The class ended only minutes later. Caeden was surprised at how long it had taken him to breach the shroud ball. He had been so absorbed in the process that he hadn’t noticed the time flying by. Students began filing out past him and Erik. Their next class was actually in this room, so they just remained seated.

“Well, that was fun.” Caeden turned to his friend.

“If you say so,” Erik shrugged, looking bored.

“I’m surprised you didn’t beat me to it. Your aura sense is much, much better than mine.” Caeden admitted. He wondered if Erik simply didn’t care about winning. In fact, he was fully expecting Erik to admit to having finished well ahead of him. So his response was surprising.

“Nahh, I can’t get that meditation crap.” Erik shook his head. “Like, shutting yourself off from your body and all that? No, thank you. It’s not for me, and I just don’t get it.”

“What do you mean? This is just like what you’ve been showing me. I learned how to use aura sense from you.”

“Not like that.”

“What do you mean, ‘not like that’?” Caeden felt like Erik was messing with him.

“The stuff I do isn’t anything like what Miss Saorise was talking about.” Erik insisted.

“That’s bullshit. It’s aura sense! What do you mean it’s not the same?” Caeden protested.

“I feel like I should interject here.” Samantha’s slightly bemused voice cut through the argument developing between the two.

“Oh,” Caeden blinked, realizing he had been near shouting in the middle of a classroom. Everyone else had cleared out, but this wasn’t really the place for an argument. “Sorry, Miss Saorise, I didn’t mean to get so heated.”

She shook her head. “Not what I was referring to. I actually wanted to address the content of your conversation. It’s something we would be discussing tomorrow anyway.”

Caeden couldn’t help but be surprised. “I’d love to know anything you’d be willing to tell us.”

“Well then,” She looked to Erik, “Please elaborate on how you use your aura sense.”

“I check around me to make sure nothing is going to hit me.” Erik shrugged. “I’m no good at what you were talking about, sorry.” He looked uncomfortable after being confronted by the teacher immediately after dismissing her lesson.

“No, that’s perfectly normal.” Samantha shook her head. “Most of the lessons this week will be uncomfortable or unwieldy for most of the class. Usually, only one or two lessons will really resonate with any one individual. We don’t mention it until the week is over, but there are a variety of ways to apply aura sense. What we learned today is just one method. Most people only ever focus on one, maybe two. Not liking or understanding this lesson is normal.”

“Oh,” Caeden felt bad about pushing Erik so much. He had been assuming his friend simply didn’t want to participate and was refusing to admit it. “Then what was Erik doing compared to this?”

“A good question.” Samantha nodded approvingly, “What he described is commonly referred to as defensive aura sense. It’s primarily about passively and constantly observing your immediate surroundings to increase your reaction time to incoming attacks.”

“Oh,” Caeden felt like an idiot. “That makes so much sense.”

“What we were practicing today,” Samantha continued, “Was investigative aura sense. It focuses on maximizing the aura’s ability to interpret its surroundings by separating one’s consciousness from their body and physical senses. You have quite the knack for it.” She looked at Caeden with a warm smile.

“Now, I’d tell you both to hurry to your next class, but…” She looked at them knowingly.

“This is our next class,” Caeden confirmed.

“I figured. That means the two of you are Caeden and Erik.” She nodded.

“Are we famous or something?” The way she was talking about them made Caeden feel like their names were being bandied around.

“To a certain degree, yes,” Samantha smirked. “You might not have fully internalized this, but the two of you are a rarity. For several reasons.”

“Could you please explain, because I know dual-shrouded are rare, but I was led to believe they aren’t that rare. Not rare enough for a teacher to talk about me like I’m famous on day one. And I never got an answer about why Erik’s special. Aside from the whole bad luck thing.”

“Bad luck?” Samantha looked confused. Caeden just gave her a shrug. “It has nothing to do with bad luck, whatever you mean by that. Erik is a category zero. It should say so on his student ID.”

Caeden remembered looking at it. It looked a little like this. Stitch, modifier aura/infusion category 0, invasion pressure 50, 6th tier control. “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. I just don’t know what that means.”

“It means that he suffers no penalties for using either aura or infusion. Almost every shroud leans one way or the other. When using whichever one isn’t their preferred manifestation method, they suffer from increased IP cost, reduced control, and difficulty increasing proficiency. Category zero’s are lauded for being more versatile than any other shrouded.”

