Professor Welkinton felt his aching joints throb as he massaged his temples.

  He had this class right before lunch, and it usually was a fairly agreeable one despite his students being distracted by their hungry stomachs.

  She saw the intruding, new student stare at what he had written on the board like it had offended her. She wasn’t taking notes like his students did.

  He had been warned of the nature of the intruding student.

  He felt he was too old and unsuited for this job.

  He decided to speak out.

  “Victorya”, he said calmly, scratching his white beard, “Is everything alright?”

  The girl blinked at him. She didn’t answer.

  He sighed.

  “Shouldn’t you be… writing down at least some notions?” he asked.

  The girl blinked again.

  “I don’t have a pencil”, she said.

  Ah. She was one of those ones too.

  “Why don’t you ask your neighbour to share one of hers with you?” he asked patiently. This… didn’t feel like speaking to a peculiarly stubborn child. This felt dangerous.

  “Sure”, she said. She then stared at him, and did not ask for her neighbour’s pencil.

  Ivy, that poor girl, had been about to search for the tool in her pencil case. But his student stopped, crumpling a bit on herself as she noticed that the new student hadn’t moved an inch nor looked at her.

  He felt the wrinkles beneath his eyes deepen.

  In his class, even his worst student had started making some progress. Ivy, that poor girl, always had trouble making herself new friends. She was talented, but in a class that already shone so bright, she was the worst of the best. It could only be difficult to find friends.

  He hoped the new student wouldn’t stay. For Ivy’s sake, at least.

  “What are you looking at?” the intruder in the classroom asked. That made some students look back at her, even if she didn’t seem hostile as she said those words.

  Ah… Perhaps, he should try making her solve a problem in front of the class. Making a student interact with what they didn’t understand could often force some diligence out of them. But he had to be careful. He had a feeling that any form of humiliation would be seen as the highest form of injury.

  “Could you please come to the board?” he asked.

  Victorya, expressionless, tilted her head at him. She didn’t move immediately.

  Then, as though on a whim, she let her backpack fall to the ground and it crashed loudly with weirdly metallic clinking sounds. That bag… had been heavy. He looked away from it. She got to her feet and walked to the board, arms behind her back. She had an inexpressive face bared for all to see.

  He started writing some more of the lesson on the board.

  “Force magic, is, contrary to popular belief, not at all like playing an instrument”, he said invitingly. “Although its triggers are as ephemeral as music and the variety of strings that can be pulled is grand, the metaphor stops there. There is no melody. What truly matters is not the initial strength of the push, but the placement of said push along one’s ability to place said trigger wherever it is desired.”

  He glimpsed back at Victorya. She was listening.

  “A well placed pinch is enough to disturb forces to send a great rock tumbling”, he said, and continued slowly writing the equation. “The greatest cascading spells, which can only be learnt under the tutelage of true masters of this discipline, only require the smallest amounts of mana to be initiated. All else must be calculated in the mind.”

  She saw her nod.

  “Like dominoes. Got it. Butterfly effect and all”, she said.

  He did not know what she meant. What were “dominoes?” Perhaps the butterfly effect she was speaking about was a theory that she knew of? He was worldly and had visited a lot of foreign lands during his youth, but he’d never heard of those terms before.

  “Yes, indeed”, he said, to avoid having to face an awkward silence. “Force magic allows quite a bit of leeway. At its very beginnings, it was most likely invented because elfkind wished to fly, as birds soaring too close to the sun. Many must haven fallen from this inadequate mindset.”

  “Wait, is that how people levitate here?” she asked. Ah. He’d sparked an interest.

  Wait, was she implying that she knew of another way to levitate?

  Should he ask? Perhaps… perhaps not. There was something not quite right with this girl.

  “Levitating is a bit of an oversimplification”, he said. “The disturbance that the mage applies on a force can only last for a short, short while. The longer it is applied, the higher the cost of mana is. The world yearns for its proper ordered balance. Only the most powerful mages can give the illusion of properly flying.”

