The first person to hear about the incident was Lugano. Luckily, not Lorvan. Liene Lugano.

“TOM!” Her voice hit the far side of the Kinesthetic Ring like a sonic sigil. “Why did you NOT tell me you came back?”

She stormed across the field as she reached the pie shop where Fabrisse and Tommaso were at, the one near the east quadrangle, tucked behind the rune-inscribed water cistern where students pretended to study but mostly people-watched. Her coat flared behind her like a war banner in a passive-aggressive breeze.

Tommaso winced. “Yo, Linny. I was hoping to break the news gently. Possibly with a peace offering or a pie.” He offered a slice of pie to Liene. “Pie?”

“I’ll deal with you later.” She took the slice from Tom and stuffed it in her mouth.

Fabrisse instinctively stepped back, which didn’t help, because the moment Liene turned to him, she jabbed a finger straight into his chest. “And you.”

Fabrisse squeaked. “Me?”

“You got into a duel—no, wait, a public projectile altercation—with Cuman Gollivur—in front of witnesses—while wearing those ridiculous mitts—and you didn’t even message me?!”

“I . . . uh . . . there was no time?”

“No time?” she echoed, throwing up her hands. “Why did you leave me out? We practiced for this! You had enough time to roll through chalk dust like an amateur stunt double and spark a snowstorm!”

How much did everyone know already . . .

Tommaso made a proud noise. “The snowstorm was mine, actually. Ilya edition. It comes with flurries and legal ambiguity.”

“You two are so done. You’re probably gonna get a disciplinary hearing tomorrow.” Liene put a hand on her hip. “Good job. Are you hurt anywhere though?” She looked at Fabrisse’s face, then peered over his shoulder, then inspected his back.

“I’m fine.”

Liene squinted at him. “Physically fine, or emotionally repressing it into your spleen again?”

“But I don’t repress my emotions?”

She smacked his arm. “You idiot. You just smacked the sunshine out of your year-long bully, and this is how you’re celebrating? You don’t even look happy.”

“I’m happy.” He tilted the dish of pie toward her, as if the angle would somehow prove his joy. “Eating pie makes me happy.”

Liene sighed into her hands exasperatedly.

“I proposed throwing a party and chucking some ale down our throats. He declined.” Tommaso shoved another forkful of pie into his mouth and mumbled, “Don’t worry. His pride respawns slower than his aether pool anyway.”

Actually . . . Aether pools aren’t a thing. They’re actually Focus Points, as has been revealed to me by the glyph.

Fabrisse opened his mouth to retort—something about how spleens were medically not known to store emotion—but suddenly, Liene realized something.

“Wait . . . Who’s Ilya?” She turned to Tommaso.

“Oh. Do you want to know?” Tommaso’s lips curved into a half-grin.

“Yeah! Who is she? Tell me!”

“You’ll know when you meet her.”

Liene narrowed her eyes. “No, no no—don’t give me that cryptic nonsense. What do you mean ‘you’ll know when you meet her’? Is she your secret weapon? Your forbidden arctic girlfriend from the north gate?!”

Tommaso just grinned wider, like he’d been waiting all day for that exact meltdown. “I’m not confirming anything. But you’re welcome to speculate wildly.”

“Speculate—?” She rounded on Fabrisse like a hawk zeroing in on a startled squirrel. “Fabri! You were there, right? Who is she? Is she dangerous? Did she cause the snowstorm?”

Fabrisse looked between Liene and Tommaso. Very slowly, he shrugged. “Well . . . what Tom said.”

Liene let out a strangled sound of disbelief. She physically jumped in place, pie still in hand. “You two are impossible. I’m surrounded by juvenile cryptic menaces!”

The door’s bell chimed.

Severa Montreal stepped into the pie shop. She was alone, as usual. A breeze followed her in from the square, catching her coat just enough to make it swirl without looking staged. She held a small, cloth-wrapped package in one hand, probably lecture notes or a commissioned scroll.

Fabrisse instinctively straightened. It was a muscle reflex at this point.

She eats pie too? He had thought elites fed on theoretical acclaim. I guess they also have to eat normal food.

She passed by their table without slowing. But right as she did, she gave him a look, and then, as if to punctuate the moment with some sort of absurd dignity, she scrunched her nose.

It lasted less than a second, and then she was already gliding toward the counter.

Fabrisse blinked. “Was that . . .?”

Tommaso raised both brows and leaned in. “Dude. Did that dignified glacier just acknowledge your mortal existence?”

Liene said, “That’s Severa. Montreal.”

Tommaso tilted his head. “Do you always say it like that?”

“She’s from House Montreal. I’m being accurate.”

“I know House Montreal without you explaining to me. So she’s the new prodigy?”