Caeden looked to Erik, who characteristically seemed nonplussed. “That’s cool.” He shrugged.

Samantha frowned at him. “It’s more than cool. You have an advantage over every other student here. I suggest you find a way to use it effectively before they figure that out. That’s not even mentioning how aggressive others will be if they find out either of your control tiers.”

“So our control tier is high,” Caeden stated. He had suspected ever since general education, but now that was confirmed. “How much higher?”

Samantha looked at him incredulously. Then she shook her head. “I think you need a little lesson on island society. Most of the students this cycle, and every cycle, are from parents working for a family but not actually related. In fact, that describes the vast majority of the child-bearing population on the islands. Because being shrouded is generally hereditary, most of the people in this shrouded middle-class have shrouded children. Out of the 2,500 or so students this cycle, easily 1,700 are from this group.”

Caeden nodded along. He had no idea how the islands worked, so this was all new information. He hadn’t realized so many shrouded on the island weren’t part of the families. He had just assumed that most or all of the island shrouded were in families, since those super-rich groups were what the islands were famous for out on the continents. It was eye-opening to learn otherwise.

“Every single parent of these students has been through this academy before, and they are told when they graduate, and again when they complete their required military service, that they cannot and will not teach any children they have how to use their shrouds. That is supposed to be reserved for the Central Academy since we have appropriately equipped teachers, and shrouds are inherently dangerous. Plus, it interferes with our teaching process.

“That means all those students, most of the class, have a control tier of one or two. Whatever they got from just casually messing around with their shrouds. Obviously, most family children have had training, so they’re much better off, but the both of you are almost universally higher than about 80% of your classmates. I’m assuming the both of you had reasons for wanting to or needing to develop your shroud control that those on the islands wouldn’t encounter.” Samantha concluded.

“Oh boy,” Erik laughed, “You got that right! I would be so dead if I didn’t have my shroud.”

“That’s more to do with you being cursed than living on a continent.” Caeden reasoned.

“Not a curse.”

“Not my point!”

“Besides your unique shrouds and high control, there’s that whole situation with the Revolution and an ancient structure.” Samantha interrupted their back-and-forth. “The both of you would be famous off of that alone. I can’t even imagine the wealth of information and technology that will come out of that place. They had already sent out a full team of ethertechs the second CA Command learned about what happened. I’m actually quite curious about what is inside one of those sites myself. I always found them quite mysterious.”

“There are more of those?” Caeden had couched his curiosity about that place in favor of putting all his efforts into his schoolwork here, hoping to pull off a miracle to get his uncle healed. Now, with an opportunity to learn presented to him, he couldn’t help but let that curiosity come back.

“Oh yes.” Samantha nodded. “They’re dotted all over the Starry Sea. No one knows how old they are or what’s going on inside. It's all lost to time. They’re incredibly ancient. Older than the oldest living shrouded.”

Caeden caught something that made no sense in there. “No one’s ever been inside one? Why didn’t they just break in?”

“They tried. Many shrouded have tried over the millennia. They’re unbreakable, or so close to it that the difference is immaterial. The one you boys came out of is the first one to ever be opened in the history of the Central Authority.”

That left Caeden with a deeply disturbing question. How did the Revolution get inside? He had been living under the assumption that the structure had been unique and unknown. The Revolution just stumbled inside. If that wasn’t true, it left a lot of questions. Scary questions, considering it was about how terrorists had access to ancient super technology.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do. He was just a student, after all, and others must be asking the same questions he was. Besides that, it ultimately wasn’t his problem to solve. The Central Authority had been dealing with the Revolution for years without truly getting rid of them. There was literally nothing he could add to the situation of value. So, as he had before, Caeden set the issue aside in his mind. Something to think about when he had more time.

“That’s freaking cool!” Erik’s reaction to this information was a bit different. “Man, that makes me wish we had explored more before leaving. We never even found out what the ethertech man was guarding. You remember that, Cae?”

Caeden rubbed his shoulder, vividly remembering the kickback from all his attempts to reflect that laser. “Yes, Erik. I remember.”

“Gahh, that thing was so cool! It’s too bad we had to destroy it.” Erik sighed wistfully.

“We? I don’t remember you being involved in that process.”

“I did the interrogation bit! That counts!” Erik protested.

Samantha laughed. “While I would love to hear more about your time in that structure, infusion control is about to begin.”

