Faris stifled a yawn. He turned to look at Venka, who was taking notes at a rapid pace. He felt a little envious, at least she was learning something new. Venka for her part could little more than copy the professor's jargon, she half understood what he was talking about, but a lot of the more obscure concepts in his teachings had been beyond her, she looked at Faris from across the room. He had a straight-faced expression and looked like he was attentive, but she knew him long enough to notice from his relaxed posture and unclenched hands that he was bored. She was kind of jealous of him, already understanding most of what they were learning.
The two of them sat in opposing sides of the class, which was somewhat ironically titled: "Group Battle and Tactics." They had agreed the best thing to do was not give anyone a reason to be suspicious of them or to ostracize them. Many students had already been making rumors behind their backs due to info about them living together, so there was no need to add fuel to the fire. Even then most students left them alone when they walked the halls, at least, they left Faris alone.
"You're so strong! What's your secret?!" One of the second year Pearl Initiates was gushing in front of Venka, who could only reply with a flustered smile. The class was taking a break before resuming lessons, a majority of students began to flock towards all the newcomers in the Pearl Class, well, all of them except for Faris, when he had shown his magical stamina was at the level of a copper initiate's they all mostly lost interest in him. Venka was extremely jealous of that.
"I just practiced a lot?" She replied finally."
"No way!" Another girl smiled. "You're pretty talented you know!?"
Venka blushed, smiling. "Thanks!"
"Hey have you picked a group yet? Because…" The third girl was interrupted by Katya and Nya standing in front of her.
"Don't even think of trying to recruit our Venka, the first years should stick together!" The older girl looked at the two, irritation clear on her face as she got up.
"First of all, that was rude, second of all, that is unbecoming of you, Venka has the right to choose whatever group she would like, why would she need to stick to a bunch of fresh faced new-year students like you when she can gain help and insight from students like us?"
"Don't try to play the saint!" Katya laughed. "We know you just want her power."
"Oh, and like you don't!" The girl retorted. "You just want power! You barely get along with any of the first years."
Morgan walked past them, as he was pulled in by Katya he smiled, extending his arms into a hug, only to receive a headlock.
"Look! Don't you see how friendly we are with each other!" Katya gave a strained smile as she held Morgan in a headlock, who for his part wrapped his arm around her waist, an action that caused her smile to falter slightly as she squeezed him a bit tighter. "Just… best of friends!" She let him go, letting him collapse of the floor.
"I knew you couldn't resist me my dear!" He turned to Katya, rubbing his neck and throat.
Katya seemed to resist gagging, and looked up to see the trio of older girls stifling their laughter.
"You are all jokes, all you stupid first years, we all know you got in due to your parent's good graces, stupid kids like you should know you place." The three girls began to laugh, turning to leave.
Nya walked up to one. "Mind saying that again? Bitch?"
The girl turned angrily. "What did you-" was all she could get out before Nya smacked her in the face.
The two other girls ran to help their friend, who's eyes turned inflamed as she screamed some words in the ancient language. A foul smell came over the room and sprayed all over Nya, who screamed as the smell hit her nostrils.
"There, now you stink as badly as your attitude." The girl laughed before yelping as she felt her wards dip as Nya threw a knife at her. The two of them began to prepare congruent spells, causing the area around them to heat up. Faris got up, he didn't remember Venka putting on wards, he rushed preparing to defend her, he didn't reach in time as the area erupted in flames, pushing him back and slamming him into a wall.
In the center of the explosion, Nya and Katya stood, against them were the three older girls, the one in the middle visibly agitated. Faris looked around, and sighed in relief as he saw Venka had been saved by Morgan, who had been close enough.
"You bitch! You brought your crystal with you!" The lead girl screamed.
"Well so did you!" Nya retorted. "I at least had the decency to not resort to magic at the beginning."
"Oh, and let you and your meat-headed muscle-bound ways get the better of me? I'd be stupid to let a Wandering Blade lackey fight me."
Nya was enflamed. "Lacky?!" She was about to charge forward as the teacher walked back into the room.
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" He screamed.
He listened to the girls shout over each other for a bit before silencing them.
"You know the rules, disputes between students are resolved with either mutual punitive measures, or combat between the students."
