Jun's skirt fluttered in the breeze as she left the Academy gates, threatening to flip up as it did. She loved her uniform and the skirt that felt so freeing, but right now it was a problem and she desperately missed having pants.
Shiori had abandoned her to clean up by herself. Luckily, she'd been able to convince Sara and Cecilia that she'd meet up with them at the cafeteria for lunch through the door, and once they left, she'd quickly sprinted to the bathroom with her clothes covered in the black filth that erupted from her.
Her bar of rough soap was nearly gone, but it'd been enough to get her body clean and scrub the worst of the impurities away from her uniform and new boots. Shiori's enchantments included a self-cleaning function that seemed to be working to push what remained out. Those had been a total loss and she'd stashed them back in her room until she could find a chance to dispose of them discretely. her soaking wet uniform she hung in her room to dry as the enchantments slowly pushed out drops of water, soap, and impurities to puddle on the floor.
Jun wasn't sure how she'd deal with the mess, but she'd had more pressing matters to attend to. Namely, her underwear, or lack thereof. Shiori's enchantments didn't extend to her underwear, and while the Academy had graciously provided several pairs of socks, they assumed their students would have their own underwear. Jun had only had a single set, and that was now so filthy it needed to be buried. Or burned.
She'd dressed in one of her spare uniforms, glad that Shiori had bothered to enchant all of them the same way as the set currently dripping filth on her floor, but found that the leggings didn't make up for her lack of underwear. They were annoyingly see-through, little better than pantyhose, and flimsy as she'd torn several holes in a pair with her nails as she pulled them on, though the enchantments quickly fixed those holes. Equally as tragic as the loss of her only pair of panties was the loss of her bra. Her breasts weren't large, barely more than a couple handfuls, but the strip of fabric had kept them in place such that she didn't jiggle when she ran, and protected her nipples from chafing on the rougher fabric of her uniform. It turned out that jiggling while running hurt.
Jun couldn't help feeling self-conscious as she power walked to the cafeteria and met up with her roommates for breakfast. It'd made things worse when it turned out that it wasn't just the girls. Gareth and Lane were also there, though Corin was busy. Breakfast had been an awkward affair as Jun did her best not to attract anyone's attention, though it seemed to backfire as she caught more than one young man staring and giving her an uncomfortable amount of attention. After breakfast Gareth and Lane left to take care of their own errands, leaving Cecilia and Sara to finish showing Jun around the campus.
Jun awkwardly walked behind her roommates for some time as they showed her around, before finally she broke her silence and asked them for help. To her relief, they didn't ask what happened to her underwear and just led her out of the Academy to a shop on a side street off the main square, one that specialized in feminine needs. With her roommates' help, Jun was able to get several sets of underwear and other things she would need. The purchases were surprisingly expensive, costing several of her silver coins, but it was worth it. After a trip back to the dormitory so Jun could change and put away her new purchases, the three of them stopped for lunch at the cafeteria then headed to the Administrative Building to pick up Jun's test results and class schedule for the coming term.
Despite Jun's worst fears, she hadn't done terribly, somehow managing to score in the upper quarter for both Arcana Theory and Spellcasting, though she was below average for Physical Fitness and dead last in Combat Skills. Her General Knowledge scores simply said she was average, which her friends informed her wasn't enough to test out of the branch. Her class schedule reflected this, showing that she'd been placed in the Arcana Studies Branch and the General Studies Branch, though the biggest surprise was that she'd also been placed in the Combat Branch.
Things like dates and calendars hadn't seemed important until now with Jun's focus on survival and learning magic from Shiori, but now that she was among humans again, it was something Jun knew she would have to memorize quickly. At least her schedule had been provided along with a full calendar of the year. Merinthia's years were divided into 12 months of 35 days each, It was the 24th day of Wind's Warning, the 8th month of the year, and Jun's classes would start in just 11 days on the 1st of Sun's Fall. Her class schedule covered 4 months of 5 weeks each, with each week lasting 7 days, ending the 4th week of Void's Rise, the last month of the year. The days of the week were just a number followed by day. It was just another little thing that reminded Jun she was no longer on Earth, but at least the simple names made it easier to remember.
Her schedule though was brutal.
