Duncan’s dorm room was on the very top floor of an immense twelve-story building. The Academy of Steel took in two hundred students a year. They were a military academy of sorts – the empire had a very small standing army, but all the noble families maintained their own forces on their lands that could be called up in the event of an international incident. Those families often sent their children to one of a variety of academies around the empire that taught leadership qualities. Most took students of all stripes – warriors, mages, rogues, healers, and non-combatants. Some specialized, however, and the Academy of Steel specialized in the arts of war. They had two warrior-class students for every mage-class student.

Duncan’s room was six meters by six meters square. It contained four beds, four footlockers, and one large window that overlooked the mess hall. The floor was bare wood. The walls were also wooden but had been plastered over in an attempt to reduce noise transmission between rooms. He had arrived a few days early for the start of the year, and none of his assigned roommates had arrived yet. A few of the other students on his floor were trickling in, though, and he could hear the murmur of conversation through the walls already.

He pondered the events of the day before. I declined to show them my soulgem’s information, but they certainly managed to discover most of my active Techniques over the course of the fight with Eric. I wonder how much of that was him playing with me to draw out those Techniques. It felt real, but I expected more from someone of his real level. Maybe he was limiting himself to his apparent level. I think he really only used Fire Techniques. He probably has another set of Techniques from another Affinity that he never showed. Come to think of it, if his best Technique were fire, he would show as a mage, not a warrior, I think. I must acknowledge that my ‘win’ was no such thing. Well, he made no secret that the purpose of the display was to warn the faculty not to let their students start something that I’ll have to finish.

He looked at the schedule of classes Jacob had given him. Classes ran six days a week, two per morning, two per afternoon, on alternating days. So there were 8 total classes possible, plus private lessons. Mornings were for academic pursuits for first and third years, afternoons for physical training. Second years had the opposite schedule. Evenings were for individual training for all students. He had a lot of choices available. On the Academic side, I’m really only interested in geography and Elvish. Oh, and the monster identification class would be useful. Three is the minimum number of academic classes, so that’s settled. The physical classes are more interesting, but all the weapon classes are taught at the same time, though at least there’s two class slots. It looks like I’ll be able to take longsword and one-handed swords. Although maybe I should take spear and mace in the class slots and do individual training in the evenings for swords. As I progress, I need less sleep, and nothing here is going to tire me out.

That left him with two available slots, and a whole lot of classes he wasn’t interested in. Battlefield maneuvres, small team tactics, horsemanship and cavalry tactics, managing a shield wall, woodland battles, managing an encampment, naval engagements, the list goes on. Maybe I can take additional weapons training in those class slots.

Duncan’s musings were interrupted by the arrival of his first roommate. A wiry man of nineteen or twenty with long red hair entered the room pulling a large chest behind him on a wheeled platform. He was a Level 22 Mage. He stopped abruptly in the doorway when he saw Duncan. “Oh, er, hello,” he said. “I’m David Taggart. Are you Duncan of the Valley?”

“I am,” said Duncan.

“Oh good, I am in the right place. For a moment, I thought you might be an instructor, with your level.” David dragged his luggage into the room and sat on the bed opposite Duncan’s. “The ladies haven’t arrived yet?”

“The ladies?” Duncan asked.

“Uh, the room assignments are posted in the admissions office. Our roommates are Lady Cassandra York and Lady Amelia Dauntry. The Yorks are an old and powerful family. I hope that doesn’t mean that Lady Cassandra will lord it over us.”

“I take it the Taggarts aren’t an old and powerful family, then?” asked Duncan wryly.

“Heh. We’re plenty old, but our holdings are an island off the North coast of the empire. And my uncle is the Lord. I’m the third son of a younger brother, noble only in name, really.”

“Well, I’m pleased to meet you, David. I’m just an adventurer here to improve my skills. I’ll leave you to unpack in peace.” Duncan left in search of Jacob, wanting to confirm his schedule early.

Jacob looked a little harried when Duncan found him, but he was happy to help finalize Duncan’s schedule. “It’s a nice break from dealing with people unhappy with their roommates,” he said.

Duncan was able to confirm the classes that he wanted, and to add extra weapons training in the afternoon slots he had available. “We don’t normally have students focus that much on weapons training, but it’s certainly possible,” Jacob said.

Duncan’s schedule ended up looking like this:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Elvish

Elvish

Elvish

Rest Day

Geography

Monster ID

Geography

Monster ID

Geography

Monster ID

Lunch

Mace

Spear

Mace

Spear

Mace

Spear

Great Axe

1H Axe

Great Axe

1H Axe

Great Axe

1H Axe

Dinner

1H Swords

Longsword

1H Swords

Longsword

1H Swords

Longsword

He had to pay an additional ten gold for his longsword training and an additional ten gold for his one-handed sword training, but Jacob assured him he would have the most experienced instructors, since he was both one of the first to request private tutoring and the student the instructors were most interested in working with, thanks to his performance in his admission test.

Two days later, Duncan returned to his room in the evening to find his additional roommates had arrived. Two young women were occupying the left side of the room. The left window bed, where he’d been sleeping, now had a tall blonde woman (a Level 28 Mage) with blue eyes wearing an expensive-looking dress occupying it. The bed on the left side closest to the door was occupied by a short woman with dark skin, black hair, and deep brown eyes (a Level 26 Warrior). She wore a white doublet and green pantaloons.

David looked frazzled. “Sorry, Duncan, I tried to tell them you had claimed that bed…”

“Shut up, Taggart. The peasant can speak for himself. And the bed was clearly unclaimed. There’s no clothes in the footlocker or anything. Or is that your only outfit, peasant?”

Duncan shrugged and sat on the unclaimed bed by the door. Here we go with the petty power plays. “This is fine for me,” he told David.

“You will answer when I ask you a question, peasant!” the Blond snapped at him.

Duncan stopped suppressing his aura. All three of his roommates flinched. “Fuck off,” he said to the blonde, then suppressed his aura again.

“Holy shit, Cassie, look at his level,” said the brunette.

“Clearly he gamed the system somehow. No one earns that kind of level at our age. He’s a freak.”

“Lady York,” David began.

“Shut. Up. Taggart,” the blonde said. “You’re a useless excuse for a noble. At least the freak is potentially useful, if his dick matches the rest of him.”

The brunette burst out laughing. “Gods, Cassie, stop it. You’re going to really piss them off.”

“Fiiine,” the blonde rolled her eyes. “Hi guys, I’m Cassie York, and this bitch who can’t keep a straight face until the joke is over is Amy Dauntry.”

“What she means to say,” said Amy, “is that she is Lady Cassandra York, daughter of the Duchess of York, and I am Lady Amelia Dauntry of Port Vale. You can call me Amy, and her Cassie. She’s used to people expecting her to be a bitch because of her rank, so she leans into the expectations a little too much in order to subvert them. She’s actually pretty nice.”

“But I’m still keeping the window bed,” said Cassandra. “Seriously, it looked unclaimed.”

Duncan shrugged, “I’m used to sleeping in a dungeon. One bed is much like another. You’ll want to change the sheets, though.”

Cassandra sighed as she started to strip the bed, “And so commences three years of roughing it.”