Chapter 16: Chapter 14: Classmates

As it turns out, Lilith’s Domains didn’t have anything terribly exciting in store for her, at least as far as just swimming in the pool would get her. That isn’t to say she didn’t get anything, it just wasn’t necessarily as cool as being able to breathe underwater. It mostly ended up being things that increased the speed at which she could swim, increased her stamina, prevented her wings and tail from slowing her down while in the water, or otherwise made her swimming more efficient.

“You have five minutes left before your clothes turn back.” Kali called out. “Come on out and we’ll get you dried off.”

Lilith swam over to the side of the pool and hoisted herself out. She wasn’t as tired as she expected she would be after almost an hour of nonstop swimming, but she hadn’t been constantly swimming as fast as possible and things had become far easier after getting a few Traits, so she supposed that only made sense.

A moment after she was out, she felt a spell dry her off, and she walked over to where the rest of the group were sitting.

“Nice work in there.” Geb said. “I know it was probably a little boring, but this honestly has some serious potential in helping us understand both Perfect Chimeras and Domains in general. We’ll work on flying after your classes today, so you’ll have that to look forward to. I’m going to be your teacher for history and magic theory, so if you want to follow me, I’ll show you where we’ll be studying.”

“Can we wait a minute for my clothes to change back?” Lilith asked. “I think it’d be weird to show up to class in a swimsuit.”

Kali waved a hand, and Lilith’s clothes went back to normal. “There we are. Shall we be off? Carmen and I will see you to the room, and then I’m going to go find Judy and help teach her magic.”

With that, the group set off, leaving the pool and heading back towards the classroom building. They ended up in the same room that they had been in originally, but this time the desks were filled with children.

As they entered the room, several curious children came up to the group.

“Mr. Geb, who are these people?” The first of them, a human boy asked. “We aren’t supposed to have visitors come to class unless it’s Friday, right?”

The next, a vaguely familiar-looking angel boy, rolled his eyes. “Gabe, were you paying any attention in math? We’re getting a new classmate today. That’s probably one of them.”

“That’s me.” Lilith volunteered. “Name’s Lilith, nice to meet you!”

The boy arched a brow. “And your twin here? I thought we were only getting one new student.”

“That’s…also me. It’s a long story, but we’re the same person and she’s doing additional studying for me so we can learn faster. You can call her Carmen for now, she’s not going to be in class with us most of the time.”

The boy took a curious look at the book Carmen was holding, and then his gaze hardened. “She’s studying that? I’m afraid I’m going to have to report this to the Council.” He cast a dismissive glance at Kali, then looked back towards Carmen and the book. “I would be careful of the company you keep. It appears it might be having a negative influence on you.”

“Raphael, do you have to?” Gabe protested. “I’m sure Lilith’s got a reason for this, there are special circumstances, right?”

Kali seemed to have an epiphany, grinning mischievously as she bent down so she was at eye level with Raphael. “Hi there, Raphael. My name’s Kali, and I can assure you that the Council knows all about Carmen’s study habits, I had a chat with Tunem about them last night. And, for the record, she keeps excellent company.”

Raphael paled, stepping back. “S-sorry, Councilwoman Kali, I assumed…”

Gabe laughed. “Hah, you so got called out, serves you right!” He turned back towards Kali, giving her a curious look. “Councilwoman Kali, will you be helping out in class today?”

Kali gave him a smile. “No, I’m just dropping Lilith off. I have some other duties today, so Carmen and I will be leaving in a few moments.”

Raphael composed himself, and bean to speak again. “Why bother? It’s just one woman who’s not even that important. I’ve never heard of her before, and I know all about everyone in all the major families.”

Kali put on a look of faux innocence before replying. “Oh, is that so? I think that just means you’re not important enough to know about her. I’m sure Elenoa would have told you all about her if you were.”

Raphael recoiled. “I’m sure Grandma was going to get around to it, she’s just been really busy lately!” But, despite his bluster, he scurried off towards a group of children who were somewhat separated from the others, a look of hurt on his face.

“That was a little harsh, don’t you think?” Lilith asked.

Kali looked away guiltily. “Perhaps, I just really didn’t like his attitude. That and Elenoa told me to see if I couldn’t curb some of his ego while I was here. Didn’t think it would be this bad, but…well, Elenoa isn’t exactly the greatest role model in that department.”

“So…this means Lilith’s really important, right?” Gabe asked. “Can you tell us why?”

