Lilith walked into her first class of the day and looked around, excited for whatever “magic” class would mean. She was surprised to see a bunch of tables with things like rocks and pitchers of water on them at the front of the class, and even a person sized metal coil. But then some of the students called out to her.
“It’s hat-girl!” someone yelled from a desk she had to look up at to see. Each row was elevated.
“Yeah! Hat-girl! Kinda scary though,” a few other students said.
Lilith waved at them and smiled.
One boy got up and ran down the stairs to her. “How’d you do it? Was it magic? It was magic, right?”
“Uh, yeah, a bit.” She backed away from him. “I just extended my sense.”
“I knew it!” He fist pumped. “Mana sense! But what about the handstand stuff then? Telekinesis?”
“Actually my parents wanted me to know self-defense just in case. It’s pretty fun.”
“Oh, I see.” He nodded.
“Mana sense huh?” the teacher repeated, pulling a large knife switch on one of the machines. “That’s a good one to have. I couldn’t imagine not being able to look inside these machines when I need to figure them out.”
Lilith looked over and gaped when she saw the perfect example of a witch. She had a witch’s hat, a witch’s broom, and a purple cape like one a witch would wear! And she looked so confident as she worked with those crazy machines. Lilith’s eyes practically sparkled. A gasp and a “So cool!” might’ve slipped out.
“Heh, thanks.” The teacher smiled.
Then the bell rang, and the witch-teacher turned to the chalk board and wrote her name, “Rosina Cloven.” Then she turned to face the class.
“I will be your magic instructor for the foreseeable future, so I’d like to learn your names as well.” She pulled out a paper. “When I call out your name, please say ‘here’ or repeat your name, in case I made any pronunciation mistakes. Aaron Bane?”
“Here!”
…
Lilith was now sitting up at one of the desks and listening to more names than she could remember. She absent mindedly said “here” when she was called, and continued trying to remember the others. She wondered if Rosina had some sort of memory improvement magic if she really planned on learning all of them.
Once the last name was called, Rosina set her paper down.
“Alright, since this is the first class, we’ll be measuring your affinity to different magics. This should tell us what you’re good at in detail, as well as where you have room for improvement.” She gestured to the different machines. “So let’s start, going alphabetically. Aaron, please come down first.”
Aaron walked down, but the other students were eager and all formed a line to get to the different machines. But while Lilith wanted to head down too, she was too busy answering some questions about mana sense. They started popping up once the roll call was finished.
“You just, uh, ‘look’. You know how when you try to force some other magic to happen like heat or telekinesis? It’s like that, but seeing instead.”
One of the boys concentrated really, really hard, then let out a breath. “Nope. Not working.”
“Aw.” Lilith slumped.
“Oh! I think I kinda got it! Maybe?”
“Aw?” Lilith leaned towards him.
“Yeah, it’s like a pinprick. Ooh, lemme see if I can tell what’s inside something!”
“Oh, hey, Lilith right?” A girl poked her. “I think it’s around your turn. You should line up.”
“Oh. Thanks!” She hopped up and ran over into the line, shuffling to the front as she asked the other students their names.
It was now Lilith’s turn. She walked up to the first machine and hesitantly put her hand up to the sparkling metal ball on a coil.
“Go ahead and touch the spark generator,” Rosina said. “It’s not dangerous.”
Lilith laid her hand on the metal ball and received a few tingling zaps. “Ooooh…”
Rosina let her keep her hand on it for a few seconds. “Alright, now remove your hand and see if you can repeat the feeling.”
Lilith ignored the feeling and just remembered how she forced electricity magic like normal, but this time she tried to generate as much as possible. Several sparks flew off.
“Oh, you’re doing it!” Rosina smiled.
A few more powerful sparks and small strings of lightning shot out of her hand, and then a few more shot into her hand and her fingers started spasming. Jolts of pain shot through her arm. “Ow ow ow ow Ow!” Lilith held her hand and moved her concentration away from it.
“Oh no! Don’t put the electricity into your hand. Are you okay?” Rosina ran past the machine and grabbed Lilith’s hand.
“Y— yeah.” Lilith winced as she opened and closed her hand.
