A winged creature perched on the ledge of the brick buildings dotting the academy campus grounds.
The creature's colour was a boulder grey, the size of a human child, made of personified rock with jagged stone feathers that sharpened like knives.
It looked more like a statue, chiselled to have feather patterns that impossibly moved over to flatten on its rough back.
The creature's thick wings had a unique shape like a vulture's, with a dome that smoothed over, and a beak that rounded out like a dodo bird's.
It sat on pebble grey legs, like a pigeon's twig-like legs but far sturdier, its robotic tiger eyes switching around the horizon of dead trees.
Then suddenly it felt the sense of faint energy in the air, with a complicated scent mixed of life and death.
When the scent trickled into the creature like mist, it let out a bird-like screech.
A faint blue mist poured into the creature's mind, engulfing its rock dome as it screeched, the creature only turning silent once the mist dissipated.
Though before the creature would end its very audible call, the sound would rain over the academy, the sound echoing like an alarm.
The screech travelled over the roof of the brick building, sliding down the orange brick walls, trailing along the stone tiles as it slithered through the white lobby building and down the linoleum halls.
Finally, it reached a particular classroom, slipping through the door to share its sound with a class where one particular dark-haired student sat silently in boredom.
The students jolted as they heard the startling screech, listening as the bell rang with an abrupt screech, a literal bird-like call instead of any repetitive clanging or harmonic noises that one might've heard with more orthodox alarms.
Even though students had already heard it many a time, the noise was so loud and disturbing that it naturally shocked them every time it was heard.
The only people to be visibly unaffected by the noise were the teachers who had heard it so many times, along with the dark-haired student who was now slipping free from the class like a ghost slipping free from a jail cell.
A thick figure stood at the front of the class; they were humanoid, though it had undeniable brown feathers that jutted out in such a shape that its head was made to look like a walnut.
He dressed in a similar manner to Mr Ignis, wearing a tan waistcoat that draped over a smooth white buttoned shirt, with a golden chain dangling next to one of the belt loops around his hips.
His wings weaved comfortably through the long sleeves of the white buttoned shirt, like feathers filling the shed skin of pythons, with a collection of dark brown feathers poking through the ends of the sleeves like two massive blades instead of hands.
The lower half of his face had an egg white coloured fur that sprawled across, before turning into a fine brown past his small, hooked beak.
The fur treading near his eyes, past his black rectangular framed glasses, was the same colour as paintbrush bristles dipped in melted chocolate.
His eyes were a wide mess of burning colours that resembled the syrupy richness of withering autumn leaves.
His features were incredibly similar to those of an owl, with human traits, wearing thin, wiry glasses with small rectangle lenses.
Out of the corner of his vision, he noticed Julius slipping free; if not for the teacher's extraordinary perceptiveness, he might not have caught the boy's elusiveness.
Earlier in the lesson, the teacher had used that same perception to catch how Julius's eyes rolled whenever another student answered a question wrong.
It was as if Julius was irritated by their ignorance, yet had never raised his hand to correct the answer.
This was the same boy who had wild rumours popping up within his second day.
The teacher, concerned for their student, naturally wanted to investigate.
Though the teacher's impossibly warm voice calling out to Julius was not enough to shackle him, not when the boy was trying to finish the day as quickly as possible.
So what if the teacher had an interest in Julius, whatever reason he had, it wasn't enough to make Julius care.
After all, he had far better things to do, he just needed the school day to be over in order to attend to them.
Now that Julius thought about it, attending the academy was proving to be more dread-inducing than Julius had anticipated.
He was beginning to wonder how long he'd stay before he would find a way to leave.
Maybe Julius should've thought about it more; time was a very pressing matter to Julius, and he could've easily found a way to leave if he decided to.
Yet the thought seemed to gradually drift from him, the weight floating from his shoulders, like a jellyfish peacefully swaying away after launching itself through a vast body of water.
Oh well, he may as well see what kind of library the academy had while he was here.
On his way to the room, he noticed very quickly how the students parted like a sea.
Normally, Julius stuck to the walls when passing through the halls, preferring to stay hidden.
