The rest of breakfast proceeded peacefully. Henry, Cynthia and Aro mostly just talked between the three of them, ignoring Alex most of the time. Henry occasionally tried to involve Alex, but it was clear the other two were more comfortable forgetting he was even there. Which honestly didn't really bother him. That way he could just listen and absorb as much information without having to take part actively in the conversations. From the way the three reacted to each other, it was clear there was something more between them than just friends. Whether that was just friends with benefits or an actual relationship wasn't really Alex's business.

  Aro occasionally glanced towards the red-scaled Drakes, clear malice in his eyes. From what Alex had gathered, they were the Drakes in room three hundred and twenty. The faint light coming from the large fire pit behind them reflected off their maroon scales, giving them a sinister look. They looked eerily similar, even having the same golden earring. Apparently, they were twins, and Alex just hoped that was the reason they looked so similar to him and not because every Drake just looked the same to him. He really hoped it wasn't the second reason. He had an uncle like that back home, just not with Drakes.

  After about an hour, the conversation died down. Most of the surrounding students had already left, the tables still filled with empty plates. When the first student near them had left their plate on the table, Henry had explained that washing the plates was one of the jobs posted on the Notice Board daily. Nobody liked to do it, but apparently someone always ended up picking it up anyway.

  "I've got a test for Advanced Warding I need to study for," Henry said as he got up. "It was nice meeting you, Alex, and I'll see you two later." He pointed at Aro and Cynthia before running towards his room.

  About a minute later, Cynthia also got up. "I should get going as well. No test, just need sleep. See you later, Alex. Hopefully not hungover then. And you, stop by when you're done with him." She stood behind Aro and hung her arms around the lion-boy, whispering something in his ear. Whatever she whispered, from the way Aro grinned, Alex was glad he didn't hear it.

  That was it; the calm was over. It was once again just him and Aro, and all the upperclassman's attention was on him again. The blonde-maned boy stretched out his arms and opened his mouth wide with a yawn. With how the boy had acted around Henry and Cynthia, it was easy to forget he was an anthropomorphic lion, but the view Alex got from the teeth inside his mouth brought that back to his full attention.

  "Alright, runt. Breakfast is over," Aro said as he stood up from the table. "Let's continue this tour and go to the place where dreams go to die."

  "The what now?" Alex asked confused, unsure if he had really heard the upperclassman correctly.

  "The Notice Board, or at least one of the few strewn around the campus. You wanted to learn how to earn these, right?" The lion-boy asked as he threw Alex the pouch of Merit Credits he had used to pay for their breakfast.

  Alex quickly opened the bag to see how many were still in the pouch. At first glance, it looked around twenty, not as many as he had hoped, but he would need to count them once he was back in his room. Still, twenty credits, while that might have seemed like a lot, it would only earn him breakfast for just under three weeks. And that wasn't counting any other meals or anything else he would need the credits for. He would definitely need to learn how to earn more.

  "I would like that very much, Ari," Alex said with a grin on his face as tucked the pouch in one of the pockets of his uniform. He had no idea how Aro had managed to just tuck it under his belt. The mention of the nickname Cynthia had used earned him an angry look from the lion-boy. Was it wise to use it now? Probably not, but it felt good to push back a little against the upperclassman. When the look turned into a grin only a moment later, Alex knew his guide took it in good faith.

  "Don't be so eager, runt. You want to work?" The lion boy scoffed as he started walking back towards the entrance of the dining hall. "Besides, by now most of the good ones will have been taken. Most people check the board before they grab breakfast. You either go early, get stuck in the rush of all the people in desperate need of credits, or get stuck with the worst jobs."

  "So, when do you go?" Alex was curious in which of the three groups the upperclassman would place himself. While he hated getting up early, he'd probably try to beat the rush himself.

  "I go whenever I need credits, which isn't that often anymore. Like most third-years, I've managed to collect quite a lot of Credits over the years. And pinching a few from ignorant first-years also helps." There was a gigantic smirk on Aro's face when he said the last part, and Alex just knew he was talking about how he had unknowingly paid for both their breakfasts. What was he supposed to do? He didn't even know Merit Credits were a thing.

  Instead of heading inside the dining hall like earlier that morning, the lion-boy now turned to the left at the entrance. Alex must have somehow missed it in the chaos that was this morning, but there was a large wooden bulletin board hung on the wall next to the entrance. A few other students were in front of it, looking for a potential job, and judging from the fact they didn't have any colored accents, they were both first-years like Alex.

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  "Ugh, I really don't want to take the dishwashing job," one of them complained. "Did you see how many plates were still on the table?"

  "It's that or the library restocking one," the other responded, already holding a piece of paper in her hands."

  "You really don't want to switch?"

