, which was apparently a specific kind of magic that most people practiced but not everyone did. As such, the three for whom it wasn't relevant would be attending other lessons later.

Penelope didn't really get it, but magic of any kind was exciting to her and Nerris had assured her it would be an important discipline to practice. Besides, the other girl's rainbow eyes were positively shining when she explained they were to be taking conjuration lessons and her roommate seemed like a good judge of things, so Penelope was looking forward to it.

Other than Nerris and Cadfael, there was only one person who wasn't blatantly staring at Penelope, and that was the girl seated just to her right. Earlier Cadfael had explained that the three of them were sat together because they were in a Triad together, whatever that meant. Penelope studied her out of the corner of her eye.

It was the excitable girl who'd waved to Penelope when she'd first arrived. They hadn't spoken yet, but Penelope immediately had a good impression of her from her positivity prior to the ritual ceremony and the fact that she didn't stare at Penelope awkwardly when she'd arrived. Part of the reason she remembered her so well was because the girl had pale lavender, shoulder-length hair. When she'd first arrived here and thought it was just some place on Earth, Penelope had merely assumed it was dye, but now she wondered if that was the girl's natural hair color.

This girl was currently preoccupied with something quite strange and was focusing so intently on it that she hardly seemed to notice when Penelope had sat in her seat next to her. She had a little circlet, like the passkey Archie lent Penelope to unlock her room, and was currently fiddling with… something about it. The circlet was placed on the table and her hands blurred through the air over it in dexterous, precise movements that were too fast for Penelope to follow. Her motions reminded Penlope of a video she'd once seen of someone doing a fancy cat's cradle pattern, though a string was missing. Most of the time it looked as if nothing was there, but every now and then Penelope would catch a glimpse of a wisp of gray appearing from nowhere between her fingers. Whenever this happened the girl's expression would change, sometimes to a look of enthusiastic excitement, other times to troubled concentration. It was terribly fascinating to watch, although Penelope wondered just how much was going on that she couldn't see.

After a long time, the sparking suddenly became more frequent, and the girl's invisible weaving rose to a crescendo. Finally a small orb of softly burning gray light materialized in the air between her hands. The girl gave a triumphant grin and made a tiny whoop of excitement.

"What are you up to?" Penelope tentatively asked.

"Eep!" The girl gave a little shriek of surprise and jolted back in her seat. Instantly, the little gray ball unraveled into gray smoke and dissipated into the air. She cast one last forlorn look towards the little wisps, then turned and gave Penelope a short once-over with her eyes. "How long have you been sitting there?" she asked quizzically.

"Um. Not too long," she lied.

The girl nodded and waved away the smoke, then turned to Penelope with a carefree smile. Her earlier disappointment evaporated in a moment. "I was working on a schema for the warding on these passkeys! It's really something! Do you have any idea the amount of layers on the runes in these?" she eagerly chirped.

"I'm not very familiar with those sorts of things, sorry," Penelope replied. The girl opened her mouth to respond, but Cadfael spoke first.

"Oh no, I'm not letting you get into this again Millie," he declared. The bouncy girl whined and slumped back in her seat with a pout, put out by Cadfael's interruption. He laughed teasingly, then turned back to Penelope. "Don't ask her about ward formations or she'll never stop talking. Last night she talked my ear off about how fascinating the dust prevention enchantments were on our room's rug. Besides, class is about to start."

Penelope looked down at the empty lecture hall, but it was just as empty as it had been a moment before. "What? I don't-"

Suddenly a column of fire crashed down from the skylight to land on the ground with a dramatic BOOM, shaking the entire hall. Penelope cried out as tongues of flame lashed from the fiery explosion, slamming into an invisible barrier just inches from the front of her desk in a mighty blaze. Although she was protected from the brunt of the force, she could still feel herself start to sweat from the heat radiating off of the wall of flames.

Cadfael looked unperturbed. Meanwhile Millie raised her hands in the air and cheered on the fire. Penelope was pretty sure she heard her shout gleefully, although her words were lost in the crackling roar.

Finally, much to Penelope's relief, the flames dispersed, leaving the hall no worse for wear. In the center of where the column of light had appeared stood a taller, hawkish-looking woman with sharp features. She had a tight bun of gray hair and wore a billowing black coat which hung down to her ankles and hugged her thin figure. In her right hand she clutched a long, oak staff topped with an exquisitely detailed carving of a bird consumed in flames. Her older face was twisted in a frown as she surveyed the hall with a proud and imperious gaze. Finally, her eyes came to rest on the seat of the Rat where they dug into Penelope with a look of intense scrutiny and barely restrained judgment. Penelope continued to vehemently wish that she was invisible.

"Greetings Inheritors of this cycle's Zodiacs," the woman began to address the hall in a clear, echoing voice. "My name is Isma Vix, Grand Mage of the Empress' First Reserve Battalion and Headmaster of the Lorian College's school of magical and arcane study. You may address me as Professor Vix. For the next year I will have the 'honor' of instructing you all in the practice of conjuration magics." She spat the word "honor" in a way that made it clear she was quoting someone else.

"Now normally at my school those of a similar level, aptitude, and disposition are grouped together. Normally at my school teachers who have plateaued at a lower level in their classes will teach students of similarly low level who are simply lacking in experience. And if I were to have it my way, you all would be taught in a similar fashion." She gave a long and dramatic sigh. "However, seeing as I will be your sole instructor in this discipline, I must take it upon myself to deliver remedial lessons to those of you whose education has been thus far stunted by… outside factors."

She took another quick look over all of the students in the room before making a quick hand gesture. A shadowy, slate-black veil descended in the space behind her. With some more motions lines and diagrams began to appear in a golden light on the black space, as if she were etching large and precise diagrams onto an enormous black board. Previously, Penelope had been worried that whatever this world's language translation thing did wouldn't work on written words, but that turned out to be the least of her worries; just looking at the complexity of the drawings made her head spin.

"As such, I will utilize this opportunity to teach you all the basics, developing a strong foundation for those unacquainted with magical study while shoring up the fundamentals for any more advanced practitioners," the professor explained as she wrote. "And for those with no magical experience whatsoever… do try to keep up with the magical theory at the very least." She gave a meaningful look to everyone in the room as she spoke those words, but Penelope couldn't help but think that it lingered just a little longer on her in particular.