As I wake up, the first thing I notice is the silence.
Peace and serenity.
Don't get me wrong. It wasn't truly silent, because nothing in Aetherion Academy is ever fully silent. There's always a faint hum you can hear from the walls, distant chimes of Aether runes constantly adjusting themselves, as if Aether were whispering through the architecture, like blood running through a person's veins.
But compared to the Basin, where wind howls through the trees, the constant noise of hammering, people shouting over carts and chickens, and the mud... don't get me started on the mud. There was just so much of it.
The Academy's dormitories felt unnaturally civilised.
'It's odd, I have the memories of the old Kael, as if they were mine, yet they feel otherworldly. Like I'm me, but I'm not me.'
'Codex, do you know anything about this?'
[REQUEST DENIED]
'What? Why?'
The User is not at a sufficient core stage for the request to be accepted.
'What? So, you can't tell me because I'm not strong enough?'
Yes.
'Ok... guess that gives me another reason to raise my core stage as quickly as possible.'
I let out a tired exhale. "Too many questions, and not enough answers."
"Can you shut up, please. I am trying to get every ounce of sleep I can get." Ryn grumbled.
After Ryn's remark, I lay on my back for a moment, staring up at the ceiling of our room.
Our room.
Mine and Ryn's.
Which... felt strange.
The commoner dorms weren't luxurious, at least not by noble standards. It probably wasn't even close, but to Ryn and me, they looked ridiculously grand. The ceiling was smooth white stone, not painted but as if grown into perfect curves, traced with gold-threaded geometry that reminded me of constellations drawn by an astrologist. Every few seconds, the lines would catch some light and answer with a faint, polite glow.
The walls were polished enough to throw back soft bands of sunlight; they weren't true reflections, but rather as if the stone remembered the brightness it had been shown and replayed it in real time. Embedded along the corners ran thin silver trim, its rune-script so fine it could have been circuitry, humming faintly when I stepped too close.
The window was huge... too huge. It overlooked one of the lower terraces where students in Academy uniforms moved in neat spurts toward the main wing, their footsteps synchronised by habit and schedule. Beyond them, skybridges and floating lanterns hung in the air with the casual certainty of engineering that had learned to call itself magic.
Inside, the room was laid out with brutal efficiency: two beds, two desks, a shared wardrobe, but even the "commoner" version of efficiency here was unreal. The beds were carved wood with old-fashioned posts and ward-knots burned into the grain, but the frames sat on crystal runners that adjusted a fraction when you lay down, as if measuring posture. The blankets looked like wool until you touched them, and then you could feel the faint stitching in their weave, warming the area where your skin met cloth.
Our desks were matched as if looking at a mirror, dark stone tops etched with faint sigils that flickered when you set ink down. Above each desk hovered a small crystal prism lamp that responded to hand motion, brightening or dimming with a restrained, obedient grace.
The wardrobe sat between us like a mediator, tall and narrow with a split door. It was half old oak, half translucent lucid panel. When I brushed my fingers over the crystal, a thin line of runes lit, and the interior rearranged itself with a soft click, as if it could count how many shirts a person was allowed to own.
And then there was the bathing room.
Separated by a sliding crystal partition that moved with a whisper, not a scrape, as if friction was something this place had solved centuries ago. Inside, the air held a constant warmth, steady as a hearth. The basin was white stone again, but the drain was a perfect rune-circle, and the wall was laced with etched lines that pulsed when I turned the tap, hot water arriving instantly, summoned and regulated by sigils that didn't flare or struggle, just complied. No hauling buckets. No heating kettles. No bargaining with a stove.
An actual bathing room.
Indoors.
With hot water that obeyed on command, as if it had signed a contract.
I sat up and glanced across the room.
Ryn was waking up, making his way to the front of the wardrobe with one arm shoved into the sleeve of his uniform shirt, glaring at his reflection as if it had insulted him.
The Academy uniform suited him more than he'd ever admit. A crisp white from the collar to the hem, cut like a ceremonial officer's coat, up to the base of his throat, with hard lines, and a fit that made even standing still look intentional. Black ran through it in clean, architectural panels: the inner placket, the collar edge, the sharp piping that framed his shoulders and waist like someone had drawn him in ink first.
And then the red, it wasn't splashed, but placed. Angular bands and geometric trims that climbed one side of the chest and traced the cuffs in precise routes, like a circuit diagram pretending to be heraldry. A small crest sat over his breast, enamel-bright against the white, declaring the Academy's authority in a single, polished symbol.
His hair, at least, refused to cooperate. Black and disobedient, falling into his eyes in a way that made him look less like a model student and more like someone who'd wandered in from the wrong life, and decided to stay anyway.
