Derek felt his grandmother’s mana delve him. It was a calm and gentle warmth he had known all his life, a softer blend of holy energy that trended towards the healing and fortification of the beings natural to the world. She scanned his body and schema and clicked her tongue, “Tch, boy, your mom is going to be upset when she sees this. Run along to her classroom and get her to look at you before you go on to your Weapons class. I will inform Ovid that you will be late.”

He looked at her with a confused look on his face, “But I don’t know her classroom?”

“Of course you don’t, dull boy, but Alicia does. Get her to take you. Now run along.” She flicked his forehead before waving him off.

He turned to see his mother’s apprentice waiting with a small group of hangers on. She seemed to be quite concerned but still cheerful. “Derek, that was dangerous. I am glad you weren’t hurt.”

As she led him out of the room, she introduced him to her friends. Now that he had removed his masking, there was no longer any reason to hide who he was. Some of these girls and boys seemed genuinely interested to meet him while the rest merely humored Alicia. It seemed to Derek that most of the boys had some hidden hostility towards him but he couldn’t figure out why. Perhaps they were mad because of how unpleasant the room had gotten when he cast his spell. Some of their clothes were not quite as pristine as they had been before the class.

A few minutes later Derek encountered his mother coming out of another building. She seemed more than a little upset. Stepping forward he clasped her hands, “Mother, what’s wrong?”

When she saw him, she hugged him tightly to her, “I heard you were attacked in your grandmother’s class. I was coming over to see if you were hurt.”

As he held his distraught mother, he felt her mana pour into him quite urgently. Water, Earth and Light mana merged into a comforting mix that deftly explored his body and schema before arriving at the part of his schema that his grandmother had identified as problematic. She began working on it while speaking, “Oh, you have damaged your mana pool, the mana it gathers has started escaping back into the world. Give me a moment… there all done. It is patched for now and will heal in time.”

She released him and rubbed a speck of blood from the corner of his mouth with her sleeve. “You have to be more careful. It scared me to death to hear you were hurt like that. Tell me you won’t do it again.”

Derek looked down at his doting mother, it hurt him to see her fretting like this, even if her demand seemed a little absurd. He smiled comfortingly at her, “Yes mom, I promise I won’t do it again. Are you OK now?”

As he finished saying that, the bell for the next class started to ring, “Oh, we’ll be late, you need to go into your class and I need to go to the practice yards to Ovid’s class. I love you mom, bye.”

With that he scampered off to the amusement of the students gathered around. He ran across the grounds and found Ovid’s class in the practice yard to the north. There were easily thirty students there and Ovid had them drilling basic drills to tell their proficiency. When Derek joined them, his Weapons Master ordered him in front of the group to demonstrate the techniques they were doing.

The practice continued nonstop and at varying frequencies for a few hours before Ovid dismissed all but Derek. “Boy, I heard about what happened in your grandmother’s class. You did well in beating those others, but don’t take things for granted.

“That Paladin may not be particularly strong for his tier and his spell casting should have been his weakness, but don’t expect things to go so easily next time. The man was two tiers higher than you. His physical stats alone should make him a threat to you and at his age he shouldn’t make any foolish mistakes while fighting you like that boy from before. If he had drawn a blade on you, it might have been you getting carried out of there instead of him.

“Otherwise, good work. Now run off to your dorm and change. I expect your mother will want you to come to the house to eat tonight instead of going to the cafeteria. You can bring your friends if you want, a livelier table makes her happy.”

Derek saluted his master before returning home to his Dorm where he saw the other three boys sitting around talking about what happened in the class. Tristan turned to him, “Why did you mask your status? Tier two freshmen get treated entirely differently here from the normal tier ones.”

Derek laughed it off, “Why would I want that? I already get the best treatment I would here since I am part of the House. I just wanted to be treated like a normal student by my peers.”

The young mage thought about that for a moment before speaking up, “I can understand with your background how you can cast Holy Magic so well. Your family is known for its barbaric obsession with demons for a reason, but where did you learn that final spell?”

Derek started wiping the sweat from training off of himself with a damp rag from a bucket in his corner of the room, “The last one? I call that ‘Righteous Fury’. It’s from a branch of magic that an ancestor of mine taught me that merges Wrath and Holy spells that he called ‘Holy Fury’. I have only used it twice, and the backlash this time was quite harsh. The base is a Clan spell called ‘Righteous Blessing’ that is intended to enhance human soldiers when fighting demons. The addition of fire mana though makes it quite dangerous for those that are not the target of the enhancement, and I don’t know if I have the control yet to cast it on more than just myself. You saw how badly hurt I was from that overcast.”