"Combat." They said simultaneously.
"Alright, form your groups before the week's end." The teacher turned to the rest of the students. "Get back to your studies!"
Faris shook his head, they really were cuckoo.
As they finished the class, Faris reprised what he remembered about the Mage Duels. One of the school's more interesting rules was the way it settled disputes between students. If the dispute was a cut-and-dry case such as stealing, vandalism, or any other such action that could be immediately proven with one guilty party, the guilty student faced punishment. If both sides were guilty of some infraction, they both faced punitive measures, unless they wished to settle it in a special mage's duel.
Faris walked up to Venka and Morgan, Morgan lacked his normally jovial countenance as he looked at Faris. "That was a rather inelegant affair."
"What was that?" Venka said, picking herself up from the floor.
"I must apologize, I was wondering sooner or later when it would occur." Morgan shook his head, "The pearl class is a little different from the others, once you become a Pearl Initiate, you can technically graduate early into the higher echelons of Mage-hood, once you do, you get a generous monthly stipend depending on your level of skill, some Mages even go on to inherit plots of land and a small unit of troops. You gain this by amassing a certain level of magical power, once you've amassed that power you graduate, there are several ways to do it."
Faris shook his head angrily, "So they were trying to use Venka again!?"
Morgan frowned, "I wouldn't be so mad, they try to use everyone my dear rival. As it is, some try to recruit through duplicity, others recruit through power forceful persuasion." He turned to the three older girls, who were gathering a small group now. "From what I heard from the lovely ladies of this school, those girls were merely copper initiates last year, they seduced and bribed their way into a magic duel with some relatively weak newbies, they had gotten an older student under their foot, and after using him to crush the newbies, they used their bolstered magic to steal his gemstone, when he challenged them for it, they already had someone new to take advantage of. They went after the ones oblivious to this trap, and after the setup, had amassed enough mana through the stones to take the exam and reach the Pearl ranking."
"I thought you couldn't use outside help like a mana stone to take the test?" Venka inquired, brushing the dust off her clothes.
"You can't for the entrance exam, but at the end of the year you take a new exam, and you can use the reserves from the gemstone you've been squirreling magic into, this encourages students to store as much energy as they possibly can into it, so they have a large reserve to take the test and get a good standing, because students can in fact remain in the copper initiate level of true magic capacity all their life, as is the misfortune of those born with low mana."
"So why would they agree to a fight? That'd mean they have to use their reserves." Faris looked at the girls, who now had a group of seven other men and women, all wearing the trademark black and gold garb of the Researchers.
"There's a prize for winning." Morgan added. "The loser must surrender all the energy in their mana stone, and donate 50% of their energy to the winner's stones for the next 2 months. They used this underhanded tactic to store a vast amount of magic, but they were wasteful in the final exam and apparently used more of their reserves than they would like."
"So, they wanted to use me like some kind of energy dispenser?!" Venka asked angrily.
"Worse, they were probably planning on tricking you into a fight and rigging it like they did last year." Bartholomew walked up to them, a large piece of jerky in his hand, and flecks of jerky on his face, he took a large bite before continuing. "My informant tells me that the first student they tricked had a pretty big amount of energy already, and had inherited his stone from a family member who had retired. You all have your stones, right?"
Faris and Morgan took out their stones, along with Bartholomew, Morgan and Bartholomew both had emeralds, while Faris held an aquamarine. They turned to Venka to see her look through her satchel only to see a newly cut hole. She said nothing but simply stood up. Faris ran over to hold her shoulder.
"Venka…" He began, concerned.
"I didn't even get to put any energy in it…" She said, very loudly, turning to smile at him.
This got a laugh out of all members involved. Except for Faris, who walked up to the group of 10.
"Give it back."
"Give what back?" The leader replied, batting her eyelids innocently.
Ignoring her, he turned to Katya and Nya. "How many people can fight?"
"It's a ten on ten, but if you can't get that large a group you have to fight alone."
He nodded turning back to the girls. "Nya, make room, I'm joining your group."
"No thanks, I don't fraternize with rude weaklings." Nya replied.