  “Huh. So mages use it mostly to show off?” she asked. She snorted derisively. She was looking through a window as she did it. It gave a view on His palace.

  “Yes, that could be said. But that is not what this class is about, quite the contrary”, he calmly said. He tried to make himself sound like an eloquent teacher. He not always was. “The smaller the disturbance, the greater the effect. That is the primary moto of my teachings. That mindset is precious.”

  Or it would be, if his current student didn’t have mana reserves as deep as…

  …He didn’t quite know.

  He finished writing the equation he wanted her to solve. He let go of his grip on his chalk, and extended it to Victorya.

  He tried a smile.

  She blinked at him. He made her think a bit of an owl.

  There was something vaguely predatory about her countenance.

  “I’d like you to try solving this”, he said.

  She took the chalk, and stopped before the board.

  She stared at it for a long while, hand clenching tightly then unclenching ever so slightly repeatedly.

  She stared back at him.

  “I don’t… know”, she said. She looked at him, chewing her lips angrily. No… anxiously?

  He frowned.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “I…” she started. She brought the chalk to the board. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to say it.”

  “What is it?” he gently asked. He heard ruffling at his back, like some students were getting agitated. Some words seemed to be exchanged behind his back, but his ears didn’t quite catch it.

  There was a bit of a panicked look from her there.

  “I’m no good at… doing… calculating… no, expressing… the… the expression…” she said, and she quietened. There was a bitter look to her face.

  She let go abruptly of the chalk, dropping it at the bottom of the desk.

  “Magic is easy to me”, she said fast, like she was… perhaps, trying to reassure herself. “But this? No, it’s… It’s not right. It’s not for me.”

  She gave him a look. At first, he thought there was fright there, but it soon disappeared, and all that was left was an intensity that he couldn’t understand.

  “First of, gravity, as a… an unchanging variable? That’s pure nonsense”, she spat, grabbing back the chalk and circling the variable. She started talking faster. “There are variations even across the surface of the world and- the… the fall would be more intense the closer you are to its core. Gravity shifts. This-” she said, and she motioned to the entire board, “This is pure nonsense! Space and time are interlinked, so much that time slows down near a black hole, it dilates, because of how… how extremely dense space becomes, and time is just a coordinate, like space, and not a universal constant and this is just- all wrong!”

  She threw her arms up and did wild movements with them.

  “Don’t you get it?!” she asked.

  She stared at her.

  And took a little step back.

  He took a moment of time to consider it.

  This… this did make more sense.

  He stared at the board, feeling a pang to his chest.

  Theories. Those were all theories. Theories could be wrong. He knew that.

  But to provoke such… unbridled disgust?

  He stared back at the student.

  He knew of the spells she’d used.

  That only spoke of a greater understanding than his own.

  “Could you… perhaps, write down the correct equation that would be… true to the world?” he carefully asked.

  He felt afraid. There was vertigo, there.

  Victorya looked at him. She seemed so incredibly bitter.

  “No. No, I can’t”, she said, and she sounded angry. “I can never explain it.”

  She looked away, then at her hands, and she closed them tightly.

  “I don’t understand it. I know it. I feel it. It’s not… I couldn’t… I can’t say it in words.”

  A-ah. He knew of students that struggled with explaining their middle steps in their calculations, but this took the cake.

  This teenager, knew of it so intrinsically that explaining it was difficult.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  “I… I see”, he said lowly.

  The girl was still breathing fast. He realised that she was avoiding everyone’s gaze.

  “You can go seat back down, if you want”, he said, and he let himself fall on his own chair. His chest didn’t seem to be taking in air on its own.

  Victorya did so. She left, and did not look back.

  Principal Lunbumster would be peculiarly interested in this, no doubt. This was most likely the sort of information he’d been after.

  …The Dantonian theory was wrong, he vaguely realised.

  Vertigo. All he could feel was vertigo.

