Chapter 3: I’m not your friend.

New buildings for the magic school are going up frequently, with the rise in population or just the rise in discovery maybe. It’s a constantly renovated building of sleek glass and perfectly cut marbled brick, neat in alphabetically organised buildings with high bridging walkways between them and a sprawling lawn that the nearby children come to hesitantly play on the edges of.

He follows the brick paths unlike when he was a trainee and would cut across the grass. Not that he has more respect for this place, gods no, but he stands out in his differently coloured robes and he doesn’t think he can get away with stomping through the flowerbed in petty teenage angst anymore.

The place is quiet, with the same presence of a library pressing down and dampening it. Magic is a muscle but spells are a science, a formula, you can’t just feel it and expect something to happen so magicians study like any other occupation. Just under ten percent of the world’s population is at least a 1^st class magician, but barely one percent know how to cast a single spell - also keeping in mind the detection crystal is costly and most people aren’t going to be able to afford it.

Pale green robed trainees are newbies trapped in scheduled classes, seen hunched over their desks through the large classroom windows. Tight or half sleeves on all of them to make sure they don’t cause trouble in class. Over half of the Green will drop out at this level after two years of study, either struggling too much with coursework, can’t pay the ramping fees, or simply just 1^st class and worthless.

Magicians in sea blue study for two extra years and have a bit more free time but even the few friends sitting under the shade of trees have textbooks open. Julius graduated Blue by barely scraping a passing mark. His mind would often drift in class, bored.

Purple post graduate students seemingly only exist in the front of classrooms teaching, or else they’re floating off in the ether somewhere that they call a lab.

Julius swore he’d never come back – yet he’s still on his way to meet the principal and the head of logistics and procurement. He enters the main building through open double doors and follows the white line on the floor to the administration section where it dumps him at the receptionist.

“They’re in room three-sixty-one,” the receptionist says politely as he stands from behind the counter and starts leading Julius to the large circle inscribed on the floor slowly spinning anticlockwise, above being an open tower through the other four floors. “Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Julius steps onto the permanent spell and peers down at the inefficient 4^th level spell.

Walter told him already but Julius didn’t quite believe him. Imagine having to use four layers to make it go up and down. There’s a link for a trigger spell but that can be done in a six-rune chain.

The receptionist makes a circle with his two thumbs and forefingers -what was taught in school for better mental stability in casting- and the 1^st level spell triggers in soft brown like his eyes, forming between his fingers instead of being thrown out into the air. The lift glides up soundlessly, smoothly coming to a stop on the third floor and the trigger spell shatters to dust.

“Second door on the right,” the receptionist says, already moving towards it. “They’re waiting for you. If you need help using the lift on your way out, just yell, I’ll be right downstairs.”

The man knocks and waits for the call to enter before he holds the door open. Julius steps through into a bare meeting room with a large white table in the centre and black leather armchairs around it. Sunlight washes through the floor to ceiling window and glints off the gold-lined notebooks open to fresh white pages. At this height, the jagged headpiece of the goddess Haze peeks over the rooftops from her place in the centre courtyard, even her jewelry curvaceous and spun like a stuttering night sky.

The principal is a woman of insignificant stature and just as much backbone. Mrs Lapic got the job through being personable, not for her good work, and Julius remembers the other students mocking her often. The head of procurement is a man Julius has never met before, but this Mr Sigol looks to be an office sort of person. Neither of them wear robes but Lapic has a purple suit jacket and Sigol wears a green tie, more for tradition than anything.

Walter says they’re both easy to play.

“Julius, is it?” Lapic stands from her seat and to her right, Sigol does the same. “Welcome. It’s good to meet you.”

“I know he told you already but Walter couldn’t be here today, he’s off sick,” Julius says before they can ask him bland niceties about how his day was. He smoothly avoids shaking their hands before they can offer and takes a seat across the table from them. “He told me you sorted out the main bulk of the purchase, the standard ingredients, right? Do you have a list of less common items for me? I can give you the prices now.”

“We do,” the principal begins. “But we’re waiting on our new logistics manager for the postgraduates-“

A woman dressed in deep purple that’s almost black is boosted up outside the window, the wind current making her long robes billow out, short sleeves flapping wildly. She holds the boost with one hand and forms a circle with her other that slides open the window using a base telekinesis layer.

She cuts off both spells and they shatter to dark brown dust, her heels clicking onto the wooden floor as she drops in. Her hair settles back down in a rounded bob and she flips her robe back, the material streaming after her as she strides across the room and takes a seat at the head of the table.

“This is Dilani, the logistics manager,” Sigol introduces, apparently used to this entrance. “She’ll be joining us today since most of the supplies we need are for postgraduate students.”

Dilani frowns at Julius, narrowing her dark brown eyes. “Do I know you?”

“Perhaps,” Julius says and immediately moves on. “Could I see the list you’ve prepared?”

---

The school gets bulk pricing for most ingredients since it’s just lower grade materials for standard alchemy the students learn with. Everything else is some form of inscription ink or vellum paper. Walter comes to negotiate the high-grade materials but he’s sick, so Julius was called in.

Julius is never doing him a favour again.

“They’re in season right now so I’m not sure why we have to pay so much for it,” Dilani points out, literally three ingredients down the list out of several dozen and it’s been an hour.

