"I'm here to see Ludere."

  The grammarian looked exactly like all of the descriptions he had ever heard. Tall and thin, he appeared to be exactly the product of the system that would perpetuate it.

  His toga was clean. His tunic looked brand new.

  Ludere, by contrast, was finding that he was both too large and too small for his normal clothes. His legs had grown, causing his tunic to be tough to put on. Leg holes did not agree with thick thighs.

  "You must be him. You will need to go to a tailor."

  "I am Ludere. Your name, sir?"

  "Grammarian Tyler. Senator Celisar sent me. We've got a lot of work to do. Tell me, what are your Skills?"

  Ludere considered not telling him, but the man was being paid somehow. He probably didn't want to be here, as much as Ludere didn't want to wear pants.

  Ludere checked his Skills and told the man. He didn't know if he should give up his edge or not.

  His Judgement skill hadn't budged in a while. He left out Spirit Magic and Skill Swap in his report. The grammarians didn't need to know how this all happened

  He couldn't deny his Will or Soul Magic, but he would be damned if he gave up how he had gotten his Spirit Magic.

  "Those are quite interesting skills to have at such a young age, and with such mastery. Clearly he was correct in his assessment that you would be a perfect candidate for the academy."

  "So where do we start?"

  "We need to shore up your weaknesses. You have strengths, but they won't be the thing that separates you from the rest of your peers."

  Grammarian Tyler walked around the atrium as if addressing it for demolition. "Perhaps I could persuade you to bring your family to the Senator's summer estates. You will, in a very short timeframe, be on the receiving end of a lot of scrutiny."

  Ludere hadn't moved since the elder man entered. He took that moment to relax into one of the long loungers that his parents had left out.

  "Ah. Already making ourselves at home, eh?"

  "I do live here."

  "Quite so. Well, I believe that it's time for us to set some ground rules. To begin with your physical training, because you're not missing anything, but we will be doing that as well. I will be bringing you several texts that you need to be able to reference easily and readily. These will come, for the most part, with my next visit tomorrow, and then you'll receive more as you finish them."

  "What are we going to do today?"

  "Because of the state I found you in, we're going to do etiquette lessons. And as well, we're going to a tailor and get new clothing made, because you cannot walk around like that."

  Ludere nodded. This all made sense.

  "Idea man, let's talk about the various factors that go into why I'm about to tell you about which Senator and who is who in the zoo."

  For the next three hours, Tyler spoke at him and had him reinforce what he was telling him by regurgitating the information. He would give just enough information about a specific noble family and then return. He'd only brought one book, and that was a primer on how the government ran itself. By the time that was done, it was lunch.

  Tyler bade him farewell, with promises that they would meet again on the next day.

  Ludere ate with his family, relaying a lot of the information. That made sense as to why they needed to know the names of all the Senators and their current pursued factions. Why did it matter if Senators Levi and Scribe were not on the same page?

  Well, there had to be a reason. The academy trained the best and brightest and wealthiest, and a select, small group of the lower class.

  "So, Tyler is good at what he does?"

  "If I could have a memory Skill right now, I would use it. Neither of you have anything like that, correct?"

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Both of his parents shook their heads. Neither one had one. He would have to branch out and ask a lot of people. He needed to speak to Gia and Erebus today, if anything else was going to be done with them.

  He had promised them that he would give them Skills, and it would be easier if he gave them the Skills and took the Skills they had.

  Gia was the first to arrive, and she swapped out her Glam Skill for Will Magic.

  "I feel like I can see so much better, all of a sudden. Like, I can see your soul. I know that it's your soul, because it's cracked and it looks terrible. I wish you could see my soul."

  "Mirrors and water unfortunately don't work for it. You have a beautiful soul, by the way."

  Gia gave him a flat stare. "How do you even… you know what, actually, this time, tell me."

  "I've obviously got a cracked soul. The oracle let me see her soul, and yeah, hers is glorious. I still have my Soul Magic. I think either one lets you see souls."

  "It's got to be one of those things. Okay, that kind of insight just helped me out. I just jumped to level two, so now I have the skill for the long term. So thank you for that. You probably need to start writing down how this works. Or, if not, just remember it."

  Ludere hadn't even thought to get parchment. "If I start writing it down—how this works—then someone's going to figure out what's happening when they read it."

  Gia paused what she was doing, leaving a concentrated ball of Will Magic floating mid-juggle. "That unfortunately makes sense. Stop making sense."

