There was no doubt about it. Firing a bolt of Kardia and flinging a Qin Steel ball laced with it were two distinctly different things. However, to Ginger, the sensation of his Alien-type Kardia leaving his body in a controlled, stalwart blast was pretty much engraved in his body. His Kardia, when adopting Alien qualities, was quick to flee from his body anyway. All he had mastered during Professor Lyall’s exercise was controlling it.

His confidence as he threw the ball was almost palpable. It aroused a response from his Kardia, as Zale had explained, and…

Boom!

The Qin Steel ball streaked forth as a thin, elongated blue light and smashed into the head of one of the dummies!

Even though none of the First Years, including Ginger himself had the ability to damage the dummies yet, the one the plump dragonling hit shook from the force of the hit.

A testimony from the dummy itself wasn’t necessary. Everyone noticed the distinct difference between Ginger’s throw and those of the other dragonlings. The brief silence that followed was telling.

The one to break it was Zale who smacked Ginger on the back.

“We have a mascot for Kartile folks!” he said as Basilia whistled and began clapping furiously.

Chaos ensued. Some of the First Years rushed towards Ginger, asking him how he did it while some of the older students smacked his shoulders with words of praise.

“How are you already on that level in your first few Strides? Aren’t you supposed to be a halfling?”

“I severely underestimated you, kid.”

“If you leave Kartile, I will literally kill you.”

Ginger wore a sheepish smile as the crowd of students said their piece. They all felt as though smacking him as they spoke would leave a deeper impact. They weren’t wrong.

To the questions Ginger was bombarded with, he offered stutters and stammers as responses. Some were offended by this. They thought he had some kind of secret method he was reluctant to reveal. In a way, they weren’t wrong. It just wasn’t what they expected.

Ginger saw Reiss beaming at him several dozen students away. The jealousy in his eyes was unhidden. But then again, Reiss never hid his jealousy from Ginger. There was a healthy amount of envy between them.

Unfortunately for Ginger, he also spotted another character over the students swarming him.

It was Fotini. Unlike the rest, he looked indifferent, or maybe even a bit angry.

He wasn’t happy with the positive attention towards Ginger.

Ginger matched his soft animosity with a glare. Suddenly, he remembered what had soured his day.

A part of him thought of blaming Fotini for spreading information about his family and Ancor, but Ginger knew that didn’t make sense. Even if it was true, Fotini couldn’t be the true source of it all. It had to be someone else.

The proper course of the exercise was disrupted and it took Zale and Basilia a few minutes to calm everyone down. By the time Ginger managed to fix his hair and clothes from all the groping and mussing, Reiss had found his way towards him.

“You have no Kardia left, do you?” he said with a sly smile.

“Yeah,” admitted Ginger. Reiss laughed. He was openly glad to dampen a little of his friend’s high.

A tall, unbelievably thin student, the same who had given Ginger, Caron, and Reiss the flyer advertising Kartile last Stride, approached the two. He was holding a small booklet in his hand.

“You are… Reiss Adel, and you are… Ginger, right? Just Ginger?” he asked.

The two boys gave nods.

The tall upperclassman scribbled something in his notebook before giving the two a small smile and saying, “Done. You have made some great progress.”

“Thanks,” Reiss said brightly. “But what exactly are you writing?”

“Your progress. The dummies are only one standard for checking how much you’ve grown, at least here in Kartile. There are other things we consider. This is a course after all. There are formal assessments,” the tall student explained before giving a tired sigh. He muttered something about not having time for homework today.

Ginger wore a duck face.

“Why are you the one recording all this? Shouldn’t there be a professor here with us? Why haven’t we seen them since we started?” he asked.

The tall student shrugged.

“Professor Cohen is very busy. She doesn’t have the luxury of attending these early Kartile lessons with the load she has. She’s covering for Principal Phoenix until next Stride.”

“What? What happened to the principal?” The concern bled through Ginger’s eyes. The tall upperclassman laughed.

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

“Nothing happened to Principal Phoenix and nothing ever will. You probably wouldn’t know, would you?” he said. “She’s just got some jealous folks from other Flame Seeker families trying to bring her down. She’s out putting them in their place.”

With that, he left the two dragonlings and walked to other First Years, scribbling down information about them in his booklet.

Reiss noticed the questions floating in Ginger’s eyes at once.

“I guess no one talks about it enough here,” he said to his friend while scratching his neck. “I’ve heard Principal Phoenix is the scariest dragon to ever grace Ravi in the last twenty Cycles. Some have even started to call her the second coming of the Ebony dragon and uh… that’s caused some problems for her.”

Something seemed to click for Ginger. He’d overheard a few older students talking about this back when the first Assembly was held.

“Because the Ebony dragon – Draggard-Phoenix – had a bad reputation?” he said.

“Yeah. But they won’t be able to do anything to her though. You don’t want to know what it means when dragons call another dragon scary.”

Ginger gulped audibly. It was almost impossible to peg that long-necked, calm, and encouraging woman he’d seen on that day as scary.

