Chapter 125: First Day

The uniform arrived late at night by pixie delivery, and that alone nearly distracted Kai from everything else wrong with his life.

He had never seen pixies before. They came in through the ward gap in a small glowing cluster, no taller than a hand, wings moving so fast they left trails in the air, and they lowered the neatly bound intermediate package onto his desk with too much seriousness before vanishing again in a scatter of light, not saying a single word to him even though he would have liked communicating with them.

Kai stood there for a long moment after they left, caught between exhaustion and genuine wonder, then finally opened the parcel and found the new uniform set waiting in precise folds.

By morning he was dressed in it properly, collar straight, wand cased at his side, expression arranged into something that could pass for readiness. Kole was also coming.

That was the first real offense of the day.

As a repeating intermediate, Kole had been assigned back into the same study block, which meant the seven-foot beastman was not only his roommate but now his classmate as well. Kai hated the symmetry of it. Shared bed, shared room, shared heat episode, and now shared lectures. The Academy clearly wanted him tested by proximity.

When he stepped into the hallway, Kole followed at his back like a dark-skinned shadow with excellent posture. Rolf was already outside Room 50, bag over one shoulder, and the timing could not have been worse. Rolf’s eyes moved from Kai to the tall figure behind him, read the continued association in one hard glance, and walked away without a word.

Kai sighed.

Then he looked back at Kole, who was standing far too close to him, calm and expectant, as if the previous day’s catastrophic doorway scene had created familiarity rather than damage. Kai was not feeling that at all. He stepped sideways and opened the path.

"You can go ahead."

Kole frowned.

"What’s wrong?"

Kai rolled his eyes.

"It’s nothing. Just go."

Kole did not move. He only shook his head once, steady and unbothered, until Kai raised an eyebrow at the refusal.

"Let’s walk together."

"I don’t think so, panther boy," Kai said flatly, and walked off at a quicker pace.

He managed only a few strides before Kole caught up with that same annoying smile, the one Kai already knew was dangerous because part of him responded to it whether he wanted to or not. Kai scoffed and kept going.

They did not get far before company found them.

Pen Calder stepped into Kai’s path with the easy confidence of a boy who had been made class leader and decided the title included corridor privileges that involved making Kai’s morning worse.

One arm came up against the wall and blocked Kai’s line cleanly. Kai stopped short and Kole stopped with him.

Pen leaned into view and licked his lips.

"What’s up, beautiful?"

Kai rolled his eyes.

"What do you want?"

"To talk."

"Talk about what Class leader..get out of my way!"

"Now pretty you don’t have to be feisty now, i just wanted to relate with you"

Kai had opened his mouth to reply at once when Kole started grunting and growling behind him. Pen’s gaze climbed up the full height of Kole, taking in the dark skin, the frame, the quiet threat standing behind Kai, and whatever playful script he had prepared visibly shorted out. Kole was giving him the darkest look in the hallway, not loud, not even theatrical or performative...the stare was direct enough to drain the fun from the moment.

Pen peeped the line fast and foresaw a future where that did not go well for him

"But I see you have company, so I will get out of your way."

"You better," Kai said.

Pan, a few paces back, face-palmed with the expression of a twin who had been paying social debts for years. Kai gave them both a stink eye and moved on before the corridor could become another scene.

The open court outside the instructional hall was already filling with intermediate students when Kai spotted Mira. She waved, crossed to him at once, and pulled him into a bright good-morning hug , her hair smelled like soap.

Then she looked up over his shoulder and saw Kole.

"Wow," she whispered.

Her eyes lit with immediate interest.

"Who is this?"

Kai sighed.

"My overbearing roommate."

"Roommate?" Mira was already eyeing Kole with open appreciation. "He is so hot."

She stretched out a hand before Kai could stop her.

"Hi, I am Mira, Kai’s friend."

Kole took it with surprising enthusiasm for someone he just met.

"Kole Pendraven. I am his roommate."