Class Schedule Beginning 1, Sun's Fall through 28, Void's End
First Day
Morning:
Period 1: Math 1
Period 2: Science 1
Period 3: History 1
Afternoon:
Period 1-2 : Introductory Arcana Theory
Period 3: Practical Spellcasting
Second Day
Morning:
Period 1: Math 1
Period 2: Science 1
Period 3: History 1
Afternoon:
Period 1-2:Physical Conditioning
Period 3: Combat Skills
Third Day
Morning:
Period 1: Math 1
Period 2: Science 1
Period 3: History 1
Afternoon:
Period 1-2 : Introductory Arcana Theory
Period 3: Practical Spellcasting
Fourth Day
Morning:
Period 1: Math 1
Period 2: Science 1
Period 3: History 1
Afternoon:
Period 1 -2:Physical Conditioning
Period 3: Combat Skills
Fifth Day
Morning:
Period 1: Math 1
Period 2: Science 1
Period 3: History 1
Afternoon:
Period 1-2 : Introductory Arcana Theory
Period 3: Practical Spellcasting
Sixth Day All day: Introductory Delving Seventh Day Rest Day
It seemed Jun wouldn't receive much time to rest as each period was an hour and a half long, with classes starting not long after dawn. Apparently Jun's performance on the General Studies portion hadn't been enough to get her out of the classes, though her roommates told her that she could test out of it and move up or satisfy that requirement at any time, but that she would only be allowed to attempt to test out of the same subject once each year.
After getting her class schedule, her roommates took her back into the city where they were able to pick up the books she needed for Arcana Theory and History. The books were pricy, costing Jun 10 silver each and leaving her with just 7 silver and a handful of copper coins after she bought a few cheap pencils and pads of paper, She wouldn't have had enough to get all of the books she needed, but Sara had held onto her copies of all the course books and promised to lend them to Jun.
Arms full of her most recent purchases, the trio quickly returned to the dormitory before Sara and Cecilia had to leave for an afternoon test. While they were out, Jun took the opportunity to explore the dormitory and found an unlocked closet of cleaning supplies that she borrowed to clean up the puddles of filth that made her room smell like death. Having learned her lesson from the morning, she stripped naked to clean up the filth to protect her newly purchased clothes and avoid overtaxing the enchantments on her other uniform pieces. It took a couple hours of hard scrubbing and mopping, but eventually Jun had the mess cleaned up, and even gained several skill levels in her [Cleaning] skill to her chagrin. Her face was covered in sweat and her hair messy by the time she finished, but a quick bath remedied that. After dressing back in the clothes she had been wearing and returning the borrowed cleaning supplies to the closet, Jun left her door propped open to better let the room air out while she began to dig into her new books.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
The Magical Theory books were confusing to her, some of the basics they outlined contradicting what she'd learned from Shiori and had been using. An Introduction to the Arcane had been written by a Platinum ranked Archmagus of some place called the Towers of Sevren, and said that spells were always imperfect things that wasted more mana to empower and that an empowered spell would always be less efficient than a higher ranked and more complex spell. However, Shiori had taught her on her first day how to limit the mana she wasted and how to empower spells without waste. The way this Archmagus described casting seemed to be about filling the spellform completely before adding more mana to empower it, while Shiori's technique was to only fill the glyphs within the spellform and add new mana tendrils to empower specific glyphs to change the spell as needed. It seemed as if the Archmagus simply didn't know this technique and said it was impossible.
Sighing, Jun set the magic books aside, resolving to ask Shiori about them when her Master returned. With nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, besides barely having any money after her shopping trips, Jun opened her books on History and started reading. The book was dry, describing what seemed more like myths and legends, before getting into the more recent ages. Jun stubbornly read through dry accounts of trade disputes, failed diplomacy, misunderstandings, famines, and wars as the afternoon passed by, each page as dry and boring as the last, but she knew nothing of Merinthia's history, nor of the country she was in.
