The new day passed quickly for Ginger, along with all its odd classes.

All the Professors continued to build upon what they had been teaching the students during this Stride, and some were not as forgiving when those they taught fell behind.

The three days remaining before the Breather had the First Years doing their absolute best to learn the secret to controlling Mana Essence effectively. Professor Hennigar, who, like Professor Mara and Professor Lyall taught all three First Year classes, found the contention regarding his odd race completely discarded.

His race didn't deter the students – the non-Affixers in particular – from nagging him with all sorts of questions even outside lesson time, especially when it felt like their lives were on the line.

Of course, this wasn't because of the dread surrounding the outing this coming Breather where all the First Years would kill their first Blighted. Well, at least not entirely.

Apparently, Professor Mara's mere displeasure was plenty of a chilling horror to inspire the more lackadaisical breeds in all three First Year classes to work hard. Even those already operating on fumes were made to work harder.

Non-Affixers' only method of reinforcing their weapons, was to learn how to control Mana Essence. Unfortunately, this couldn't be done with the same level of skill some of the students had been boasting about – being able to control tamed Mana Essence in Professor Hennigar's class.

When Professor Mara first inquired about the progress and had the class – even the Affixers – demonstrate their attainments, his disappointment, which diffused into his Kardia, which then swam among the students, pungent and persistent like a grumpy fart, caused a few to break down into tears.

It was quite the lesson for Ginger. Apparently, older dragons didn't need to wallop their young as a form of discipline.

In fact, the stern, almost bland voice of Professor Mara commanding the students to demonstrate a perfect reinforcement of their chosen weapons with Mana Essence by the next day, was infinitely more terrifying than any damage a typical human parent could inflict.

And thus, that night, he, Reiss, and even Caron – who still had no luck manipulating the Mana Essence Professor Hennigar tamed during class – had hurried to the library, discarding all thoughts on any other course, even Kartile, to research about Mana Essence.

The trio earned little from the books, unfortunately, and by the looks of it, most of the other First Years saw no luck in the pages. There weren't that many books on basic Mana Essence Manipulation in the Fifth Floor library. The majority of them had advanced stuff that no First Year could comprehend.

Ginger remembered Reiss getting so frustrated about this that he had spent half an hour mentioning the flaws in the institute concerning the Mana-related course.

Questions like "Why don't the lessons on it just begin at the same time as all the others?" and "Why is there only one instructor for the course in the entire school?" or "Why is Professor Hennigar not defending us? We can't control Mana Essence without his help yet!" echoed in the school's corridors.

As desperation would have it, many students begged Professor Hennigar to help them, which he was kind enough to do. His simple solution was to speed up the pace of learning which he had been intending to keep slow despite the 'Ginger incident', in order to make the students appreciate the course finely.

Those who had been capable of manipulating the tamed Mana Essence experienced the best result. The raw, uncontrolled Mana Essence heeded their call as they followed Professor Hennigar's instruction. He had been right. It wasn't really hard at all.

Ginger and Reiss were pleased and tearfully gratefully, as was the majority of the class. Even the Doukas siblings had looks of cool relief, after all, this result came only a day later, following another lesson where they had to enjoy the menacing presence of Professor Mara and his calm, judging eyes at their failure.

Those green eyes burned all the justifications they might have raised.

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For the students who hadn't been able to control even tamed Mana Essence, it was rather brutal.

Caron would have buckled under Professor Mara's constant criticism much like others of her 'kind', if not for her already stellar performance in Affixing.

Still, she wasn't quite pleased to be lagging behind Ginger and Reiss. The two had managed to coat their weapons with Mana Essence perfectly before she could, and to some degree that bothered her.

As such, she decided to cash in on the terms she proposed for her cooperation with Ginger and Reiss – that she learn from the two of them, mainly Ginger, and return the favor in three Strides.

Reiss was hesitant, even going so far as to ask if she was still clinging to that delusion of hers, but in the end, he agreed.

In terms of Kardia, Ginger had improved a bit, following the fuel that was the interest that was bred within him during his first Kartile lesson. His mobilization of Kardia was a little faster, but of course, the volume was still abysmal.

