Soft was the light that woke Christie up. It was only the second day, but she was already growing fond of it. It certainly beat Miss Diorite's shenanigans. With a mighty yawn, the redhead stood from her bed, but now she was conscious of her bedroom's tight walls so she didn't hit her hand on them this time. Another yawn escaped her lips as she made it out of her room, yet the sounds were cut off as a certain sight surprised her.

  Agatha was awake, and she was already changing.

  Christie stood still with her arm half-stretched in the air. Agatha stood still with her blouse half-buttoned.

  "Uhm…" The blond girl mused softly as her cheeks garnered a red tint. "…Do you mind?"

  "Oh, sorry!" Christie was liberated from her petrification and rushed back to the corridor, where she pressed her back against the wall. "I did not expect you to be awake. You were not yesterday, and besides, the sun is still not fully out."

  "T-this is the hour I usually get up," her roommate revealed between nervous giggles. "Before yesterday, I was just too spent from the journey. And besides, yesterday we went to sleep rather early, and the bed is way nicer than mine, also the bath was really good, so… uhm… yeah, what I mean to say is that I have rested very well."

  "That is good to hear, yes," the nouveau riche responded.

  Christie pressed her hand against her chest and couldn't help but feel a bit too heated. I am doing this because she does not want to be seen, so why am I nervous too? She recalled how Shayla didn't care about being looked at whilst she was changing, and the opposite was also true for Christie, but for some reason, just because one party was embarrassed, now both parties were. She found herself also letting out a nervous giggle.

  "I cannot say I am much of a morning person," Christie continued speaking to mute the sounds of rustling cloth. "I prefer the night, so I would go to sleep rather late. Sometimes I wake up as late as lunch, so being in the small bedroom is a blessing in disguise as it has a small light that wakes you up, yes," she nodded at the end, even if no one could see her.

  "Oh, that sounds nice," Agatha commented. "Do you want to change now?"

  The redhead turned her head to the side and was surprised to find that her roommate next to her had already changed. Perhaps I have done too good a job hiding the noises.

  "S-sure," Christie walked to her wardrobe.

  The door clicked satisfactorily when she opened it. Definitely good wood, the girl thought to herself before grabbing her nightrobe from the straps to remove it. She slowly turned her head to the side to find an amused Agatha sitting on her bed, directly looking at her with a hand supporting her head by the chin.

  "So you are fine with looking at me change?" The redhead said whilst clutching her chest, so her nightgown didn't fall to the ground.

  "I found out that is the case," the blonde slowly swayed her head from side to side as she still rested it on her palm.

  "Is not that hypocritical?" Christie couldn't help but blush. She hadn't blushed in the locker room nor with Shayla, yet she was now indubitably doing so.

  "Yes, it is," her roommate responded matter-of-factly.

  "So, are you going to continue looking at me?"

  "Do you want me to look away?" Agatha continued swaying.

  "I would have expected you to do so considering you do not like to be watched yourself."

  "Yeah, but I asked if you want me to look away."

  Christie's blush intensified. The reason? She didn't have an answer. She had never cared about being seen naked before, at least between fellow women, so why should now that change? That was a degeneration, a childish change. In any case, she should evolve to not be embarrassed regardless of gender instead of degenerating into being embarrassed by both. Wait, being looked at by men would be really immodest…

  Then she focused on the village girl's smile.

  "Agatha of Malachite," Christie spoke sternly, "are you teasing me?"

  "Perchance~" the culprit responded sweetly.

  Without any hesitation and mostly out of spite, Christie separated her arm from her chest, and then her nightgown promptly fell to the ground, revealing her bare chest.

  Almost as instantaneously, the redhead got the response she wanted as the blonde blushed far more fervently than her and threw herself on her bed to avoid the sight.

  "I did not expect you would do that!" Agatha revealed mutedly as she screamed into a pillow, her legs hitting the mattress as she swayed them repeatedly.

  "As you become used to living with me, Agatha of Malachite," Christie spoke as she started wearing her uniform, "you will learn that I am not a girl who likes to be toyed with." Knowing that she had gotten her good, a vulpine smile was drawn on her mouth.

  ***

  Breakfast today had been far easier for the girls as their early awakening meant they had fewer rivals in the queue when they made it to the mess hall. Though the breakfast left a lot to be desired compared to what Christie would usually have. Her only saving grace was that she only really had an appetite for sweets, so anything that wasn't one just didn't factor in her mind, therefore making it quite easy to eat anything.

