The summons from Commander Brys was as brutal and efficient as the man himself. Kael spent an hour in a stark office being told, in excruciating detail, how his "lack of foundational discipline" was a "liability to himself and any theoretical squad." The solution remedial control exercises, every dawn, alone on the most isolated training field.
He trudged back to Silver Streams, the weight of expectation and confusion like a soaked cloak on his shoulders. He'd saved people in the Spire. He'd helped calm Sora. He'd harmonized with a dragon god's lament. But he couldn't make a sphere of water that obeyed the rules.
He pushed open the door to Room 7B.
Dominic was at his desk, meticulously copying runic arrays from a textbook. He didn't look up. "Let me guess. He called you a 'tactical anomaly' and assigned you punitive dawn drills."
Kael blinked, slumping onto his bed. "…How?"
"He told me the same thing yesterday. Called my earth magic 'unrefined force masquerading as technique.' My dawn drills start an hour before yours." Dominic finally glanced over, his flinty eyes assessing. "Difference is, I expected it. You look like you just got told the sky is the wrong color."
"I just don't get it," Kael groaned, staring at the ceiling. "I can feel the magic. I understand it. But when I try to do the simple thing… it's like asking a hurricane to be a breeze. It doesn't know how."
"So stop asking the hurricane," Dominic said, turning back to his runes. "Figure out what the hurricane is good for, and make the tests accommodate that. Or cheat. Whichever's faster."
It was typical Dominic advice pragmatic, borderline cynical, and probably correct. Before Kael could answer, a knock sounded at their door not the sharp rap of a proctor, but three light, perfectly spaced taps.
Dominic's eyebrows rose. "We don't get visitors."
Kael got up and opened the door.
Lisa stood in the hallway. She looked profoundly, glacially out of place. The sterile light of the Silver Streams corridor seemed to bend around her, highlighting the perfect fall of her silver white hair, the sharp lines of her academy tunic, which on her looked like royal attire. Her emerald eyes took in the room, the two un-matching beds, Dominic at his desk, Kael's disheveled state with the detached interest of a scientist viewing a peculiar habitat.
"Kael Osborn," she stated. Her voice was cool, clear, and carried no inflection.
"Uh… yeah?"
"I have a proposition." She didn't ask to enter. She simply waited, an immovable object of pure intent.
From his desk, Dominic let out a soft, almost inaudible sound a breath of pure, distilled amusement. He didn't turn around.
Feeling like he was making a catastrophic mistake, Kael stepped aside. Lisa glided in, her gaze sweeping the room once more before settling on him. She ignored Dominic completely.
"Your performance in the Spire's Heart chamber was statistically impossible," she began, as if reading a report. "You interfaced with a psychometric resonance field designed for Tier IV comprehension while manifesting at Tier I. Your practical exercises, however, are a consistent failure. Your water manifestation today had a deviation index of 847%. The academy average is 12%."
Kael could only stare. "You… calculated that?"
"Observation and measurement are the basis of knowledge. Your current pedagogical path is inefficient. You are attempting to compress a primordial ocean into a teacup using the methodology for filling a thimble." She tilted her head, a minute movement. "You require a tailored curriculum. One that works with your… anomalous paradigm."
"And you want to… tutor me?" Kael asked, bewildered.
"No." The word was flat. "I propose a structured exchange. You represent an unsolved equation. A living breach in established magical theory. My time has value. Your instability is a source of unique data. I will allocate forty seven minutes every third day to instruct you in the foundational formalism you lack. In return, you will provide verbalized accounts of your metaphysical perceptions during practical applications. This is not camaraderie, It is a mutually beneficial research accord."
She extended her hand, not for a handshake, but as if presenting the terms of a contract. Her expression was one of cool expectation.
Kael's mind reeled. This was the genius half elf who had created perfect ice and fire without breaking a sweat. She saw him as a research subject. A puzzle. It should have been insulting. But after Brys's blunt force disapproval, her clinical interest felt… honest. She wasn't judging him as a failure; she was judging him as a fascinating problem.
He heard a faint scratching sound from Dominic's desk. His roommate was still pretending to work, but his shoulders were shaking silently. He was laughing, without making a sound.
The absurdity of it all hit Kael the icy prodigy in his messy dorm room, offering a business proposal for his soul's weirdness, while his commoner roommate silently died of amusement. A slow, reluctant grin spread across his own face.
"Forty seven minutes?" Kael asked, a thread of humor in his voice. "Not forty five? Or an hour?"
Lisa's hand didn't waver. "Forty seven allows for a three minute buffer for your predictable initial confusion and a ten minute core lesson block. Precision is logical."
Kael barked a laugh, short and surprised. He looked at her cool, expectant face, then at Dominic's silently convulsing back. This was his life now. He took her hand. Her grip was firm and cool.
"Deal. But my confusion usually needs at least a five minute buffer."
A flicker something near her lips. Not a smile, but the acknowledgment that a variable had been logged. "Duly noted. We begin tomorrow at dawn. Do not be late. Your temporal unreliability is another datum to measure."
She released his hand, gave the room one last analytical scan, her eyes flicking to Dominic's back for a millisecond 'was that a slight narrowing?' and then left, closing the door with a soft, precise click.
The silence she left behind was different.
Dominic finally turned around, wiping a faint tear from the corner of his eye. His face was a masterpiece of neutral expression. "Well," he said, his voice steady as stone. "You've got a research partner. Congratulations. I'd recommend getting a notebook. And maybe a helmet."
"She's… intense," Kael managed, still staring at the door.
"She's a hyper-intelligent glacier with a research grant," Dominic corrected. He stood up and stretched. "But she's not wrong. You need a different path. And if the path is a clinical, forty seven minute dissection of your existence by a living legend… it's still a path." He walked to the window, looking out at the darkening training yards. "Just be careful what data you give her. Information is a weapon. And she's the kind of person who catalogs ammunition."
Kael nodded, the weight of the day shifting. It was no longer just the weight of failure. It was the weight of a purpose, however strange. He had an alliance with a storm chaser. He had a cynical strategist for a roommate. He had a dragon in his soul.
He was no longer just surviving the academy. He was negotiating with it.
And as the first stars appeared over Lorri's Arch, Kael felt, for the first time, not just fear or guilt, but a spark of something dangerous and new, anticipation.