“Like the last one I told you about,” Julius begins, voice too soft for pointed but getting close. “We don’t forage for ingredients because with the amounts we sell, it would damage the ecosystem. We contact farmers of rare herbs-“

“The snowcapped mushroom absorbs its magic from the surrounding soil,” Dilani states likes she caught him out.

“Yes, and that’s taken into account with the farming process,” Julius reassures. “If you want…a more standard approach to ingredient collecting, it’ll take longer and the labour cost will be much greater but we can-“

“I remember you,” Dilani finally realises, the furrow to her brow smoothing out. Her eyes flicker down to his sleeves, but she’s unsure which arm should be missing. “You would sleep in class.”

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Julius pauses and sits back. “We were in class together, yes. Do you have any more questions about the list?”

Dilani scoffs. “I think we’ll wait until Walter comes back.”

She’d always had a superiority complex even as a teenager. It’s just unfortunate that it’s true. She’s a 4^th class magician, one of only two in the school, two hundred in the entire kingdom – plus as a scholar she’d have much more knowledge than most.

In terms of a single generation and not counting migration, statistically speaking there is a 1^st class magician born in every village, a 2^nd class in every town and a 3^rd class in every city. 4^th class magicians are perhaps ten per kingdom, and there’s usually only one 5^th class.

So yes, being a 4^th class is a worthy achievement especially when backed by postgraduate studies, but only if you’re looking up at her. Otherwise it’s a bit like a child playing dress up. After all, it goes up to 9^th class.

“You weren’t bright, but you lied well,” Dilani continues with a frown.

“I’m not your friend,” Julius states with a wry smile. “I’m not a schoolmate, I’m not a fellow magician. If you haven’t noticed, Dilani, we’re in a business meeting right now-“

“I’m a 4^th class magician, Julius,” Dilani says dangerously, eyes narrowing as she looks down her nose at him. “It doesn’t matter how much power you think you have in this room. Leave. We will speak with Walter later.”

Julius keeps his palms flat on the table but she doesn’t even bother to watch his fingers. “I own the company Walter works for.”

“Yes, and you also didn’t copy off Kharim’s test,” Dilani mocks. “Eight years out of school and you still don’t know how to show respect.”

“Even if that wasn’t years ago, those were just rumours,” Julius retorts and bites down on his next words. Julius flicks a glance to the principal and knows she won’t take responsibility – claims she’s purple but still so useless. “If you’d rather reschedule this meeting then that’s fine-“ Julius tries to choke it down but it comes back up. “-but we are talking about harvesting season, not showing off how far we can fling a fireball.”

“It can be arranged,” Dilani snaps and throws up a hand, circle formed with her fingers, a 1st level spell outlined in dark brown gaping open and aimed at Julius.

The problem is that she treats it like a performance, like she’s demonstrating to a class as if that would intimidate him. It forms slowly, a display of impeccable control; core sequence in the middle, anchor lines, magic flow, runes and containment.

It's a fireball more akin to fireworks. Something painful and shocking but not too damaging. Julius wasn't bullied per se but he certainly remembers this spell, and not for its notably awful mana efficiency.

Julius tilts his head and it streaks straight past to splatter against the wall, sparks skittering off. A split second later, he realises he should have just taken it.

Dilani's expression grows darker.

"Walter will be in contact," Julius tries, standing and hoping to make a break for the door.

Except the fireball comes again, the circle blinking open at speed and then the dark brown spell streaking at him in a blur. It bounces off three stacked 1^st level rebound shields Julius instinctively raised in panic, and the power is doubled when it splashes back against her chest. It explodes, throwing her and the armchair back, hurling glasses and mugs off the table, scorching the walls and rattling the windows. 

Dilani scrambles back up with a grimace of pain -but most importantly for her, humiliation- burnt and bruised but she got an impact absorption spell up fast enough to mitigate most of the damage. Now she’s just angry.

"Nice meeting you," Julius says in a rush to the principal and head of procurement, who have partially ducked under the table, and he gets halfway to the door.

Dilani forms a circle with both hands together to stabilise a 4^th level in hazel. He punctures a hole through the layers with his own 2^nd level gold with a fling of his sleeve and both spells shatter to multicoloured dust in her face.

Dilani opens her mouth to snap in outrage but a honey-coloured circle is already spinning over her head, has been for a while. She collapses in a heap. 2^nd level, paralysis.

Sigol scrambles over to Dilani in horror, since a 4^th class must be an impressive brag for the school after all.

Lapic stands quickly from where she’d been cowering, one hand braced on the table and panic in her eyes. “I deeply apologise for what just happened but-“

“Use a poison purge spell, or a broad-range potion,” Julius cuts in, already one hand on the door. He should have gotten hit the first time, this isn’t worth the trouble.

“Thank you.” Lapic nods. “We will of course compensate you for today as a separate matter.”

“You’ll have to discuss that with Walter,” Julius explains, waving dismissively over a shoulder. “Don’t worry, he’s a very reasonable man.”

Julius shuts the door behind him and scrapes a hand through his hair because no, Walter isn’t reasonable, and for a while now he’s been looking for a way to bring the fees up without it looking bad for the company.

“I’m docking his pay,” Julius mutters and takes the stairs because he can’t bare looking at that lift again.

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