13 Noelle

Later, Vance was escorted by his new friends to Master Noelle's office. The whole area smelled even more strongly of various burnt materials, mostly wood.

Mariah excitedly knocked on the door ahead of the pack.

"Master Noelle, we brought Vance!"

A voice riddled with immediate exasperation rang out gently from the other side of the thick wooden door.

"Please send him in."

Thomas gave Vance a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "She acts tough, but she's a sweetheart." he whispered. Thomas scooped his other friends away, leaving Vance to make his way inside.

"Good morning, Master Noelle."

He bowed politely and moved a little way forward into the room, he added "I want to start by saying thank you."

He could hear that she was writing, the familiar scratching soul of quill against paper on the surface of a table stopped shortly after he spoke, and he heard the tap of the quill against the table top.

"I See Mr. Alson and his friends saw fit to inform you already. Good, that saves me time. I'll cut right to the chase, Mr. Kalliea. I am first and foremost intrigued as to how you are able to manipulate mana so well without the use of your eyes."

Vance had known this would come up, but he hoped it wouldn't be so immediate. Nevertheless, he was prepared.

"I have trained myself to sense mana rather than see it, Master. I Interact with mana through feeling, rather than observation. It's a slow process and I'm still new at it, but I'm improving."

He heard her pick up the quill, scribble a quick note and then place it down again.

"It is as I suspected, then. Very well. I understand why Elijah was inclined to keep this a secret, it would've made excellent grounds for a thesis. Unfortunately, he is no longer here to complete his work and his notes were destroyed, along with most everything else in his office. That being the case, it falls to us to make the most of the situation and see if his theory is to bear any fruit, I assume you have no objections?"

"None, Master."

"Very good. Tell me about your progress so far."

Vance did exactly as he was instructed. He spoke with her for half an hour or so, detailing his training with Elijah thus far, the methods they employed and the results he'd obtained. She seemed pleased.

"Well, I confess I am impressed. Your progress is remarkable, perhaps there's something to this theory after all. I suggest that for the time being, you continue to improve your mana sense until you feel that you begin to lose momentum. I believe that particular asset will be the most important in building your skillset. The finer your mana sense, the finer your control, yes?"

"That appears to be the case, Master."

"Then that will be your primary focus. Worry not about attending classes and the likes for now, that's for later. Also, keep doing what you're doing with your new mana core. I believe that the act of repeatedly battling away the fire mana that's gathered in there is going to help further refine your control."

Vance suddenly felt a little cold, he'd entirely forgotten he was doing that, it had become almost entirely subconscious. He found that it was like breathing, once he realised he was doing it, he had to control it manually, lest he stop.

It seemed like right now the feather was churning out a surprising amount of fire mana. Noelle had a fire core, and there was a lit candle in the room.

"Will I be keeping my old room, Master?"

"Heavens, no. You will be moving into the boys dorm, as is only proper for an enrolled student. I have arranged for you to be situated on the second floor. I understand you made friends with a young man named James? He's also staying on that floor."

The two conversed for a while further as Vance tried to figure out the specifics of his situation, once he was satisfied he had a solid understanding, she bid him to leave, but spoke to him one more time on his way out.

"Mr. Kalliea, I'm sure you realise this, but I must reinforce the point. As of now, you represent an ongoing investment that this college will be making. I Implore you to bring your full attention to bear on your training. Your success or failure could provide us with much sorely needed information that could benefit many. Do you understand?"

He swallowed before he replied and clenched his Jaw, that was a little more pressure than he was used to, even recently.

"I will do my absolute best, Master. I Promise."

"Good." She began scratching away at her documents again. "I'm sorry about Elijah."

"Me too."

Vance made his way to the boys dorm. It was all part of the same building, and as far as he could tell this area was also largely wooden in construction, though the walkways in the bottom floor seemed to be made of well worked smooth stone.

He ascended two floors up a set of stairwells on the eastern side using the walls as guides. A helpful stranger helped him figure out which room was his. Master Noelle had given him a key, which he put to use.

He explored the room and discovered that it was a bit larger than he'd expected. He had a comfortable bed, a small desk next to it with a few drawers already filled with some day to day essentials, they'd even provided a quill and some ink, he didn't think he'd make much use of that in particular. There was a window at the head of the bed and a small table in the room with a chair on either side, the quality of the furniture was pretty good, the wood was nicely smoothed and the floors and walls were well cleaned.

Vance briefly considered going out to find Thomas and Co. or maybe find out which room belonged to James, but he decided against it for now, instead, he'd do what he told Master Noelle he'd do.

He sat in the centre of the room, taking the pillow from his bed and placing it on the ground to act as a cushion. He pushed his mana sense out as strongly as he could. He could sense the sword and coin clearly, but he was most excited that he was beginning to pick up traces of other, smaller concentrations of mana.

After a minute or two of concentration, he could start to feel the natural mana floating through some of the larger items in the room. The bedframe was wooden and held together by small metal nails, he couldn't sense the nails, they were too small, but he began to understand the shape of the bedframe just from the movements of it's internal natural mana.

The wooden desk behind him had a few small open spaces which he could locate within it's construction where there simply was nothing except ambient mana. The drawers? He wasn't sure what to label the mana that he could feel within the wood, but it felt like he could taste dirt or leaves. Perhaps Earth or wood mana.

