He glanced around quickly, finding the group which looked the least scared of him— before striding over and lounging down neatly beside their table. Of course, least scared didn’t mean not scared. A few students were whispering in the back of the room, and if he had to guess, someone had been spreading rumors.

He sighed softly to himself. He’d deal with it, just like everything that had come before— and just like everything that would come after. Just another step. A touch of an echo of a smile ghosted across his features as he remembered what Lily would have taken of the situation— all bombastically, self assuredly declaring that it was no obstacle to her inevitable ascension.

He liked that sort of confidence.

The instructor finally managed to get his feet back underneath him, mock-coughing loudly to get everyone’s attention. “Alright, alright, calm down. This is Ai’er Avyr, a new student at East Saffron’s 32nd Preparatory Academy, so treat him kindly, alright? Other than that, continue with your assignments from yesterday, or this weekend’s reading if you’ve already finished.” Almost reluctantly, the students slowly got back to work. Well, all of them except the ones at his new table, which… understandable.

“I’m Avyr.” He nodded politely to each of them in turn. “Nice to meet you.”

The slender girl nodded back, trying her best to look entirely unperturbed. “Lo Tongjing.” To her credit, she didn’t look afraid. Curious, and maybe a little bit disturbed at hearing the way his voice differed so from a human’s, but not afraid.

The girl sitting beside her gave him a nervous wave. “Mimi Ward. Nice to see you again.” Like Lily? That meant she was probably one of the ones who—

“I’m Mao Likuan— also, is it true that you’re actually in Shedding already? That’s awesome if true— also, do you actually eat people? Do you ever have the urge to eat people? Do people taste better cooked or raw—”

“Shut up!” Mimi grabbed him and wrapped a hand around his mouth, looking furious. “Would you like it if I bombarded you with questions?”

Likaun struggled out of her grip, then petulantly pouted at his classmate. “Yeah, yeah, but if I don’t ask questions, how am I ever going to figure anything out? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, you know?”

“And what if he is actually in Shedding? Then you’ve been pestering an actual cultivator.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Also what if he actually eats people?” Mimi glared at Tongjing for that, and Avyr had to push down a chuckle as she shrugged, hands held out in placating defensiveness. “Hey! It was worth saying, wasn’t it?”

“No,” Mimi ground out. “No it was not.” She sighed, rubbing at her forehead, before glancing nervously at him. “You’re not going to eat us, right?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t ever eat a human.” No matter how appetizing they might look. That would just be wrong. “And I am a Shedding cultivator. It’s not really a particularly big deal. It won’t help me with my assignments any.”

“But cultivators are better at everything!

” Likaun said it so assuredly, that Avyr couldn’t help but laugh.

He wished that was the case… “Shedding is more of a preliminary step. It’s in Opening that cultivators really start to see significant benefits beyond physical improvements and qi senses, and even then it's only really dramatic in Foundation Establishment.”

“Can you do any cool cultivator tricks? Like flying? Or blasting people?”

“Not as such—”

Mimi shoved at Likuan again. “Why are you asking obvious questions? Of course he can’t, he’s a Shedding cultivator, not an immortal. You’d know this if you paid attention in sociology last year.” The boy just pouted. “We need to work on the assignment, unless you three want to meet up outside of school over the weekend.” That managed to shut the other two up rather nicely. In a perfect world, Avyr might have even thought it was for any reason other than not wanting to meet him outside of school.

The assignment itself was fairly straightforward. They just had to analyze the use of allusion in Phoenix’s Third Wing— a modern popular fiction book he’d never heard of before in his life. At least the allusion they were referencing was fairly straightforward— the book drew on the divinatory hexagrams in the book of…

Well, the explanation was long winded and rather technically complicated, but ultimately a very brute-force sort of use of allusion, bashing it over the readers head for the sake of look, famous work here.

He tried not to be hurt when Likuan looked surprised that he could read and write. Seriously, how dull could a human get? Sure, he didn’t look like them, but he was in a literature class with them. Surely the instructors would have figured out if he couldn’t read before putting them together.

For the most part, it worked out, though.

Good enough, he supposed.