I felt Kalli recoil in my mind. I tried to reassure the girl.

Just ignore her. Let’s just go to your room.

We both turned to look anyway. A girl with blond curly hair smirked at us, “Is it really so hard to learn how to use commoner tech?”

She appeared to be a little bit older than us. I pulled up her menu.

Name

Stefanie Koegel

Class

Minstrel

Level

13

Affection Level

Annoyed

I rolled my eyes and commented, “It looks like you can’t escape bullies even in the magical world.”

A breeze swept through the room, ruffling my hair. Another girl with green hair walked up beside Stefanie clutching a cup of tea, “Ignore her. She’s not a bully even though she tries to be. My name is Wendy. Welcome to The Academy.”

I inspected her as well.

Name

Wendy Mayuko

Class

Aeromancer

Level

11

Affection Level

Friendly

“Fine. Whatever”, the blonde girl huffed, “Welcome, I guess.”

Wendy smiled warmly, “See. Was that so hard. You can welcome new students after all.”

Stefanie rolled her eyes and walked up to Kalli, “My name is Stef. I’m really not a bully. It’s just a pet peeve of mine. People from noble families who don’t bother to learn how to do anything non-magical really irk me.”

The other girl sighed, “It’s true. She kicked a boy who couldn’t figure out how to use the vending machine upstairs the other day.”

By that time, Kalli had managed to get her door open.

The inside of the tiny cabins must have had the same magic as my fanny pack because we walked into a spacious four-bedroom dorm with a sizable living area in the middle. Tucked into a nook was a mini kitchen that seemed out of place in a house where everything else was magically enlarged.

Wendy followed my gaze and sighed, “They give us the small kitchens to remind us that we are living in a dorm. Not that it matters, there’s a cafeteria out in the main room that will give you meals 24 hours a day.”

I pointed at the extra rooms.

It looks like you’re going to have 3 roommates.

Kalli shrugged at me. I’m used to sharing a room at the orphanage. This will be fine.

The girls had followed us in the room. Wendy said, “We have one more roommate but Velia is in the hospital right now.”

That got Kalli’s attention. She turned and asked, “Are the two of you my roommates?”

Stefanie crossed her arms and asked, “Is that a problem for you?”

Kalliphae quickly backtracked and said, “No. Not at all. I was just surprised is all.”

Stefanie scoffed, “I take it you were expecting your own private dorm. Is this boy your attendant?”

I laughed nervously and Kalli glared at the girl, “I’ll have you know I’m just as common as you are. As a matter of fact, I was born and raised in an orphanage.”

Both of the girls froze and stared at Kalliphae for a moment. Wendy asked, “Didn’t they get rid of orphanages? Don’t they call them foster homes now?”

Kalli looked at me questioningly. What are they talking about?

Orphanages with tons of kids don’t exist in this country anymore. The government sponsors families to foster children. It’s more personalized than an institution.

Kalli nodded. Why couldn’t they have that in my world? Then I wouldn’t have to share a room with 16 girls.

Stefanie’s lip curled into a sinister grin, “I think I get it. This boy isn’t your attendant. He is your boyfriend.”

Wendy grinned and ran up to Kalli, taking her hand, “Lovers. You have to spill all of the details.”

Kalli turned bright red and barked, “He is not my boyfriend. We’re just friends.”

I just grinned at the trio of girls. Stefanie turned her attention to me and said, “Shouldn’t you be getting to the boy’s dorms. Unless you want to kiss your friend goodnight or something?”

I shook my head, saying, “She would probably burn me alive if I tried.”

Kalli laughed, “You know I would.”

I was a little nervous leaving Kalli alone with the new girls. Wendy seemed nice enough, but Stefanie seemed like a powder keg just waiting to go off.

If they ask you any questions, just ask me and I’ll try to help answer.

Kalliphae seemed self-confident. I’ll be fine, Mel. I’m probably going to call it an early night. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.

I rode the elevator down another floor. It was identical to the female floor only it was significantly louder. There were a few girls visiting on some of the couches, but the dining tables had been pushed aside and a hearty game of American football was being played in the open area.

