“The Meteoris family has a long and storied history, stretching back to the early days of the Central Authority when the budding nation’s position was less stable. The family's founder, Gerard Meteoris, used his Weather shroud to calm wild storms, allowing greater agricultural and travel freedom. This greatly expanded the area of the CA’s influence and helped form it into the superpower it is today. In the intervening millennia, the Meteoris family has diversified and expanded, growing to occupy several key industries. Despite this increase in wealth and power, the main branch has stuck to its roots, continuing the family tradition of protecting vital agriculture and trade routes.” Excerpt from ‘A Family History: How the Meteoris took the Central Authority by Storm’ By Hendricks Meteoris.

Caeden woke to an alarm going off. It was loud enough to drown out the ear-bleeding sound of Erik’s snores. He somehow managed to sound like a tea kettle crossed with branches breaking. Caeden had no idea how someone could breathe to even make those sounds, but Erik did it. All. Night.

Luckily, at this point, after three weeks of dealing with it, Caeden was used to the noise. He actually felt like he had slept better than normal. Some of that had to be down to the quality of the beds here compared to the War God. A flashing red square next to the door seemed to be the source of the sound. Caeden walked up and poked it, getting nothing. Next, he tried his ID. Also nothing. After that, he tried his ID plus Erik’s ID. That worked.

By that point, Caeden had a desperate need to use the bathroom and get in a quick shower to start the day. Throwing on a robe over the boxers he slept in, Caeden headed for the end of the hall, almost stumbling over a small bundle right in front of the door. Glancing at it, the bundle was a small stack of papers bound together. With nature calling, he didn’t have time to go through it, so he tossed it onto his bed and made sure he had his ID before bolting.

Ten minutes later, and morning routine complete, Caeden made his way back to the room, humming under his breath. The bathrooms were as well-appointed as the rest of the dorms, small rooms notwithstanding. They even had hygienic products, like shampoo and toothbrushes on hand. Everything here was like another universe compared to Caeden’s village. He had a basic toilet and shower, courtesy of a few small bits of ether, but that was it. He had only had a toothbrush because he had brought one with him when he left his uncle’s. This was living in true luxury.

Feeling awake and positive about the first day of class, Caeden set about looking at the package from earlier. What he found was straightforward. The top two pages were his and Erik’s class itineraries. They had the exact same schedule. Their first class was physical conditioning, which they apparently had to do three times a day, morning, noon, and night, which led him to remember that he had no idea what time it was. He was so used to all his light being natural that the completely artificial lighting had thrown off his internal clock.

Luckily, or probably deliberately, Caeden found a watch tucked onto the top shelf of his closet. According to the schedule, they had to be at a field, as indicated in an included map, by 7. It was currently 6:15. “Ahh, shit.”

Caeden walked over to Erik, still snoring like a dying animal, and held his hand over his airways. After weeks, this was the only surefire way to wake the guy up. That, or stab him. So, Caeden went with the option that involved less blood and cleanup. After a few long seconds, Erik’s eyes snapped open.

“Hey, we have class, hurry up and get ready. We have less than an hour to find where we’re supposed to be.” Caeden filled him in.

“Oh, come on! Do we have time for breakfast?” Erik frowned.

“Well, our first class is physical conditioning, so if you want to eat before working out…” Caeden left it hanging.

Erik groaned. “Boo!”

“There’s a time set aside for breakfast afterward.”

“What? Really?!” Erik’s expression did a complete 180.

In response, Caeden tossed Erik his itinerary. Erik began pouring over it. “Woo! Three meals a day!”

“We have all the same classes too.”

“Yes!” Erik jumped out of bed. “I’ll be ready in a minute!” He meant that literally, grabbing a robe and running out of the room, nearly smashing his face into the doorframe, managing to change his trajectory with his shroud at the last second. He then kept running for the bathroom, robe half-on.

Caeden shook his head. “If I hadn’t seen him trip over literally nothing, I’d think he’s just clumsy.”

With nothing else to do in the meantime, Caeden went to Lily’s door, wondering if she was up or had read her itinerary. It would be interesting to see what was different. Seeing their own packet still sitting outside, he assumed Lily and Cat hadn’t gotten up yet. Or at least they hadn’t left their room. He knocked.

“Lily, your itinerary is out here.” He picked it up, glancing at the first line. “Says you have class in under an hour. Same as Erik and me.” Caeden was pretty sure everyone would be taking the same conditioning classes. Maybe not at the same locations, but the same routine, at least to start out with.

“Oh!” Caeden heard movement, and Lily flung the door open, looking ready to go. “I didn’t think about it. Cat and I were talking. Where are we supposed to be?”

Caeden handed over the packet while looking at his own. “Well, we’re all on-field ten, which according to this map,” He flipped over to an unfolding sheet that had the entire school grounds sectioned out and labeled. The four Seats, the Mess, and the various environments scattered across the grounds. He also had five other maps for each of the buildings. Right now, though, he was looking for field ten.

“Here,” Lily pointed, looking over his shoulder. “Right outside, really.”

