Having realized that low numbers would be a theme in the beginner classes of essential weaponry, she was less surprised when she got to the small blades training ground and found herself alone with the instructor. It made a certain amount of sense. She’d pretty much seen that everyone carried around at least one dagger with them at all times. It was convenient both for food and as an emergency measure in case one was confronted by a monster. Maybe the commoners didn’t have proficiency with the bow, but all the nobles would at the very least. As for why there were none of the talent students here… Well, if they were admitted because they were talented, then them having proficiency with knives wasn’t really that surprising either.

Plus, she figured even stuff like cooking could probably net you some proficiency. The beginner levels went by pretty fast, and most people got stuck in intermediate for a very long time, if they ever got out of it. They weren’t like her, who got insane bonuses to everything, it seemed. She couldn’t be sure, but she figured either siphon or adaptable were playing a part in her natural learning too. Maybe both.

Smiling, she dug through her memory for his name as she went forward to greet her private tutor--er, professor. “Hello Viscount Xay.” He held out a slightly scarred hand to take hers, bending grizzled lips over her fingers. His wiry body spoke of extreme flexibility even as he bent. His hair was short, with a few threads of white in the brown mass to signify his age of around forty, if she had to guess. Unlike many of the other professors who wore loose clothing, his was tight fitted to his lean body. She wondered if he had an ounce of fat on him, or if he was just pure muscle and bone.

“Jade, it’s lovely to see you again. But please, call me Brady.” His tenor voice was melodical, and she vaguely recalled seeing singing on his list of siphonable abilities.

Glancing around to make sure there were no other arrivals in sight, she asked cheerfully, “So, do I have you all to myself for training, or are we waiting for more to arrive?” She was barely on time, so she doubted it, but it never hurt to check.

He chuckled softly, “Just you. The rest of the herd was here last hour.”

She smiled apologetically. “Sorry to take so much of your time for just me.” Even though she was glad to have the personal instruction, because she was pretty sure she’d grow much faster this way, she was pretty sure a viscount had better things to do than teach her to wield the shinies.

He shook his head, grinning. “Don’t worry about it. It’s an honor to be able to teach a traveler.” Well okay, that kinda fit in with the whole hero worship that went on here, but she was glad not to see a fanatical gleam in his eye when he talked about it. Just humor and respect, which was nice.

Grinning back at him, she pulled out her bag and showed him her collection of daggers. “Thank you then! I’m looking forward to learning how to use these without impaling myself.”

He laughed upon seeing her collection. “You have enough there?”

She shrugged innocently. “I didn’t buy them, they were a gift! Was I supposed to say no?”

Shaking his head, he reached in and started pulling them out. “All right, let’s start by figuring out which ones you want to use regularly. We’ll figure out which ones you’re comfortable wearing and then start with how to pull them out without, as you so eloquently put it, impaling yourself.”

“Sounds like a plan to me!” They spent the next five minutes attaching straps to various locations on her body as she figured out where she wanted to keep her knives. She ended up deciding on two knives that followed the outer lining of her boots, one on her right thigh, and a small pack of throwing blades that could double as her archery brace on her right forearm. She had considered one on her left outer bicep, but decided that she probably didn’t need to arm herself to the teeth. She had magic, after all. Her arsenal would grow, and she didn’t need to fill every slot with a knife.

She had thought he might start her with some of the wooden blades she saw in boxes nearby, but his decision had surprised her. “No, we’ll start you with real blades. You’re a healer, and you’ll learn more from your mistakes if they actually hurt.” She had grumped a little bit, then conceded that he was probably right.

Still, she did pretty decently, and attributed at least part of it to the fact that she had her autocorrect skills in place. She still managed to cut her arm twice, but like he said, she was a healer, so it didn’t matter too much other than the sting of pain before she healed herself. It was less pain than she got from siphoning people and barely lasted twenty seconds, so she decided it wasn’t worth complaining about.

After she could properly draw her weapons without hurting herself, he taught her the correct way to grip each one. What followed was a series of demonstrations on how to stab and slash, what to avoid, how to make your movements unpredictable and predict the moves of your opponents… It was like he was trying to shove all his close combat knowledge into her brain. She kept up, barely, but it was something she was going to need to review a lot until it was second nature to her.

In the last ten minutes, he’d sparred with her, which was the most painful part. He’d scored a series of small nicks across her body, always holding his strength back and not cutting too deeply, but making sure it hurt. Her only consolation was that she had managed to score one hit on him as well, though it too was shallow. After healing them both up, she laughed as she looked at her clothing. It was clean, but she still had a bunch of cuts showing her white skin on her legs, shoulders, back, and stomach. He really hadn’t shown a whole lot of mercy, but she was grateful. No monster would show mercy, and it had helped her figure out her weaknesses in an extremely clear manner.

Panting with exhaustion, she sat next to him as they both gulped down water. He may have been scoring the most hits, but she’d made him work for it. Her movements were still jerky at times, but that also made them more unpredictable. He laughed, staring at the bright blue sun. “I’m honestly amazed. You made huge progress in just one lesson.”

She grinned, poking his arm. “If I didn’t, you’d have bled me to death! You have no mercy!” In an hour of personal tutoring and cutting each other up, the lines had bled, and he no longer felt like a teacher, but an older friend, albeit one who was intent on pounding as much as he could into her brain and body.

He grinned. “You’re not like most of the students I see come through here. Everyone else would have complained if I put them through what I just did with you.”

She feigned outrage. “Wait, I was allowed to say no!?” She met his eyes with a straight face, and then both of them burst into laughter. Grinning, she plucked at her clothes, saying cheerfully, “You owe me new clothes. Camille is going to have a fit if she sees that I’ve already torn up one of the outfits she got me.” She’d only nicked his arm, so his clothes were fine.