However, the students today made it impossible, upon seeing Julius, they subconsciously backed away to the walls, forcing Julius to traverse the middle path of the hall, which only attracted more attention.
Earlier this morning, Julius had noticed the increased stares and subtle whispers, though because of the students backing away, it was now blatantly obvious that every student was hyperaware of his presence.
With Julius in the open, it only spread more light on the visible dried blood on one of his sleeves, draped over a perfectly unscathed hand.
The attention caused gossip to stir on either side of the walls, whispers following Julius like invisible strings dragging the sound of rattling tin cans on the floor behind him.
His expression was dull, with more depth shown in a broad stroke of a paintbrush.
Wearing a mask would've shown more expression than Julius's current disinterested gaze, as if nothing were worth his time.
Julius didn't even bother to find out what exactly everyone was saying, he guessed it would be about Fenrir's unbelieved story or if people thought Julius could beat Adrian in a fight or not.
So trivial.
So what if people decided Julius was crazy or inspiring, as long as those opinions didn't interfere with his life, Julius wouldn't care.
Just then, the sound of distant stomps quickly poured into the hall, followed by the cheer of a friendly voice.
"Julius!"
Julius could already feel his shoulders imperceptibly tensing with mild discomfort upon recognising the loud, overly cheerful voice addressing him.
The friendly sound, although undeniably warm, instinctively felt like a bad omen to Julius.
"C'mon, where you headin' to?" Thurid casually questioned rhetorically, approaching him from behind, as if the two had been friends for a lifetime.
Julius finally turned over to face her, his expression as smooth as paper, the edges sharp at the corners, whilst his eyes blankly observed her.
Julius could sense a forming plan from how the crease of Thurid's jolly smile met her innocent hazel eyes.
It was like watching an oversized child, carefree, unable to perceive anything outside the parameters of its own seemingly harmless self-interest.
"The library." Julius responded coldly with smouldering indifference.
Thurid's eyes did a complicated thing, widening as if she heard the most unbelievable thing she'd ever heard in her life.
"The library! At lunch?" Thurid groaned with exaggerated angst, her eyes turning over like monster-truck wheels.
"Nope!" She concluded in a sharp lilt that left no room for negotiation, her thick hand already curling around Julius's bicep over his cream blazer sleeve.
At once, Julius felt an immeasurable pressure around his arm; his own bodyweight turned into the same leverage as a plaything as Thurid suddenly dragged him carelessly behind her like a doll.
"Damn it..." Julius cursed under his breath, shamelessly hauled behind Thurid with his heels squeaking against the linoleum, sliding all the way along the halls.
At least the current display didn't undermine his strength too much, in front of the many coming and going students.
If it were any other student dragging him, it would've shown how weak he was, possibly exposing his human-level strength, depending on who the student was.
This is because even the weakest students, in terms of physical strength, were still at least double the strength of the average human.
However, because it was Thurid making such a show, the display didn't leave a lasting impression.
Why?
Because no one in the school was strong enough to resist Thurid, even Adrian Zephyr himself might not be able to resist Thurid's grip strength.
Thus, as Julius was dragged, whilst there were a few snickers, the majority of students had shown pitiful gazes as they wondered, "Poor guy, what is she dragging him into?"
Thurid's over eccentric friendliness and physical strength had obvious uses to Julius.
Julius could rope Thurid into his plans easily, her own righteousness acting as an anchor that bound her to Julius.
Thurid would've felt guilty if Julius was in danger and she didn't help, which is something Julius ate up immediately.
Her physical strength made her a bodyguard of sorts, who would find fault with Julius with Thurid by his side?
It would take someone full of godly confidence in their own strength to disregard Thurid's unmatchable physical prowess.
On the other hand, the cons were the pros themselves.
Her warmth meant Julius being pestered by these annoyances.
Her strength meant being forced into enduring these inconvenient annoyances.
Julius's heels slid down the halls with the same continuous squeak, as he watched the library door drift further out of reach.
From the opposite end of the hall, where the two students had come from, a feathered figure watched Julius through tiny rectangular lenses.