Kali shrugged. “It’s not up to me. You’ll have to ask Lilith, it’s her choice if she wants to let people know.”

“I’d be happy to let you know if you swear servitude to Lilith.” Carmen said, smiling impishly.

“Nope. Vetoing that right now. Don’t listen to her, she’s trying to trick you. Maybe I’ll tell you later on.”

Carmen pouted. “You’re no fun.”

“Well, we gotta get going now, we’re going to be late.” Kali said. “It was nice talking to you, Gabe. Come say hi if you see me around and I’m not busy, I’m always open to talk!” She grabbed Carmen’s hand, and the two of them left.

Geb scratched the back of his neck. “Well, um, guess we should start class, then. Gabe get back to your seat, Lilith, you take an empty one anywhere in the room.”

He walked over to the teacher’s desk, leaving Lilith to scan the room for an open seat. Most of the kids were grouped up already, and she felt a little awkward just barging into those groups, so she took a seat alone in the back of the class.

Class was, as she had suspected, boring. Geb had Lilith briefly introduce herself, and then they got into the day’s lesson. It was mostly about politics in Haven as of about five hundred years prior, and even though it was all new information to her, it was still dry.

The biggest thing she learned was that the Council was almost entirely the same back then as it was currently. The only difference was that Kali wasn’t on it, some other demon was in her place instead.

After the class was over, Geb gave everyone a ten-minute break before it was time for magic theory. Many of the students went to grab a drink or go to the bathroom, but Lilith went up to ask Geb a couple more questions.

“How long has the Council been almost the same as it is now? And is it a coincidence that the person who was there before Kali was also a demon?” She asked.

“Since the war, actually. The only change is when Kali came in. Abraham quit, and so we needed someone else to fill the position. It’s not a coincidence that he was a demon, either. The Council tries to balance the races that are on it, so we needed a demon representative. The only exception to this rule is the angels, since they played one of the largest parts in the war, so they have two representatives. It’s a bit archaic if you ask me, but we’re not in too much of a position to change things now.”

Lilith frowned. “Why not? Democracy seems like it shouldn’t be that much of a problem. People on Earth have been using it for a long time now.”

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Geb shook his head sheepishly. “A lot of people don’t like it for that reason. Quite a few of the most influential people alive have been alive since the war, and a sizeable portion of the regular populace have been as well. And people are still somewhat in survival mode, so this is something that works, and they aren’t being too fussy.”

“What do you mean they’re still in survival mode? You’ve been on Haven for like…a thousand or more years, right?”

“Haven isn’t as…safe as the name implies.” Geb explained. “I’ll schedule a full lesson on this later, but the gist is that the magical wildlife is far, far more dangerous than what was once on Earth. We relocated all the magical wildlife from Earth as well, and so now we basically have three strongholds that we are very slowly expanding by clearing the surrounding area of dangerous creatures.

“At this point they’re each about the size of some of the bigger states in the United States. We’re hoping to eventually connect them so we have something approximating a large country set up, and then people will be able to finally start feeling safe. But, until that time comes, the vast majority of people are in the three main cities, and all of the other land is for farming.”

“But…you’ve got all the other civilizations that were on Earth and you were running out of room then, how do you have enough now?”

Geb shrugged. “Humans were always the ones who took the most room, and there was a lot of unused space in the non-human countries anyway. Cohabitating was rough at first, but now everyone’s used to it. And we have almost no unused space at the moment, and between that, advances in farming thanks to people from Earth and from a few magical methods, we’ve got enough to go around.”

Lilith nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. Thanks, Geb.” With that, she retreated back to her seat and waited for the next class to start.

Magic theory was…also boring. She was hoping it would be at least a little exciting, but it really just didn’t catch her attention. Thanks to Decipher and Innate Spellcaster, she flew through the day’s work at a breakneck pace.

They were supposed to be practicing chantless casting, which was something of a necessity for any sort of on the fly spellcasting, as it allowed spells to be cast faster with an easy way to change parameters of the spell such as where it was aimed. That usually required knowing the spell well enough that the focus that was the words weren’t required, but that process was almost completely negated for Lilith.

Since Decipher gave her perfect recall of the words of the spell, and her ability to understand every language gave her a perfect understanding of what those words meant, she was able to grasp the basics of easy spells quick enough that she was able to cast them chantless in only a couple of minutes.