Through her study, she learned that the country she was in was the Kingdom of Moros on the Southeastern corner of the continent of Kresh, a kingdom that was thousands of miles wide. A large mountain range called the Moros Mountain Range cut off the Kingdom from the rest of the continent and the Great Forest of Kresh. The Kingdom had been founded after a series of smaller city states went to war in a tangled web of alliances, betrayals, invasions, and retaliatory strikes that left only a few cities in Moros standing. Then a beast wave struck from the Great Forest of Kresh through the undefended passages, finishing off most of the cities. The few survivors had rallied at Aurum, a port city on the eastern edge of Moros and the only city that had managed to stay out of the conflicts, and it was there the beast wave had been broken. After several centuries of pushing back against the rampaging monsters, the survivors managed to push their way through the monster and undead filled ruins of the fallen cities and seal all but one of the passages leading through the mountains to the Forest. The only passage that remained unsealed was fortified to break future beast waves, and that fortress became the city of Forest's Edge.
Jun put her history book down as she heard the front door open to see Sara and Cecilia return. Blinking, she looked down at her text book, shocked to see that she'd already read through half of the thick tome, and even more shocked that she seemed able to remember much of what she'd just read. She'd never been the best student, just slightly above average, and certainly never had a great memory for history. "King Lanin the Reclaimer led the first expedition to seal the Northern passages in the year 507 of the Third Age..." she muttered, recalling a particularly dry passage about the expedition that detailed the logistical challenges of the expedition and the political maneuvering of the nobles that made it more difficult.
"What was that?" Sara asked as she flopped on the couch next to Jun and glanced at her books open on the small table in front of it. Cecilia joined them at the couches, sprawling out on the other couch.
"Nothing... just remembering something I read...." Jun muttered, half distracted as more history facts tumbled through her head. Why was it suddenly so easy for her to read and focus on something so boring? She knew it was boring, and the old her wouldn't have had the patience to read through hundreds of pages of history, let alone do that in an afternoon, and yet she had. It was both useful and annoying that she had such an easy time reading through the book, yet she didn't understand why.
"What're you reading?" Cecilia asked, glancing at the cover of the book in Jun's hands. "The Kingdom of Moros: A Comprehensive History, Volume 1 of 7," she read, her face twisting with disgust. "I can't believe you're actually reading this, it's so boring!"
"You only say history is boring because you'd rather be haggling over coppers and calculating the cost of wheat next week than learning the stories of what came before," Sara said accusingly, sticking her tongue out at Cecilia.
"A good merchant keeps up to date about the latest changes in the market so that she's ready to take advantage. Only a nobles and scholars care about what happened a thousand years ago," Cecilia replied, sticking her tongue out at Sara with a smile.
"I'm not a noble or a scholar and I like history," Sara said with a mock pout.
"And crazy, horny elves then," Cecilia chuckled, amending her statement.
"Hey! I'm not always horny!" Sara smiled, shuffling winking at Jun.
Jun ignored her roommates' back and forth, continuing to work at the strange new blessing and problem that ate at her.
"Wow she's really not paying attention. Normally she'd be blushing at that," Sara said, plucking Jun's book out of her hands and flipping through a few pages. "Huh, hey Jun, Jun!" Sara called for her attention, shaking the girl out of her daze.
"Wha-huh? What?" Jun said, freezing like a deer as she realized that Sara had moved to sit right next to her, their knees touching. She couldn't help but blush at the skin to skin contact with Sara and her embarrassment at being so thoroughly distracted by history of all things.
"I thought you said you didn't know anything about history?" the elf asked, gesturing at Jun's book. "You're pretty deep into the first text book for just having it for a few hours."
"O-Oh.... I just started reading it, and I guess I just ended up there when you two got back?" Jun offered, still trying to puzzle out how she'd managed it.
"Really...?" Sara said, eyeing Jun suspiciously. "In what year did the city of Mentath fall?" Sara asked suddenly.
"Year 507 of the Third Age after the ruler's generals were murdered at a funeral."
"What was the first settlement in Moros and where was it?"
"Carox on the Southern shore next to the mouth of the River Xur by a monster hunting expedition company from the Free Cities."
"What marked the end of the Second Age?"
"The fall of the fortress city of Byzan followed by the Great Wave."
Sara asked question after question, giving Jun less and less time to answer.
"What marked the end of the Third Age?"
Jun froze as her mind raced through the hundreds of dry pages of history that she'd read and seemed to have no problem recalling as Sara stared at her expectantly. "The... uh... I don't know? I don't think i read that..." Jun said with a frown.
