The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 24

Chapter 24

“Is this true, young man? Did you hurt Portia?”

Larek assumed that Portia was the woman in the purple robe who still had her finger pointed in his direction, especially as she sneered at him and nodded emphatically at the Professor’s question, even if it hadn’t been addressed to her.

He shook his head as he peered closer at the Professor. Larek was momentarily relieved to see that she wasn’t from the Kingdom, what with the long, straight, black hair that fell down to her waist, with a portion of it piled up on top of her head in a complicated tangle that appeared intentional. She reminded him of the woman back in the capital that directed him and the other students to their other Network carriage that brought them to Copperleaf Academy.

The other Professor was very similar in general appearance, with the same pale skin and black hair, though his was short and slicked back, only falling to his shoulders. His black Professors robe had red, blue, brown, and a silvery-black bands on his sleeves, while the woman had white, yellow, purple, and the same silvery-black bands. He wasn’t exactly sure what the latter band represented, as he hadn’t seen it before, but he could infer the others based on his experience at Crystalview and the different specialization and robes.

“No, I didn’t hurt her; I just picked her up and moved her,” Larek said in accompaniment to the shake of his head. “She was refusing to let me inside the building and I didn’t want to be late to class on my first day here.” He paused for a moment before he started to add, “Which will happen for my next class if I don’t start running—”

“He has no business within these workshops without a specialization! He doesn’t belong here!”

The female Professor looked in between Portia and Larek. “While I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, Portia does have a point,” she proclaimed. “Only those students with a specialization are allowed within these particular workshops as a measure of safety.” The woman paused for a second before she went on, peering at Larek a little closer. “You are certainly old enough to have a specialization by now; what year are you?”

With time ticking away in his head before he had to be at his next class, Larek impatiently responded. “I’m a first-year.”

“See! He’s only a first-year, so we were preventing him from entering the—”

The Professor interrupted the vehement purple-robed student. “Do you have a specialization?”

Rather than hesitate and waste time, Larek brought up the portion of his Status that listed his Fusionist specialization, thankful for the slight practice he’d had in front of Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai. Even with that practice, he still ended up accidentally listing his name along with his specialization, but at least he didn’t show anything that would cause too many problems – or so he hoped.

Larek Holsten

Fusionist

“What?! No way, that has to be some sort of illusion—”

“It’s not an illusion, Portia,” the Professor said to the student, interrupting her yet again. “And you should know that, considering that you have an Illusionist specialization.”

“But—”

Ignoring her, the black-haired woman asked Larek, “Which class were you nearly late to, young man?”

“Advanced Fusions 1.”

“Oh, wow; I bet Shinpai was happy to have another student.”

Larek nodded. “He was.”

“Good. Now that we’ve established that he had permission to be inside the workshops, I just need to determine whether or not he hurt you.” Turning to Portia, she asked, “How exactly were you hurt?”

Larek did his best not to shuffle from foot to foot, his need to run to his next class to avoid being late mounting as these people wasted time. Unfortunately, he knew that he’d be in even more trouble if he left without this being resolved than he would being late, so he stayed to see it through.

The student lifted her sleeves until her upper arms were bare, which showed a slight discoloration and vague reddening where Larek remembered picking her up. Seeing those, he realized that while he hadn’t intended to hurt her, literally picking her up and setting her down using his strong hand grip might have injured her a tiny bit. Nothing more than a slight bruise, perhaps, but it was technically an injury.

“Look! I think I might have a bruise here and here.”

“I see. And this was caused by Larek here picking you up and moving you?” the Professor queried with a slight tilt to her mouth, as if she was trying not to smile.

“Exactly! He touched me with absolutely no reason—”

“But you were blocking the door to the workshops, preventing him from entering?”

“Well, yes, because he didn’t belong—”

“Obviously, he did belong, as he has a specialization and a class that he was nearly late to. You were blocking his way, so he moved you in order to get by.”