Garrett gaped at him, “So it’s true you actually beat a Paladin in a spellcasting contest? That’s crazy, the lowest tiered paladins are tier four, maybe three if they have very strong foundations.”

Derek laughed, “Well yeah, but he wasn’t a particularly strong caster, and he even impaired himself by removing his holy symbol. To be honest, I don’t know what he was thinking. If the idea was to convince students from here to go to their school then he not only failed but managed to make them look worse than they did before. He was too hot headed by half.”

He pulled a shirt over his head to finish dressing and turned to the other three boys, “I am going to my mom’s house for dinner, do you guys want to join me?”

His friends glanced at each other and Tristan acted like he had not even been asked before Garrett spoke up, “Is Alicia going to be there?”

Derek looked at him with an odd look on his face. Somehow all three boys were interested in the answer to this question. He just didn’t understand, but he shook it off before responding, “Yes? But I don’t see...”

“Oh then I’ll go!” “Yeah, me too!” Garrett and Desmond blurted out. Derek didn’t know what to make of it, these guys were really behaving strangely. Tristan finally spoke up, “Do you mind if I come?”

Derek shook his head, “Yeah I guess so. The more the merrier! Let’s get going then.”

The four of them hurried out of their building but came to a halt as they ran into a crowd watching some kind of altercation. There were three groups of adults arguing at the entrance of the school. The first was a group from House Windreach, some faculty, staff, and other members of the House. The other two groups were marked in the clothing of the Church of the Sun. One group wore the trappings of the Church itself, while the other had the markings of the Order of the Ardent Dawn.

The disagreeing parties got louder as Derek and his dorm mates shouldered their way forward. As he broke through to the front of the group of onlookers he heard an enraged man say, “What do you mean you are handing him over to the Church for punishment? Who are you to demand the punishment of my people, especially when the one harmed was him, not the boy you claim he attacked?”

Derek saw that it was his maternal grandfather that responded. “Chapter Master Ordino, your man attacked a student of this university in front of several witnesses. I already have testimony from six people that had been in that room, and I could easily provide more. Furthermore, the Priestess’ own daughter has witnessed this. It is already an expression of respect and trust for your Order and the Church that we are merely releasing him to Guardian Willem instead of punishing him ourselves.”

The Chapter Master looked like he was about to respond when the leader of the other group from the Church spoke up, “Thank you, Baron. I will take him into our custody now and bring him before the Priestess. When she has heard the testimonies from the young ones that were in the room and from the Paladin, she will pass judgement. You will receive word of the proceedings by the end of the night. Is that sufficient.”

Baron Nicholas nodded, “Thank you, my friend. I of course trust in the Priestess’ wisdom and judgement. I look forward to the resolution of this folly.”

With that the prisoner was brought forward and given over to the Guardian. The Guardian turned and looked pointedly at the Chapter Master, “Ordino, return to the Cathedral with me, I am certain the Priestess would love to hear why your errand boys have been making trouble in the Academy.”

There was no room for negotiation in his voice. He made no request but rather demanded that the Chapter Master join him. Derek was confused by that as Chapter Master Ordino sheepishly followed Guardian Willem out of the Academy. Baron Nicholas spied Derek from the crowd and approached the boys. “Grandson, do not be worried. I assure you we will get a satisfactory response from the Cathedral before the night is through.”

He then turned to the other students who were trading rumors not too quietly. “Go on students, it is almost dinner. Do not waste your time gossiping or we might determine that your workload is currently not enough!”

Derek took this as his cue. He nodded to his grandfather before turning to lead his dorm mates to his mother’s place for dinner. Listening to them chat, he really started wondering at why the other three could even care about which of the three of them his mother’s apprentice would like more. Even more puzzling was why this conversation was interesting enough to draw the normally taciturn Tristan into it.

As they approached the manor they saw that Alicia had already arrived and brought her dorm mates as well. Strangely, when the group finally gathered together, his roommates no longer had so much to say. He was left chatting with Alicia while the other six sat in awkward silence before they were all called to the table.