The thing he had improved on the most, was his control of Kardia once it was outside his body. As Professor Lyall had said, it was hard to advise someone on how to make their Kardia listen to their command because the energy was different from dragon to dragon.

Thus, Ginger had resorted to learning through controlled repetition, which ended up helping him master not wasting his limited Kardia once it adopted Alien quality.

Every time he demonstrated this to Caron who insisted that she could learn something from it despite having better control of her Kardia, she seemed to glean something. It was the same when she asked him to show her how he controlled Mana Essence.

She did the same with Reiss who had finally managed to raise his hammer off the ground with his Affixing Kardia, making it light enough for him to wield – however clumsily. Unfortunately, reinforcing it with Mana Essence, while impressive, didn't help with the basics, so he had to work hard on Affixing still.

Caron seemed to glean something from Reiss as well and was very thankful each time the two boys spared time to demonstrate their current skill.

By the sixth day of the Stride, Ginger and Reiss were oddly accustomed to the routine inquiry in pockets of the day when Caron would keenly observe how they manipulated their Kardia and Mana Essence – after lessons and during lunch – along with the sweet, yawny "Thanks" that came after.

Caron finally managed to learn how to control Mana Essence on this day as well. The look on Professor Mara's face subtly voiced a "Took you long enough, star student," sentiment that only a few glimpsed.

The redhead was quite pleased.

...

Reiss slurped three Spicy Carpet Slugs which had been drowning in the reddish brown stew within his bowl. After he swallowed them with a faint smile, he found Ginger and Caron looking at him with concern.

"What?" he asked.

"It's that good?" Ginger said with a grimace.

Reiss sighed.

"I have a lot on my mind. Finally being able to swing my hammer has made me particularly hungry," he said.

"I get that. I was beginning to think I'd be one of the few left who couldn't handle Mana Effenf," Caron said as she munched on a steamed, potato. At least Ginger thought it was.

"You're a genius. No, wait. A prodigy. What did you have to worry about in the first place? Wasn't it only a matter of time? Should have realized you'd get it soon enough when you almost made Professor Mara smile with your Affixing in that rough lesson," Reiss said as he gobbled up some more slugs from his bowl before washing down their greasy flavor with some juice. "What's up with that three-section staff of yours anyway? Why choose that?"

"Probably the same reason you chose a large hammer despite your size," Caron said while imitating Reiss' pitiful hammer swing from a day ago with her spoon.

Ginger pretended to look behind him, hiding a nearly failed attempt at stifling laughter.

Reiss' nostrils flared and he turned to the halfling.

"Why are we keeping her again?"

Ginger wiped away a few tears from his face and jabbed his thick broth.

"Well, we can stand to learn from her. Especially you. Caron uses an Affix-type Custos Zoe, like you. You could learn something from her." he said.

Professor Lyall had stuck to having the First Years learn Custos Zoe only. As the days went by, she began teaching them how to solidify the guarding Pieyro after they all decided on which shapes they wanted. This was still proving difficult for everyone though, even with her great style of teaching.

Reiss mumbled something about why they couldn't just ask Zale or Basilia for help and Ginger stressed Professor Lyall's words about outside help.

"Do you feel confident about tomorrow?" Caron suddenly asked with a solemn face. Her unfocused baby blue eyes had an odd sense of anxiety stowed within them. "I'm not the sort to get scared easily over something like this, but... I feel like we are not prepared."

Reiss and Ginger looked at her.

They felt the same.

It felt too soon to be fighting monsters after just a single Stride of slow, harsh learning that made them all feel like they were suffocating rather than progressing.

Ginger wasn't particularly afraid of monsters, but if they couldn't be beaten with just a sharp weapon...

Blighted.

How different were they from high-class monsters from the Wild?

Ginger wasn't confident in his Kardia at all and while his control of Mana Essence was decent and could even be reliable if he decided to try and use that golden lightning again – which he hadn't attempted since that day – he wasn't too sure it would be too helpful.

"Well, Professor Lyall said she's the best teacher for Dragon Biology and Kardia Studies. She must know what she's doing, right?" Reiss said as he dipped his spoon into his bowl.

"Yeah. Maybe..." Ginger said, unsure.

They would find out soon enough if Draggard-Phoenix Institute for the Cinder-Born's reputation was well deserved.