  "Uh-uh, I did the dishwashing one yesterday, and you know I'm not a fan of Miss Philaxter."

  "Scram!" Aro shouted at the two kibbling students, his voice louder than Alex had expected. The two first-years almost jumped into the air from the sudden noise. The one without a job quickly grabbed a piece of paper from the board, and they both ran away.

  "Welcome to the Notice Board," the lion-boy said, waving his arms in a presenting motion like he hadn't just scared two students away. "This is one of eight placed around the campus, with one placed at each dorm and then a few others strewn around the school. Doesn't really matter which one you go to. They're all connected to each other, placing something on one will put it on all of them, taking it off will do the same. Don't ask me how it works; I don't know either. If you really want to know, you could probably ask Henry. He took more of the crafting classes."

  Alex found it immensely interesting that all the boards were connected, and he would definitely ask Henry about it the next time he saw the Fairy. It was like a hybrid between a quest board you might read about in a fantasy novel and this world's rudimentary version of an online messaging board. With Aro's explanation of the Notice Board seemingly ending there, Alex inspected the actual board.

  The thing was massive, so large in fact that Alex wondered how anyone could grab the jobs hanging at the top of the board. A thick black border was around the entire board. At first, Alex thought it was some kind of dark wood, maybe some kind of ebony or rosewood, but when he slid his finger across the border it felt more like a metal than wood. Despite the morning rush being over, there were still some pieces of paper stuck to the board. They weren't pinned to the board through normal thumbtacks or even nails; no, they were stuck to the board using some kind of yellow crystal. If Alex had to guess, that was how the jobs on all the Notice Boards were connected to each other. Did it make sense? No, but that was the best guess he could make with the limited amount of knowledge he had of this world.

  "So, anything left on the board that speaks to you?" Aro asked as he leaned against the wall, not even looking at Alex, instead gazing into the large fire pit in the center of the courtyard. Alex wondered if the upperclassman was genuinely interested or if he was just hoping Alex would find a job so he could dump him onto whoever posted the job and spend some time with Cynthia instead.

  Alex, however, was genuinely interested to see if any of the jobs on the board spoke to him. Hadn't one of the first-years Aro scared away said something about a job at the library? That would honestly be perfect. It would give him the perfect excuse to familiarize himself with the place and be the perfect spot to learn more about this world. He just hoped it wasn't the one she had grabbed in a hurry when she ran away.

  He scoured the board looking for the posting, unease spreading through his body when he didn't immediately find it. There was the dishwashing job, so they didn't take that one. Wasn't she debating between that one and the library one? What else was there? Rats in the cellar of the Arcana dorm kitchen. Was that really something they sent students to deal with? Also, how was that worth ten Merit Credits? What kind of rats were they? Then he finally found it.

  There wasn't a lot of information on the posting. It didn't even say where the library was, but Alex guessed Aro would be more than happy to point him in the right direction and send him on his way. The reward was also only five Merit Credits. That didn't bother Alex, however. He hadn't picked this job for the reward; he picked it for the opportunity to spend some time in the library with someone who knew where everything in it stood.

  He ripped the piece of paper off the board. The yellow crystal holding it up pulsed briefly with an orange glow before turning grey as soon as there was no paper left touching it. The board was littered with these dull grey crystals. Alex hadn't noticed them at first against the black body of the board, but now that he had seen one turn grey, they stood out like a sore thumb.

  "Actually found something?" Aro asked, surprised when he noticed Alex holding the piece of paper. The lion-boy pushed himself away from the wall he was leaning on and walked back over to Alex. He grabbed the piece of paper out of Alex's hands to look at it. "Library duty? Really, runt?"

  Alex shrugged his shoulders. "Seemed easy enough, and it gives me an excuse to leave the dorm."

  Aro handed the piece of paper back to Alex. "Sure, library duty is easy. It's also boring. Couldn't you have picked something more exciting like...?" the upperclassman quickly scoured the remaining jobs on the Notice Board. "Okay, no, there's nothing exciting left on the board. Guess the most exciting one would be the rats at the Arcana dorm. You're never really sure what you're going to find there."

  Without a word, the lion-boy turned around and started walking away from the board.

  "Where are you going?" Alex asked as he caught up to Aro.

  "Showing you where the library is. Doubt the Halfling professor showed it to you last night."

  "They prefer it if you call them Hearthkin," Alex tried to correct the upperclassman. It was probably a mistake to do so, but he felt better knowing that he knew something the lion-boy didn't.

  "Oh, I know, doesn't roll off the tongue like Halfling does though," Aro responded like that was the problem. "Oh, and I'm not helping you with that boring job. I'm just showing you where the library is. I have better things to do than deal with that control freak of a head librarian. And I still can't believe she and Miss Fillonia are related. How can one be so sweet while the other is just mean sometimes?"