“Hmm… Well, try again. Try and make the electricity come from something else, not your hand. Oh, here’s a metal plate.” She pulled one out of the machine and put it on the wood table. “Try this instead.”
Lilith focused on it. A few small sparks came off before darting down, arcing into the wood. So, she concentrated harder. Much more powerful sparks flew off and carved lightning patterns into the wood now, and she could smell something weird. She tried concentrating a bit harder anyway.
Rosina held her arm up while holding onto the end of a wire, shielded her arm in some magic, and carefully pressed the wire against the metal. A nearby gauge started swinging around wildly until she pressed a button on it, and then it would go up quickly, but down slowly. She watched it a bit before nodding. “Okay, you can stop now,” she said, turning back. “Wouldn’t want you to tire yourself out before going through all the other tests.”
They walked to the next machine. It was a large glass box with a small door and a mini tornado inside. “Please put your hand in and feel the air a bit.”
Lilith did so. Yep. It was windy.
Rosina flipped another knife switch, turning the machine off. Now instead of a tornado, white smoke slowly drifted up from the bottom part. “Again, try to repeat what the machine was doing. Start small.”
Lilith held both hands over the smoke and concentrated. After a few seconds, she was barely able to get it to start twisting in the center. It was just barely perceptible, let alone as fast or powerful as the machine had been. When she really, really concentrated, she was able to get a twister the size of her finger. But after that, she had to grab onto a nearby table to make sure she didn’t fall over from dizziness.
“Alright, that’s good,” Rosina commented. “Major affinity for electricity, minor affinity for air.” She led Lilith to the next machine.
This one was really just a large beaker of water and a dropper with food coloring.
“Okay, when I drop the color into the beaker, I want you to try and stop its spread.”
Lilith put her hands on both sides of the beaker and tried to focus.
“Three, two, one.” Rosina dropped the food coloring in.
Lilith glared at the water. She could hardly feel any difference between the color and the water at all. It was much easier to see it with her eyes than with her mana sense. She couldn’t grab it or hold it in place, but maybe she could slow everything down somehow? Better yet, what if she stopped it completely?
She concentrated on the thought of stopping the water, freezing it in its tracks. A few ice crystals started spreading through the droplets on the side of the glass, but the coloring still spread, so she concentrated even harder.
“Oh, nope. That’s freezing Lilith. I don’t want you to cool it, I want you to slow it.” She picked up the beaker and dumped it out in a nearby sink before pouring some more water in. “I’ll give you another try. This time, let the water do what it wants, just, more slowly. Imagine watching rain fall and seeing the raindrops drifting gently down to earth, or even hanging in midair. Not cooler. Slower.” She held the dropper up. “Now…”
“Three, two, one.” She squeezed out another drop.
Lilith tried again. This time, rather than throwing forth her intent to stop and freeze the water, she threw out thoughts and intentions like ‘slower’, ‘snail’s pace’, ‘drifting gently’, or ‘calm’ at it, and let her magic flow out.
“Oh, I can actually see it slowing.” Rosina looked at a nearby hourglass and scribbled something down. “Some affinity for chronokinesis.”
She looked up from her notes and led Lilith to the next machine. “Now, try to heat up this iron coin.” It was an iron coin in the center of a large wooden box of sand.
Lilith held both hands around the coin. In a second, it turned red hot.
She kept concentrating. She never had a reason or a safe way to make things much hotter, so she was curious how far she could go. And after a few more seconds, the coin was white hot, and the heat from it was starting to burn her hands.
She felt like she could go further though, even if she had to pull her hands back a bit. After a few more seconds, the iron was starting to turn into a blob and shoot off sparks.
“Okay, stop!” Rosina panicked. “We won’t be able to test the other students if one of those sparks destroys any of the other tests!” She scribbled a bit more. “Extreme affinity for thermokinesis.”
Lilith stumbled as she dropped her concentration, falling forward a bit, before Rosina caught her. “Don’t destroy yourself either.” She guided Lilith to the next test.
After a few more strange tests, Rosina handed Lilith a copy of her results:
Lilith Smit:
Element
Affinity
%
Notes
Heat
Extreme
98
Make sure you don’t almost burn yourself again.