Following her finger, he could see it, situated right by the Core Seat in the opposite direction from the Mess. Looking at the map a little more, Caeden found it agreed with his earlier idea. He could see many other fields, labeled similarly, going all the way up to thirty. He wasn’t sure what the relative capacity of each field was, but that was a lot of space.

“Well, Erik’s getting ready. We can leave pretty soon. Don’t want to be late.”

{}

Caeden heaved deep lungfuls of air, barely able to breathe. He had just been through the most intense workout of his life. The man in charge of them was a military drill sergeant, and he didn’t care how tired they were or the relative fitness of everyone involved. In fact, he seemed to revel in putting every single student through their worst exercises.

The whole class, at least for today, took place on what looked like an adult playground with a variety of obstacles. The class itself had everyone simply running through a battery of exercises and tests. It was everything from simple running and weightlifting to climbing rope and crawling along the ground.

Caeden had done relatively well until they started doing agility training. He was built thick and heavy from forge work, not designed to turn on a dime or make rapid bursts of speed. Conversely, Erik had destroyed the agility section but fell short on weightlifting.

Poor Lily, who Caeden was sure was malnourished for some reason, ended up collapsing multiple times. She had zero body fat but no muscle either. She was basically a blank slate. The instructor, Drill Master Dan, ended up having her just running laps for the last two-thirds of the class. Caeden was stuck doing suicides and cone drills, and Erik was suffering through a weightlifting regimen that Caeden would have found challenging.

A big surprise was Cat. It turned out every student on the same floor would be in the same physical conditioning class, so they got to see her in action. She was both faster and stronger than Caeden would have initially guessed, but the real surprise was her stamina. She would move from exercise to exercise, breathing heavily and sweating, but she didn’t stop. She moved through the entire battery of tests in almost half the time of everyone else just by never taking a break.

A few more standouts were on his floor. There was a mountain of a man that put Caeden’s maximum weight to shame and another man who ended up being extremely skilled at climbing. One woman surprised everyone when they got to a test where everyone was supposed to make their way across a wire, hand over hand. She jumped up on top of it and ran across like she was walking down the street.

Now, they were finally done, and it was time for breakfast. Caeden’s entire body felt like it was on the verge of collapse. He wasn’t sure how he was going to make it off the field, let alone back to the Core Seat.

“Focus up, fresh meat!” Dan shouted. That’s what he called everyone. Fresh meat. “Over here, you will find some ether-infused water.” He gestured to a table off the side of the field, covered with small cups of water. “This will recover most of your fatigue and resupply your bodies with some vital nutrients you lost this morning. It will NOT, I REPEAT, IT WILL NOT fix your sore muscles. This class is about increasing the basic capabilities of your body, and instantly repairing everything would run counter to that. So, enjoy the burn because it's not going anywhere!”

Everyone who wasn’t unconscious let out a groan.

{}

Caeden continued to take big bites out of his breakfast burrito. He and his friends were walking toward the Mess, where their first real class, general education, would take place. After their conditioning, recovery was a long process. Even with the infused water, which did wonders in restoring lost stamina, they still had a hard time getting back to the Core Seat. Conditioning was an hour, and they had an hour for breakfast, then class. Half of that hour was spent slowly shuffling back to the Seat and trying not to cry from the deep ache in every muscle in his body.

After a quick shower and a change (That must be why they had so many changes of robes), they went to the cafeteria to grab something they could eat on the go. Now they were almost to the Mess and almost done eating.

“What do you think we’re going to learn?” Erik asked.

“There’s no way to tell.” Lily shrugged. “General education isn’t exactly descriptive.”

Caeden nodded mutely, still eating.

The Mess was a mess. That sounded like a joke to Caeden the second he thought it, but it was true. Even with a map and three people looking at it, they weren’t sure they were going the right way. The main hall was straightforward, but from there, they had several hallways they could take, each of which wasn’t a straight line. They all curved weirdly and intersected with other hallways or sometimes ended out of nowhere. Some even changed elevation, so you could just end up on another floor.

Their only saving grace was all the doors being marked numerically, so they just followed the numbers. Caeden was sure there was probably a more efficient route than that, but they definitely would have gotten lost. As it was, they ended up in the classroom with a few minutes to spare. They sat together in a middle row of the large lecture hall. Every row of seats was slightly raised, facing the front of the room. This meant that even though there were probably over a hundred seats, everyone would be able to see the teacher relatively well.

The number of students in class ahead of them was less than ten, and they were scattered all over the place. In the minutes leading up to the official start of class, a couple dozen more hurried in, but that was all. Caeden had expected this to be a more populated class, considering the size of the room. However, by the time the teacher entered, there were less than fifty students present.

Their teacher was a short young woman with dusky skin and short brown hair. She headed straight for the wall all the seats faced and began to write on it. Caeden didn’t see a writing utensil, but this was one of the sections of the Mess made of ether like the Core Seat, so he had to assume it was associated with that.

