Insidious Interest

Professor Hennigar went on to encourage the students that the exercises they were doing in this class would see those who remained without the acknowledgment of Mana Essence today, getting their dark, withering prayers answered sooner rather than later.

He, with a cold look that lingered on Ginger for a frosty moment, explained things about Mana Essence he evidently hadn't planned to explain today in the name of easing the dragonlings into the foreign study.

Be that as it may, it seemed the students of First Blue got an infinitely more exciting experience with their Mana Essence Mechanisms and Manipulation lesson than they would have if not for Ginger, though none of them actually walked to him and shook his hand in gratitude.

Ginger had to endure standing in the eye of a cyclone of thrill – with where he was positioned not being so much as cooled by the waves of anticipation and happy prospects floating from his nemeses who kept taunting him.

When the lesson ended, Ginger was both happy and appalled.

He had been wishing for a while to get out of the room in which he had almost committed murder – as he assumed – and endure, perhaps a more physical exercise in Mortal Conflict.

While trailing behind Caron and Reiss who evidently wanted to have more than a few words with him as soon as they were out of earshot from any of the students - not to mention the Djuka who remained rooted in the classroom - Ginger had been about to check if Mortal Conflict was indeed the next course for the day when...

"Excuse me, Ginger. A word?"

Professor Hennigar spoke.

He had a keen and stern look to his dark face that Ginger could have sworn was harshly immolating, or perhaps even fiercely glaring.

Having his name unceremoniously called out by someone, who, by many accounts shouldn't know his name yet, made Ginger shudder.

The plump dragonling gulped as he stopped in his tracks.

'I'm done for,' he thought, imagining, for what was the fifteenth time since his little unintentionally homicidal stunt, Ancor giving him a round of applause.

He looked to Reiss who, like Caron, didn't turn, and merely walked out of the classroom stiff-backed.

Ginger felt a little betrayed, but he walked to Professor Hennigar without much hesitation.

"Yes, Professor?" he said, dodging the possibility of gazing eye to eye with the instructor who was barely taller than him.

The dark-skinned individual waited until everyone else had left the classroom – stalling with a fake cough in the meantime – and then spoke.

"You have quite the aptitude for manipulating Mana Essence. Did you have someone teaching you who had experience with it?" he asked.

"What...?" Ginger stuttered.

Apart from the contents of what the Djuka said, he was surprised by the warm and intrigued tone he used.

Ginger's eyes darted to the instructor's face and it came as a shock that a small smile was nestled on his face.

'Why is he being... nice all of a sudden?' Ginger thought while quickly lubricating his dried lips.

For whatever reason, Professor Hennigar seemed to adopt a lightly cautious look over his polite one, and to Ginger, it seemed as though he acknowledged that he had asked an unexpected question, though perhaps without the context from Ginger's perspective.

"My apologies. That must have been too sudden..." Professor Hennigar said, his smile growing a bit wider. "...I mean both my question and my attitude towards you during the lesson." His eyes flitted to the door and then back to Ginger. "I have to behave as an impartial instructor, but as a Djuka, I am taken by gems I find in the metaphorical mana rough. I'm aware you are a rare case from the Wild. That is the bulk of my interest. How long have you been in contact with Mana Essence?" the dark-skinned instructor expanded with interest.

Not sure exactly what the Professor meant, Ginger cleared his throat and answered the question that was coming to him a second time, just with a heavy pretext.

"I... It's only been a little more than a Stride," he replied.

"Oh, I see. That means your impressive handling of Mana Essence is likely because you did have a good teacher, but not in the same kind of Essence, correct?"

"...Yes, sir," Ginger's brain whirled as he answered, not quite sure if it was wise. He didn't think he could lie about that after what he did in class.

The gleam in Professor Hennigar's eyes was oddly encouraging, as though the dark, short creature was emitting the sort of air that tied him and Ginger as kin.

Professor Hennigar nodded slowly. His tail dashed like a dark, pointed shadow from side to side.

"Ah, alas, it was as I imagined," he said, looking awfully pleased. "Would it be too much trouble for you to tell me about this teacher of yours sometime?"

Ginger wore a polite visage, but inwardly, he was rather rattled.

Would THAT be a good idea? He didn't really think so. He didn't think he was at the liberty of telling everyone about Ancor's specifics.

In some way, it felt like something special that only he and Ira knew about, and he hadn't even shared the bulk of it with Reiss.

Then again, having been praised by Professor Hennigar just now – who actually seemed to have been taken with his display earlier, despite how cross he seemed during the lesson – it felt odd denying him what could very well be a simple request born from mere curiosity.

If he refused, would the Djuka...

"Pardon if it's too much to ask," Professor Hennigar said, his eyes showing the same strange degree of consideration as before. "As you may have heard, I and my lost kin are devoted practitioners of Mana Essence forms. I am interested in everything that can breed the skill such as the one you have."