  "How are you doing that?"

  "What. Like it's hard?" The magic continued. Gia paused the juggling act, and then reversed it.

  "When I get my skill back, I need you to teach me that trick."

  "Wonderful. Okay, now I'm going to tell you about the Glam skill, which I did not think that you could even get. But now that you have it, you're going to have to advance it to the next level. Because any girl you want to trade with is going to want this skill." She grabbed something from inside of her toga. "The first step is learning how to apply your creams correctly."

  Ludere gulped.

  He finally made it to the temple that afternoon with Erebus. He had promised Erebus that he would give him his pick, but Gia had been there first.

  "Soul Magic isn't a consolation prize."

  "Did I say that? I said that I wanted first dibs."

  "Erebus, you're walking a thin line between arena competition and arena worker with these lines."

  Erebus sneered. "I think you need to have reached the soul of the matter here. Or, in other words, the magic within you that's got me going. I feel like your arrangement with the Senator has got to include which nights he gets you, and which nights the Oracle gets you. Did you decide on that yet?"

  "Listen here, Ludo, the Senator has a wife. Apparently, that means that I can't even be his first boy if I wanted to. And even if I wanted to, I wouldn't. There's too much work involved in that. I don't even have Glam up to the right level to attract a Senator."

  "That's why you took Glam? Holy Fiddler, I knew that there was a reason I went second. I knew you had muscle and all that, but you look like someone applied way too much crema to your face. You're looking mighty pale, my friend."

  The pair of them arrived in the temple courtyard. There was still a lot of food to be had, but it was a little bit more sedate than the other day. The word had gotten out about the potential invasion, and people were talking quietly, in clutches of two or three all around the courtyards. There were many benches and tables. They paused there to get soup. Neither of them were in a particular rush, because they were catching up.

  "So you're going to start planning out the days when you're training? Which skills now, or something, or who you're going to give what skill to? Because, I'll be honest, I do want that Unarmed skill."

  "Gia said she would be here. She said something about a side quest."

  They went through two bowls of stew before Gia finally arrived and sat down next to them. She had packed a small basket full of goodies that she slowly acquired. The two of them put both on her and then on to Ludere. Apparently, the way the skill worked was that you could get credit for doing a makeup or beauty routine, as well as working with somebody else on theirs. That was why she had tried so many different things that morning. If he had gotten a Glam level too, meaning that he could keep it, but he wasn't sure about the reasons to use it. Without a mirror or some water to check on his reflection, all he knew was that his friends were holding back laughter.

  "I want you both to understand that I don't really care what I look like right now. After that, the Oracle herself. She cannot see this. She can only get a sense of what's going on."

  "And we're going to have her rub her hands all over your face. Actually, I wonder if she's ever had makeup put on her before. Or what she looks like behind the blindfolds? Is this a thing that we could find out?"

  The three of them chewed on their stew. "I wouldn't dignify that with a comment. I am not going to speak for her. I have seen what she looks like in the Spirit side of things. She's beautiful to me, and if she wants you to put onto something, then she will tell you."

  The Oracle took that time to show up. Within two minutes, she was already the subject of their makeup administrations. No, she hadn't had makeup put on before. Yes, she would subject herself to this to give someone some Skill levels. No, she didn't expect anything like this, and she couldn't forsee this event happening. Skills generally were a bit weird, and heavily interactive with her bloodline.

  "I have to say that you look beautiful, with or without makeup. But thank you for helping me work on my Skills. I missed you last night."

  The Oracle smiled deeply. "You don't have to send me to the temple. You can just let me stay with you, if you really want me to. Or you can stay here."

  Ludere had not considered the logistics of sleeping with somebody every night. Obviously the Oracle had. And it seemed she had a strong opinion about this. Otherwise she wouldn't be leaning into that in front of his friends. Gia, for her part, was covering her mouth with her hand and trying not to laugh. Erebus was pretending he couldn't hear anything, and heading back for more stew.

  They were not a really good amount of help in this situation. It was true that he wanted the Oracle to stay with him.

  That would have been the best outcome, but it wasn't the only one that was possible. He could, for instance, go to the temple, but then he would have to leave in the morning.

  "You're always welcome to stay with my family, Oracle. Welcome… whenever. I just wish I had more to say about this matter. My time is not my own, the way it was before. Maybe if I look back, and we can just focus on that."