  He needed to speak of this to someone. He needed someone else to share this impending sensation of smallness.

  He was watching the sky from the top of a mountain he thought the tallest on the world, and realised he should have still tried to fly higher.

  __

  Vic felt just a tiny bit bad about how the teacher had left the classroom, apparently fifteen minutes too early. Before that, he’d sat down on his chair for five minutes before seemingly becoming aware that he’d been staring emptily in the room for the past five minutes, gotten up, sorted out his things, apologised to the class, and left the room in a hurry, telling the students they had no homework.

  A few students cheered and left immediately after, but most had remained. Some had seemed worried. A few ones gave her looks, but as soon as she showed she’d noticed their stares, they looked away quick and fast.

  Vic had been sitting down and had not moved from her seat because… well, she had a feeling that some drama with a confrontation might soon enfold and she thought she’d allow it, because she needed to take her minds off things. She didn’t want to think of the maths she’d nearly been forced to do. Anyway, the way Thalis had been staring at her did speak of some sort of… tension. Heheh. Jealousy much, huh? Perhaps something else, with a pinch of awe or a sprinkle of “How dare you be better than me?!”

  Vic smirked at no one in particular while staring viciously at a wall. Some things were meant to be savoured like a delicious undercooked steak. Said steak was grilling, and she was very patient.

  The girl sitting at her right was kind of getting her out of her trance-like state because of her muttering, something about being a good for nothing. It was kind of annoying.

  “Hey”, Vic said.

  The girl, who had been the only one of the class to remain alone after the surprise break happened and their usual groups of friends formed within the classroom, startled. She’d been hiding her face between her arms.

  “You’re blabbering under your breath”, Vic said.

  The girl stared at Vic.

  “Oh s-sorry”, she said, and she was kind of pathetic. She might be shedding some unshed tears there while removing snot from the tip of her nose. “I promise I won’t do… that I won’t do it again.”

  Yeah, that sounded like a lie. Had Vic ever been like that as a highschooler?

  Vic gave her a side glance.

  “You sure about that?” she asked.

  The girl startled again.

  “Mind your… Mind your business”, she stuttered.

  Impressive. She had not shat her pants. That was more than most had done here so far.

  “What’s your name…” Vic said, and wondered what an eldritch horror might say, “…little one?” she said.

  Vic rubbed her chin thoughtfully as she said it, like there was some hidden wisdom to her own words that even Vic didn’t know about.

  “…Ivy”, Ivy said.

  Huh. Why was she named after a plant?

  Uh. Anyway. Onto more pressing matters.

  “Well Ivy”, Vic said slowly, tasting the name, “you’ve got yourself a new friend.”

  Ivy stared at her and blinked several times.

  “…I don’t want your friendship”, she said, and looked away.

  “It’s a friendly kidnapping where you’re not getting kidnapped”, Vic said jadedly without looking at Ivy, while swinging back and forth on her chair. “Your choice is an illusion and magic alongside reality is a lie. Congratulations.”

  Maybe her tone was a tad bit too sarcastic.

  “I don’t want- I don’t want your pity”, Ivy said. “And I don’t want to be friends with you.”

  Vic stopped swinging her chair.

  Wow. Rude.

  Vic realised briefly that she didn’t want to be rejected.

  “Whyyyyyyyyyyy though”, Vic whined. “Why don’t you want to be friends with me.”

  Ivy gave her a look. She raised her eyebrows.

  “You’re r-rude and inconsiderate about other people’s feelings and very straightforward about it”, the girl answered quietly.

  “Well that’s better than being snide about it, isn’t it?” Vic said. Mm. The girl had no idea what Vic had done to her cult about a week ago.

  “Not by much”, Ivy said.

  “But that’s still soooo much better than all the people that’d lie to your face while being inconsiderate of your feelings, right?” Vic said.

  “…I don’t know about that”, the elf answered. “It can be kind not to insult people to their faces.”

  Vic groaned.

  “I’d rather be honest than kind”, Vic said.

