The portal was one-way.

It spat us out at the door of the UM's administrative office.

"I'm blind again!" Grady yelled with pure joy in her voice.

"We need to talk to Dean Andrelos," I said as I pushed through the doors of the office.

A secretary Statusin instructed us to sit down in the waiting room.

"There's an emergency!" I exclaimed, "There's been a threat to my home planet!"

"One moment," it said. We waited, "Come through, please."

A portal opened. I could see through this one. On the other end was the dean's office.

We walked through.

"A threat to your home planet?" she asked from her desk.

The room was brightly illuminated. The office was surrounded by walls of glass and seemed to be a pocket in space rather than an actual location on campus.

"Ipsiota Anteibos," Grady explained, "the avian girl with the braids. She's planning on blowing up Earth."

"How do you suppose she's gonna do it?" Andrelos was intrigued.

"I don't know, the translation charms wore off before she got to that part," I explained.

"All I can do is report this to the police. She'll be smart to turn herself in."

"You mean some deranged terrorist is out to destroy my planet and the most you can do is report it? Can't you at least tell the military?" I was furious.

"Montressor is an enormous security camera. As soon as she registers, which will happen as soon as she sets a foot in public, she'll be arrested. Don't worry."

I didn't know what to say.

"You need to worry about what classes you're going to enroll in," she went on, "I'm sending you to a counselor's office. Everything will be fine, you'll see."

She waved her hand and we were whisked away.

-----Ipsiota-----

I was going to destroy Earth with a giant laser. I know it sounds cliché and a bit simplistic, but it was a really hard feat to pull off.

For example, first I needed to get to Earth. There are no flights direct or otherwise to Earth.

I messaged my online friend from Idée.

"I'm guessing you're gonna have to go to Parnadan on planet Valor first. You'll have to steal a spacecraft there. Wait, I'm getting something," Lamp was Oonish, so they were gender neutral.

"What is it?" I asked.

"You're officially on the suspicious activities list. A bit of an understatement."

"So I need to hide," I didn't have a plan.

"I can let you have one of my downloadable façades. It'll disguise you until you're out of range of the Empire," They had already send the file to my inbox.

"Thanks," I replied, "So I board a space liner to Parnadan in Galaxis, then in Parnadan I just steal a ship. Sounds easy."

"Have you mastered phosphoromancy enough to produce a laser that big? I don't know much about physics but I know that is going to diffuse very quickly. Also, how much damage, exactly are you going to do? Because I doubt you can do that with a laser."

"Um,"

"You didn't think this through, did you?"

"No, not really."

"Okay, you could take a moment to consider my idea."

"Go ahead, I'm listening."

"You have that endstone pendant. You could amplify the field of effect in order to disable the Hagyan demon's prison."

"What?"

"There is a demon that was trapped by the Liadans a couple of centuries ago. They put it in Earth's atmosphere. I don't think long-term it's a good idea, but it tried to destroy Liada so it should try to destroy Earth."

"You think I can do that? Why hasn't anyone tried it before?" I asked.

"I don't think anyone has ever had any need to destroy Earth," she retorted.

"I'm gonna do that then. See you," I waved the screen away.

I never thought I'd have such a good friend.

-----Carlos-----

I startled the counselor as I materialized in the office. Grady was not next to me.

"Hello, I suppose Andrelos sent you," the counselor mumbled. He was a reptilian humanoid. A waterkin.

"Yes,"

"Sit," he pointed at the chair before me, "I'm a she."

"And a telepath, I guess." I responded with a light blush.

"Correct," she smiled as much as her cheekless anatomy allowed her to.

"You're here to have your schedule selected. Normally that would be up to you, but you're foreign, so we tend to make exceptions for you."

"Wow, I've never been foreign in my life."

"Earth is as foreign as they come,"

I smiled at how strange that sounded.

"Your nurse from the hospital sent in your report," she began.

"Uma,"

"Yes. It says here you have great potential. Your base stats are abnormally high. I think you should major in Magic One. You'll cover a wide range of studies. Enchantments, hexes, auric manipulation, physics, biology, chemistry, languages, martial arts, arts, introspection. The such."

