Dragonlord

Ep 25. I Tend To Pick Favorites. (1)

Students worriedly stared at their peculiar peer from the corners of their eyes. Some were concerned, some were surprised, and some were contemplating whether they needed to do something about their behavior.

Meanwhile, the only adult in the classroom – the only human adult, that is – was trying her hardest to ignore what was going on.

“So as you can see, basic spell formulas all contain…”

“…”

“And without the duration variable, the cast could potentially…”

“…Zzz…”

As the other students would put it, ‘that kid on the enforcement sector’s watchlist after massive vandalism’ had their head buried in a pillow of their own two arms, sound asleep on the desk.

“Okay, that does it.”

The instructor swished her wand in the air in a circle, forming a ball of water that threw itself straight across the room before splashing right on the sleeping student’s head. Serenis immediately opened her eyes, rubbing the wetness off as she stirred awake.

“…Mngh…what is it now…”

“Zion, was it? Should you really be sleeping? On your first day of class?”

“…?”

Serenis looked at the instructor in genuine confusion. The woman seemed furious, but for what reason, the dragon could not even begin to guess.

“Was sleep not a necessity among all humans?”

“We. Are. In. Class.”

“I’m aware.”

“Do you not see the problem?”

“…No. I do not believe I’m inflicting any harm on you. Or anyone, for that matter.”

“It’s a matter of respect!”

Serenis couldn’t help but scoff at the furious reply that came back.

‘Respect? From me? To you? A passing frog would laugh in ribbits.’

But the scoffing really didn’t make things better for the instructor. The anger in her tone only intensified.

“If you’re so knowledgeable that you don’t even have to listen to the lecture, why don’t you just go outside and sleep, hm? Not like you’ll get anything sleeping here!”

“Oh. I thought that was against the custom. I appreciate the suggestion.”

Serenis immediately rose from her seat, turning to leave the lecture hall. Patrick had told his little sibling to stay in the room no matter what during class, but if the ruling individual was suggesting Serenis to do otherwise, she wasn’t going to argue against it.

Except Patrick was right, she really shouldn’t be leaving the class. But the dragonlord failed to read between the lines of human mockery.

“GET BACK HERE!”

Serenis stopped in the middle of making her way towards the exit. The supposed human boy turned back around to face the individual screaming in their direction.

“Get out, get back, what sort of teaching regimen is this supposed to be?”

“…Fine. I’ll let you sleep as much as you’d like, as long as you can demonstrate that you have nothing to learn from this class.”

“Is that so?”

“If you can properly cast this formula into a spell…”

The instructor tossed her wand up above. The wand floated on its own and began to scribble in the air, leaving a faint trail of mana in the form of words, symbols, and numbers. Once completed, a massive spell equation easily stretching over 10 lines was floating above her head.

“…Then I will concede that you have nothing to learn from here.”

Serenis stared at the equation in the air for a few seconds.

She had absolutely no clue what any of it was saying. Humans and their weird customs.

While the dragonlord’s magic was leagues in advance of a typical human’s, a dragon’s magic wasn’t exactly formulated in the same way. The dragonkin depended on their instincts and reflexes; they did not need to complicate matters with precise calculations. Dragons simply used their magic through practice and feeling, much like how one would better their athletic performances through practice.

On the other hand, humans depended on their capacities to formulate and calculate; to them, magic was a science, not a sport. The way they transmitted knowledge was different: humans considered every variable of a spell, quantified every aspect possible, and formulated an exact replica of what they’ve learned as equations and diagrams. Normally, there’d be no way for a dragon to teach magic to a human, or a human to teach magic to a dragon.

But Serenis was not a regular dragon.

‘…Patrick’s shown me all this before.’

The dragonlord began to dig through her memories – Zion’s memories. With fifteen years of human memory serving as her guide, Serenis began to slowly decipher the floating equation line by line.

‘Lightning, water, fire…triangulate at 3rd circle, integrate at 6th arcana…’

Slowly, she knelt down to the floor and tapped her finger twice on the wood beneath. Murky clouds began to gather at the ceiling above, and bursts of lightning thundered from within them.

Students worriedly looked up as their classroom noticeably darkened. The sunny weather just outside their windows seemed like a whole another world now.

“Wait…what’s happening?”

“Are those clouds?”

“Eep! It just thundered!”

Sssst.

Soon after, it began to rain.

Indoors.

Fortunately(?) only on top of the furious instructor. All the students managed to stay dry.