  They made their way together to the class where they found the classroom completely empty. Christie calmly sat in the same spot as yesterday, but Agatha trotted around the classroom as she inspected it.

  "Interesting," the petite girl mused.

  Well, she wasn't really that petite. Perhaps the shortest girl in the class, but this class was rather homogeneous in height, only making her a finger shorter. In any case, Christie was the outlier as she was almost as tall as the tallest boys, and her growth spurt hadn't stopped yet. Ah, I fear I will have to send my uniforms for corrections soon, she pondered whilst fixing her collar. Perhaps Agatha could do it? No, there are dedicated tailors here, I should not rob her of her time.

  "What is interesting?" The tall girl inquired as she ordered her class equipment. Thankfully, they didn't have to carry it around and could just leave it in the drawer of their desk, though she had heard that wasn't the case at most academies.

  "Today's schedule," Agatha turned to face her and pointed at a paper on the wall. "Beyond the daily physical education class, today we also have Arithmetic and History."

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  "Hmm, you do not strike me as a girl interested in Arithmetic, Agatha."

  "And I am not!" The girl unapologetically responded. "The thing I am interested in is History. As I made my way to the academy, I discovered how big the world was and how little I knew about it. I know History is not Geography, but I also noticed how little I knew of Crocheta itself."

  "I must admit I am also lacking in that field. Most of the time I get… sidetracked by fiction instead of paying attention to reality."

  "Fiction, huh?" Her roommate walked absentmindedly to their desk. "I have seen you read books in the dormitory, but I cannot say I have read fiction myself."

  "Never?" Christie tilted her head downwards in confusion.

  "Never," Agatha affirmed. "I mean, the only access to books I had access to were the booklets that ready you for the statal examination, and even those I had to share with the rest of the children in the village. I did not get to learn how to read until recently."

  "Oh," the nouveau riche gasped. "I know studies are important, but I think we should correct that. How about I share some of my books with you?"

  "Are you sure about that?" The villager's eyes illuminated as if commanded by Light, and as the agate she had hung around her neck and her eyes already shared the same color, it wasn't that far-fetched a comparison.

  "Sure," she smiled at her. "I mean, the best place to read is our bedroom, and it is not like there is much difference between the books resting on a shelf or your fingers."

  "Thank you so much!" Her roommate's eyes continued to shine. Christie was taken away by such gratitude. It was a trivial thing for her who had been raised and drowned amongst books, but for her roommate it was… far more special.

  "In any case, if my… book selection is not to your liking," Christie blushed slightly, "the Skyscraper Academy has a massive library at your disposal and pleasure."

  "Will that place not be full of… you know… scholarites?"

  "Do you have any problem with scholarites?" The redhead pressed a finger against her cheek as she questioned her roommate.

  "Not at all. It is just that… well, they can get rather heated. Do you not think so?"

  "I guess that much is true," she giggled.

  Scholarites were the seekers of absolute truth, the ones that said that they were guided by the Preserver, and overall, also the biggest faith in Crocheta. They were always presented like that, as if they took pride in the fact, but truth be told, Christie couldn't say she knew another faith beyond Scholarism, nor a single person who followed it. Though it wasn't like she knew many people.

  Their theological conversation, however, came to a halt as the classroom rapidly started to fill up from all the students pouring from the mess hall, and only a handful of minutes later, their homeroom teacher made their appearance.

  "Time for training, class!" And with that they were all guided to the locker rooms.

  During that transfer, Christie lost sight of her roommate for a bit, but she came back to her before they made it to the dressing room.

  "Where were you?" Christie asked her.

  "Oh, I was talking with Teacher Dago," Agatha responded. "I wondered if I could go directly to the locker room instead of waiting in class."

  "You are still ashamed of being seen?" The nouveau riche said with a smug look.

  "You know that to be especially the case from this morning!" The villager responded with a pout. "But I was a bit more subtle and just told him that I need a lot of time to change, so that way I will not need to make the class wait."

  "So did he accept?"

  "Yup!"

  "Huh, I thought that he would have turned you down for the sake of 'discipline'. Is this not, after all, a privilege?"

  "Perhaps he outweighed the costs of having the class wait?" The blond girl shrugged.

  They got separated the moment they entered the locker room, and by the time Christie had already changed, she could see part of Agatha's body protrude from her locker's door and how her roommate still failed to have fully changed. Though she had to admit it was quite the queer sight seeing someone wearing trousers and a long skirt at the same time.