Ryn caught me looking.
"What?" he asked sharply.
"You look like you're trying to fight your own shirt."
"I am," he said. "It's currently winning."
I swung my legs off the bed and stood up, reaching for my own folded uniform.
The fabric was lighter than it looked; it was smooth and cool against the skin, with the slightest structured stiffness that made every seam sit exactly where it was meant to. At the cuffs and high collar, faint tracer-threads ran under the weave: Aether-conductive filaments stitched so fine they only flashed red-black in the light at the right angle, like circuitry hiding inside tailoring.
Academy-standard. Which meant it wasn't just clothing, it was equipment. The lining quietly bled off minor heat, shrugged away surface grime, and held its shape under impact. Beginner-grade wards slept in the stitching, ready to blunt the sting of stray sparks and miscast pressure before they could turn a first-year mistake into a permanent scar.
'Useful.'
But absurd.
I pulled the shirt over my head.
Ryn made a face at the mirror.
"You know, I've said this a lot... and I mean A LOT, but this place is just ridiculous."
"I know."
"No, I mean come on— it's ridiculous." He turned to look at me, one of his sleeves still half-buttoned. "Do you know what a room like this would do for the people back in the Basin?"
"Cause riots?" I jest.
"No, but they'd assume it belonged to some minor God or something."
'And this is just a room from the commoners' dorms.' I thought to myself.
I let out a laugh of barely repressed humour.
Ryn gestured broadly around the room. "Like dude, look at all this. Look at the designs for all the furniture. Look at the floor.
Ryn then hurried over to his wardrobe, opening it as if to demonstrate its use. "Do you see this? The way this thing opens and closes so quietly."
"It's just a wardrobe, Ryn," I responded.
"Yeah, a FANCY one," he corrected.
'A fair point.'
He yanked his other sleeve into place and stepped toward the sink in the bathroom, running his wet fingers through his hair with the kind of determination you would usually see at a war camp... or the backstage of a model show.
I fastened the silver clasp at my collar and glanced at our desks. Mine was neat. His desk, however, had somehow accumulated books, half-unwrapped rations, a cracked training glove, and what looked suspiciously like a butter knife... despite it only being the first day.
"Uh... Ryn. Why do you have a knife on your desk?" I asked.
Ryn looked over. "Hm? Oh that. That's not a knife. It's something I use to cut the bread for."
"So... It's a knife."
"Ok, maybe it is. Why?? Worried I might stab you in your sleep??"
I stared at him.
He grinned.
"That was a joke— I was joking." Ryn quickly commented.
"Your jokes are worse and worse as the days go by, you know?" I remarked.
"Ha! As if you can talk, Mr Robot." Ryn interjected.
I shook my head and pulled on my coat.
The uniform fits well. Too well, it's better than anything I owned in my old life, and certainly better than anything I wore in the Basin— or at least what the original Kael wore.
Ryn saw me checking the fit and pointed.
"Ok, see? That's gonna be a problem." Ryn said
"What is?"
"You already look like you belong here."
"That shouldn't be a problem?"
"It is for me." He narrowed his eyes. "Makes me look like I'm your badly dressed sidekick."
"But... you are my badly dressed sidekick."
Ryn stared at me for a beat.
Then he gestured his hands outward. "You know what? I was gonna be positive this morning, but now I don't think I will."
"I highly doubt you were," I replied with dry humour.
"You've ruined it now."
As I finished getting ready, I headed towards Ryn's side of the room and took a piece of bread off his desk and bit into it, unable to contain myself.
Ryn looked personally betrayed.
"Yo?!" Ryn asked.
"What?" I replied.
"That was MY bread??"
"You left your spoils out in the open." I jested.
"Our room is not the remnants of a battlefield," Ryn said disapprovingly
"Well, the room has you in it, so I would say it qualifies as one."
He muttered something unrepeatable and grabbed the rest of the loaf before I could continue stealing from him.
Outside the window, the tower bells chimed once; it was soft, low, and annoyingly elegant.
Ryn froze with the rest of his bread in his hand.
"I actually hate the sound of that bell."
"You've only heard it three times."
"YEAH. That's more than enough."
I adjusted the sleeve of my coat and reached for my backpack.
"Aren't you excited?"
Ryn blinked. "About what?"
"Our first official day."
Ryn squinted at me. "You say that like we're walking into some festival instead of a building full of pretentious nobles."
"That's because I choose the path of optimism. I'm sure not all of them are bad."
"No, you choose the path of weirdness, and trust me, all nobles are bad... I've seen it firsthand"
I didn't continue, as I wasn't sure what Ryn was talking about, but I was sure, from the way he said it, that it was something he felt deeply about.