A loud over-exaggerated sigh filled the small clerk's room. One would imagine a prisoner signing their damming confessions before having his head separated from his neck but the room wasn’t inside a dungeon but rather the Academy and rather than a prisoner sitting in front of Sofia the Firmusian high noble stood up looking like a wreck. Sofia glanced at the single sheet of paper left on the table. On the margin, a long list of subjects stretched until the very bottom of the page.

The frontierswoman didn't fully understand why the mages didn't trust their students in attending lectures which would most benefit them. She couldn't imagine anyone wasting their time on studying their system simply couldn't handle it. As a noble, she understood the benefits of keeping records, it's infinitely easier to run a demesne knowing what it can achieve and how much can it be taxed. 

Taking inventory of what people took made to her no sense unless the Academy treated their students like a farmer treated their herd. Sofia thought glancing at the young clerk seated at the other side of the desk and she remembered how Geni'i recruited their members.

"My Lady," Sofia shot up as the cryomancer seemed to lose balance. "Are you feeling well?"

"Annoying..." The pale girl grumbled.

Sofia held the cold as-ice mage by her shoulders. The girl seemed to have wanted to impress her by refraining from using the quill and instead used some sort of magic to write, making her worry that the high-noble had used too much mana until she remembered the sort of spell Lady Siri had unleashed before. Did her excitement cause this? Sofia asked herself as she recalled Lady Siri's face brightening and coming to life as she tried to mark every single spot before having to be stopped by the clerk.

She guessed it wouldn't be that uncommon for a lady with such fair skin to be rather sickly in nature and the emotional overdrive Lady Siri experienced in the prospect of so much knowledge might have caused the sickness to reappear. Before leaving, Sofia was sure to mentally take note of Lady Siri's affinity to study and her sickness. 

Poor girl, she must have not been allowed to meet many people for her to love books so much.

"Where are we going now?" Lady Siri asked having returned to normal.

"Well, you had marked that you desired to attend a lecture in Protective Spells and I believe it should start rather soon." Sofia replied.

"How do you know this?" The hooded girl with a similarly petite body to Sofia tilted her head like a curious puppy.

"I... it's quite embarrassing but I had studied the schedule for all the lessons."

"How is that embarrassing?"

In truth, Sofia didn't want to answer Lady Siri as she had learned the timetable for every single lecture and class to be able to meet other nobles and talk to them in an effort to gain allies. However, if she told this to the cryomancer she suspected that rather than meeting other nobles Lady Siri would say that she was pestering them.

"My Lady I plea that you forget what I had said."

"Annoying." The hooded human grumbled and the frontier noble imagined a deep frown appearing on the snow-white forehead of her ward.

To Sofia's great delight, the Firmusian noble ceased to ask further questions regarding her deep knowledge of the schedule and simply returned to watching the world around her, surely in awe at the peak of the human architecture surrounding her. After a few minutes of walking the two arrived in front of a door which led into a circular hall. In the centre, a large magical lantern levitated above a stone pedestal painting the entire hall in a soft blue light. Sofia could never tell why the Hall of Protection looked like this. Was this some sort of honour for the Oriripoli to give ancient relics to a merited department or was this a two-headed swan, a gift so precious yet so expensive to keep it leads to ruin?

The study of warding spells seemed to be a controversial thing for mages for quite a while. In her mother's books, she had read that humanity had freed itself from an entire branch of magic. Older races with the notable exception of dwarves, heavily relied on protection spells thanks to their inability to take full advantage of armour. But humans are different, they can wear layers of heavy armour without many issues and the only thing a human caster needed to do was to wear a different kind of gauntlet than their fellow soldiers. Therefore many mages started to suggest that the age of reliance on a long preparatory period before each battle was no longer needed and that the time spent on enchanting troops in warding spells was time wasted.

The biggest proponents of this idea were of course the Oriripol's mages, always quick to innovate. Not all, of course, shared this opinion and there were equally as many sorcerers who thought this "Abandonment" idea was foolish. The Junker scion thought that the people making light of an entire school of magic had never viewed battle and this seemed to be an opinion shared by the clerics, who battle much more often than the spoiled mages.

The two sat down on the cold steps in front of the glowing sphere awaiting their teacher to arrive. It didn't take long for a grey mane man who looked like he originated from Flinter to hush the whispering hall into complete silence. 

Sofia felt like her eyes were going to split as she tried to pay an equal amount of attention to the lecture and Lady Siri. Of course, watching the high noble was part of her job and she technically didn’t need to worry about missing time in her own classes because she was supposed to receive notes written by her teachers but that didn’t mean she would lessen her efforts in learning as much as possible.

“Lady Siri, you should take notes.” The Junker leaned to the side and advised the Blackworm who seemed to forget how to breathe.

“What for?” The doll-like girl replied in a hushed voice.

“To help you remember,” The cryomancer raised her eyebrow making Sofia think that she had done some wrong before something happened on the girl’s face. The only word which came to mind was precious as Sofia watched Lady Siri go through emotions seemingly in an effort to find the right one.

While Sofia was distracted, a leather notebook appeared on Lady Siri’s lap the sight of which made the frontierswoman question if the adorable doll hadn’t just pulled the smoothest slight of hand she had ever seen or that she was currently staring at a proof of yet another incredible ability Lady Siri possessed.

With sudden unexplainable vigour, the Firmusian noble began to write each word the lecturer said. Peeking over her shoulder Sofia watched an alien language slowly fill the page, every so often she could make out two words. A Common word which seemed to be picked at random was quickly followed by Iris.