The humiliation in Professor Vyla's lecture hall did not break Vane. In the slums of Oakhaven, getting knocked down was a daily occurrence. The only thing that mattered was how fast you got back up, and whether you learned how to slip that particular punch next time.
Vyla had hit him with a blow he couldn't dodge—raw academic ignorance—and now he knew exactly where his guard was weak.
He didn't have time to lick his wounds. The next period was Abyssal Ecology with Professor Otho, a grizzled veteran with a magitech prosthetic arm replacing his left forearm.
Vane entered the lecture hall feeling slightly more confident. This was survival stuff. He knew how to kill things. He knew that a Moss-Hide Troll had a soft spot under its left armpit and that you never engaged a Wyvern in open ground.
But Professor Otho wasn't teaching them how to kill a single monster.
"The crystalline structure of a deep-sea Gargoyle's dermis," Otho lectured, tapping a holographic cross-section of stone-like skin, "acts as a natural mana-grounding conduit. Miss Aurelia, explain how this interacts with standard lightning-based projection spells."
Anastasia didn't even look up from her notes. "The dermis diffuses the electrical charge across its surface area rather than conducting it internally to the organs, rendering standard Grade C lightning spells 80% less effective unless focused on the non-crystalline ocular cavities."
Vane stayed silent. He knew lightning worked badly on Gargoyles. He'd learned that by watching a mercenary fry himself trying to zap one in the Badlands. But he didn't know the molecular reason why.
It was the difference between a mechanic who knew how to change a tire and an engineer who designed the wheel. Vane was a mechanic in a room full of engineers.
By the time the lunch bell rang, Vane's head was pounding. He felt like he had spent the morning trying to read a language he didn't speak.
He headed to the vast, cavernous cafeteria. It was a noisy ecosystem of its own, divided by invisible lines of rank, bloodline, and power.
Vane grabbed a tray high-protein food—fuel for a body he was pushing to its limit—and found an isolated table near the edge of the balcony overlooking the clouds. He ignored the murmurs and the sidelong glances. He was done caring about being judged. He needed to think.
He opened his academy notebook to a blank page. He picked up his pen, the same one that had hovered uselessly in Vyla's class.
He couldn't catch up on ten years of elite tutoring in a week. Trying to do everything at once was a fast track to burnout and expulsion. He needed to prioritize. He needed to treat his education like a target analysis: find the weak points, figure out the fastest way to exploit them, and execute.
He began to write, the scratch of the pen loud in his own ears against the din of the cafeteria.
Priority One: The Spear. Rowan's baseline assessment had been a disaster. Vane had chosen a weapon of war based on a single stolen Skill, without possessing the foundation to wield it. He held it like a dagger. His footwork was wrong. He couldn't rely on the System to move his body forever. He needed fundamentals. He needed someone to teach him how to hold the damn stick before he stabbed himself with it.
Priority Two: Mana Control. Elara's lab had proven he was a Body-dominant aspect. His channels were wide pipes built for gushing torrents of reinforcement energy, not delicate nozzles for fine spellwork. This wasn't something he could fix quickly; it was biological. He would have to grind the basic compression exercises until his channels learned discipline. It would be a long, slow process.
Priority Three: Theory & Math. This was the immediate, bleeding wound. He couldn't afford to keep failing in Vyla's class. He didn't need to be Anastasia, reciting theorems from memory, but he needed to understand the concepts well enough to stop looking like a moron and pass the written exams. If his GPA tanked, he lost Villa 1.
He looked at the list. The spear required a master. Control required time. But theory? Theory required information.
He looked up from his notebook and scanned the cafeteria. He needed a tutor.
Anastasia was out. Asking her for help would be like asking a dragon for a light. Isaac was busy reading and seemed to view other humans as mild distractions. Valerica was a physical powerhouse like him; she probably struggled with the abstract math just as much.
His eyes swept across the room and landed on a solitary figure sitting near the gardens.
Isole Vesper, SA Rank 9.
She was sitting alone, a delicate silhouette against the bright window. Her pale, almost translucent hair cascaded over her shoulders, and she was staring intently at a thick, leather-bound book covered in complex arcanic diagrams.
Vane remembered his Usurper's vision in Vyla's class. The sickening, perfect double-helix aura of life and death twisted around her. She was a Mind-aspect caster of terrifying complexity, managing two opposing forces constantly. If anyone understood the theory of magic, it was her.
Of all the elites, she seemed the most approachable. She was isolated, like him. She didn't radiate the aggressive arrogance of the nobles.
Vane closed his notebook, picked up his tray, and walked across the cafeteria. He felt the shift in the room's attention as he moved. The Commoner Rank 1 was approaching the High Elf Rank 9.
He stopped at her table.
Isole looked up from her book. Her eyes were startling at close range—one vibrant emerald green, the other a deep, unsettling scarlet. There was no judgment in them, only a mild, detached curiosity.
"Mind if I sit?" Vane asked, keeping his voice neutral.
Isole blinked slowly. It took her a moment to process the request, as if she had to return from a long distance.
"No," she said softly. Her voice was like wind chimes made of ice. "Please."
Vane sat down opposite her. He placed his notebook on the table and slid it toward her, open to the blank page where he had failed to write Vyla's formulas.
"I need help," Vane said flatly. "Not with control. Elara made it clear I'm a Body Type; I just have to grind that out. I need help with the math. Vyla's class. The formulas. I don't understand any of it."
Isole looked down at the blank page, then back up at him.
"You want me to teach you Three-Circle theory?"
"I want you to teach me enough so I don't look like an idiot when she calls on me," Vane corrected. "I know what the spells do. I just don't know the language you people use to describe them."
Isole tilted her head slightly, her mismatched eyes searching his face.
"It is unusual," she murmured. "Most warriors with your physical inclination disdain the theoretical arts. They prefer to leave the calculations to the supports."
"Most warriors aren't sitting in Class 1-A with a target on their back," Vane said. "I can't afford blind spots."
Isole considered this. She seemed to weigh the request against the effort it would require.
"Very well," she said finally. "The concepts are principles of universal balance. Input versus resistance. Flow versus containment. It is not dissimilar to managing a garden."
She tapped the heavy book she was reading.
"Do you know basic arcanic numerology?"
"No," Vane admitted.
"Then we shall start with addition," Isole said seriously. "Meet me in the library after Combat Praxis. We have much ground to cover."
"Thanks," Vane said, feeling a genuine sense of relief. "I owe you one."
Isole just nodded and returned to her book.
Vane stood up and walked away. Priority Three had a path forward. He had secured a tutor for the theory.
Now, he just had to figure out the spear. He checked his schedule. He had a free block before the final Combat Praxis session of the day. He decided to use it to visit the faculty offices. If the professors wouldn't teach him fundamentals in the lecture hall, maybe he could corner them in their offices and force them to give him some direction.
He wasn't going down without a fight.