“Yes, but—”

“Larek, if you would come here, please? I’m going to quickly truth test you before I can let you go.”

Truth test? Oh, is that like what the Inquisitor did back in Barrowford?

“Let him go? But he—"

Ignoring the student in the purple robe, who was suddenly abandoned by her friends who took a few steps back at her continued complaints, Larek quickly stride up to the Professor, feeling her strangely cold hand grasp his wrist with a firm grip. She did something with her other hand that looked like some sort of spell, but the spell pattern was created so quickly that he barely even caught a glimpse of it.

“Are you really a first-year student?” the black-haired Professor abruptly asked him.

“Yes. I just transferred from Crystalview and this is my first full day of classes.” It was more than she asked, but he wanted to provide more information in order to speed things up so he could run to his next class. He thought that he might be able to make it if he left within the next minute or so.

“Do you truly have a Fusionist specialization.”

“Yes.”

“Did you intentionally try to injure your fellow student, Portia Mitchell?”

“No, I did not. I only meant to move her and didn’t mean to leave bruises. I apologize for that portion of my actions.”

“But you don’t apologize for moving her?”

“No, because she was blocking my way and I needed to get to class on time. It is my specialization, after all.”

The Professor released his wrist. “Very good. Every single word you said was true, even being apologetic for hurting Portia. You may go, Larek.”

“Thank you,” he responded, before taking off at a run.

Behind him, he could hear the woman with the long black hair overriding the purple-robed student’s complaints. “No, that is the end of the matter. You were preventing him from attending his assigned class; he moved you, doing very little damage to your arms in the process, and that was it. You were both partly at fault for doing something you shouldn’t have done, so it’s a wash. I’ll even heal your arms for you so that you can’t complain that you were unfairly treated. At least, I’d better nothear anything after this….”

Larek wasn’t able to hear more than that as he quickly ate up the distance to the other side of the Academy building, his Long-Distance Running Skill allowing him to reach a high top speed, especially as he ran toward the outer edge of the park, which was largely free of any obstacles in his way. On his way to the entrance leading to the first-year classrooms, he couldn’t help but reflect on what had just occurred.

Someone finally believed me?  That alone was a change that pleased him, and he suddenly understood on another level why most of the Professors in this Academy were from outside of the Kingdom. He was partly sure that if the Professor had been from the Kingdom, the entire situation wouldn’t have turned out as well as it had. Even if it wasn’t an instinctual prejudice against his height, it could’ve been worse if the one accusing him had been Noble.

Thus far, his experience at had been fairly positive, if he discounted the strange way that Noble had spoken to him and the accusation by the purple-robed student, Portia. He could deal with that, at least; it was the fact that the Professors seemed to be better for him, both in their fairness and willingness to teach him. It was already a far cry from the situation back in Crystalview, and he could only hope that it continued to improve.

Thankfully, when he arrived at the doors leading into the first-year classrooms they were already open, so he was able to speed right inside. Having already identified where he needed to go before he started the day, he raced for Classroom 110 which was fortunately on the bottom floor. As he reached the door and gripped the handle, he heard the bell-like *gong* that indicated the change in the hour and which also indicated that the next class was beginning.

Larek was inside before the sounds finished, and while everyone inside stared at him as he entered, he ignored them and found a seat on a bench near the back of the classroom, as this particular room only had short benches with what appeared to be arms with flat surfaces that swung up from below instead of individual desks. It creaked alarmingly as his weight settled on it but held, and he worked on returning his breathing back to normal even as his new instructor, a man surprisingly from the Kingdom, walked toward the front of the room.

Barely even paying attention to the Professor of Understanding Specializations as he started talking, going over another basic Mage specialization, he looked around for the first time to see that the classroom was a bit different than he was expecting. Based on the first one he saw, he had thought that most of the classrooms were of the same massive size, but this current one only held perhaps 100 students and it was approximately 80% full. It had a similar tiered effect for the benches with a stairway along both sides, but that was where the similarities ended; the difference in size alone was significant, but it also felt more intimate with a lower ceiling and worn, padded seats that were surprisingly comfortable.