I looked down at my card.

ROOM 207

I walked around the outside of the large hall trying to attract as little attention as possible. I caught bits and pieces of Kalli’s conversation with her new dorm mates. She was particularly fond of the aeromancer.

I looked around to see if I had caught anyone’s attention. Other than a passing glance or two as I passed, nobody was paying much attention to me. I quickly swiped my card and slipped inside of my dorm.

I walked right into three very guilty-looking teens trying desperately to hide something. Unfortunately for my new roommates, I had the God Eye trait.

Item:

Kamagika Sutra: 101 magical positions/with illustrations

Components

Parchment, Ink, Mana, Essence of Aphrodite

Item Rank:

B

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

The Academy (Restricted)

I stood in the doorway and inspected them while I waited patiently for the occupants of my dorm to collect themselves.

Name

Raverly Crescent

Class

Squire

Level

7

Affection Level

Apprehensive

Name

Rundell Adlowan

Class

Martial Artist

Level

9

Affection Level

Passionate

Name

Joseph Reid

Class

Technomancer

Level

12

Affection Level

Professional

The first one to pull himself together was well dressed dark-skinned boy named Joseph Reid. He wore a pair of well-pressed slacks with a button-up shirt covered by a vest. He appraised me through thick glasses and said, “You must be our new roommate.”

Another boy with long wavy dirty blonde hair and tanned skin peeked out at me from behind the couch, “Really? I thought you were the RA.”

I blinked at the boy, “What is an RA?”

Joseph answered, “You don’t want to know. They are resident advisors that do random inspections. Ours is very annoying. He thinks he is some kind of detective.”

The third kid had made it all the way to his room in a single bound. The first thing I noticed about the kid was that he was very short. That was quickly followed by the realization that the kid was ripped. He looked like a mini Dwayne Johnson. Only this one had hair. He walked out nonchalantly as though my entrance had just woken him from a nap, “Hey new guy. My name is Rundell. You can call me Run.”

Joseph walked up to me and extended a hand, introducing himself, “Joseph Reid here. You can call me Joe. It’s a pleasure to meet you. This guy over here is Raverly Crescent. We call him Rave.”

Rave ran a hand through his hair and said, “Sorry to break it to ya bud. You wound up in the nerd dorm.”

I grinned at the trio and replied, “That’s perfect. I just so happen to be a nerd too.”

Rave stood up and walked across the room to me, “Nope. You can’t just declare yourself a nerd. You must earn the right. Let’s start with name and class.”

Finally. Easy questions. I said, “Oh right, introductions. My name is Melvin Murphy. I am a summoner.”

Run laughed, “Talk about minimal info. What level are you champ?”

I rubbed the back of my head. There was little point in keeping it a secret so I replied, “I’m level 15.”

The collective gasp told me they were expecting me to be lower level. Joe gave me an incredulous look and asked, “How did you pull that off? Did you awaken when you were a baby?”

I sighed and answered, “It’s complicated.”

“Try us”, Run suggested.

I rubbed the back of my head while I wondered if answering truthfully would get me in trouble, “I might have accidentally killed a vampire.”

The trio stopped to look at one another. Run said, “I don’t think he’s lying.”

Joe gasped, “He can’t be telling the truth.”

Rave laughed and pointed out, “He heard about that just like the rest of us did and now he’s just trying to take credit. I don’t believe he killed anything.”

Joe turned to the boy and said, “Then how do you explain his levels? He didn’t just grow them in his sleep.”

It was my turn to feign shock, “You can do that?”

Joe grunted, “No, you can’t do that. Seriously, how long have you been awakened?”

I tried to count the days on my fingers, “Less than a month, I guess.”

“How?”, was the only word that Rave could manage.

I just shrugged. I didn’t have another explanation planned. Joe changed the subject and guided me to an empty room, “This will be your private room. You can manipulate the panel on the wall to make it completely private or allow guests. I suggest making it private until you figure out the settings. It will be the one place in your life here that you get all to yourself.”

