Agatha felt refreshed with the morning sprint. She had been forced to move her body a lot during the first weeks of the caravan, but racing with her classmates was wholly different. One was a constant accumulation of exhaustion, while the other was a burst of energy and a literal wake-up call.

  Having said so, the sprint didn't last long. As they were halfway through the first lap, Teacher Dago came flying at them – literally flying on an agate platform – and told them that there was no need to rush as this exercise was meant to build endurance and not exhaust them. A sensible thought, though Agatha's own thoughts during that moment were more like: Quakes and faults! He's flying! He's flying! Flyingflyingflyingflyingflyingflyingflying!

  The platform her teacher rode was quite big and thick, which revealed that it was composed of more than one agate, but Agatha couldn't help imagining herself in his position. Could her single agate muster enough power to send her to the skies? And at those speeds?

  Her mind calmed down with the time at the same speed as her pace, and the pace of the whole class did too. As refreshing as the initial sprint had felt, endurance tests were the ones Agatha excelled at, and that was clear to everyone once they completed the first lap around the academy.

  The island that hosted the whole complex of the Skyscraper Academy was massive, but thankfully, their teacher didn't make them lap the whole island. But that didn't mean that a lap around the academy was short. Not in the slightest. Agatha was somewhat proficient at judging distances, but she couldn't say for certain how long a lap was. Her estimate after completing the first lap was around three kilometers.

  And she had sprinted almost half of those.

  Yet she didn't feel exhausted in the slightest. Maybe a bit short of breath, but not exhausted. The same couldn't be said for the rest of the class. Even most boys were struggling by now, and half the laps still remained.

  It was a mindless effort, but so too had been the many days walking with the caravan. She could at least explore the academy as she lapped around it, but it wasn't hard to imagine that it would become even duller of an activity as time went on. This was only the second day of class, after all.

  After an hour of trotting, Agatha had completed the two laps. Whilst she wasn't the fastest in the class, her endurance reigned supreme as it took almost thirty seconds for the second student to arrive. Yes, she had been first.

  Agatha sat crestfallen on the stones grades as she regained her breath. Not long after, the second student sat next to her. It was that blond boy whose name she still didn't remember. He panted even more heavily than her, apparently having done a sprint on the end.

  "You are quite more… athletic than I thought," he said after regaining his breath.

  "You could say I had endurance training beforehand," Agatha toyed with the agate that hung by her neck as she spoke. Truth be told, her mind wasn't on the conversation but elsewhere.

  How must Christie be holding up? Even though she had only known her roommate for barely two days, Agatha couldn't help but be worried about the frail and unathletic doll. She looked so much like a doll that Agatha couldn't help but portray her as such in her mind. I know it's not the same type of exercise, but a kilometer yesterday decimated her, and now she has to do six of them.

  And her worry wasn't without justification as students started pouring into the training grounds. It was a constant stream of people, but after five minutes it dried up. All the students had arrived. All, of course, but one.

  Five minutes more passed and there was still no sight of Christie. Agatha couldn't help but worry as she went from toying with her little sapphire to grasping it.

  "You better use this time to rest well, you will need it," Teacher Dago told them, though now the man was on the ground instead of a flying stone.

  Christie ended up taking five more minutes to arrive, which all in all, was relatively fast considering how much she had struggled yesterday. Not a second later, and just in cue, René Dago clapped and grabbed everyone's attention.

  "Now that everyone is here, we can start with some calisthenics. I guess you all know what a push-up is, but I have found out that not that many people know how to do them, so let me teach you."

  The teacher dexterously dropped to the ground and pressed his palms against the sand of the training grounds. As lithe as René Dago was, the moment he pushed his arms against the ground, he seemed to be far more massive than he looked as his muscles pushed against the fabric of his uniform. Definitely a soldier, Agatha mused to herself. The push-up he performed wasn't unlike the one she knew, except this one brought the chest tiresomely low, almost meeting the ground. Definitely not a woman.

