The boy’s dormitory is one large building, located just behind all of the Academic and Collegiate facilities. There are dozens of windows decorating the facade of this four-story grey brick building. Outside of the dorm, low hedges are circling the ground level, with small steps leading up to the front door.

Kayurs swings open the wooden double door, revealing the grand lobby of the ground floor. The brown carpet and inner decor make this place look more like a hotel instead of a student dorm. Inside, there are lots of other students like Kayurs, Year 1 and above, hanging out on the couches in the lobby.

After asking for directions from another new student, Kayrus walks to a counter desk located on one of the corners of the lobby. A man is sitting behind the desk, busy reading a Redoran newspaper. A plague on the desk spells out the name Eddie.

“Can I help you?” asks the man seeing Kayrus approaching him.

“Is this where I can register for the dorm?”

“New student?”

Kayrus nods.

“Wait a second.”

The man puts away the paper he’s been reading and gets up from his chair. He pulls out a document file from one of the desk’s drawers.

“Name?”

“Kayrus Neumann.”

“Kayrus Neumann, Bea…” he flicks through the papers in his file. “Oh, you’re already registered.”

“Really?” Kayrus is surprised.

“Yeah, it says here your Sponsor already registered you for a room. He even asked for a specific room, for whatever reason.”

“Really…” says Kayrus. He wonders what’s the reason for Charleone picking his room. He can’t be doing it simply because he cares for him, people in power like him are like that, Kayrus thinks.

“So it says here you’re on the…First Floor, just above this floor. Room 108. Here’s your key.” The man gives Kayrus a key with the room number on it. “One more thing, here are the rules of the dormitory. You have to follow it or you’re out of here. I’m the Dormmaster in this place, okay? So my words are the law.”

“Got it.” Kayrus takes the key and a piece of paper his new dorm overlord gave him. “Which way to go?”

“Take that staircase over there and go left, there are numbers on each room so you can’t miss it.” The Dormmaster then returns back to his reading, ignoring Kayrus.

The new student follows the instruction and walks over to the large staircase not far from the counter desk. While walking, he’s reading through the rules on the paper given to him. It’s very standard stuff: to follow the rules and laws of Zennardi, to keep the room and dorm clean and tidy, etc. The only new information for Kayrus is the curfew, no one is allowed to enter or leave past ten in the evening, and the prohibition of the usage of Magic while inside the dorm.

‘Strange,” whispers Kayrus, “ Magic School, why would they have a rule like that? And how would they know anyway…Unless-”

Kayrus looks to his right and left at the second floor, only he and one other student that passes by is in the corridor. After making sure no one is watching, Kayrus then looks at the corners of the ceilings where it meets the walls and pillars. There, the former thief sees some black round shape installed in a certain way that most people won’t notice.

“Just as I thought.”

He knows what those things are, he's seen them hundreds of times during his career as a thief. It’s a device created to raise an alarm upon the detection of Magic. Kayrus doesn’t know how to make one, but he knows how to disable and remove it.

“If they have it here in the corridor, then they must have one in the rooms as well.” mutter Kayrus. “Only one way to find out…”

The young man then follows the corridor to reach his destination, room 108. When he inserts the key, he finds the door is unlocked. Somebody is inside.

That only means one thing

So Kayrus opens the door, and he can’t believe what's greeting him inside.

The room is a normal bedroom like what you would expect from a dormitory. Two beds are separated by a space filled with two desks and chairs, with a window dividing that space. Completing the furniture are drawers and wardrobes that come in two to serve the two people who sleep and live there. All of the items are geared for practicality and minimum comfort. An otherwise perfectly normal dormitory room.

Of course, what shocks Kayrus is not the room itself, but the other person that is currently inside the room: a student that hangs himself upside down by his feet on the room's ceiling.

"U-Um…." Kayrus wants to say something, but he realizes there's nothing he can say that can fit this exact situation.

"Someone here?" Says the student in a Zakuran accent. From where he's hanging on, he jumps down to the floor and greets Kayrus properly. "Apologies for not noticing you enter, I was busy meditating."

You're meditating by pretending to be a bat?

"Are you the other occupant of this room?" Ask that student with a clear Zakuran accent.

"U-Uh, yeah, I am."

"Ah, pleased to meet you then. Jin Komori’s the name. I hope we can be good roommates from now on.” he offers his hand to shake.

“Kayrus Neumann, likewise,” says Kayrus shaking his new roommate’s hand.

The Bea student is observing his roommate. There’s something eerie about him. Maybe it’s the long red scarf that he has around his neck, hiding the lower half of his face even while talking. Maybe it’s his tall and lanky build, with a pair of arms that is much longer than the normal ones. Whatever it is, there’s something that makes Kayrus think he needs to keep his guard up around this student.

“So which Collegiate are you from?”

“Yuu.”

Yuu, the Shadow Ones, that’s the name for the Shadow Collegiate with the color Purple. That’s the one that Kayrus knows the least. Not even the books and pamphlets that Kayrus reads give him much information about the Collegiate. Just as their name implies, that Collegiate is very secretive compared to the rest of them.

“I see, I’m from Bea myself.”

“Understood.” the Yuu student then walks over to the bed on the far side of the room, “Do you want me to switch beds?”

“No thanks, no need for that.”

Kayrus then walks to his bed, pretending to check the bed while he’s waiting for his roommate to ignore him. After being confident that Jin is not looking at him, Kayrus then scours the room with his eyes, observing every cranny and nook he can. And he finally finds the thing that he’s looking for, the Magic detecting device on his corner of the ceiling.

Now to find some tools…

Kayrus turns to his roommate.

“Well, it’s a nice room, I’ll go pick up my stuff now,” he says to his roommate. “See you soon.”

Jin just nods his head while still standing with arms folded.

But when Kayrus opens the door, however…

“Whoa! Stefan, what are you doing here?”

The Gardes that’s standing in front of him only gives him a cold look.

“Here to give you a message, from the Archmagus,” he says, after noticing that Kayrus’ roommate is also in the room.

“What is it?”

“He asked you to meet him, very important that you do so immediately.”

Kayrus sighs. “Fine, where to?”

Stefan’s face is still unchanged. “At the Faculty Residence house.”

“Huh, what a coincidence, I was just going to go there as well.”

“Good.” The Gardes then start to walk away. “Then follow me.”