Electricity
Major
95
Make sure you don’t shock yourself again.
Fire
Intermediate
80
Strangely low, given the heat affinity. Seems like a phobia is holding you back. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Mana Sense
Intermediate
78
Telekinesis
Intermediate
75
Very fine control. If that was the only thing tested, you’d have a major affinity.
Time
Minor
68
Surprising to see this higher than more common major affinities. A lot of people have this, but stuck in the low fifties.
Cold
Minor
66
Bio
Minor
57
Earth
Major
55
Air
Minor
54
Water
Minor
53
Telepathy
Minor
51
You beat random chance, but in the wrong direction.
Gravity
TLTM*
Light
TLTM*
Corruption
TLTM*
Teleport
TLTM*
*TLTM: Too Low To Measure
Wide spread of affinities with heat at the top. Could be useful as a researcher or as a blacksmith… Ah. Lilith Smit.
Outside of smithing, I’d recommend practicing Mana Sense, Time magic, and Electricity. Sense and time are great utilities in general, and electricity is good for self defense.
“Alright, next.” Rosina walked to the next student.
---
Once every person went, Rosina wrote down which people excelled at which abilities on the chalkboard.
Apparently Lilith was the best in the class at electricity, heat, and time. Someone named ‘Silene’ was the best at earth, light, and bio affinities. ‘Ethen’ was the best at telekinesis and mana sense. ‘Floyd’ was the best at cold affinity, ‘Cisco’ at air, ‘Elio’ at fire, and ‘Hana‘ at telepathy. Telepathy and light were the only types of magic Lilith was behind half the class on. Gravity only had two people with affinities for it, and teleport one person with an affinity. ‘Jatte’ and ‘Caleb’ had gravity affinities, and ‘Chance’ had a teleportation affinity.
Lilith took out her notepad and wrote those names down. She definitely wanted to talk to them about what their magic felt like.
“Well, that’s all I had planned for today,” Rosina said. “There’s still some time left in class, so feel free to try out any magic you didn’t know you had, or help each other out.” She sat back on her broom.
Lilith looked over her list before she got up, but it was too late. A bunch of students had crowded her and were now rapid firing questions.
“Can you stop time?”
“How did you turn the coin into a sparkler?”
“Can you conjure lightning?”
“Uhh.” Lilith looked around.
The same thing happened to a few other students. They must’ve been the people whose names she wrote down.
Rosina grimaced and stood back up. “Alright, that’s not gonna work.” She looked to the board, then to the students. “Lilith, Silene, Ethen, Hana, Jatte, and Chance, please come here. Everyone else, stay up there, I may call you up later.”
Lilith and the others walked down.
“Alright, I don’t want you guys wasting your time trying to teach the other students things that are too far beyond their ability. Some of the students might’ve already tried mana sense the wrong way.” Rosina glanced at one of them.
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Lilith turned, then did a double take. She wasn’t expecting to see a toned kid in a karate gi.
“What should we do then?” A blonde girl in the default school uniform asked.
Rosina massaged her temple as she concentrated. “Hmm… Ah! You guys should work on making a presentation for a later class explaining something about your magic. That way, you can teach the people closer to your level, and others will be able to teach too. And the people crowding you won’t be looking so far ahead that they don’t check what’s directly in front of them and trip over themselves.”
“Wait, you’re giving us extra homework?” the blonde girl complained.
“No Jatte.” Rosina shook her head. “Only if you want to go the extra mile. You’ll have enough time to put together your presentation during the next class.”
She turned back to the main class. “The rest of you! Please sort yourselves into groups of seven or less. You will be working on making presentations explaining your magic later.”
While the other students shuffled around to make their group, Lilith wanted to meet hers. “So, uh, I’m Lilith.”
“Hi hat-girl. I’m Silene.” A girl with long black hair in a green floral dress spoke. It wasn’t clear what expression she had right now. Was it fear? Curiosity? Lilith felt her eyes drifting to the yellow flowers in her hair.
“Hi flower girl,” Lilith said.