  After completing a series of exercises exhaustingly fast, Teacher Dago jumped into an upright position without showing even a bead of sweat. "Now, give me twenty push-ups, everyone."

  The rest of the students slowly descended the grades without protesting, but Christie instead looked like she had been shot, which she might as well have. Agatha could only help by giving her roommate a look of sympathy as she got on the ground and started doing the push-ups.

  Her arm strength wasn't as high as her leg strength, but even though she was a seamstress-in-training, it wasn't nothing to scoff at either. Any heavy-duty work at home was performed by her as they were partially scared of her mother getting hurt, which would have been a death sentence as she was the sole breadwinner. Having said so, that 'heavy-duty' was limited to carrying bucketloads of water and moving a piece of furniture or two.

  It still beat the arm strength of noble girls by leagues, though.

  Her chest strength still left a lot to be desired, and that was clearly seen when she completed the twenty push-ups and was left many times more exhausted than during the two laps. Unsurprisingly, she wasn't the first to finish this time. But at least this time it wasn't a race. It's the quality of the push-ups that matters, not the speed, she told herself because it was right, and definitely not because she was sour.

  Her roommate ended up struggling a lot with the push-ups, but so did most of the girls in this case. She only ended up last again because the poor redhead was drenched and gasping for breath the whole time as she hadn't had time to rest.

  "We will leave it at this for today, but mind you, physical education is only going to get harder from now on. There is no sense in leading you to exhaustion just yet. Remember, try by yourself if you can, and most importantly, discipline is imperative. Class is dismissed," Teacher Dago announced before walking away and leaving a mess of panting students behind.

  Most of the class lingered on the ground like discarded cloth dolls as the class had ended rather soon, which meant that they still had a bit of time to rest. Agatha took pride and pleasure in the sight of the emaciated class. Not only were they mostly nobles – which already made it worth it seeing them struggle – but that also meant that her chances at staying at the Skyscraper Academy increased. Yes, her score in the theory part of the statal examination sucked, but her physical and Agatecraft ones were good. And if her competition was this bad, that only made her look better.

  Taking advantage of the fact that the girls were the ones who had suffered the most during this rough class, Agatha dashed for the lockers and started changing before any other person entered the changing room. Changing back into her uniform whilst being drenched was a bit icky, but she mitigated most of the effects by dry cleaning herself with a towel beforehand. It wasn't the optimal cleaning method, but it definitely was the optimal solution as the next class would start in half an hour.

  Agatha transformed her remaining energy into motivation as she walked alone back to the classroom and waited for the next class: arithmetic. To say that she was dreading it was an understatement. She was downright terrified. Exams were the one thing that dictated her stay at the academy, and while she could trust her body and her agate, the same couldn't be said for her mind.

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  The academy provided their students with multiple books that would be used during the school year, but they weren't the textbooks that would be used by hundreds of hands in a local school and contained standardized knowledge, so she was at a loss as she skimmed through them.

  The two most arithmetic-sounding books at her disposal were the two that talked about geometry and trigonometry. The former she knew about, but the latter was a bit more… opaque to her. She definitely had studied about that field for the statal examination, but she couldn't remember a thing about it for her life. She had puked up anything she had learned on the exam, so nothing remained in her system.

  The students poured into the classroom, and before Agatha noticed, her roommate was sitting right next to her.

  "I do not know how effective revising the contents of the lesson will be when there has not been a lesson yet," Christie joked, or at least Agatha thought she was doing so. Unless the girl was explicitly laughing, it was very hard to read her as she always had a calm and placid expression.

  "Let us just say that I am expecting the worst for this class," Agatha responded with a bright smile as she reached for… Oh, depths, I was already fondling my agate. I am doomed…

  "I do not think Arithmetic will be hard," her roommate shrugged, or at least it was the formal way of shrugging, if it even existed. "In any case, if you found yourself struggling with it, I could help you. If one thing is highlightable about me, it is my score on the written test."

