"Something wrong?" I asked as I looked at Elsa.

"You look sick, did something happen to you?" she asked, sounding quite concerned.

At first, I looked at her, a little confused, but then I remembered that I looked quite pale in the morning when I looked into the mirror.

"Everythings alright... just, didn't sleep well," I said, hoping she would at least pretend to buy the excuse.

"Are you sure? I wouldn't want you to strain yourself when you're sick," she said, although the second part was so quiet that even I had trouble hearing it.

'She really cares about you,' Ira said.

'Yeah, but why? Because she genuinely likes me? Or is it because she wants to use me?' I asked Ira.

'Honestly, I don't know, probably the second, maybe the first, perhaps both, who cares, as long as she has some interest in you, you can use that to your advantage!' Ira said.

'I know,' I responded.

I forced a smile.

"I'm sure, now let's go to the next class," I said as I walked towards the door with short steps, so the human mages had some time to disappear from the stairs, so I wouldn't have to deal with their disgusting mana.

Once I was certain that they were far enough I began ascending the stairs more quickly, Elsa walking close behind me, seemingly thinking, judging by her expression. Once I reached the top of the stairs I felt my stomach sink as I felt strong, human, mana pressure. And there, near the stairs, next to one of the entrances to the dining hall stood Smoke or whatever he was actually called, one finger pressed against the throat of the person that had sold him out during the lesson. Grey smoke burst forth from his back, forming a humanoid figure that held chains in both hands, connected to one end was the small man that had told Elsa the truth while a lantern was attached to the other end. On closer inspection, it was clear that both chain and lantern were made out of tightly condensed smoke.

I heard Elsa gasp behind me and she was about to say something when I acted.

If she wants to use me I should show her how good I am!

At once I released all my mana, it was slow, too slow for my tastes but fast enough nonetheless. I heard straining from the walls as if they were about to collapse. I put on a smug smile as I approached Smoke with both hands in the pockets of my trousers. His smokey figure had already begun crumbling but the closer I got the more he seemed to struggle to keep it in its shape.

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With a vicious look on his face, he turned to me, his eyes widened from anger and the usual white skin almost red.

"Jo," I said as I stared straight down into his eyes.

They were trembling.

'Oh, putting on a show?' Ira asked.

'Gotta impress the lady, don't I?' I responded jokingly.

"W-What do you want?" he asked.

"For you to piss off," I responded in the most deadpan tone.

"What if I don't?" he asked, managing to stand, unlike the other guy and a few people I saw in the corner of my eye.

Before Smoke finished blinking my magic mark had spread across my entire body and a long thorn was pressing against his throat, just like his finger had been pressing against the other man's throat. He coughed and tried to step back from surprise, only to find that both his legs, arms and torse had been restrained with thorn tendrils. All I had to do now was raise an eyebrow.

He looked at me in shock.

"Fine," he said, his voice filled with poorly hidden hatred.

My smile became genuine as I turned around and turned the thorn tendrils into little particles that rose towards the ceiling and disappeared. The magic mark deactivated and I pulled all my mana back in, stopping the dust that had been falling the entire time. Elsa studied me thoroughly with her two different coloured eyes.

'I think your showing off seems to have worked,' Ira stated.

'So it would seem,' I responded as I walked past Elsa, showing her a wide smile that I hoped looked kind.

The next class went by quickly, we talked about more spirit theory and summoning processes and such, as well as starting to make preparations on how we would actually summon our first spirit.

After that, we had a simple sparring class with Laura. She again said that I should spar against her, and so I did. This time neither of us used as much strength as last time, which didn't matter since she won again. This time I did feel like someone was watching me and when I looked up at one point I thought I saw smoke disappearing into one of the windows higher up.

After that followed the magecraft class we had with Dreifus. He gave everyone their task for the lesson and then instructed me, away from the rest of the volunteers, on how to release my mana more quickly. At the end of class I felt like I had made a decent amount of progress, Dreifus said so as well but he also seemed a little... surprised.

After that, we had the general information class or whatever. The teacher mostly talked about how the rate at which human mages were born was slowing down, which meant that the race with the most living members was becoming weaker and weaker while most other races were either starting to be born with the ability to use mana more often or nothing was changing at all, in the case of inherently magical races like elves and such. I could only smile at that. Less human mages meant that the disgusting mana would become less noticeable in the future.

Once that lesson was over we went to eat. The others had a conversation that barely included me. When I was done I returned to my room, spending a good ten or so minutes deciding whether or not I was about to throw up again or not. Luckily I managed to calm down. As I lay down I felt my body twitch a little. Ignoring that I went to sleep, dreaming of many different events and seeing many different and familiar faces.