“Hat girl and flower girl.” One of the guys grinned. He was also wearing the default school uniform. “Oh, do you think she magics plants up out of the ground, Ethen?” He asked.
“No idea. Why don’t you ask her, Chance?” Ethen, the kid in the karate gi, shrugged.
Chance walked up to Silene. “D— do you magic plants out of the ground?”
“No, that’s not how bio magic works.” Silene shook her head.
“Aww…” Lilith and Chance said in unison.
“I can make them grow faster,” Silene said. “And if there’s a seed already in the ground, I can make it sprout. I actually do like botany and recording how plants grow.” She smiled and gestured to her outfit.
“Flower girl is fitting.” Lilith nodded.
“Oh, right.” Ethen stepped forward. “Who do we think should be the team leader?”
“I think it should be Jatte,” A girl in a black robe and scarf spoke up, pointing. By elimination, she must’ve been Hana. “She understands the gravity of the situation.”
Jatte rolled her eyes. “I’m going to hear a lot of that, aren’t I?”
“Yep,” Chance said. “But I guess if the weight of our words is too much, you could just lessen it with your magic.”
Jatte paused for a moment, then sighed. “Is this really how we’re doing this? Leading by puns?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s natural for things to revolve around you,” Lilith said.
“Ugh.” Jatte facepalmed and chuckled.
“On a more serious note.” Hana closed her eyes. “I believe I should be the leader. As a telepath, I can feel what you’re feeling, and you’re all pretty reluctant, but I want to try it.” She turned to Ethan. “You’ll be the vice president of this group. I feel like you’d be the best leader in my absence.”
He nodded.
“Chance.” She turned to the other guy with her eyes still closed. “You’ll be the one to deliver messages and gather everyone. That way you’ll get a chance to work on your teleportation.”
“Teleporting’s pretty hard you know. Sometimes it doesn’t work, and sometimes I end up in random places.”
“You can do it.” Hana gave a thumbs up and smiled, her eyes still closed. “I believe in you.”
“I… you know what? I’ll just try it.”
Jatte looked around, waiting for more roles.
“And that should about do it,” Hana said.
“What about us?” Jatte pointed to herself.
Hana turned her head. “If there’s a later presentation on gravity, you can lead it. For now, we only need a few roles. You guys can all relax.” She turned to Silene. “You too.”
Silene stiffened.
Hana frowned. “That’s the opposite of relaxing.”
Silene shrank back.
Hana sighed, then turned to Lilith. “She’s intimidated by you a little, you know?”
Lilith blinked as she processed the words. “What? Intimidated? Really? Why?” She tilted her head. No one had ever been intimidated by her before after all.
“It feels like she’s used to being stronger than everyone else due to her bio magic—”
“Hey…” Silene protested quietly.
“—but it looks like she’s worried you could… what’s this? Lightning strike her? Boil her? Roundhouse kick her?”
“Please stop.” Silene blushed and looked away.
Lilith remembered when she killed those bandits with magic, cutting their veins and letting them bleed out internally. That event was still on repeat in her dreams. So she could do something like that to Silene, but Silene seemed like a good person and there'd be no reason to— oh, Hana had opened her eyes wide and was now staring at her.
"What?" Lilith asked.
"W— n— nothing." Hana cleared her throat and focused. "You'd never do anything like that to Silene, right?"
Lilith shook her head. "No of course not! That'd be super mean."
Hana nodded, calming down. "Well there you go."
Silene's shoulders slumped in defeat and she looked down in shame.
“Aw, it's okay.” Lilith turned. "Instead of... boiling you or whatever, I'll protect you!"
Silene forced herself to look back up, still frowning and blushing with guilt, and shrugged. “That works I guess.”
“Hey, if it makes you feel any better,” Jatte said. “I’m not like Mr. ‘teleporting’s pretty hard’ over there. I could probably lift you both into the sky and drop you if you deserved it.”
“Uh, please don’t do that,” Lilith said, shrinking back with Silene.
“Congrats!" Hana said. "Now they’re both more scared of you than each other.”
“Uh, thanks?”