  "I say there are more highlightable things about you," like that fractured sea of stone. She left that unsaid, mostly because of the cursing. "But if you are willing to offer your help, I should step up my game and answer in kind. How about helping you with physical education?"

  "I appreciate the offer, but how will you be able to help me? Such a subject is one fully contained to one's effort."

  Agatha shrugged. "Better to run with company than alone. Do you not think so?"

  "That…" the redhead snorted softly, "makes sense."

  Before they could continue speaking, the door to the classroom finally opened to reveal an old man. Like a really old man. Stone old type. And talking about stones, his step was slow but potent, like one would expect from one. Unlike René Dago during the first day of classes, he didn't carry anything with him, just the coat he was wearing and hiding his hands in.

  "Hello there, first-years," his voice was coarse as sand. "The name is Jacobello Castellar, and I will be your Arithmetic teacher for this year and other related fields in the following years. I will start softly this year with only geometry and trigonometry – but do not discard these fields as simple, for they hold incommensurate depth – and progress in difficulty with each consequent year. Examples of more complex fields are algebra, physics, and the recently discovered field of calculus. Well," he chuckled, "relatively new for me. None of you were born when Shibali of Secto published his discoveries. Quite the man he is. But I am rambling already, and a handful of you will know me for half a decade, so let us get started."

  Unlike the powerful yet eccentric René Dago, Jacobello Castellar was a far more down-to-earth man. He turned away from the class, grabbed a stick of chalk, and started writing on the dark slate. It would be more accurate to call it scribbles as the man's calligraphy left a lot to be desired, though.

  "If you have made it to the Skyscraper Academy, you will already know of the fields of geometry and trigonometry," he talked as he wrote, "but intelligence is just not the presence of knowledge, but its usage. Now, can someone tell me why these two fields are useful to you all?" Even as he asked that question, he continued writing without facing the class. "Someone?" His hand and face were still glued to the slate, with the other hand remaining inside the pouch of his coat.

  "Ehrm…" A fatty boy whose name Agatha didn't remember mumbled. "It is necessary to become a military engineer?"

  "True enough," Jacobello Castellar nodded, still without facing the class, his attention solely focused on the slate. "But that only applies to a handful of you. I am searching for wider applications. Someone else?"

  No one else responded. After the silence lingered for a while, the old teacher finally turned his body and faced the inexpressive class. The man sighed with a hunched back, that expression being one of a man too tired of life itself.

  "How about a simpler question?" He mused with a grunt. "What are the two most powerful commands in lithorica?"

  That got a reaction out of the class, but mostly because students started whispering between each other as they excitedly tried to find an answer. Even Christie – who didn't look like the type of girl that would talk in class – looked at her with eyes that craved for discussion. Agatha didn't respond to her as she was selfishly trying to find the answer.

  "One must be the Combustion command," a boy voiced out aloud.

  "Wrong," the teacher shut him down without any further explanation as he continued writing.

  "Heat?" A girl by the name of Carla Lavender suggested.

  "Interesting comment, but still no."

  "How about Range?" Veronica Alfargar, Agatha's original roommate, suggested.

  "Far closer than the others, and certainly useful, but no," yet the teacher ruthlessly shut her down without even paying attention.

  It's not raw power, Agatha thought. Combustion and Heat deny that. But Range is close, so it must be about utility of some kind.

  "The two most powerful commands are," Agatha raised her voice. She wasn't sure, but it was worth shooting her shot. "Shape and Control."

  The old teacher stopped writing and pressed the chalk against the slate with a thud. He then turned to face the class and frowned at Agatha, even though he shouldn't have been able to identify her.

  "Your name, girl?" He asked with a grumpiness worthy of his age.

  "Agatha of Malachite… sir?" She wasn't fully sure if the man before her was a soldier or not.

  "Elaborate your explanation."

  "So… Shape and Control are my used commands, so I know how potent and versatile they are, but my reasoning comes from the fields you are going to teach us in this class. The Shape command perfectly correlates with geometry – I myself have applied it to agates before – and while I am not completely sure of trigonometry, it does fit with the precise control of… well, Control."