Venka looked like she was about to say something but Faris merely shrugged. "Fair enough." He turned to the others, "I'm going to grab a bite to eat."
Nya and Katya merely shrugged and rolled their eyes, as far as they were concerned, Faris's talent wasn't nearly enough to make up for his terrible magical energy, and he was in their opinion destined to be stuck in the pearl initiate stage for his four years. They did however turn to Bartholomew, Venka, and Morgan. "We first years need to stick together, join us in defeating them."
Bartholomew chuckled, "You'd have to pay me, and you couldn't afford it."
Morgan smiled. "I would love to help you my dears!"
Venka simply walked off. Nya called back angrily, "What? Is he your lover or something?! He's a useless mage and you know it! Power is everything! You of all people should understand that!"
The first years all flinched as Venka turned. After a few moments she turned around and walked after Faris.
Venka seemed to be irritated, Faris noticed, as they took the rest of the classes. He knew she meant it when she said she wasn't upset over the stealing of her stone, and didn't seem too upset when the school did not reimburse her. She was angry when the school would not investigate whether or not it was stolen by those second years, due to the fact that they were about to have a fight anyway, a loophole in the wording of the rules bunched the infractions together. But even with that Venka wouldn't be acting this moody, in fact, now that he thought about it, she had been acting a little oddly since yesterday. She recently took over laundry duty, which was odd as well. He didn't mind all too much as even in this annoyed mood made it impossible for him to get a moment of peace when they were alone, as she'd point out a little problem here and there for him to fix on his person, and passive-aggressively make quips. Eventually it finally boiled over when they returned to their dorm room.
"Why'd you take that insult!"
"What are you talking about?" He asked in genuine confusion, "What Nya said? I don't care, I'll get the stone back my way."
"But why'd you leave like that? You could have defended yourself at least." Venka sat on her bed in an angry huff.
"There was no need, she's one of those people who either need to: be proven wrong in the most gracious way possible, get it viciously beaten into her, be groveled before until she relents to a compromise, I'm not wasting that much energy on her. Besides, I don't think I care what she thinks about me. I'm surprised you do."
Venka turned red. "Oh so I'm wrong with wanting to help you out!? Well I'm sorry I'm so over emotional!"
"What what?!" Faris got up in a panic. "Venka! What's wrong?!"
"Oh, so you think somethings wrong with me?!"
"Venka…" He began calmly, "I am sorry, I did not mean to offend you, thank you for caring, I should have noticed that, I am stupid for not noticing, how about we have dinner later, but before that we should bathe, you can do so first, so that I don't use up the hot water."
Venka looked a bit calmer but also confused and flustered as she walked into the bathroom. After the whole fiasco dinner went by smoothly, she apologized for her outburst, saying she was feeling cranky for no reason all of a sudden. That Nya had said some more things that had gotten on her nerves and somehow to pushed her past her limit. Faris told her he didn't mind, and was content to leave it at that. That was until after they returned to the dorms and he went to his bed and she to hers.
He had been sleeping until Venka woke him up.
"Faris! Faris!" She hissed, shaking him violently.
He looked at her with a grumpy stare as he got up, shivering slightly due to the cold. "What?" He whispered back. He then noticed she was crying, he looked concerned and angry as he held her shoulders. "Who was it! What happened?! Was it Morgan?! That slippery bastard I'll-"
"I think I'm dying!" Venka blurted out.
Faris turned to her. "Why?"
"I woke up, bleeding!" She walked over to his bed and showed him a stain.
"Yesterday I thought it was just a trick, I didn't want you to know so I took over laundry duty. But it's happened again, and I was feeling so sick this afternoon! Am I dying?!"
Faris looked down at the stain, then back at her a few times before the gears turned and he breathed in deeply, making sure to keep any trace of laughter out of his throat as he told her, with his most serious face.
"Yes, in 80 years."
"Faris!" Venka looked equally angry and scared as she yelled "Be serious! Am I dying!?"
"No, oh my god no, you're just going through puberty… That was a period."
"What?" Venka asked.
Faris's face twisted like he ate an extra sour lemon as he sat Venka down, handed her a couple of blankets and pillows, and began a long, and painful conversation. "Now listen…" He began in his most adult tone.