  “Well I’d rather not be friends with you”, Ivy said.

  Vic’s mouth opened, and she wanted to gasp but it wouldn’t come out.

  What had she done to ever deserve this?

  “Whyyyy though?” Vic said.

  The girl didn’t roll her eyes but did look away.

  “I already told you.”

  “Tell me agaaiiiin”, Vic said.

  “No”, Ivy said.

  “Pleeeease just tell me”, Vic insisted. She began leaning on the girl’s desk.

  Ivy gave her a look that might as well have been the most British polite way of being told to knock it off.

  “Pleeeeeeeease”, Vic said.

  “FINE!” Ivy said. “It’s not you, it’s me, alright? I don’t want to be pitied! You’re smart, smarter than me, and so much better than the good-for-nothing half elf that I am and you want to give me a benevolent hand out like I’m sooooo beneath you and could only- only be given that, but this will never be about me but you! S-screw off! Leave me alone, Victorya!”

  Vic was startled back.

  “Wait. You think I care about people that are weaker than me?” Victorya said.

  Ivy gave her a mean look.

  “Of course I don’t!” Vic said. “If I did, I’d have the whole world to worry about! Everyone’s sooo much weaker than me!”

  Vic cheered at herself.

  “Anyway, that was a stupid joke. Let’s try again. Wanna be my friend?” Vic said.

  Ivy got up, putting her stuff in her bag.

  No way.

  Vic bit her own tongue.

  “Wait wait wait!” she said, and Ivy put her stuff in her bag faster, “WAIT!” What could she say to fix this? “Why- do you think you’re a good-for-nothing?”

  Ivy seemed to redden.

  Vic noticed that those were indeed chortles from the front of the room.

  Okay, maybe she should have dragged the girl to an empty hallway to have this discussion. She had been speaking a bit too loud. She might actually be the asshole here. An apology could be in order.

  “Okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”, she said but got interrupted.

  “LEAVE me ALONE!” Ivy yelled, putting her now closed and filled backpack on her back.

  “Wait! OKAY, I can-” Quick, Vic, think, “Do you- Do you want to know if you’re really worthless?” she said.

  This wasn’t one of her finer moments.

  The elf did stumble to a stop.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “YEAH!” Vic hyped herself up. “I could check your magic and potential and- uh, well, a lot! By staring at you! For a long, long minute! Of staring! YEAH!”

  “You can do… what?” Ivy said. She seemed disbelieving.

  “I can STARE at you!” Vic said. “And it will be awkward, and take a long time, but in the end, you’ll know if you’re special, if you’ve got a special, uh… magic talent or affinity, whatever!”

  “You can… I can…” Ivy didn’t finish. She seemed numb.

  “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity!” Victorya said in a shitty salesman’s voice, “Come on, do that, and then I’ll be out of your hair if you still think your worthlessness defines you, haha!”

  Ivy stared some more at Vic, like Vic was some kind of monster.

  “What… are you?” she asked, incredulous.

  “Your maaaaaaaaaybe friend?” Vic asked, questioningly. Maybe she wasn’t made for friends. Maybe she was just made for world domination.

  She extended her open hand.

  “Come on!” Vic said. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

  Ivy did seem tempted.

  Mmm. Maybe… Maybe not. To take or not to take the hand that was offered to her as a gesture of amends and peace. Mmm.

  Ivy took her hand.

  “I… want to know”, the girl said.

  She seemed small, yet taller than Vic somehow. Probably because the girl was physically taller than Vic. Pfuh. It wasn’t fair that most people were taller than her. Ugh. Stupid elf genes.

  Vic smiled.

  “Alright”, Vic said. “Give me a minute. This is gonna be awkward, alright?”

  The girl nodded.

  Vic opened up her menu, clicked on [analyse], stared at Ivy and waited five seconds for the game interface to calibrate. Then the analysing percentage wheel appeared and started spinning.

  She was at five percent so far.

  She stared at Ivy.