Startled, Caeden pulled his pocket watch out of his robe. It was indeed only a handful of minutes before their next class started. “I hadn’t noticed the time. I’m guessing you’re our teacher for this class as well?”

“I am indeed.” Samantha smiled.

“How's that work? You just said people are only good at one or the other, unless they’re like me.” Erik asked.

“You are correct. Which is why it's fortunate that I am, in fact, like you.” Samantha laughed as Erik’s jaw dropped.

“What?! You could have led with that!” Erik huffed, crossing his arms and pouting dramatically.

All he got in response was a smirk.

In under a minute, students began funneling into the classroom in droves. It looked like this was going to be another full class. Caeden was mildly disappointed that he hadn’t gotten to continue the conversation. He had more questions, and he had especially wanted to ask Miss Saorise about her strange, shiny black arm. He wasn’t sure how to bring it up since he had no idea whether it was a sensitive topic, but he was curious.

Once again, he had to set his curiosity aside. It was time to learn more about infusion. The class started in almost the exact same fashion as the last one, with Samantha deafening half the class and then introducing herself. The opening statement she gave was also similar, talking about how this class would be something they took part in year on year. The lesson itself was just as interesting as the last one. More so for Caeden.

“What we’ll be focusing on today is physical enhancement.”

Caeden started. What had she just said?

“Every shroud has the basic ability to increase your physical capabilities while infused. The extent of that enhancement will vary, but the basics are universal.” She continued.

Caeden was blown away. This was something every shroud could do? Didn’t that completely invalidate his own shroud? The one thing his shroud could do was physical enhancement! If everyone could do that, what was the point? Feeling underwhelmed and more than a little discouraged, Caeden listened to the lesson. Following Miss Soarise’s instructions, Caeden focused on feeling his shroud as it existed in his body. Just like his aura was constantly around him, even when his shroud wasn't physically manifested. His infusion was there inside his body at all times.

This was the first time Caeden really felt a tangible difference between his two shrouds, outside of his difficulties controlling Physical Enhancement. His mind automatically defaulted to trying to use Sharp, sensing its infusion in his body. He could definitely feel it, but it was incredibly weak compared to its aura. In contrast, his body was practically humming with Physical Enhancement infusion.

Just out of curiosity, he tried to feel Physical Enhancement’s aura, which was another surprise. It was weak, but it was also small. Caeden had never paid much attention to the range on his Sharp aura, but he would guess it extended out for hundreds of feet. It easily encompassed the whole classroom and beyond. In contrast, Physical Enhancement’s aura was a few feet at most.

But he had become distracted from the lesson. Following along, Caeden attempted to increase the density of the skin on his right index finger. Supposedly, there would be some resistance, according to Samantha. Caeden had the opposite problem. The instant he got his shroud moving, it manifested, and he was looking at a purple and gold finger. In fact, his shroud wanted to spread to his entire hand. It had already gone further than he wanted, affecting not just the skin of his finger, but the muscle and bone underneath as well. His shroud was practically chomping at the bit, wanting to manifest over every inch of his body and transforming him into the golden giant he could become.

The entire class was an exercise in frustration, attempting to limit the scope of his shroud; hell, he just wanted to get it to enhance something without manifesting. Every attempt ended in failure. He didn't succeed in performing a single unmanifested enhancement, and he could only limit his shroud to enhance what he actually wanted for the briefest moment before it expanded. Caeden felt like hitting something out of frustration.

Honestly, it was times like this that he deeply missed forging. Most of the time, Caeden was engrossed in whatever he was doing ever since he had begun this journey, especially in the last day as school had started, distracting him. But back on the War God, and even now, he would have random moments where he desperately wanted to pick up a hammer and beat a piece of metal into shape.

Erik had much more success. He confessed that he had actually been doing this for years. He had discovered the ability to reinforce his body through infusion when he was being chased by a small herd of stampeding wild pigs. Wild pigs were actually a common nuisance in the part of Arturus that Caeden and Erik had lived in, eating crops and even crushing fences. Being chased by a herd of them wasn’t normal, but that was Erik for you.

“How did wild pigs lead to figuring out how to enhance your body?”

“I made a twenty-foot vertical leap into a tree to escape them.”

“That worked?”

“Nahh, the branch broke, and then the tree fell down, but I figured out I had unconsciously enhanced my body, so that was cool! All in all, that was a pretty good day.” Erik smiled fondly, lost in the nostalgic memory.

Of being chased by pigs.