‘Today is going to be an interesting day.’ I thought as I was sitting in runes. 

There were incessant chattering and wayward glances pointing my way by the surrounding children still coming to grips with my position, or at least I think that’s what it was. As Mr. Colbert entered the room, most of the children fell silent and he walked to stand in front of the class. 

“I would like to congratulate you on your performance on the exams. The lot of you did generally well, though some of  you need a bit of work if you are to pass what is to come ignoring those who dropped out. This class is at the halfway point and up till now, we have only been memorizing various runic alphabets, their meanings and how they connect with each other mystically. Now, we will go into building runic arrays from the ground up, what the rules are and how to break them to get the desired effect.” 

He walked up to his table and gestured with his hand, a chalk levitated from the table and went to the blackboard. An intricate pattern unfolded on the board that mystically just seemed to connect. The symbol began to glow softly and the rune came into effect. Suddenly, space seemed to expand around us and spring seemed to come to life. It seemed as if flowering trees sprouted to life around the meadow, a meadow that was a classroom just minutes ago.

“I’m sure you’re already familiar with runic arrays by now, but you are most likely not familiar with the range of what a higher end runic array can achieve. The runic array I wrote on the board is an illusion runic array that I worked on to get my professorship in this academy. It takes Illusions to the logical conclusion of illusions becoming reality when it has gathered and cultivated enough mana, and this is just one of the branches runes can take you towards. Side note, this is the sort of revolutionary project that is required to become a teacher in this school where only the best of the best are gathered.” He smiled at us.

“From now on, every lesson we have should have you start building towards your end of the year project. If it is good enough and something not seen before, you might see yourselves being published in the runic research publication, Runesight Publications, and the resulting patent may earn you a fortune that’ll feed generations of your family like it did mine.”

I immediately knew what I would be working on. Something I had completed all the calculations for and that I just had to translate to the runes taught in this class. But before I submit it, I must achieve perfect balance and efficiency with it. 

‘A battery and something to complement it, say a stable floating array never seen here.’ I smirked. This really will be what will allow me to breakaway from the family and generate my own funds. But I would need to thoroughly check to make sure it’s unique enough. 

“Oh, it looks like somebody already knows what they’re going to do.” Mr. Colbert said while looking directly at me. 

All the students looked at me and I sighed. ‘There he goes instigating them.’

“Mr. Whitefyre soundly beat all of you in the midterms. In case you’re not aware, he scored a perfect, being tied only with the princess. The only way for that to happen was for him to go out of his way to memorise all five runic alphabets we are learning in this class along with thousands, if not millions of unique interactions each individual runes have with each other. Keeping in mind we haven’t gotten to the laws of runes interactions so it was pure memorisation. What a mind you have Mr. Whitefyre.” He said with a somewhat inquisitive glint in his eye. 

“The exams are purposely made to be impossible to score a high mark in and with a large range and amount of questions so you could not possibly complete it in its entirety and instead concentrate on what  you know. This was supposed to give us a base of your understanding so I can begin to tailor lessons individually for all my students. That’s how I did it anyway, so once again colour me surprised.”

He snapped his finger and the classroom went back to how it was before, the runic array on the chalkboard dimming before going completely dark. He then resumed class as if nothing happened. 

The rest of the day followed in pretty much the same vein, with some teachers pointing out my performance to the students. 

‘This is going to be annoying.’

As I left my last class, I walked towards my rooms to get some much needed meditation when my way was blocked by a surprising countenance. 

‘Colour me surprised, the princess.’

She stood right in front of me this time without her entourage, looking straight at me. I waited patiently for her to say something.

“Well? Find what you’re looking for?” I asked. 

“I wanted to look at the face of the one they say is equal to me.” I was not equal to her, not yet anyway. Her sorceries allowed too much of an advantage that could not be covered within just the first decade of life. But I will come to surpass her soon, of that I am sure. 

“And what do you think?” The geometric signals in her eyes glowed as she peered deep into me as if trying to unravel something. Then they dimmed and she hummed. 

“I’m looking forward to our upcoming intellectual battles.” She turned and walked away.

And suddenly I was relieved that while we are taking the same subjects, I share none of the classes with her.