"Huh... well that's because that's in the next volume of the text book," Sara said with a strange look on her face. "You really did read all of that in an afternoon huh? You're a pretty fast learner Jun."
That was when it clicked. [Fast Learner], one of the traits she'd gotten! Suddenly, everything made sense. Her memory had never been bad, but it'd also never been good. But it seemed like [Fast Learner] helped her focus, even if it was on something she found boring, as long as she put in the effort. "I guess I am?"
"Oh, that reminds me," Sara said, handing Jun her history book back and scurrying to her room. Several loud crashes and thumps came from Sara's room before she came back out with a small pile of books that she handed to Jun. "These are the first year Math and Science books. If you start studying now, you might get ahead of your classmates. Anyways, I'm starved, put the books away and let's go get some dinner!"
With her roommates' help, Jun quickly shelved her new and borrowed text books in her room before the three of them went to the cafeteria for dinner before coming back to rest for the evening. As Jun lay in bed that night she ran through all of the new knowledge in her head. The lake of knowledge Shiori had shared with her that morning still sat nestled in her soul refusing to give up its secrets, while the historical facts tumbled around in her head half understood. Her dreams that night acted out the history she'd read of long stretches of boredom broken by brief and exciting events. As she woke the next morning, she found that she could still recall much of what she'd read the night before, but it was jumbled, many of the finer details lost to her memory. As much as [Fast Learner] seemed to improve her reading speed and memory, it wasn't perfect, which meant she'd still have to study. As she looked around the room, she was sad to see that Shiori still hadn't returned since the morning before.
Cecilia and Sara didn't have classes that day and dragged Jun along with them to the same field Jun had done her Physical Fitness and Combat tests and encouraged her to work out with them. Where Jun had struggled under the watchful gaze of the drill sergeant of a proctor during her test, her roommates had a lighter and more encouraging touch. Whether it was her roommates' encouraging and supportive attitude or her increased stats from the technique Shiori taught her, Jun didn't struggle as much to work out with them and she began to enjoy the activity. Gareth and Lane showed up to the field an hour later, and hearing how Jun had performed during the Combat test, Gareth took it upon himself to teach Jun the basics in using a sword and shield. It turned out that while Lane was a couple years ahead of Jun at the Academy, he also knew next to nothing about using a sword and shield, and Gareth forced him to learn alongside Jun.
After an intense morning of training, the group met up with Corin at the cafeteria for lunch, who then joined them in the afternoon for more training. Corin's healing magic was light, but helped sooth everyone's muscles, allowing them to train longer and harder, much to Jun's chagrin. Despite her increased stats and desire to get stronger, Jun could barely keep up with her friends, their stats and experience with combat and weapons far exceeding hers. It was only Lane's utter lack of skill with the sword and shield that allowed Jun to keep up with him under Gareth's guidance. After a tiring afternoon of training and a rejuvenating dinner, Jun, Sara, and Cecilia would retire to the dormitory, where Sara would tutor Jun to get her ready for the start of classes.
The remaining 10 days before the start of Jun's first term fell into a pattern. Each morning she would wake, half remembering the things she had studied the night before, to find that Shiori was still absent. She would then get ready for the day, training and studying with her friends, or alone when they had exams. With their help, Jun made progress, struggling less and less with each passing day to keep up with the workouts and learning the basics of footwork and fighting with a sword and shield under the watchful eye of Gareth. Each evening she would go back to her room to look for Shiori, only to be disappointed at her absence, then pick a subject to study with her friends' help. Sara tutored her in Science and History, while Cecilia was a genius at Math and under their tutelage Jun quickly improved in her basic subjects, confident that she'd be able to keep up in the coming term. With Shiori absent, Corin and Lane were able to tutor her in Arcana Theory, and she quickly learned the basics as the Academy taught them, though much of it seemed to conflict with what Shiori had taught her, so she she discarded the information.
Jun awoke in the pre-dawn light on the first day of term as something alerted her. Turning to her desk, she saw Shiori casually sitting there, Jun's notes spread out on the desk as Shiori stared at her, eyes glowing gold in the low light. "You've grown, kitten."
Shiori was back.