A quick glance identified a few familiar students nearby him, first-years from Crystalview that had traveled south with him, and a few of them even nodded in his direction when they felt his glance on them. What a change from just a few months ago; they wouldn’t have acknowledged me like that before.

The class was relatively boring, as the Professor went over a review of a handful of specializations that Larek had already learned about, and he droned on with a monotone voice that threatened to put him to sleep – as it did a few other first-years he saw within range. Thankfully, none of them were from Crystalview, as that probably wouldn’t have been a good first impression.

He didn’t learn his Specializations instructor’s name until the very end, when Professor Vinely called his new students to stay after class briefly to let them know what they might have missed while they were gone. Larek took notes of those he’d have to research on his own time, from a library somewhere that was open to first-years, apparently, which made him eager to check it out. Not that he was in any mood to learn more about specializations, but on the off-chance that there were more books about Fusions. Granted, he was hopefully going to receive instruction by Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai, but any knowledge was sure to be useful since he was fairly certain he was still lacking in his Fusion education compared to the other students in his class.

Lunch was next, in the same Dining Hall as dinner the night before and breakfast that morning, but it was so busy that he wasn’t able to find Verne or Norde until it was nearly time to go. Nedira had her lunch later, apparently, so he wasn’t able to see her, either.

After lunch was Spellcasting Fundamentals, which worried him for a moment because he knew he wouldn’t be able to do anything there, but fortunately it was simply another Professor casting spells over and over while describing the different elements of the process – the same as at Crystalview. The biggest change from his previous class was that it took place in a workshop, but it was different than the one in which his Advanced Fusions class was held. Instead of privacy alcoves, the walls were simply made of stone very reminiscent of Crystalview, but it was much larger than the classrooms there. Over 100 students sat on the floor and observed the Professor at work instead of sitting at desk, which was a bit of a change.

The Geography of the SIC, Monster Knowledge, and The Dangers of Scissions were all in classrooms again almost identical to the one where he was taught about specializations, but Mana and You: Basic Mana Usage was in another, larger workshop. In his Mana class, everyone sat on the floor, spaced out from one another as they practiced calling forth their Mana in order to manipulate it, and with over 200 students working away, Larek was fortunately able to blend into the crowd as he did as little as possible.  He still wasn’t able to control his Mana very well when it didn’t have a specific outlet like a Fusion to funnel it into, and he didn’t think having expansive clouds of Mana pouring out of him would be the best thing to demonstrate on day one. Perhaps once he learned more about how his Professor and the other students would react, he might be more inclined to practice, but for now he was trying to limit his exposure to his Fusions class.

In all but his Mana class he had work to review on his own time, given by the Professors after class, and it immediately felt a little overwhelming.  It was going to require a visit to the library, which was in the next section over from his current living quarters, close to the border with the Martial Fort.

At dinner, he discovered that each of his friends had additional information to research on their own time, which made sense because they were gone from classes for a while.

“You want to visit it after dinner? If you’re up to it and not too exhausted from running all day?” Verne asked, referring to his sprint to and from his Fusions class earlier that day.

“Absolutely. We might as well get started on it, as it’s a lot to go over,” Larek affirmed.

“You’re telling me,” Nedira added. “You all have it easy; there’s a whole lot more when you’re a fourth-year.”

“I bet there is,” Larek’s roommate said. “Alright, if you’re all done, let’s go.”

Leaving the Dining Hall, they made their way out of the building as the sun began to descend over the horizon, marking the end of their first full day at Copperleaf. Walking outside to get to where the library was located, he just hoped that they didn’t have to spend all night staring at books and researching the topics they had missed.

He had a very important day in his Advanced Fusions class tomorrow, after all.

Book 2 Chapter 25: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-82726598