He maintained this state for a few minutes. For Vance, this sensation was the thing he was most excited to practice. He didn't think he could quite compare this to being able to see, but functionally speaking, it was the same for him. He knew not the colour of the things around him, nor their texture but he was starting to figure out their shapes and distances, which was incredible in itself.

At the minute, this was very difficult to maintain. It felt like he was holding a heavy weight up above his head for a long time, eventually his arms would lose their strength and fall back to his side to relax.

After 3 minutes, he lost his hold and was forced to relax, the world's mana disappearing back into a loose haze at the edge of his periphery. He laid back and rested, breathing heavily and thinking of nothing, letting his mind and will recover.

After twenty minutes or so, he sat back up. He focused inwards, and promised himself that he'd do better this time.

3 minutes and 3 seconds later, his head started throbbing and he let go, relaxing once more.

Like this, he practised the day away, until he fell asleep.

He awoke to a knock at his door. He wasn't sure how much had passed, but he made his way to his feet and waddled over. He unlocked the latch and opened the door.

"Hel-"

Before he could even get a greeting out, he was met with a flash of intense pain from his face, his nose, to be exact. He fell backwards and scrambled on the floor, had he been hit?

He could taste something, it tasted a bit like iron, maybe copper? Was there been metallic mana somewhere nearby, or was he simply tasting blood? He didn't know.

His assailant made his way into the room and this time, he felt a crushing pain in his gut as a boot slammed into him. Vance had absolutely no Idea what to do, he curled up instinctively, that seriously much, much more. He protected his gut but whoever it was didn't seem to be alone, he knew his assailant was in front of him but someone kicked him in the back.

They didn't say a word, but they beat him. For Vance, it seemed like an age, but in reality it was only a few seconds. He stretched out his mana sense, trying to think of something to do, reaching or anything at all, but he found nothing useful. So he pushed harder. His head started to hurt straight away, but then, so did everything else.

Suddenly, he felt the sharp sting of metal, though he didn't think they'd stabbed or cut him. He was clearly sensing metallic mana this time. Fire, too.

His sense was thrown into chaos, and so was his mind when a boot collided with his chin, and then he was unconscious. The last thought he had before he could no longer think was a simple one.

"What did I do to deserve this?"

For the second time that day, Vance woke up on the wooden floor of his room to the sounds of knocking. This time, he was in a considerable amount of pain. He put his hand to his nose, then winced.

"Broken, Great."

Fortunately, his legs seemed entirely intact, so he climbed to his feet. Doing so introduced him to a new sensation of pain coming from his stomach. This time, he didn't open the door, he called out instead.

"Who is it?"

He thought he sounded a little odd, must be the nose.

"It's James. I thought I'd stop by and see how you were settling in."

Vance sighed in relief and opened the door. He figured he probably looked like a mess, but he didn't really care.

"Hi James-"

"What the hell happened to you?!" James exploded at him the moment he saw Vance's state. He made his way inside and grabbed the younger man, manoeuvring him over towards the bed.

"Stay right there, I'm getting you some towels and bandages."

"That bad, huh?" Vance decided that, at the very least, he could find some fun in James' reaction.

He began exploring his own face, he had a few grazes and cuts around the edges, but overall the nose was the real damage. He could feel spots all over his body where he was tender. He figured he'd be largely fine, though he didn't know how to handle a broken nose properly.

Less than a minute later, James returned with a handful of basic medical supplies, he tended to Vance's wounds as best he could and started to probe him with questions by the dozen. Vance told James what happened and James nearly exploded in fury.

Vance thought he could actually feel the water mana inside James stir up with his emotions, that was interesting, he'd think about that further later. James collected himself and spoke up.

"Vance, I'm going to let the masters know about this. You should know, it's pretty common for some of the students here to disagree with each other, fights aren't exactly uncommon, neither are things like little magical squabbles, but this? This is abnormal." He trailed off a bit when he added "Not to mention you're blind, that's hardly fair."

"It's alright James, I'll tell them myself, I shou-"

"What you should do my friend, is rest. Stay here, hole up and don't open the door if someone you don't know comes knocking. It'll be better if somebody else brings this up anyway. That way if the people behind it are paying attention, they'll know you're not on your own. That might give them pause in the future."

"In the future?"

"Yeah, Vance. They did this once, what's to say they won't do it again? You aren't exactly well established here. Some of the more...affluent members of our student body can be especially unfriendly. I'd put money on this being some sort of sick, aristocratic joke bullshit."

"James, I can't ask you to do that. You'd be putting yourself in the line of fire." Vance stood, and went to move towards the door, James blocked his way and pushed him back down to sit.

"I'll stand in the damn line of fire If I want to. I know we don't know each other too well Vance, but you should know that I won't stand for this sort of thing. Besides, I know what you did back there in the fires, the risks you took. I've got your back."

James sounded so genuinely angry, and a little hurt. Vance nodded and muttered a thanks.

James picked up the pillow from the floor and threw it into Vance's lap.

"Get some rest. It's late. Your nose looks alright, by the way. I think you should probably go to a doctor in the next few days to get a better opinion."

Just as James was leaving, Vance added "Metal and fire."

"Hmm?"

"I think one of them had two cores. I'm not certain, I was a bit dazed, but I think I sort of probed one of them. I sensed metal and fire."

"Good, 'night Vance."

He left the room, closing the door behind him. Vance got up and locked the door straight away. He slid down to the ground. He fell asleep awkwardly, with his back pressed up against the door.