I walked through the entrance and the others followed me. Run pointed out, “If you set it to private we won’t be able to follow you in like that without you giving special authorization.”

I looked around the room. It looked lived in so I asked, “Is this someone else’s room?”

Again the trio seemed agitated by one of my questions. Joe swallowed and informed me, “That was Isaiah. He had to leave suddenly and go back home.”

I decided not to press the matter.

After my roommates left to give me some privacy, I looked around my room. The panel on the wall was pretty self-explanatory.

Privacy Setting

Public/Private

Light Color

Turquoise

Window

Yes/No

Air Conditioner

74 Degrees

Bed Softness Number

4

Bed Composition

Water/Air/Fluff/Hybrid

Fan

1/2/3/4

Fan Speed

Low/Medium/High

Time Mode

Sunrise/Day/Sunset/Night

I played around with everything. I could make a fake window show a number of outdoor scenes. Using night mode I could choose the time of day for several special effects. With 4 positionable fans, I could make a virtual tornado in my room.

The bed was amazing. It wasn’t too big or anything, but I could adjust the softness as well as the composition of the mattress. I settled on a fluffy foam mattress floating somewhere inside of a waterbed. I discovered that my softness number was 4 after trying every setting.

There was a guest list. Anyone on that list could enter my room as though I had set it to public. I added a single name.

Kalliphae Hellquist

I had just made myself comfortable when I suddenly found myself sputtering and retching as a very strong taste went down my throat. I immediately knew that the sensation had come through the connection.

Kalli, what’s wrong? What is that taste?

The redhead struggled to reply as she tried to catch her breath. Very…strong…tea.

I tuned into the connection to discover Kalli sitting at one of the long dinner tables with Wendy and Stefanie. They had ordered some dinner plates and Wendy offered Kalli some of her special tea. Apparently, the girl really liked her tea.

I laughed at Kalliphae’s new experience and decided to take the BUFF out of my bag. I found it a new home in corner of my room and tried to think back to the name of the pizza restaurant we had passed on our walk to the hotel.

Kalli immediately noticed what I was doing as I took the pizza box out of the buff. No fair. I wanted to eat that.

I can bring you some if you like.

She thought about it for a minute before declining. No thanks. It would be weird if you came back now. Boys can get in a lot of trouble if they come down here without a good reason.

Pizza is always a good reason.

Kalli couldn’t think of a good excuse not to have pizza, so she met me at the elevator. We agreed it was too risky for me to go back to the girl’s dorms and she didn’t want to go to the boy’s, so we met in the middle at the elevator. We had finished half of the pizza when the elevator lurched into motion and we were forced to ride up to the surface.

When the doors slid open a man in blue overalls stepped in, eying us nervously. He asked, “What are you two doing in here?”

Kalli gave him her brightest smile and answered, “We just wanted to find someplace quiet to enjoy some pizza. Would you like a slice?”

The man looked down at the pizza and asked, “Is this some kind of a prank? You kids are always up to no good.”

I replied using my best adult communication skills, “No sir. We have plenty. Feel free to help yourself.”

He reluctantly agreed and soon enough we were all sitting on the elevator floor munching on pizza. It turned out that he was a maintenance worker for the hotel who introduced himself as Mr. Henry. He had the ability to lock the elevator so that we could enjoy our meal interruption-free.

Mr. Henry told us stories as we ate, “The kids from your school usually cause trouble when they come up from wherever those special floors are. You can’t go down to them if you don’t have a special keycard on you. I usually wind up having to clean up messes made by some of the brats down there. It’s nice to know that there are some good seeds among you guys too.”

We gave Mr. Henry the leftovers and made our way back to our dorms. Kalli pinched me when I offered to walk her to her dorm. I am perfectly capable of walking myself through the halls. It would look weird if you walked with me everywhere I went.

Back in my private room I sunk into my bed and marveled at my accommodations.

I can’t believe I get all of this space to myself.

Kalli agreed. If this is what The Academy is going to be like, I can’t wait to go to class tomorrow.

I anxiously tried to fall asleep. It wasn’t easy to sleep when we were so excited.