Caeden swore he had already seen the teacher but running her appearance against all the ones he had seen on stage at orientation; it wasn’t a match. Then it hit him. The antlered woman! That was what had thrown him off. Her antlers were gone. She had had a set just yesterday, now nothing. He was confused.

Their teacher kept writing until she turned to the class with a flourish.

“Hello, new students, and welcome to your first general education class. I see we managed to get almost half the class here in time, excellent.” Suddenly the absence of students felt a lot more deliberate. “Now, I’m sure some of you are curious about what we will be learning here. General education is very vague and unhelpful. You would be correct. The truth is, this class more serves to establish a basic understanding before I’ll send you off to classes with a more specific focus. Some of you-”

She was interrupted by a group of students coming through the door. They looked at her and then looked at the students looking at her. She just gestured toward the many empty seats. Almost collectively, the group shrugged and went to sit right at the front of the class.

“As I was saying. Some of you will already know this information. That’s fine. This class will act as a reminder. For those uninformed-”

One of the students who entered late, a boy, laughed and tried to hide it as an overly dramatic cough.

The teacher stared at him. “For those uninformed, this will give you the basics you need to understand what your other teachers are telling you. I am Elune Forna, and today we will be learning the basics of shroud classification.”

She pointed to what she had written on the wall in big black letters. It looked much like the information on Caeden's ID, but with more added. Shroud, Modifier/Object/Creature Aura/Infusion Category ?, invasion pressure ?, ? tier control.

“All of you will be at least vaguely familiar with this format, as it's on your ID. This is the standard format for categorizing and defining shrouds. We’ll start at the beginning and move on. First,” She pointed to the palace where it said ‘shroud’, “Your shroud's name, or domain. You all know this. It is the portion of reality your shroud has control over. The next part will probably be new information for some.”

More barely concealed laughter.

“Something to add?” Elune crossed her arms, waiting for a reply.

“No, ma’am. Just have a bad cough.” The student in question didn't even try to look repentant. He was actually smiling.

“Hmm, see you keep it under control.” She returned to the lesson, pointing at the part with Modifier/Object/Creature. “This is your shroud’s type. There are complexities involved in each of the three types, which you will explore further in another class. The most basic explanation is, Modifier shrouds alter things that already exist, object shrouds make something out of nothing, and creature shrouds can both modify and create, but only with living creatures.”

She paused for a moment, allowing that to sink in. “Next, we have expression. This is very simple. Aura is when your shroud naturally manifests outside your body. Infusion is when your shroud naturally manifests in your body. All shrouds can do both, but expressing your shroud in its alternate form will be much more costly, as well as harder to control. The next segment,” She pointed to the segment labeled ‘category ?’ “is just a measurement of how difficult it will be to express in the opposite direction. This is rated from 1 to 5. For example, a category 5 aura shroud will find it much harder to perform an infusion than a category 1.”

“This.” She pointed toward ‘invasion pressure ?’, “Is much more complicated. Invasion is the term used when one shroud attempts to enter the aura of another and subvert it. Most of you will have never experienced this before, so it may be hard to find a frame of reference.”

The laugher in the front of the class was whispering between him and his friends, all of them suppressing giggles that were escalating into full-blown, undisguised laughter. An annoyed look crossed Elune’s face. This was obviously going too far.

“Brendan Calston.” The giggling immediately cut off, and the instigator whipped his head around to focus on the teacher.

She smiled coldly. “Since you seem to be enjoying my class so much, why don’t you come up here for a practical demonstration?”

With a shrug and some swagger, Brendan moved to the front of the room. “Sure.”

“Excellent,” Elune turned back to the whole class. “Now, all of you know what your ID says, but what does that number mean? Invasion pressure is a measurement of how much force an individual's aura exerts on others passively. The key factor here is, as the maximum amount of shroud a person has increases, so does their invasion pressure, or IP. This makes tracking IP a convenient way to measure someone's total capacity. It is not an exact metric, as every shroud uses up their reserves at different rates, and what two different people with the same IP can accomplish will vary.”

“This leads us to the second point. How much is a lot of IP? I’m sure some of you are wondering. It's a valid question. Knowing your opponent's IP can be a solid baseline for judging how difficult a fight is going to be. For example, Mr.Calston here has an IP of 350. This is quite high for a new arrival.” Brendon puffed out his chest, “The minimum requirement for graduation this year is 10,000.”

Brendon looked shocked. Caeden felt the same. Elune nodded, seeing everyone’s surprise. “That sounds like a lot. I assure you, that is a perfectly reasonable amount. Most of the class will reach it. Central Academy uses several training techniques to allow for rapid growth. All of you who have looked at your later itinerary that is what the invasion training class on your schedule is about. To put this into perspective, my IP is over 300,000,000. I’m also one of the lowest of all the teaching staff.”

Caeden looked toward Erik, then Lily. Erik actually looked surprised, which was the same as someone else screaming in terror. Lily looked afraid.

“But I said we would have a demonstration. I’ve barely touched on the actual uses of invasion in combat instead of as a measurement tool.” She turned to Brendon, that cold smile back. “Please brace yourself, as this is known to be exceedingly painful.”