He laughed, saying innocently, “What, I thought all the young girls were trying to show more skin these days?” She punched him softly in the arm.

“What do you take me for, some tramp?” They laughed and stood up, where he offered her his arm.

“Well little tramp, shall we go get food?” She grumbled and nodded. It was kinda nice that he wasn’t as freaked out about her skin as some of the other people had been, like Raphael. Granted, it didn’t hurt that he was more than twice her age and more interested in raising her up to be a knife prodigy.

“You’re paying for it.”

He laughed. “You don’t pay for food here.” She grumbled again as they began walking towards a large building she’d been told was the cafeteria. With five floors, it had a pretty strict hierarchy. As a first year, she was supposed to go the fifth floor for her food. The only exceptions were that once a week, each student could invite someone from a lower grade to eat on their floor, and the food got better the closer you were to the ground. The first floor obviously belonged to the professors.

Grinning as he led her to the counter to place their order on the first floor, she said happily, “At least I’ll get the good food with you! It’s worth being cut up for that.” He laughed. The rule was almost the same for the professors, but they could bring one student a day. The small blades training grounds were fairly close to the cafeteria, so they were some of the earlier ones there.

“So, what’re the best options?” She was studying the menu--they had a real menu! Well, sort of. It was more like those fast food restaurants that had boards behind the counter that listed what was available, but close enough. Since everyone here could read, it made more sense that this was where something like that would show up.

Brady looked thoughtful before shrugging. “Everything on this floor is good. It won’t be the case with the other floors, but here you can’t really go wrong unless there’s something you dislike.” Jade nodded, and he looked at the counter lady. “Estelle, I’ll have the steak, medium rare, baked potato, and cooked veggies.”

“Very well, Viscount. We’ll have that right out for you. And what will you have, miss?”

Jade grinned, still looking at the menu, before she finally decided. “All right. I’ll have the steak medium rare as well, and then the battered chicken, the ribs, the chicken salad, and the sausage chili. For sides I’ll take a baked potato, the cooked veggies, the fresh fruit, mushroom soup, three rolls, and the meat pie.” She looked at the menu, then thought for a moment. “Oh right, and two glasses of juice, one of milk, and two of water.”

Estelle raised her blond eyebrows at her. “Are you trying to feed an army?”

Jade laughed and shook her head. “Army of one, at your service! No, honestly it’s all for me. I did a bunch of healing this morning and I’m going into four hours of magic classes, so I promise I’ll eat it all.” Both Estelle and Brady looked dubious, but finally Estelle nodded when Brady gave her the ‘just do it’ look.

“All right. We’ll get that out to you, miss…?”

“Jade. It’s lovely to meet you Estelle. You’ll probably be seeing a lot of me.”

Estelle laughed. “You’ve got guts, that’s for sure. What makes you think the professors will use their passes on you?”

Jade grinned, then shrugged. “I’m in fourteen magic classes and I’m a traveler. Brady and Carter are both basically giving me private lessons. I’m good friends with Camille and Will, and I’m pretty sure they get to eat on this floor too. Between all of them, I’m pretty sure I can coerce someone to get me meals on this floor. I’m too much of a foodie to want to eat on the fifth floor.”

Estelle was staring at her with astounded light green eyes. Finally, she laughed and shook her head. “I stand corrected. We’ll have your food right out, Lady Jade.”

“Just Jade is fine. Thank you Estelle. It was lovely to meet you.” Jade grinned and Brady dragged her away to an empty table as he raised his brow at her.

“Really, fourteen magic classes? Which professor did you piss off by not taking their class?”

Jade just stared at him. “I’m taking all of them, what do you mean?”

He laughed. “There are fifteen magic classes offered right now.”

She blanched, then reached into her bag to yank out her schedule and show Brady. He looked over it, then winced. “You’re missing Nature, with Viscountess Delaney. Good luck with that one. She’s going to be…unhappy, to say the least, that you’re taking every magic class but hers.”

She laid her head on the table, groaning softly. “I forgot that it didn’t fit! I was thinking I had them all covered! I even met her! What am I supposed to dooooooo?”

“What’s the problem?” A new voice came from behind her, and suddenly it was no longer her and Brady at the table as Eric and Stephen both sat down. Stephen looked concerned at the fact that she was gently banging her head on the table.

Pointing at Eric, she wrinkled her nose as she accused him teasingly, “This is partly your fault! Why didn’t you remind me I’d missed a magic class!?”

Understanding dawned on them, and Stephen pulled her class schedule over from Brady, looking over it. He shook his head once he too realized who’d been left out. “Delaney is going to be mad.”

Eric winced. “We didn’t put in Delaney’s class?” Jade nodded and he sighed. “We can… I have no idea what to do. Count Edmund is expecting you in his geography class too.”

Jade winced. “We have to fix this somehow!” She pulled her schedule back, looking at it. “Oh, what if… She’s here on Tuesdays, and I have Tuesday mornings free. What if we asked her to tutor me before lunch?” She was a little loathe to give up the little bit of free time she’d managed to grab for herself, but she did also want to learn nature magic. It would also depend on if Delaney was willing to come early for her.

Eric sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll ask. If she realizes that’s the only way to have you as a student, she might agree. At least the fact that you want to take lessons should mollify her…” He looked a little stressed out at the prospect. Jade tried to smile reassuringly at him. She had the feeling he was going to get an earful about signing her up for every other magic class and missing Delaney’s.

After all, Hell hath no wrath like a woman scorned...