"Woah," I was really surprised, "How long will that take?"

"You'll start from the beginning so maybe two to five years depending on your course load."

"I would be—"

"I mean in Montressor years. Much longer than Earth ones."

"I would be in my late twenties, early thirties," I said with my jaw nearly to the floor.

"As I said, it depends on your course load."

"Where would even I start?"

"You are currently experiencing the discovery rush. It happens to people who suddenly gain powers; their abilities are amplified and they can do things that would normally take months or years to master. We'll start you off with..."

I waited as she typed in the Statusin for several minutes.

"Introductory level classes in Charms, Hexes, Aura, Physics, Biology, Calculus, and Chemistry. I'll add Origin Language, as well."

"That's eight classes!" I protested.

"It goes up to ten when you gain experience."

"Fine," I didn't have any other option, "But I haven't even finished pre-calculus yet."

"You do have other options," she said, "you can leave."

I don't think she meant to be salty.

"I can start in the middle of the semester?"

"We have classes starting every week. People come in from all over the universe at all times. We're ready for you tomorrow."

"Okay,"

That was the end of end of it.

I was teleported to the next day to my first class because apparently I didn't deserve to sleep.

The Statusin board read: Charms.

I looked down at my desk. A digital note from the counselor was waiting for me to read it.

"I have just given you an example of a travel spell I like to use. I put you in teleportation limbo overnight so you could materialize at just the moment classes start."

I didn't have time to process anything. I guess in that sense it was just like normal college.

-----Ipsiota-----

I flew via X Flier south to the city-state of Galaxis. It took the whole night to get there. Galaxis shared the island of Leisya with the cities of Valles and Alta. I could see the space traffic coming in and out of Galaxis as soon as the island was on the horizon. I could see Alta to the left of it and the scenic Valles mountains as well.

I arrived at the Union Manyori Spaceport and booked a seat on a ship under my assumed name to Parnadan on planet Valor.

When I was on the platform for boarding I got the feeling someone was watching me. I turned around and I saw a tall figure in a suit standing only a foot behind me. The figure wore a black face mask. I couldn't see their eyes.

"Who are you?" I was prepared to blast them to pieces.

"My name is Gaeruok. I observe the cosmos."

The masked figure held out a six-fingered hand.

"Hold on," they said in another language. The Statusin lagged in the translation. The language they spoke was arcane and dead, probably.

I grabbed the gloved hand and we teleported.

"This plan is better," they said softly, "You are now aboard a Starliner on course to Antaedos,"

They released their grip and then vanished.

"This is big," I muttered as I stood in the empty hallway. An Observer just helped me. An Observer just nudged the course of time.

I was meant to do this.

-----Carlos-----

Charms was very interactive. It had to be. The practice of charms is the ability to leave a task or characteristic on something and make it continue doing so. It was like programming a robot or a computer.

In that first class I learned a simple kinetic charm.

"Charms must have energy allocated to them in order for them to function. Most of them take energy from the atoms around them, but others require greater sources like aura or the planet's starstuff core," the professor lectured. He was a dragonkin from Draconia. He didn't wear any clothes, and his humanoid body was covered in glimmering red scales, "First you must understand what a charm is."

He grabbed one of the glass cubes that we were to use in that class. He set it on a table at the front of the room, "A charm is like programming a robot. You give it an energy source and then instruct it to do a command under a certain circumstance."

He muttered some words in Wyrmish and made several hand motions I didn't follow. The cube lifted off the table and spun slowly.

"A hex," he continued, "will take the charm apart. Hexes serve the purpose of ending magical commands or preventing them. That's for another class."

"You'll all try this now," he instructed, "Go to page 7 in the text and follow the instructions. If you need help, call me over."

I accessed my Statusin backpack and went to the page in the ebook.

The instructions taught me the specific words necessary to do the charm.

"Using the ambient energy, hover three inches and rotate once per second."