  Christie calmly walked out of the locker room, though not before swallowing one of those pellets the nurse had given her yesterday, and she wasn't surprised when she found most of the boys already on the training field. Their teacher stoically overlooked his students with his hands clasped behind his back as he patiently waited for the rest of the students to arrive. Christie wasn't surprised either when her roommate proved to be the last student to make it to the field, but she wasn't excessively tardy as another girl had just left before her.

  The few murmurs that were uttered amongst the gathered class swiftly died the moment the teacher clapped his hands once.

  "You might already know this as it is an open secret," he started, "but lapiloquia is a discipline that taxes the body. That is the reason why there is even a physical test on the statal examination. Mind you, your physical prowess has nothing to do with lapiloquia, but it does portray how long you can command stones before you collapse from exhaustion. The greatest lapiloquists out there are paragons of athleticism for their very discipline demands them that."

  As if to support his claim, Teacher Dago stepped on the ground softly, and a hexagonal pillar of bedrock of a meter in height surged next to him with a thin layer of dirt atop. The demonstration didn't seem to exhaust him in the slightest, even though he had panted heavily when he had performed his first feat of lapiloquia by writing on the slate yesterday.

  "As I have already notified you, we will not see lapiloquia this year. And if we do see it next year, it will be at an introductory level." He stepped again on the ground and the pillar retracted as if it had never been there. "But regardless of whether you continue in the academy or you are made out, physical training is still important for a soldier. Stamina is the most important component, but we will also deal with bodybuilding and calisthenics. I also recommend that all of you do your personal training beyond these classes as you will find out the life of a soldier is very physically demanding, and you need to compensate for your current deficit of strength and endurance brought by your young age. Having said so, two laps around the academy."

  The students remained in place looking at each other like headless chickens. Christie couldn't blame them for she was one of them.

  "Are you all deaf?" René Dago clapped hard enough to actually make someone deaf. Christie suspected foul play and the involvement of Agatecraft to produce that much sound. "Start running. Now!"

  The pressure of the man's tone that didn't fit his age was enough to get all the students running, and soon, her classmates segregated. Most of the boys led the class, with the sole exception of Agatha from the part of the girls, and the girls remained back at a motivated pace that was more akin to a trot than running.

  Then there was Christie.

  Even as she tried to run with all her might, she was left behind by her peers. Her lungs collapsed on her, her heart became erratic, and her legs wobbled. And they had just started.

  "I have seen it was bad, but I did not expect it to be this bad." Christie sluggishly turned her head to the side as she panted heavily, only to find her teacher walking next to her. It was an accelerated step, but it was still very much walking. And that was enough to match her rhythm.

  "I…" The redhead started talking, but Teacher Dago raised his hand and showed her an open palm.

  "You better conserve your breath, Miss Valasela, you will need it. I have been notified that you have a frail constitution, and it appears to be out of lithic origins rather than physical or hereditary ones. Unfortunately, I cannot help you with that. Not currently at least." It surprised Christie how the man was able to talk whilst moving at that pace without making a pause to breathe when she herself was dying. Though she had enough presence of mind to acknowledge his words. For the time being.

  "When?" She uttered a single word as she wheezed.

  "That I cannot say. But let me tell you, the limitation is not what I can divulge to you at the time being, but rather your own growth. The more adept you become at Agatecraft, the easier it will be to handle your lithic affliction. From what I have seen during your demonstration yesterday, your plentiful agates seem to be the root of the problem – though I cannot ascertain that with absolute confidence – so my lessons in lithorica will help you greatly. Alas, it will take a lot of time."

  "Years?" Christie blurted out a single word again, for that was as much as she could manage.

  "Indubitably," her teacher nodded with great lament. "You will need to overcome this hurdle yourself either way, so the only thing I can recommend you do is exercise each day. Knowing your father, you probably have not lifted anything heavier than a feather your whole life, so the issue lies with him too."

  How close are you to my dearest father? Christie wanted to ask that, but she found out that even her mouth was failing her as she couldn't stop panting.

  "We will need to work on your running posture later, but for the time being, the exertion will do you good. Now, if you excuse me, I need to look over the rest of my students." As soon as he uttered the last word, a thin and expansive agate like the one he had used yesterday as walls manifested before his step. The next moment, he was fully atop the platform, and a blink later, he was flying as casually as he had been walking.

  The sight was bewildering and breathtaking, but as her body reminded Christie of her mortality with a prick to the lungs, a mighty rage assaulted her. Christie didn't consider herself a vulgar person, but as she saw her teacher relaxedly fly away on top of his agate whilst she was suffering on the ground, a word blurted from her mouth.

  "Motherfucker."

  (Not too dark, though)

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