Mira was charmed at once. That much was obvious. Worse, other students nearby were beginning to notice him too, drawn by height, presence, and the kind of looks that did not belong to ordinary people. Kai felt the attention gather and hated it. He briefly wished for the ground to open and swallow him.

"Where’s Rolf?" Mira asked, still unaware of the doorway disaster.

Kai frowned as the memory returned in full embarrassing color.

"I don’t know. You look for him."

He folded his arms. Mira sighed and face-palmed.

"There is always something going on between you two."

She did not go looking, and Kai suspected Kole was the reason. That suspicion hardened later when class began and Mira somehow ended up on the other side of Kole, already leaning into conversation with him like the lecture hall was a social opportunity first and a classroom second.

The lecture itself was taken by a dwarf.

Kai had never seen one in person before, and surprise cut cleanly through his irritation when the instructor stepped up onto the reinforced platform at the front. He was broad, neatly bearded, dressed in fitted teaching robes modified for a lower center of gravity, and he carried a wand case with the practical air of a man who respected tools more than anything. A fitting demeanour for a Dwarf, Kai thought, they after all had a stereotypical "builder" role to them.

"I am Pugsley Wilkins," he said, voice dry and carrying. "You will address me as Instructor Wilkins. This is Intermediate Wand Foundations, and if any of you came here hoping to wave sticks around until the air cracks, leave that hope outside."

A few students chuckled. Wilkins did not.

"Wands are regulators. They exist because most of you cannot yet sustain high-density casting without waste, backlash, or structural collapse. The wand does not make you powerful. It makes your power usable."

He had them uncase the intermediate regulation wands one row at a time. Kai drew his and felt again that pale-ash balance and faint silver warmth along the channel lines. Around the hall, students sat up straighter simply from holding them.

Wilkins paced as he talked, short steps exact and deliberate.

"There are three beginner faults with first-time wand users. Overfeeding the core. Under-forming the sequence before release. And treating the wand like a weapon instead of a channel. If you do the first, you burn stamina for nothing. If you do the second, the working breaks mid-shape. If you do the third, you will eventually hit someone you did not intend to hit, and I will make the incident report personally."

He stopped and lifted his own wand.

"We start with structure. Intent, gather, shape, release. The wand supports the second and third stages. It does not invent them for you."

"In this clase there would be a short practical for you students to try conjuring spells with your wand, those who succeeded would be awarded credits and those who don’t are already gearing towards failure"

Practical followed sooner in earnest after the Dwarf had mouthed the basics to them and they had seen him do it first hand.

They were told to produce a light marker above the tip, nothing more. No combat forms, no elemental display, just stable output through the wand channel. All across the hall, intermediate mages who had looked confident in uniform suddenly became restless. A girl two rows up overfed and cracked her marker into sparks. A boy near the aisle under-shaped and got only a thin sputter. Pen, predictably, produced a clean gold point on the first try and looked far too pleased about it.

Kai took a slower route.

He settled his grip, let mana move through the familiar internal path, and used the wand the way the appraisal had implied it wanted to be used, as a stabilizer rather than a crutch. The marker formed above the tip in a steady pale light. When Wilkins passed his row, the dwarf gave a short approving grunt and kept moving.

Kole’s marker formed darker and denser than most, a deep green light that made the nearest students glance over. Mira whispered something to him that Kai deliberately did not try to hear. Rolf, several seats away, kept his eyes on his own wand with rigid focus and did not look in their direction once, he was having problem producing his.

By the time Wilkins called the first practical to a close, Kai’s hand was only faintly warm and his mood had settled into something more serviceable. He could do this... the Classes, rankings, wand control, the ordinary work of becoming stronger and he wanted so without complications.

What made less sense was Kole rising when dismissal came and immediately angling back toward him as if the rest of the day were also going to happen at close range.

Kai cased his wand, ignored Mira’s interested glance, and told himself that surviving first lecture was enough of a victory for one morning.

He felt like killing the warden that put him up to this, it wasn’t his will at all.