Innate spellcaster let her do that anyway, but that required extra Mana and she wasn’t really doing anything else with her time, so she went ahead and learned all the spells they were working on that day.

When she told Geb she was done, he was incredulous at first. It had only been about ten minutes, and he had explained that these sorts of things were supposed to take hours to master even one spell.

But, after an explanation and a demonstration, he understood and had her get to work on the spells the class had already finished studying. She spent the rest of the class studying those spells, and soon class was over.

“Lilith, can I speak with you?” Geb asked. Once Lilith had walked up, he continued. “I’m going to walk you to your next class, so you can find where it is. Kali and Carmen will be joining you for that one, just in case they’re necessary, things there can get a little…heated.”

“Heated?”

“Sometimes there’s actual combat training. As I said earlier, Haven’s not nearly as safe as Earth, so there’s a decent chance people will find themselves in a life-or-death confrontation with a monster. So, we like to make sure people can handle themselves in a fight, just in case.”

“I…see.” Lilith replied.

“You’ll be fine.” Geb assured. “You’re smart and you’re going to grow faster than anyone else here, and your opponents will be children, at least at first. You might lose a few times, but don’t worry about it.”

Lilith rolled her eyes. “Great, I’m going to eventually be able to beat schoolchildren, but only after a period of time where I lose to them. How reassuring.”

Geb laughed, patting her back. “Seriously, don’t feel bad. These kids have a lot of training on you. You’ll get to that level in time, but until then you can just bowl over everything in your path with raw power. You won’t be lacking in that, trust me.”

Geb led her to a large area outside, where the other students had gathered. Kali and Carmen were already there, along with a large, muscled human woman. “Ah, there you are.” She said, walking over to the two. “Name’s Agathe, I’m gonna be your practical magic instructor and impromptu physical trainer.”

“Um, nice to meet you, I’m Lilith.” Lilith replied.

“Alright, Agathe, you have her from here.” Geb said. “I gotta go get back before my next class starts, so I’ll catch you later, alright?”

“Later.” She replied, giving him a wave as he left. “Now, we have a couple minutes before class, I want to have a quick spar with you to see what level you’re at right now. Nothing serious, just you and Carmen coming at me while I focus on defense. Is that okay with you?”

Lilith sighed. “Yeah, I suppose that’s fine. Carmen, you down?”

“Absolutely.” Carmen replied, snapping her book shut and standing up. “I’ve been sitting still all day and I’m aching to move around a bit.”

Agathe walked a short distance away, then whirled to face them, planting her feet firmly on the ground. “Whenever you’re ready just come attack me. I can take it.”

Carmen gave Lilith a nod. Alright, I’m going to bind her legs then try and distract her with my hypnosis. She said, communicating mentally via Unknowable Entity. I don’t expect it to work and I can’t do anything like I could with Alex, since I don’t have anywhere near the Mana required in this avatar. Just run up and punch her while she’s distracted.

Carmen looked to Agathe and began to speak. “Just look into my eyes.” She said. “Trust me, everything’s going to be way easier if you do…”

In response to her words, Agathe raised her hands to cover her face, and Lilith seized the opportunity to run forward, lashing out with a punch to Agathe’s gut.

Only when she was close was she able to hear Agathe finish a chant, but it was too late, her fist was already impacting Agathe. She was rewarded with the sensation of the wind leaving her as an impact struck her stomach, and then, suddenly, Agathe burst into motion, grabbing Lilith’s neck with a hand and throwing her onto the ground.

“Alright, that’s enough.” She said, reaching down and offering her hand. “I have a pretty good idea what to do with the two of you now.”

Lilith took the hand, and Agathe hauled her up. “Give me a second.” She wheezed. “Whatever you did really knocked the wind out of me.”

“I reflected your attack back at you.” Agathe explained. “Basic trick, but a very effective one if you know you have the Mana to pull it off.” She reached into a bag around her waist and pulled out a small vial of liquid, which she handed to Lilith. “Drink this, it’ll help you feel better.”

Lilith took the vial, popping open a small cap on the top and downing the contents. As she drank the sweet liquid, a sense of relief washed over her, and she could feel her aches melt away. “What was that?”

“Minor healing potion. Does wonders for simple cuts and bruises. I always keep a few on hand for this class just for situations like these.”

“Can I go back to reading now?” Carmen interrupted.

“Yeah, you’re good.” Agathe confirmed. “Now, it’s time for class, so go ahead and sit with the other students and we’ll get started, okay?”