The Academy was enormous, and resembled more a palace than an educational institution. It had several buildings scattered around, all of which were decorated luxuriously, so as to show off the Carmella family and the Empire’s power and wealth.

The outer part of the buildings were always a light turquoise blue, which made me confused when trying to find my way around campus. There were six buildings in total, apart from the dormitories: The Science Building, The Humanities and Fine Arts Building, The Applied Social-Sciences Building, The Swordsmanship Building, The Magical Research and Training Building and the Hospital, where medicine students and healers studied.

It seemed that most, if not all, inhabitants of this land were gifted with magic. The only difference was that some people had more magic than others, and members of the nobility tended to be a bit more gifted in that department. This was a result of in-breeding. Originally, nobles were not biologically better at magic than commoners, but centuries of marrying amongst themselves made it so that their magical power became stronger. 

Even Tsisana’s parents had been cousins, and her family only gave birth to wind mages. This was, of course, not a coincidence.

As Nari and I made our way to our classroom, Ari kept pestering me about that Student Council prick. They seemed to think of his challenge as a fun way of passing time, but I thought it could only spell trouble. 

‘You think anything that isn’t sleeping or reading spells trouble. You are no fun’, they said, rather annoyed. 

They were absolutely right. Perhaps that made me a boring person, but I had no reason to make people take notice of me, more than they were already doing it. As we walked through the long corridors of the Academy, I could feel people’s eyes on me, and it was uncomfortable. 

Honestly, being the centre of attention made me want to bury my face in the ground, 

‘No fun as Sena, no fun as Tsisana…tsk’, Ari continued their complaints all the way to our classroom, and only stopped when the professor came in.

This was an introductory course that all freshmen had to take: History of Empire. It was taught by Professor Anna Brandt, someone from Ikki’s family. I had no idea who she was, as she wasn’t really mentioned in the novel, but the professor caught my eye because she was beautiful. Much like Ikki, Ms. Brandt had blond hair that shone like the sun, her eyes were a ruby-like red and very deep. 

My first impression was that Anna Brandt was a very serious person, much unlike her younger brother.

‘She is probably just as boring as you. You found a kindred spirit, congrats’

Ari sounded more sarcastic by the minute, and I couldn’t understand why. What made them so annoyed at the fact I wasn’t crossing swords with the Student Council President? It wasn’t such a big deal, at least I thought so. I couldn’t understand them, but then again Ari was a Spirit King, and before that a guardian angel. 

Could my human self understand their thought process?

Just as I was lost in reverie, thinking about how Ari and I were different, something Professor Brandt said caught my attention:

‘This semester there won’t be any written exams. I have experimented on previous years, and found that the best results are achieved when students work together as a group. You may form groups of three to five people, but choose wisely, because once you form your teams you won’t be able to change it’.

Group projects. Why did they haunt me even in another dimension? Or world? Or whatever this was…

I saw Nari quickly searching for a mass of blond hair among our classmates. They exchanged a look and nodded. It seemed our group was formed: Me, Nari and Ikki. 

I just hoped being in a group project would not ruin our new friendship.

Professor Brandt was holding a pile of papers. She was about to hand them to the students when I noticed, too late, that Ari was next to her. They waved their hands, and the papers were flying all around. Falling, like snow.