  Ivy was staring back.

  She was at eight percent.

  Ivy withered a bit.

  “Is this really a good idea?” she asked.

  “I already uh started”, Vic said.

  “Oh.” Ivy said.

  Thirteen percent.

  “Is it too… late? Can I- move without being… turned to dust?” Ivy asked. She somehow seemed anxious.

  “Uh-huh”, Vic said. “Don’t move completely out of my eyesight or I lose the progress.”

  Seventeen percent.

  “Oh you’re not, stealing my soul, or anything the likes?” Ivy asked.

  Vic, still staring at Ivy, gave her a blank look.

  “Do I look like a soul robbing goddess or something?”, she said with a blasé, non-questioning tone. She nearly rolled her eyes there but saved her progress in extremis by remembering that she still had to stare straight at Ivy.

  Wow. Nearly lost it there. This could have been bad.

  “I don’t know. You look my age but you… don’t hold yourself like someone my age”, Ivy said.

  “Why, because I’m wizened and powerful?” Vic said.

  “No, because you behave like a… mad, old… baby, that’s also a jester in some faraway land”, Ivy said.

  Vic sputtered.

  “Excuseeee me”, Vic said, “I’m at least a very wise and wizened jester from a faraway land.”

  There was a humourless snort from Ivy. It was a bit too dry.

  “You’re like a wild small child that was both spoiled to death and not raised by parents but hogs”, she said. Vic frowned. But wait, Ivy had said this in a joking way, right?

  “Well I wouldn’t know”, Vic said jokingly, “the hogs didn’t make it.”

  “O-oh.” Ivy said.

  “Yeah, I had to eat them once they stopped bringing me food!” Vic joked.

  Ivy tightly smiled.

  “Ah… aha… ha…” she said. Oh shoot. The joke hadn’t landed right. This had happened twice so far.

  This was horrible.

  Vic closed her mouth.

  Oh, shoot, ninety percent already! Oh my oh my oh my!

  “Oh uh give me a minute, I need to really focus right now”, Vic lied.

  “O-oh, alright”, Ivy said.

  Vic stared as the percentages slowly ticked higher, one by one. She pretended to focus very hard as she did it. She even squinted while staring at Ivy, that’s how concentrated she was.

  Then it reached one hundred percent, made a satisfying “Ding!” that only Vic could hear, and saw the window open.

  Vic began reading Ivy’s status.

  Her description felt standard enough.

  Beneath it, there were pretty average stats with some A grade potential in magic. Huh. Impressive… Shouldn’t it be?

  But why would Ivy think of herself as a good-for-nothing if she had such great potential? Did she need a special stone like an Evoli to get started or something?

  Wait, was that… aspected magic? Vic stared. Only highly leveled up monsters or… exceptions of the weird kind had aspected magic. She read more down.

  She vaguely registered that Ivy might have been squirming in the background.

  “…How the hell did you end up with restrained Ascendency in the combo of earth and life magic?” Vic muttered to herself.

  Vic blinked back up at Ivy.

  Hm.

  How to announce this.

  “Kay, you’ve got dope ascendency over the combo of earth and life magic. As in, the two melded together. You’ll probably be below average if you try them separately. Probably. But otherwise you should be pretty overpowered and have fairly good intuition while… I don’t know, making plants magically grow.” Vic said outloud, still staring at her opened game window.

  “Yeah so uh pretty sure that you’ve got exceptional, once in a generation mastery over… yeah, plants and so plant magic if that’s what you call it here”, Vic said, and looked back at Ivy. Her name fit her magic ability.

  Ivy seemed a bit frozen.

  “…Plants?” Ivy slowly let out. It was nearly too quiet to be heard.

  “Yeah, have you never ever tried to do that? Make some plants grow with some skapoosh magic?” Vic said.

  “…No”, Ivy said softly. “I’m not… in that curriculum. But I… do have potted plants. I’ve always liked to talk to them while watering them.”