“She’s very good. She also turned down two Instructor Assistant offers this term because she can invite High Instructants from other kingdoms to come tutor her,” Liene added. “And she’s technically a second-year, but she’s being evaluated on senior-tier projects. As long as she keeps herself healthy, she can . . .”

Severa veered sharply to Liene, seemingly having caught her talking about her red-handed.

“Uh . . . she’s always healthy. So she’s always good,” Liene stammered, a faint flush rising to her cheeks as she fumbled for words, twisting a strand of hair around her finger as she gave Severa an awkward grin.

Severa pressed her lips together. With a tilt of her chin, she sharply turned away again, leaving Liene staring after her.

So Severa is so menacing that she can shut up even Liene with a glare alone.

Fabrisse focused his attention on Severa as she turned away. He remembered his new skill: Spectral Appraisal. It had unlocked barely an hour ago, and he hadn’t tested it yet. The only thing he knew about this skill was its Aetheric Resonance Equation: 100% Mental Command. That was it. He just needed to think about activating the skill, and it would do whatever it was supposed to do.

He should try it out, and there was no better trial subject than someone terrifyingly competent and probably not looking his way.

Fabrisse felt his stomach tighten.

Her RES was 149. 149. That was 74.5 times his last measured value.

She was too high-tier for him to even glimpse her full status.

RES was understandable, but how come Severa was six times as dexterous as him? Severa could cast spells much more quickly than him, and her reaction time was probably faster too, but six times faster? He doubted it.

Ah. Good to know at least my peers aren’t six times my speed. But what level is the baseline level?

Then what about my level? I have a DEX of 12.

Ah, okay. So I kind of suck for someone who’s spent like five years learning to sequence spells.

Still, another question gnawed at him.

What about someone with a DEX of thirty?

Fabrisse frowned. That didn’t add up. How could the first ten points of DEX drag someone from stumbling toddler to functioning adult, and the next twenty only move the needle from ‘fine’ to ‘graceful’? The curve felt wrong.

Fabrisse’s knowledge of non-linear progression was rusty, but he did get what the Eidralith was trying to say after a while.

Ahhh. So after a certain level, the higher you go, the harder it is to gain points. And at some point you just . . . can’t anymore, because you’ve maximized your potential.

“So she’s a nerd,” Tommaso concluded.

Fabrisse was still staring at the counter where Severa waited. She hadn’t turned back around. He realized he had blanked out again, and muttered something just to show he was contributing to the conversation, “She’s not a nerd.”

“Oh no,” Tommaso said under his breath. “He’s already infected.”

“What?” Fabrisse asked.

“Nothing.” Tommaso passed him another slice of pie. “Here. Eat before your heart starts writing poetry.”

Fabrisse went back to munching on pie so his mouth would be busy and he wouldn’t be expected to contribute to the conversation.

Eidralith, then what’s the highest DEX achievable?

External modification? Augmented integration? What does that mean?

So basically, becoming a spider man.

The Eidralith did not respond.

He asked about a few more of his attributes.

The ceiling for all of them was also around 100. He didn’t need to ask about RES and SYN to figure out that he was barely any better than a person who had completely no experience with magic, so he didn’t bother. At least there was a glimmer of hope: the first few gained points in RES and SYN alone should drastically drag him out of sheer incompetence and into the realm of basic function.

Severa didn’t so much as glance back while the three of them whisper-argued behind her. The pie shop wasn’t big. The acoustics were terrible. And Tommaso was not a subtle whisperer.

She accepted her parcel from the clerk, nodded once, and pivoted gracefully toward the exit.

As Severa passed their table, she slowed. “It’s ‘research assistant,’ not instructor assistant. But thank you for the accuracy effort.” Then she walked out, braid swaying. The pie shop door chimed.

Tommaso curled his lips in amusement. “I take back what I said. That was a cool nerd move.”

Liene groaned and slumped forward. “We are so dead. What could possibly be worse than making enemies with the most powerful snob in the Synod?”

In walked Lorvan, now with three rings glinting on his left hand instead of just two. And he was holding a folded parchment.

“Oh no,” Tommaso and Fabrisse muttered in unison. “The parchment.”

“Good evening.” His voice was too calm. “You three,” he said, “prepare for a disciplinary hearing.”

“Three?” Liene leaned back. “What did I do?”

Lorvan didn’t address her. “I expect you to bring statements, contextual defense, and—” He turned to Liene. “—non-exploding alibis. You have twenty-four hours.”

He then left the shop.

“We blame it on Linny,” Tommaso said.

“If I go down for this, I’m taking both of you and a fireproof pie tin with me,” Liene grumbled.

Fabrisse swallowed the rest of his pie. He probably should have told Liene. But everything had happened too fast, and too stupidly.

The new skill was not worth it.