“You’re welcome.” Then, Hana looked around at the group before nodding. “Well, let’s just get along. There’s really no reason to be intimidated by each other. I’m sure you could all beat me in any fight, but I know none of you would do that.” She glanced at Lilith.
And then, the bell rang.
---
The next class Lilith stepped into was math. The classroom was about the same, except that there were no more weird machines at the front. The group of students was almost completely different though, except for one. And when Lilith saw that one, she gasped and ran up.
“Silene!”
“Uh, hi.” Silene shrank back in her seat.
Lilith sat down next to her. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite. Well, not unless you want me to.”
Silene stared at her with a mix of worry and amusement.
Lilith raised her hands like they were claws and forced some electricity magic. “Sparkle sparkle…”
Silene shook her head, smiling, then took a calming breath in and out. “Yeah, I really shouldn’t worry about you. I’m surprised you’re in math class though. Are you a researcher too?”
Lilith nodded excitedly. “Yeah! Researcher first, adventurer second.”
Silene blinked. “I didn’t know that was a combination people chose.“
“Well, it’s a combination I chose.” Lilith held a hand to her heart.
“Are you sure you’re people?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lilith tilted her head.
“I dunno, you could be an imp. Oh, or maybe there’s one of those lightning coils from last class under your hat.”
“Pfft,” Lilith chuckled. “No, it’s, uh.” Her smile faded. “Sorry, it’s uh, just normal, okay?”
“Oh, did I stumble on something?”
“Uh, no?” Lilith held her hat with both hands.
Silene squinted. “Baaald.”
“What!? No!” Lilith grabbed her hair and wiggled it at Silene. “See? Hair! I can’t be bald!”
Silene chuckled. “Well, whatever. I don’t actually care what kinda growth you’re hiding under your hat.”
“It’s not a growth…” Lilith pouted.
“Right, sorry.” Silene smiled.
“Good morning class.” The teacher walked in and started writing her name on the board. As she did, Lilith looked over her white suit and lab coat. She seemed more like a research team lead than a math teacher. She had perfectly trimmed black hair, and, when she turned, piercing brown eyes. It was as if she had somehow used mathematics to perfect everything about herself. Lilith felt a bit of awe, and a pang of jealousy.
“I, Ai Araralei, will be your math teacher.” She held her hand over her heart.
A few students, including Lilith, tried repeating the name.
“Ayayarlei.”
“Ayare relei.”
“Ayayaya!”
Ai smiled and shook her head. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it eventually. For now, please just say ‘here’ when I call your name.”
…
“Great! Now that we’re done with that, let’s see where each of you stand in terms of math.” Ai picked up a large stack of papers, walked over to the stairs, and began handing the papers out to each row. “Pass these down to the students beside you. And don’t worry, this isn’t graded. Just think of it as a fun exercise. However, please keep your stack of papers closed until I say to begin.”
She walked back down the stairs and waited until it looked like all the students had their papers—
“Wait, weren’t we tested on math already to get into this school?” Lilith asked, raising her hand.
“Yes.” Ai turned. “I’d like to break things down into more detail though.”
“Oh, okay,” Lilith said.
Ai scanned the class one more time. “Alright, please begin.”
Lilith opened her stack of papers and found a bunch of multiplication and addition problems. She breezed through those, and was actually a bit bored until she got to the triple digit ones. She had plenty of practice with Wispy and with looking through Sebastian's books. Also, this seemed like it could be a timed test, so she might’ve used some of her time magic she apparently had.
After that was simple algebra, which she was actually better at, since she enjoyed seeing the symbols dance around.
Then, there was more advanced algebra, but remembering things like the quadratic equation helped out.
There were some geometry problems next, some of which she forgot the equations to, so she took some extra time to derive some of the volume and surface area formulas with calculus.
She had to skip some of the trigonometry problems. She couldn’t derive those easily.
Next, there was calculus, and now she was speeding up again. This one looked like the last page, and she was starting to really have fun with some of the questions on things like finding curvature and surface normals—
“Alright, time’s up. Please form a line and hand in your papers to the nearest assistant.”
Lilith blinked and looked around. While they had all been focusing on the tests, apparently a bunch of older students came in to the front of the class.