  "Ha… ha… ha…" Jacobello Castellar slowly and coarsely chuckled, and when Agatha thought she had utterly failed, he clapped. "Can we dedicate a round of applause to Miss Malachite?"

  The class did as commanded, as awkward as it may be. Now Agatha didn't care if the answer was right or wrong; she just wanted the clapping to stop before her cheeks turned red hot.

  The old teacher raised his hand to signal the class to stop and then continued talking. "Miss Malachite's answer was spot on. The most powerful commands in lithorica are Shape and Control. Now, I know you are hotheaded youths and you might not understand it, these are not just two of the fundamental commands, but also the most versatile ones you might find in your repertoire at any point in your life."

  Finally, Teacher Castellar made his agates visible. A single one at least. It was a blue one, but far rougher and opaque than Agatha's. It slowly orbited atop his open palm, clearly moved by Control, but it also changed shapes gracefully like water as it moved by Shape.

  "The shape of an agate can influence a lot of aspects, but so can its movements. This is something you already knew, but something that might be new to you is that your mastery of the command is not only due to your mastery of it and your imagination, but also your knowledge." Making an exhibit worthy of a Skyscraper Academy teacher, the flying agate took a complex shape that was constantly repeating in three dimensions and formed by very sharp angles. "This is called a fractal – do not linger on the concept as we will not see it any time soon – and if you try to replicate its shape, you will find it very hard to do so as you lack the theory. Come on, try, I welcome you to do so."

  Every student tried to do so, except Christie for some reason. Agatha was very confident in her shaping abilities as she had always been forced to work with a single agate, yet even after five minutes and a lot of concentration, she had only managed a rough approximation. The angles of that 'fractal' were too sharp and perfect to replicate.

  "You might not believe this," the teacher continued, "but fractals are trivial to make."

  To reinforce his point, Jacobello Castellar made not just one fractal more, but a whole series of them as he constantly cycled between them in quick succession without any kind of strain or difficulty. It took Agatha five minutes to create an approximation with a clearly superior agate, yet the old man switched into increasingly difficult shapes without batting an eye. It was a demotivating prospect, yes, but for some reason… she couldn't help but smile.

  After all, he was a teacher, and she was here to learn.

  "As your classmate has stated, geometry closely relates to the Shape command. Whilst I would not dare to say that fractals have real-life applications, geometry can significantly increase your shaping skills just by being knowledgeable in the field. And as for Control…"

  Jacobello Castellar surprised the class with a series of movements that they had never seen before. He moved his agate like water. But it was clearly obvious to the students that it wasn't through Shape, but Control instead. Soft movements that created the illusion of a flowing liquid.

  "Trigonometry does not correlate as strongly with Control, but as you are seeing, it still produces a significant passive increase in one's skills." The teacher recalled his agate and turned to face the slate to resume writing. "These two commands are just not the strongest because of their versatility, but their fundamental nature. Any interaction you make with lithorica will involve either one or both at the same time, so having a strong foundation is key. But far more important is a close understanding of arithmetic and all its fields. So, by extrapolation, we can affirm with confidence that arithmetic is key."

  The teacher left the chalk on his desk, put both hands in his coat, and turned to face the class. His motto of 'arithmetic is key', while similar to 'discipline is imperative', was far more understandable to the young village girl. She felt her little sapphire thrum in excitement at the prospect of increasing its mastery of two of the most vital commands.

  "Now," Jacobello Castellar interrupted, "if you have finished copying the contents of the slate, I will begin to erase the slate."

  An instant panic spread throughout the whole classroom as no one had taken out their writing equipment, let alone having written a single word. The students furiously started scribbling on paper as fast as they could as the teacher calmly erased the contents of the slate. Crown in the heavens! Agatha cursed as her fingers and wrist screamed at her from the mistreatment. I take back my thoughts. I hate arithmetic!

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