Nothing happened. I was doing the hand motions incorrectly.

I turned to the student beside me. The Oonish was struggling as well. They saw me looking, so I lifted the cube telekinetically and made it spin.

They chuckled and I dropped it. I managed to correct the motions. Apparently they distributed the commands and directed them to where they should be. The glass cube hovered and spun on its own.

The break between class periods was twenty minutes. I messaged the group.

We all met up in a commons. Dania was the first to hug me, and then everyone else joined in. Marco wasn't here.

"Grady told us what happened," Dania breathed a sigh of relief.

"Everything?"

"Yeah," Sabine nodded, "Do you still have that data disk?"

I had forgotten about it. I reached into my pocket and pulled the coin out. A Statusin scanned it in the background and copied it to my files.

I made a flicking motion and it shared it to everyone in the group.

"We'll look over all of this," Dania assured, "What classes did you get?"

I told her. We rattled off our majors. Dania was Air Kinetics, Stacey was Water Kinetics, Grady was Aura Manipulation, Sabine was Void Magics, and Jozeey was Astrophysical Magics.

"It's time for class, you guys," Jozeey reminded us.

So the day went on like that. In hexes I learned to undo the charm I set on the box. In Biology, Physics, Chem, and Calc l understood most of the material. I took some of those classes with the group. Aura was different, though. I was shit at it.

The professor was an Aren woman from the Paradise Coalition, a country outside of the Empire. The Aren are a different species of humans who live throughout the Shadowrealms.

She explained this to us telekinetically.

"I don't like using the Statusin for translation," she noted, "It cannot convey idioms or emotions as telepathy does.

She explained her study, "Aura is the energy that all cellular living things exude. It is produced by consuming food that can be burned. Some more advanced students can photosynthesize the energy they need. The act of manipulating aura opens many possibilities. You can access parts of yourself you did not know you had in order to enhance or reduce them. You may do it to others. You can exert control over your surroundings in many ways.

"It is important that you pay attention in your science classes because they directly impact this practice and other magics. The law of conservation of energy means you cannot spend more energy than you have. The biggest danger in this field is overexertion, which results in spontaneous combustion. The first lesson you will learn is efficiency control and energy detection."

Grady got it right away. We had to first summon our aura into its usable state, then light a paper on fire, then slowly modify the way we used the energy so that it was minimum.

I took a while to even summon my aura. Grady kept looking at me and telling me how to move my body or what to adjust, but I couldn't get it right. Eventually I summoned it, but the professor made me put it back before I burned myself out.

Class ended and I was not able to succeed in burning the paper. I ended the day in defeat.

The group met up in the commons room. The walls were made of glass so watched as the last of three suns set and the night sun rose.

"It's weird that it's called a sun." Sabine whispered. We were all sitting in separate hovering chairs. She sat opposite of me in the circle we made and I could barely hear her, "I mean it's just a star. It's not actually a sun."

"I mean everything is different," Dania responded, "Leave them alone."

"Okay but, what is all of this?" Grady slumped in her chair, "I don't understand if this is real or not. Suddenly I can do all these things I have never even though of doing before. Where are we going with this illusion? When is this dream going to end?"

"More than five years, probably" I blurted out.

"What?" Stacey asked.

"What? What's your major? That's unusually long." Logan asked.

"Magic One,"

"What?!" he exclaimed and sat upright, "There are only like fifty people in that program!"

"That's small? Why?" Stacey sat up, too.

Logan's sudden movements frosted the air around him, "You need to be some sort of full-blooded magician to do that! You must have all the potential abilities of one. Dude, you're on your way to really big shit."

"What do you mean?" Dania asked for me.

"Most of the powerful magicians who graduate from UM go on to travel to the edges of the universe or govern some part of the Empire or do amazing research. I'm glad to know you."

"Hey," I grinned, "I'm glad to know you, too,"

"I never expected to meet Earthlings," he smiled with his eyes.

"Things work out as they should, don't they," I closed my eyes.

"Sometimes," Grady said softly.

I dozed off.