Shrugging, Lilith hopped up, ran down, and handed her paper to the nearest assistant, with Silene right behind her.
“Now, while they’re grading those,” Ai said, “let me answer Lilith’s question in a bit more detail. Many of you come from different backgrounds where you’ve been exposed to different levels of mathematics. It would be a waste for some of you to do what amounts to a refresher course for part of the year. Some of you may be lacking in various areas within each subject as well. It would be better to have you do more coursework in those areas and less in others.”
As she explained things, the assistants graded the papers, then got up and ranked the different students on the board. They were ranked both in overall capability as well as performance in different subjects.
Arithmetic
Algebra
Advanced Algebra
Geometry
Trigonometry
Calculus
Overall Class
Lilith, 99
Lilith, 99
Lilith, 95
Silene, 75
…
Lilith, 75
97
Silene, 99
Silene, 99
…
…
Silene, 70
92
Silene, 80
Lilith, 61
Lilith, 60
89, 88, 70…
“Impossible…” Silene stared at the rankings, then turned to Lilith. “There’s no way miss sparkle sparkle hat girl is smarter than me…” She held her hands together in worry.
Seeing Silene’s score get written up, Lilith turned and clasped onto Silene’s hands with sparkles in her eyes and a huge involuntary smile. “You really like math too!”
“Uhh…” Silene’s brain turned off.
Ai turned and stared at the rankings, writing a few of the names down before turning back around.
“I think I can see which of you would be taking a refresher class if you stayed here. If I call your name, come up here and we’ll discuss a date for the advanced class.” She turned back to the board. “Lilith, Silene, Matthew, and Takumi. Please come up.”
One boy and three girls ran down.
Ai handed each of them a few copies of a short, prewritten letter. “I’d like to coordinate something with the other teachers. If you excel like this in any of your other classes, please give these notes to your teachers there. I think we’d all prefer not to have a class after the end of the school day.”
The four kids all nodded.
“So, give those to your teachers, and if you don’t hear anything from me later, come back to this class tomorrow and tell me how they responded. For now though…” She looked up and spoke to the whole class. “That’s all the time we have for today. Class dismissed.”
The bell rang the second after she said that, and the students all started rushing out, except for Lilith.
“Are you a time mage?” She asked.
Ai smiled. “Not according to the mage tests, but sometimes I wonder.”
---
The next class was in an outdoor area. They were under a stone ceiling surrounded by stone pillars, and the student and teacher desks looked like they were quickly made out of wood.
And Lilith was busy being overjoyed to sit by Silene in yet another class.
Silene hesitated as she sat next to Lilith. She wasn’t sure exactly what she felt.
When they both looked towards the board, they saw rankings already on it, as well as some beakers filled with different colored fluids set up on the front desk. It seemed like the top students in math were also the top in science, for the most part.
Name
General
Biology
Physics
Magic
Earth
Overall
Silene
92
99
95
96
93
95
Matthew
99
95
91
80
96
92
Takumi
98
90
99
75
83
89
...
...
...
...
Lilith
87
88
90
90
80
87
“Looks like science is your weaker subject, huh?” Silene turned to Lilith, smug.
Lilith shrugged. “I mean, a lot of the stuff on the test was related to this city. It says earth, but some of the questions were on Solis’s layout, and I just got here a few months ago. Also I think some of the physics is wrong.”
“I don’t think the physics is wrong, but the geography thing is fair. Why are you so low in magic though? You’re the same as me in terms of magic affinity.”
“Some of the magic test questions were on spells and practices I never heard of.” Lilith shrugged again. “And I can’t be bothered to remember useless spells with components that are way too expensive.”
Silene’s eyebrows shot up. “Uh, they’re not useless, and I think you can get some of those components from school for cheap. I was looking forward to trying some actually.” She checked over the board again. “Oh, I guess Matthew and Takumi don’t have magic affinities. That would explain their low magic scores.”
“Ooh, wait, they have some really high scores in other areas to make up for it though!” Lilith leaned forward as she looked over the scores again.