The teacher stood in the doorway to his own now-empty classroom.
He turned away from the halls, now much quieter, carrying his feathered self back into the classroom.
His wings, more like arms, how they slithered through his shirt sleeves, were folded behind him as he began approaching the empty desks.
The teacher passed the blackboard, with letters floating over the board instead of being directly inscribed into the surface.
The words were neat, pink and glowing with a vibrant white heat like neon lights, spelling "Mr Wickerson."
At the bottom of the blackboard, a wooden shelf carried a thick, cuboid stone with a smooth, glossy surface like a dark magenta crystal.
The teacher withdrew a feathered wing, waving his feathers blankly over the screen, the letters suddenly vanishing as his wing passed over them like a sword knighting a kneeling soldier.
The teacher turned, thinking to himself about the earlier exchange between the two students in the hallway.
Although the academy was chaotic, even with so many students to impossibly control with all sorts of abilities, word of a certain dark-haired student had travelled fast around the school grounds.
Mr Wickerson passed through the aisle of desks with a peaceful expression of a bird perched whilst watching a sunset.
He remembered hearing the gossiping of students during class, recalling them now as he walked down the aisles and began collecting the papers on each student's desks.
The rumours of Fenrir's obvious lies about a sparkling eye and whispers about gnarly knuckles were about this suddenly popular student.
Thurid was no stranger to school gossip either, with her strong figure and unmatched strength, how could she ever hide from the students' attention? Not to mention the carefree attitude that always landed her in some trouble, even when she had the best of intentions.
There were many things to be concerned about regarding Julius Sparrow.
As a teacher, one might feel the need to nurture him in some way.
That was Mr Wickerson's plan, at least it was, he thought to himself as he reached a student's desk.
Though if Thurid was with him, Mr Wickerson assumed that Julius would be alright, he felt somewhat assured.
On one desk, beside a page, lay a thick cuboid stone with a smooth, glossy surface like a dark blue crystal.
The device was used as a pen, with students imbuing their own mana into the crystal and using it to write.
He picked up the paper, a green sheet with scribbles in small glowing lines.
The scribble was supposed to be a magic theory, a blue glowing line traversing the page as if the line was exploring the surface.
The line was squiggly, resembling more of a toddler's doodles rather than anything.
This was obviously a student's first attempt at writing magic theory: their penmanship, if it could be called that, was clearly trying to depict a rank 4 magic type using a drafting technique that involved overlapping multiple shapes on top of each other.
This overlapping pattern would reflect how some magic types are advancements of previous magic types, which were slightly easier to learn than creating completely original magic types.
The lines themselves were used to deepen a sorcerer's understanding of mana: the display of written lines depicted the feeling of weaving mana itself.
Mr Wickerson had suddenly found himself recalling his earlier lecture, one he repeated many a time to previous classes.
"A sorcerer has a mana pool, then manipulates the mana, but how does it turn from blue mist into phenomena?"
"Vibration! The mist, with its mysterious properties, can alter form based on vibration."
"By weaving these vibrations at certain 'angles' and 'speeds' you transform the mana altogether."
"If you mapped the direction that mana takes during that process, you would've been left with some sort of shape, which is exactly what magic theory encapsulates."
"Though of course, no matter the theory, whilst an inexperienced sorcerer might be able to draw the symbol for rank 3 magic, they would actually struggle to weave their mana into that shape, let alone writing more complicated formula."
Even Mr Wickerson himself, with his own exceptional knowledge possible with the use of his rank 5 scholar magic, struggled to write formulas for rank 6 magic types, let alone actually using rank 6 magic.
Mr Wickerson smiled gently for just a moment upon remembering his teachings, his expression turning into curious interest as he remembered noticing Julius already scribbling in the middle of his lecture, starting way before Mr Wickerson had finished, unlike the rest of the students who didn't fully understand the task.
"He's quite rash for a transfer." Mr Wickerson thought to himself.
He hummed in disappointment, turning around as he stacked the page onto the pile in his other dark, feathered wing, approaching Julius's desk.
The sight made Mr Wickerson's pile of pages fall to the floor…
end of chapter 15