"I see..." Ginger said. He had gathered that much even without further exposition from Reiss. There was no way an ordinary instructor would be hired at an institute like this, right? They had to be special, and in this case, Professor Hennigar's race being the object of uniqueness wasn't odd at all – as he had elaborated.

"I can tell you about my teacher. Sometime," Ginger said.

Professor Hennigar wore a deep smile.

"Good to hear. I'll be looking forward to it. In exchange for your time then, I may teach you a few extra things if you like."

...

A few minutes later, Ginger had walked out of the Frost Mount's Tooth and had caught up to Caron and Reiss who seemed to be debating over something – Reiss, with solid and exaggerated vigor, Caron, with a relaxed, lazy, and clearly less interested attitude.

The plump dragonling had thought they were battling over what had just happened with him in class but to his surprise...

"...and it takes months to learn precisely augmenting a weapon. You have to balance the amount of Kardia you infuse, or else either the weapon will suck you dry, or you'll end up breaking it!"

"Meh, you're overthinking it, Midget. I just wing it. Usually works out fine."

Reiss turned red with fury. He seemed to grow several inches when he took in a sharp breath to douse a possible dragon breath he had been about to unleash on Caron.

He only relaxed when Ginger joined them.

"Thank Ebony! Sanity!" Reiss cried and rushed to walk by Ginger's side.

Caron swiveled to the plump dragonling's other side, and as Ginger expected, the two walloped him with question after question, statement after statement.

"How did you do that?! You didn't tell me you could do that? You zoned out for a bit and then nearly killed us all!"

"Were you confident in getting the acknowledgment of Mana Essence on your first try? You did it easily. How did you do it?"

"Why was the lightning gold? I suppose I wouldn't be able to see it either way, but was it a bit faster than normal?"

"You just might be on your way to becoming a Dragon Sorcerer. Though that may not be a good thing."

Ginger melted under the incessant discussion which encouraged very little of his own input other than "Yes" and "No" or "Really?"

How Ginger felt only grew worse when the eyes of several other First Years from First Blue tried to eavesdrop on their conversation, which forced him to drag Caron and Reiss down less keen paths.

"I don't know what happened. I just wanted to make a soft, cooling wind but instead... that happened. Maybe it was because I was using Mana Essence instead of Fetid Essence, but... what are the chances that the same symbols work for both, just in different ways?" Ginger spouted his main concern after a while.

Caron and Reiss didn't seem to have an answer to this.

He hadn't expected them to.

"Does that really matter? What's important is I was right. You're the sort of prodigy I need to learn from to master how to use Mana Essence," Caron said, the lazy, unfocused look in her baby-blue eyes returning.

Reiss rolled his eyes.

"Of course, you wouldn't care about those important details," he said with a frown at the redhead and patted Ginger's side. "By the way, what did the Professor say?"

"He wanted me to tell him stuff about my mentor, Ancor. And he complimented me for learning to control Mana Essence so quickly," he said.

Reiss immediately looked skeptical and Ginger instantly said, "I know" before the dwarfish dragonling expressed concerns he didn't think his friend had.

Caron angled her head towards Ginger.

"And still, I was right," she said with a smug smile that disgusted Reiss.

The three ended up going to all their remaining classes together. The intensity and the variations between each left them exhausted, and in turn, even doused the litany of faces Ginger had to endure from his classmates.

Reiss managed to endure well. His small body was either very good at storing energy, or his large forehead was indicative of far more than just a less-than-impressive hairline.

Both seemed likely.

Caron had snoozed more than a few times during Universal Knowledge of Unnatural Creatures, going as far as to let loose a menacing, once-in-a-Stride banger of a snore that sent the class erupting into laughter.

Thankfully, the instructor for the course, whom the students nicknamed Rottten, was as easygoing as they came. She barely paid attention to the students when she was demonstrating the fundamental values of Olarmanders to dragons, and describing the differences in biology between various species of Olarmander.

By the time the lesson finally ended, Ginger had had to link his arm to Caron's. At some point, she just didn't wake up no matter how much he shook her.

Reiss refused to help, claiming that at least one of them had to pay enough attention during classes in order to overcome the flaming hurdles of homework they had. Ginger had the suspicion that Caron wasn't included in this catering equation of Reiss'.

By the end of the day, Ginger was smelling fragrant. Whatever delightful cosmetic Caron used had rubbed off on him. Admittedly, it made him feel a little tingle within, but he was too anxious to think about it in each of the remaining classes he had to play crutch.

Why was he even doing this?

Why was he even bothering with her?

Why on Ravi did Caron have to sleep in class? What did she do all night?

Ginger... didn't know.

When he and Reiss were finally liberated from Caron who didn't seem to be burdened by the pressing plagues of other mortal dragonlings (overnight assignments), both were looking forward to relaxing a bit before getting to work when a certain senior came to cash in on their 'promise.'