A short redhead guy in suspenders and a white shirt ran to the front of the class. “Hah… Good morning! I, Doctor Richard Mccoy, will be your teacher!” He picked up a couple beakers and poured them into a larger one. A large pillar of bubbles came out of it and kept rising. “As you will soon see, strange abilities like making great balls of fire are no longer limited to the realm of mages and mages alone!” He pulled out a match and lit the column of bubbles, then stepped back as the fire quickly spread. The column floated to the ceiling, still on fire.
He looked up at the raging fire. “You know, this class used to be indoors, but I tried this over there and almost lit the whole school on fire!” He dodged a falling clump of flames, then saw another falling towards a student. “Oh, wait no!”
It landed on their desk before he could swat it away. In a second, it burnt out, leaving a scorch mark.
“Alright, if anyone asks, you have no idea where that black mark came from.” He turned and walked back to the chalkboard. “Anyway, let’s get started with what you’ll be learning: some of the basic principles…”
The class went on as he wrote down various things like the scientific method, but despite the good start, Lilith, Silene, and a couple others had trouble staying awake during the lesson. It was all stuff they’d memorized earlier.
At the end of the class, the four students walked up and gave him the note from Ai.
“Oh, it’s the four that couldn’t keep their heads up. Are you guys getting enough sleep before class?” He looked down at the notes. “What’s this?” He picked one up and read it, then frowned. “Ai wants to make more work for me, huh? Er, remind me, who were you four?”
“Silene.”
“Lilith.”
“Matthew.”
“Takumi.”
He looked back to the board where he left the scores up, then back to the students, then back to the board. “Ah…” He turned back and shrugged at the students. “Well, sure. If we just swap class times, I don’t actually have anything scheduled then. I’ll talk with Ai now. Tomorrow, all of you come to this class instead of Ai’s, then go to Ai’s class after.”
With that, the four cheered and headed out to lunch.
“Oh, Takumi, how’d you get a 99 in physics?” Lilith asked.
The girl reminded her of Ai, with her straight black hair, but she had gray eyes instead. She also wore the typical school uniform like Jatte.
“I just memorized everything,” Takumi said.
“But, didn’t some of it seem strange. Like, did they even do any experiments to prove that luminiferous aether exists? Or phlogiston?”
“Light is the proof for luminiferous aether. And heat and fire is the proof for phlogiston,” she said. “Why do you ask about those specifically? I saw you making electricity in the last class. Isn’t that like phlogiston?”
“No?” Lilith tilted her head. “I just make the electricity, the same way you might move your arm.”
“Hmm.” Takumi frowned. “That doesn’t rule out phlogiston. Oh, what about atoms? They’re also everywhere.”
“Oh yeah, the model of atoms feels wrong too,” Lilith said.
“Alright,” Takumi glared, slightly annoyed. “How about you come up with some experiments proving or disproving them then?”
“Uh…” Lilith paused. “Huh. Hmm…”
Takumi smirked.
“Oh!” Lilith exclaimed. “All of those things have weight, right? Including phlogiston?” In that case, we could burn something inside a sealed box, and after it’s burned, there should be phlogiston released in the box. If all the weight minus the burned thing is still from atoms, then there’s no phlogiston!”
“And how would you tell the difference?” Takumi asked.
“Uh…”
“Burning it in a box though…” Takumi frowned. “If it were a gas, maybe you could check what it was with a spectroscope.”
“Ooh, that’s an idea!” Lilith smiled.
---
Finally, they arrived in a great hall filled with tables and food. It was the best class of the day: lunch.
Matthew and Takumi walked off earlier to eat together while ending their sentences with weird things like ‘knight to D4’, so most of the other kids avoided them. Chance was nowhere to be found. Jatte and Ethan were also nowhere to be found, until Lilith looked up and spotted them having some sort of competition to eat their food while they sat upside down on the ceiling.
Lilith managed to spot Malena in line and run up and wave to her while Silene sat with Hana.
“Hey Malena, I met some cool people!” Lilith pointed.
“Oh, they seem nice.” Malena looked over as she picked up her food. “Mind if I join?”
“Not at all! Join us!”
So, Lilith, Silene, Hana, and Malena all sat together. Surprisingly, her group was one of the more normal ones.