The rest of the Kartile session ended with Zale complimenting the First Years and giving some pointers for where the Affixers and Alien-types could improve. Even though there was a lot of lingering attention on Ginger, he didn’t make any attempt to bring up the plump dragonling at all. Ginger greatly appreciated that very much.

After leaving the Huddling Fury, the plump and dwarfish dragonlings went to the library to finish the mounds of homework they had earned from Professor Mara and Professor Rot… Aarons, Professor Aarons. Reiss played a good part in making sure Ginger didn’t sleep before he was finished as he had attempted to do three times before midnight came.

When Ginger was finally allowed to sleep, he fell on his bed with a smile. The day had ended on a good enough note and he was thankful for that. However, it seemed his dreams were determined to make him regret celebrating that fact.

When the light of the new day stabbed Ginger’s eyelids, he woke up feeling miserable. He couldn’t remember what he had dreamt about, but it must have been quite unpleasant to affect his mood like it did.

“What’s wrong?” Reiss asked the dragonling. He had peeked below his bed to find Ginger staring at the floor with a thoughtful frown.

“Nothing,” Ginger said. “Just a bad dream, I think.” But he was past focusing on just the dream. He took the sourness of his mood so early to relate to his short stare-off with Fotini yesterday and what that had set off in his mind.

‘Should I ask Ira about this? Maybe he could find out who’s spreading that information about me,’ he thought and suddenly sighed limply. ‘And while I’m at it, I guess I should tell Ira about what happened in the Beginner’s Den.’

After taking a bath and getting into his uniform, Ginger remembered that he had a mission that needed to be completed as soon as possible. He needed to submit the form Fai had given him to Professor Lyall so that his Hunt this coming Breather could be approved. He stuffed it into his sling bag and was off with Reiss and the other First Year boys.

On the way out, Ginger happened to see Vassilis. The young dragonling from the Avecsalot Flame Seekers merely graced him with a glance before going about his business. Ginger scowled.

He found that he was getting a lot of odd looks from other dragonlings for some reason. This special attention unnerved him. He hadn’t seen any of it yesterday night.

While the First Years could be a little modest, the older students were anything but. A thickly built Second Year bumped into Ginger as he and Reiss were about to use a Waiting Furnace.

“Just when I thought you couldn’t get any creepier. There’s a whole bunch of you out in the Wild?” he said with a look of disgust on his face. His friends laughed, pushing Ginger and Reiss back to fit themselves in the Waiting Furnace. “You should be thankful you were born in a more peaceful Cycle, halfling. Real dragons ate your kind for breakfast back in the day.”

Ginger caught his fury before it slipped from his mouth as nasty words. Thankfully, his opponent hadn’t been looking forward to his comeback.

Reiss was frowning.

“That’s concerning. It’s not just our peers,” he said before giving Ginger a look.

The plump dragonling might have been squeezing fires in his fists.

“Yeah,” he said. His determination to see Ira about this was stoked.

The harassment didn’t end with the thickly student. Several older and younger students threw jabs at Ginger, with some approaching him to ask horrible questions outright. It took all of Ginger’s willpower to subdue himself whenever he heard someone ask if his parents were halflings. Reiss helped shoo the insensitive snoopers away, which helped a lot.

By the time the two reached class, Ginger was sweating and smoke was furiously billowing from his nostrils. When he and Reiss entered the classroom, Ginger found Alcaeus giving him a queer look. It was strange. Since yesterday, he hadn’t attempted to tease Ginger like his sister. He always wore an odd, solemn expression when they touched visions.

But Ginger had bigger concerns than Alcaeus. The rest of his classmates swarmed him with questions as well, and he found it hard to avoid them.

Thankfully, as soon as the lessons began, he was given some reprieve. No one bothered him while Professor Edelman was giving his sermon, continuing to tease his students about the wonders found in Revenant Relics. He was determined to milk that juicy detail for as long as he could.

Ginger also went unbothered by his peers in Professor Mara’s class. The handsome instructor was a natural bother to Ginger’s psyche, however. He harassed Ginger with questions about how well the plump dragonling’s weapon of choice – a dagger – served him against a large opponent like the Blighted during Professor Lyall’s exercise.

The plump dragonling stumbled on his words but found the conviction to defend himself. No one – except, perhaps Fillys – made fun of him since everyone was to stand before Professor Mara and face the same question.

When it was time for Professor Lyall’s class, Ginger could have kissed her. She came in with a soothing yet strict pressure, her V-shaped smile on fleek. She both engaged him and distracted him from his troubles.

“I think by now Professor Cain has given you enough confidence in your refined Kardia. Your Saturation and Permeation are leagues higher than before, meaning you are able to use Pieyro now,” she said as she walked back and forth in front of the class. “I’m sure many of you would have loved to show off your Custos Zoe against the Blighted from the exercise, but in my experience, it’s better to develop a good defense after appreciating the weight of a threat. In any case, today, we will be perfecting the Custos Zoe you developed last Stride. As you recall, we only focused on developing the shape of it. This time around, we will be giving them substance.”

A rush of excitement washed over the class. Ginger was also looking forward to this. For his Hunt this Breather, he was sure he would need a really good defensive ability. Something other than his school uniform.