Everyone, including the instructor, stared at the dragonlord in shock. Serenis herself remained indifferent as she commented on the equation that had been written out.

“Interesting spell. I would advise you add a coordinate variable next time, as you seem to have forgotten it at the 7th line after the minor arcana. Since there was no coordinate, I’ve cast it above you for a better examination.”

“…”

“…”

“…Hey, what did he just say?”

A few of the students were still trying to figure out what that formula in the air was. A few others were trying to figure out what Serenis had just said.

The smart few were preparing to run for their lives, because it looked like the instructor was about to burst in a ball of flames.

Meanwhile, Serenis returned to her seat,

Dried her spot with a simple fire spell,

Nodded at the teacher as if all was well within the world,

And quietly went back to sleep despite the thundering clouds she’d summoned.

Only the sound of indoor rain filled the ambience. Another five minutes had to pass before the rain would stop to resume class.

✧ ✧ ✧

“Alright, Zion. Then try…”

Zzzt.

“I bet you can’t do…”

Ksht.

“But can you cast unorthodox spells like…”

BOOM!

Half a week had passed in a cycle of suffering. By her 4th and final mandatory class, Serenis had earned the right to permanently sleep through every single lecture thus far, which had all but proven useless to her.

The mornings and afternoons consisted of pointless lectures where she had to obtain an approval to sleep through. The few peers that had mustered the courage to talk to Serenis were all answered with resolute silence from the unwaking dragonlord, and none dared to shake their oddest peer awake.

The evenings consisted of coming home and answering Patrick about whether the dragonlord remembered all the times they’d spent together – which she did, more than she’d initially realized. She managed to remember their home address as well, though she couldn’t tell if that was remembering or relearning.

But the storm had passed, and no more mandatory classes were scheduled for the rest of the week: no more lectures on magic were due.

Once again, the dragonlord found herself sitting in a lecture hall, in her not-so-dragon form that she was slowly growing used to, with peers that were mostly too scared to go near the dragon. Even though they didn’t even know she was one.

But for once, Serenis was eager to listen. This was the very class she’d gone through all this trouble for: the crow-headed professor’s history lecture.

When the mana-fueled door slid open on its own, Serenis’ eyes immediately locked onto the black-feathered figure walking in.

‘Finally.’

From the distance, she could see that the professor was wearing a rather uneasy expression; after all, he’d been listening to the staff complain all week about this problem kid who was destroying their careers left and right. And he was pretty sure he knew exactly who it was.

Karas glanced around the classroom to soon spot his newest, most peculiar white-haired student. But being at the front of the lecturing hall, the professor could easily see just how many eyes were on the dragonlord aside from his own.

‘…Perhaps just admitting to being a dragon would’ve drawn less attention. That way, at least the other instructors wouldn’t have challenged her so much.’

But it was far too late to go back. And the professor’s dream of teaching a reincarnated entity was somehow within reach. Yep, somehow.

He cleared his throat, setting the books he’d brought at the instructor podium at the front.

“A pleasure to meet you all. My name is Karas, and I will be responsible for teaching you the basic histories of magic in this class.”

Half the class were listening.

The other half were wondering why Serenis wasn’t sleeping this time. Surely, these were the students who’d taken other classes with her already.

Karas glanced around the gathered students. Too many of them were expecting him to test the dragonlord, much like the other instructors had earlier in the week. For both his and the class’s sake, it seemed necessary to get the matter handled before continuing further – lest only half the class listen to his lecturing.

“Since we seem a little preoccupied…before we begin, let’s first briefly assess ourselves and our knowledge.”

The class expectantly stirred in excitement. Many eyes fell on the professor and the dragonlord alike. Even though Karas had directed the question to the entire class, no one was planning to answer; they instead expected their weirdest peer to pull off another crazy response.

“As many of you may know, our contemporary magic is said to be a gift from the deity of mana. It is said that the deity bestowed the star with mana, mankind with magic; this was so that we could persevere through the hardships of our early history, when civilization was still lacking.”

After a brief pause, the professor finally asked his question.

“Do any of you know the true name of this deity?”

It was an easy question; not all deity names were well-known, but the mana deity’s name was common knowledge amongst mages and aspiring students. Anyone in the class could answer it.

Everyone except one. The one person that everyone, even Karas, was staring at. It took a minute for her to realize she was at the centre of everyone’s attention.

Serenis looked around the lecture hall with a puzzled gaze. Wherever her eyes fell, several more pairs of eyes were staring back at her.

“…Is that question directed at me? If I knew such things, I would not be here right now.”