  That was kind of sad. Not that Vic would judge, there was one time she’d had a pet rock that she chitchatted to when she was in the Wastes. Going two months without seeing any human being had done things to her. Oh, anyway.

  “Well that’s intuition for you, haha!” Vic said.

  Ivy tensed abruptly. But it wasn’t because of Vic.

  Vic vaguely noticed that two students were now one metre away from her.

  She’d never seen them before… wait, no. They’d been part of Cassandra’s group.

  “What magic spell did you just do?” one asked, sounding very shocked and disbelieving. Bleeeeh. Like she was gonna answer that.

  “Hi! Victorya, right? I’d… like… I need you to try the same on me, if- if you feel like it”, the other said right after. “I need to know, I’ve never-”

  “Fuck off”, Vic casually said in an amused neutral tone. “I’m having a conversation and your suffering doesn’t poke my interest anymore.”

  She didn’t glance back at the two students. Cassandra was staring at her from afar, watching the interaction from the middle of her group while eating a snack.

  Wait. Had she sent those goons here? Or had they come of their own volition? What was this, mindgames?

  “You… won’t… check my true magic potential?” the second one who’d spoken slowly said.

  “Nuh huh”, Vic said.

  “But why?” the student continued.

  “Because I don’t feel like it”, she said.

  “She can do what?” she heard a student say to a student next to him, a couple of desks away, now staring at her like Vic was some sort of strange divine abomination.

  Ivy had been backing away. She’d now hit the wall behind her. She couldn’t quite get pass the small pack of students that was slowly but surely forming right before Vic. Like moths to a flame, hm.

  Hm.

  HMMM.

  “Oh, Ivy?” she said softly, over the sound of noisy students right next to her.

  The girl still jolted a little. “I actually do need a little something in exchange for that wee small service I did for you right now.”

  Ivy froze and stared at Vic.

  “What… sort of service? I… you… You should have told me before that there was a price for this.”

  Ughhh, she wasn’t cosplaying some weird, well-dressed, greedy trader that scammed anyone that crossed their path in the middle of nowhere. Ew.

  “Oh, don’t worry. Can you just, like, guide me around for the afternoon, telling me where some stuff that catches my interest might be, which right now would be your cafeteria or the place you all eat at, that way I can grab some free food?” she said.

  “You… just want free food?” Ivy asked.

  “I guess for now”, Vic said, shrugging jadedly like the cool teen she was. Yeah, yeah, she was so cool.

  “I’ll lead you around only for the rest of the day, right?” Ivy asked, seemingly worried. “Only while I’m at school?” she quickly added.

  Vic chuckled friendlily while ignoring the intruding students that were starting to amass a bit too much because she’d been too vocal about how actuuually, one of their supposedly worst classmates had hidden incredible potential all along. Did they all want to know if they were so very special too? Pfuh. But maybe she shouldn’t have shown off, even if she couldn’t care less about processing what several students were asking her right now. Mm. Maybe it wasn’t a good thing for people to know that someone could basically reveal to them what their actual objective worth was now that she thought about it.

  Vic nodded to Ivy.

  “There’s always a price to pay for everything. But that can mean that I can also underprice myself when I feel like it, HUH”, Vic said and fingergunned at Ivy.

  Ivy seemed to crumple a bit on herself, shoulders slumped down.

  “Alright”, she weakly said, but it was said less shyly this time around.

  Vic smiled.

  She had a bit of a good feeling that her new friend wouldn’t want to remain friends with her for much longer. But that’s exactly how she wanted it.

  That's why Vic smiled.

  I hope you like the new cover and title! Honestly isometric pixel art has probably been the equivalent of sweet treats to me as a kid. So I’m self-indulging I guess, heh.

  Speaking of self-indulging, I don’t think I’ll participate in the writathon next month, but if this book gets in total about 30 ratings and/or reviews on RR before the 1st of november, I will do the challenge, which will probably mean extra updates to get the whole 50k words out during its duration.

  Good luck!